Legacy of Kain Wiki
Register
Advertisement

The Tomb Guardian appeared in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. He was an adult Turelim vampire sent by Kain to guard the Tomb of the Sarafan.

Profile[]

"Heretic! You shall not pass..."
―Tomb Guardian — Listen (file info)[src]

In Soul Reaver, when Raziel progressed into the Tomb of the Sarafan, he found the Tomb Guardian waiting for him. The Tomb Guardian was an Adult Turelim Vampire and he displayed many of the signs of being a Revived Vampire. The Tomb Guardian was fanatical in his devotion to Kain and saw Raziel as a heretic.

Raziel killed the Tomb Guardian by throwing him into the water surrounding his platform and gained the telekinetic force projectile relic, this gave him the Telekinetic force projectiles ability.

The Tomb Guardian is a Revived Vampire, implying that at some point in his lifetime he was 'killed' and spent some time in the Spectral Realm as a Vampire Wraith before being brought back to the Material Realm. Interesting fact is that there are more revived Turelim so it is not clear why Morlock is a special vampire which grants the force projectile.

The Tomb Guardian is the only "regular" vampire in the game which needs three hits from the Soul Reaver.

Behind the scenes[]

The dialogue that was used by the tomb guardian was originally meant for Turel in an original version of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver but was adapted to serve for the Tomb Guardian after Turel's removal from the game..

The tomb guardian is often known as "Morlock" by fans because during development of Soul Reaver, the vampire brothers were given codenames according to their abilities and Turel's was 'Morlock' (much like the villains in H.G. Wells 'The Time Machine') and as presumably the highest ranking Turelim seen in the game, the Tomb Guardian inherited the name. The "Morlock" name was first used to refer to the Tomb Guardian in a preview in Official PlayStation magazine and subsequently became associated with the character. Despite this, later official sources refer to the character as the "Tomb Guardian". In Debug menus the term "Morlock" is used to denote the area between the Ruined City of the Dumahim and the Oracle's Cave, presumably relating to the entrance to Turel's Clan Territory which was intended to be located there.

The Tomb Guardian and the circumstances surrounding his battle and ability changed a number of times during the course of development:

  • Several screenshots and footage from trailers depict a prototype Melchahim vampire on the platform instead of the Tomb Guardian
  • In the Soul Reaver alphas exposed in 2020 the Tomb Guardian is little different from a regular enemy - he has no dialogue, no revived vampire powers and grants no ability. The wraith blade itself grants the ability to fire Reaver bolts and it's unclear how the ordinary projectile was meant to be gained, but the Tomb Guardian is still a prime candidate.
  • Similarly in early betas, the Reaver is already equipped with projectile ability and Raziel needs to devour the tomb Guardian's soul to get the projectile on its own
  • The later betas have Raziel use the model of the Force Glyph as a representation of the ability gained upon the Tomb Guardian's death
  • Finally the retail version grants the Telekinetic force projectile relic.

References[]

Browse[]

Advertisement