The history of Nosgoth is so amazing and complex. Definitely they should continues the series.

I feel it's so important to note that it's Raziel's voluntary submission to the Reaver that makes all the difference. All the two do in Defiance is to correct their own fates. Mobius and others have sought to accelerate their encounters, fights and deaths so they cannot purify Kain to allow new guardians to be born.

These are so great. I've been a fan since the release of BO1, I was around on Nosgoth.net for years, and know all of this stuff. I'll still watch it all though. Please keep these coming.

ah the Nosgoth's timeline, personally i think that's one of the most fascinating aspects of the entire LoK saga and the one that separates its story from all the rest.. paradoxes, illusion of freewill. Awesome job as always guys!, kudos for dealing with one of the most amazing topics from the LoK saga!

You made BO2 sound so much cooler than it really turned out to be lol. Great video though. You really make this easy to follow.

Your explanation has managed to let fans finally fathom the secrets and doubts behind these timelines. I was also dubious regarding many details I couldn't understand, but now everything makes sense. Thank you so much, Raina, you did such a great job for every Lok fan :D

Great video, LoK is such a masterpiece so sad it hasn't gotten a proper revival

Dunno how or why you popped up as recommended but after the Quantum Leap reference, I guess I'mma learn all about a game I never played.

I would love to read novels based on the games!

I only recently discovered your channel but I’m loving it. I see I have a nice backlog of videos to look forward to (13 years!). 8D I hope this Arcane Tomes series continues. Thanks for all you do!

Thank you for this video. I've always loved the story of this series but the timeline was challenging to keep up with. I appreciate all of the detail and the effort in clearing it up. I guess its not the timeline I would have wanted (I still would like to see a complete version of the original Soul Reaver), but it's the timeline we have, and I guess there's no changing it.

Magnificent video, it brings back so many memories.

The timelines are greatly appreciated.

I adore these videos. Reminds me of my favorite games.

After all these years I'm still obsessed with these games. Really would've loved a proper conclusion to the story.

Love your Legacy of Kain content! Very cool for bedtime because I listen 5 min. and I'm gone. But the content is that good written if you listen and concentrate you are so deep in story on focus that you fall asleep!

Man you deserve a massive super LIKE! this was so informative, sums up everything! your hard work is very appreciated

I know all of it but still i like your videos to watch.Cant wait for the next. :3 In my Timeline Raziel stays alive

The first timeline has Kain in BO1 pick up the Soul Reaver in Avernus, brought there due to events in later timelines, to defeat William the Just already wielding his own Soul Reaver blade. Raziel would only get trapped in the blade if Kain survives the fight against William, but that would only happen if Raziel got trapped in the blade before Kain or William the Just in BO1 pick it up. The reaver blade Vorador forged may have a singular origin, but its later soul reaving incarnations are a paradox of their own. "So long as one of us stands, we are legion." In other words, the two soul reavers clashing were not an act of free will, but a predestined event. "Does one ever truly have a choice? One can only match, move by move, the machinations of fate."

so raziel was born way before kain was born

This was a well explained video. I played thru all the games as a kid but I didnt remember all the details. I appreciate the good work. Yes, I subscribed for more.

Hei! With Raziel's sacrifice, kain could, for the first time, see the face of the false, parasitic elder God. How could you omit such important fact????

Just discovered your channel bro love the content. Nice to see soul reaver fandom is strong with you

Excellent video thanks dude thanks for uploading this awesome video!😎👍

No Paradoxes? Raziel's Kain grew up during the time when William went from The Just to The Nemesis (Kain: In my youth, I witnessed William's rise to power, and his transformation in the Nemesis, who laid waste to Nosgoth). With William dead, the younger Kain would NOT grow up during that time since that version of Kain would not know of the Nemesis, that version would only know that William the most beloved king of Nosgoth was killed by a vampire, which would change a TON of the Blood Omen era. When Raziel's Kain went to Vorador's mansion, there were other vampires. But in the timeline where William was killed, Vorador's mansion is practically vacant. William's relentless assault on the entire world was definitely significant. With William dead before he can (In Kain's words) ravage Nosgoth, a huge chunk of the world is saved. I love Legacy of Kain, and I felt sad after hearing about Tony & Paul's deaths which coupled together with financing issues of the company meant that Legacy of Kain could not be finished. But there are definitely paradoxes.

Just found these videos but I'm loving them. I remember playing the Nosgoth open beta with you guys, Taryn and a few others XD

good work, and thanks, now Im understand more about LOK

The best telling of this story. Superb!

