Steve,

I am wondering if you can give us more info on Duke Kain. I am planning on doing something with him but every time I go to write something for my game I keep coming back to this guy:

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The Lord of Ravens
My blog

Is that the Legacy of Kain guy?

Sure is. VAE VICTUS!!!

~O
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

JG, you could do a lot with Duke Kain. However if you were model him after Kain of the Legacy of Kain series, I would suggest doing so based on the story of the very first game, Blood Omen. That way, Duke Kain could be the middle years of Kain after he damned the world in Blood Omen and perhaps you could use the story elements from Blood Omen 2. This way, you could intertwine the events of Kain and that of Aihrde without the apocolyptic events of SoulReaver, SoulReaver2, or Defiance.

Regardless of however you might use the Kain storylines, if your players are not familiar with the Kain/Raziel stories, you could really make a great, dark fantasy RPG experience in your Aihrde games. Just think of it, the vampiric treachery of Vorador, the Sarafan, Janos Audrin, Mortanius, Moebius, Malek, the Circle of Nine, William the Just, King Ottmar, The Elder God, and the most fantastic vampire clans of all time... Dumah, Melchiah, Rahab, Raziel, Turel and Zephon!

Man, that would be so much awesome sauce.

~O
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

That is not a bad idea. I have an idea for a story arc involving not only Kain but his forgotten house which split into three to five houses after his 'disappearance'. I am also thinking of involving Sagrimore and such.

Basically, Unklar is gone and finished but between Coburg and Kain there is possibilities for much more. Especially since my game takes place roughly 600-1000 years after the Winter Dark where those names are thought to be legend.

My OTC players are sooo screwed.
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The Lord of Ravens
My blog

Oh and BTW Omote, you are to blame for this for getting me to listening to the Soul Reaver soundtrack again.
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The Lord of Ravens
My blog

I only ever played the first two Legacy of Kain games and am not even sure how many if any went after that but Blood Omen was awesome^3 on teh PSX back in da day.

Niiice. Your KAIN ramblings have brought up some memories of a dark fantasy D&D game I was going to run in the early 2000s set in Nosgoth (the Kain setting). When you mentioned this it fired up my imagination so much. So sorry for my rambling (as the Legacy of Kain games are a personal favorite, if you didn't ).

Hey B-DADDY! PSX,PS2 games in order of release:

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver II

Blood Omen II

Legacy of Kain: Defiance

The voice acting and the depth of the story in these games, even to this day probably cannot be matched. The story is actually, a little too dense in my opinion, and that is only because it's so hard to follow due to the number of characters, history and sheer "weight" of the setting.

~O
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

Wow, I had no idea they had so many LoK games. Soul Reaver was fun, but the version I played was so buggy that once I beat it I gave up. The story on those games was awesome though.

The Duke is one of my all time favorite NPC/Characters/Monsters whatever you want to call him. He's left countless armies to die and wipe out countless of his enemies. One of the most memorable took place in the northern mountains where he led a troop of raiders, about 300 or so. As he was climbing this mountain pass...riding up it rather...a paladin came over the hill. Being a paladin he challenged Kain. Kain waved him on he had to fight one of Kain's men. The paladin slew him. Then