I must, something record about legacy of kain again too. Nice video

This is great video ❤️

you know I was working on making a timeline video like I understand everything how the evens happened to even more of an extent of what most lok fans would I was setting up a timeline on photoshop so it was easy to understand for anyone watching but I found vocalizing what I've known about the timeline difficult and work and life kept drawing my attention elsewhere so I'm glad you guys put together the video we need at least 1 video describing the timeline maybe one day I might finish it was hoping to use it as a foundation to some of my lok theories or just random lok thoughts videos one thing to note is in the timeline where Raziel kills kain at the tomb of William the just Moebius wouldn't send Raziel to the future in an attempt to fuel his hatred for kain since he would have already have killed him there would be no need to so Moebius would have most likely sent him to the time he requested to see janos and with no kain around raziel would be absorbed into the reaver only to be colected by moebius to give to willam the just where the events would loop endlessly until kain could convenience raziel to spare him

Thank you Raina.

BO2 is kinda botched in terms of Voradors presence. He obviously shouldnt be there. Since Amy Hennig wasnt the writer of BO2, its to be expected that someone would drop the ball on that one. Another thing id like to mention relates to Kain - Raziel had legitimately killed Kain in Defiance. The reason Kain came back to (un)life is through Raziels activation of the spirit forge. Remember what Ariel said? "The forge calls every balance guardians spirit to itself". That included (supposedly) dead Kain, who was raised by the forge (vampire souls dont just hover about, like Ariel; instead theyre imprisoned in their bodies, which made Kain pick himself up in the Demon Realm and answer the call of the forge). From then on, and through Raziels sacrifice, Kain is not just enlightened by the souls of former balance guardians to the existence of the elder god, but also healed by Raziel, who, just before he got absorbed by the reaver, laid his hand on Kains chest and did his thing. Heard one of the devs say that Kain is supposedly living on "borrowed time". We can easily scratch that one, given what ive mentioned before. Kain, being immortal, has all the time in the world to purify the pillars and, one way or another, get rid of the elder god.

And now kids, write a 2000 words document about the history of the legacy of kain. Well.... 2000 words.... Challenge accepted.

Anyone notice that the mural to the right of the vampire converting the yong human clarly depicts Mortanius existing in that era? The thing is that the weilder of the serpent staff is not clearly Mobius, hinting that mortanius may have been the first (and only) human death guardian to exist.

Not sure if you said it, but I was always thought BO 2 only game into being due to end of defiance. Meaning Janos was only there due to Kain sparing Raziel at the end of SR2. So then my question is where was elder Kain during BO2.

The ambient sounds from Soul Reaver 2 is so good. Need to look up videos on that and listen to it as I meditate. Please do ambient sound video of the one at 3:00 through 4:12. I would save that video and listen to it all the time.

Okay, everything with Janos Audron, Blood Omen 2, and the Hylden Lord makes sense now - it happens before Soul Reaver, making sense since Kain would be conquering Nosgoth in that period.

"It's complicated" -some LOK fan, maybe.

I don't believe there could have been a future where the Nemesis and his descendants rule Nosgoth because that would negate the events of Soul Reaver 1 and prevent the creation of the Soul Reaver, the soul Reaver has to be created in the future to have caused most of the events in the past that lead to the rise of the Nemesis to begin with. I think it is more likely that in the 'original' timeline where William lives Kain, having failed to assassinate him, escapes back to his present and somehow defeats the older version of him that is the Nemesis. Maybe he raises Raziel and co to achieve this after destroying the pillars. Ironically Kain becomes obsessed with regaining this lost original timeline despite the fact that it is pretty similar to what he ended up with. One other thing. I often hear it said that the paradoxes allowing timeline changes are caused by an object or soul meeting its prior/future self but this is only half true. From what we have seen it _only_ works with the Soul Reaver, not just any object or soul, that there is something unique about the combination of Raziel's soul merged with the magic inlaid into the Reaver. It is not caused by Wraith Raziel meeting Sarafan Raziel, nor by Wraith Raziel finding the 'blood' Reaver. However the wraith Soul Reaver (bonded to Raziel) is just as valid as the corporeal sword that still houses the wraith soul. If it worked with just any old object/soul then Moebius could easily create a paradox whenever he felt like it.

Amazing

Raziel...😞💙

f love this channel

Thanks for the really well explained clip. By the way Dennis Dyack who created LOK BO is making a Spiritual Successor called DEADHAUS SONATA :)>

Video: "...suggest the involvement of Moebius" Me: "always!!... That bastard!!..." Also me: *totally going to rewatch the defiance clip when he is killed twice right after finishing this video*

When kain was killed shouldn’t his replacement of been born immediately upon his death?

Yeaaah okay... but hang on a second! Raziel the wraith, leads Raziel the mortal, to kill Janos, which is how Mortanius ends up with the Heart of Darkness, allowing him to raise Kain as a vampire, which allows Kain to raise Raziel as a vampire, who then becomes Raziel the wraith. So how did Mortanius get the Heart of Darkness originally? Either Blood Omen 1 is NOT the original, primal timeline, or the paradoxes created by the Soul Reaver were as much a part of destiny as anything else and do not allow time to be altered. There is also the fact that the Reaver was forged for Raziel, per Janos, but in the "original" timeline, Kain dies and never creates Raziel, so why would the Soul Reaver be forged, thus allowing for history to ever be changed in the first place, thus allowing for Raziel's creation? And why would the Soul Reaver blade shatter in the original cycle, when Kain used it against Raziel the Wraith, since the 'first time around' it would just be a normal sword? Moebius? It makes zero sense for him to set that up. The Elder God? Makes even less sense, unless everything we were told about his motivations are a lie. The Hilden? They are nowhere to be found by the time of the Derelict Empire (Soul Reaver 1).

But Blood Omen 2 ended with younger Kain setting up for his empire, leaving the question of elder Kain's fate unanswered. Do you think we can persuade Amy Hennig to put up a Kickstarter to write a book or two that wraps the rest of it up?

Do you think Mortanius was possessed by the Hylden when he murdered Ariel? I don't think so. I believe the Hylden were only able cross from the demon dimension *after* the pillars corruption. So I think Mortanius acted as part of the elaborated plan (along with Moebius) to eradicate the vampires. Then the Hylden probably just took advantage of the situation.

30:19 Hows raziel enters the reaver but also simultaneosly freeing himself from that imprisontment?

The only thing i think is a sort of plot hole is about the 4th timeline: how did William the Just find the Soul Reaver if the sword didn't absorb Raziel and was stolen by Kain? Did he find the Blood Reaver? Also, what is the significance of the remaining timelines? Aren't they just ipothetical events to understand what would happen if the paradox didn't occur?

What is the song tha plays around 30:00?

MY BRAIN HAS MELTED!!!! Most mysteries are unfold, but i still cannot trace which soul reaver is which in the moment kain and william clash?!?! kain gets the reaver that has raziel inside of him at the end of the second timeline, and william has what soul reaver? so perplexed please heeeelp hahah

Can we make the dark chronicle videos cannon to give us closure and balance.... :D

I might have missed this but how was Janos alive and not corrupted in Blood Omen 2 if he got his heart ripped out as we see in Soul Reaver 2 and how at the end of Defiance, he is revived but corrupted by the Hylden?

Funny how I always saw three problems in North Goth. Vampires, Hildens, and the Ancient God. Vampires are originally created by their enemies, so they are not a natural species. And in the era of the soul reaver, the pillars are destroyed. Hildens are locked up forever.The only thing that Kain can do is destroy the god and leave the world to people.

I dare a netflix producer to take up the LoK. All I can think is how great a show would be to revive the franchise.

Did the first original William that would be the Nemesis have the Soul Reaver or the Blood Reaver? If the Nemesis’s armies ruled after then Raziel would have never been reborn a Vampire and reborn again as a wraith to then get absorbed by the Blood Reaver, then how did William the Just’s weapon have his soul?

And nuprator survived right?

The fact this series isnt around today just shows how daft current game companies are. Imagine a new single player game abit like GOW. Game of the year stuff. Would never be the same now though. Politics would make it a shadow of itself.

The vampires should have tried to--I don't know--lift the curse.

Did anyone did no wanted to kill Kain playing as Raziel and was conflicted during the battle? I literally cursed while fighting and threw away the control after Kain's "death".

Wait... you say the Hilden's parting curse to the vampires are immortality and sterility. After that you said that eventually the humans would replace the vampires in the circle of nine... But how will they ever be replaced if they are immortal? Also you say some vampires commited suicide.... but how? They are immortal... Do they "die" momentarily and then return?

Malek did not defeat Kain at all. In fact, Kain defeated Malek a couple of times during the same fight. The problem is that the defeated Malek kept 'rebuilding' himself after each time he had been 'shattered'. Kain only abandoned the fight after defeating Malek a couple of times. And he neither fled nor accepted defeat. He just tried to find a new strategy to make sure Malek stops rising for good.

What the hell is Hollywood waiting? They should have made a few movies already with LOK story.

NOTE! Comment too long, no need to read it completely! The fun fact is that Legacy of Kain series has changed quite a lot in development of each of its games, so to say that this property of extreme change in this franchise is but a second nature - is to say nothing. What's more funnier - is that each scrap that was just an idea/scrapped or remade design/ some developer oversights* can really work as a fuel for a new installment, enriching the lore of the world by introducing the missing links, while also staying extremely faithful to the previous games. Missing links that are integrated into the game's lore by utilizing unused/dropped concept in art/game/lore design of the previous or cancelled games - those could basically write up a part of a story themself, while, with unusual approach towards re-implementing dropped elements could create an entirely new part of the story. This is the power of Legacy of Kain as a franchise - despite having a working plot with thousand and one question left unanswered and from-great-to-barely-average gamedesign (looking at you, cursed BO2/Defiance), each old game of the franchise would kick every competitor's ass JUST by existing with newer additions to the gameplay. While making a continuation after Defiance would be a hard but perfectly do-able job ** , that is if the skillset used to create lore through looking for inspiration in previous installments and general world building ideology - through atleast passing a take on the inspirations that were used in the world building, as the Wheel of Fate books and other - was retained. ==================================================================================================================================== Also, every game dropped a theme or two of its own and so far that make the job of continuing them far easier, for those who look for them. Blood Omen 1, Soul Reaver 1/2, Blood Omen 2 and Defiance - all those games have an extremely important (though not main story defining) themes that were merely glanced, while . ONLY Blood Omen 1 themes were fully completed in ideologic sense - "Betrayal and Manipulation", "Redemption vs Survival", "Find A Third Choice" and "Blind To Your Environment" - those themes were atleast completely finished, while the "Kain's Humanity vs Vampirism" (brought up IMMEDIATELY in Soul Reaver 1. "Cast him in" look on Kain's face + "... when Mortanius FIRST turned ME from the light!") "World-building Place of Interest" (the first reason Elder Kain is portrayed as he is), "Your Price is Your Very Own Soul" (the second reason Elder Kain became who he is; also he became just as divided as his soul is in this moment + Nup's Madness, so this trope is appropriate), "Sworn Enemy for No Cause" (BO1 sudden banishment of Hylden Lord due to Soul Reaver, can you really kill this dude for good?) were started and those are not the only ones that were brought up. Even BO2 manages to raise some crucial questions that are VERY important for the might-be-future installments, the questions that will shed the light on how Kain became who he is. And with Elder Kain in the fray, the paradox fiesta can be continued, with Elder Kain continuously trolling his Young self. * Main example - Soul Reaver created first before Vorador was borne, also truncating some of the parts like "Sarafan Six Death". Also this could work by taking advantage of how Soul Reaver looked in first Blood Omen 1 versus what it looked after re-design. I M P L I C A T I O N S. ** With some amendments and adjustments one can even make Dead Sun work inside LoK franchise. P.S. I really think that the possibility of Raziel killing Kain with Wraith Blade (as in OG SR1) was always there. Kain just went in full on to induce the "Two parasitic Reavers at one time" in SR2, unlike the SR1 incarnation of "There's only one Soul Reaver" where Raz kills off Turel for good, which turns Kain into a "Soul Reaver". "Kindred, this blade and I". Plus it is Kain who "raises" (literally steals souls from abyss) Sarafan priests with his own pillar token. I also like how from the previous point one can describe whole "Soul Reaver" duumvirate as [Reaver of Souls creates an entire vampire army, unknowingly dooming them to madness. One of them, the strongest of his sons, firstborn Raziel is eligible to become a wretched "Saviour of Nosgoth". However, the usual history goes to the hell due to Moebius, Kain bamboozles everyone by telling truth or nothing but in the end gets bamboozled himself only to realize that he was blind all his life/entirely hopeless.] So, uhh, who was the Soul Reaver? As for failure-Kain in SR2 (third timeline) - he still has to die. This is the most funny question as to how make Elder failure-state Kain work here. Btw, nice timeline pic. Better than the wall of text.

First XD

Thank you! I always had problems understanding all the time travel shenanigans especially BO2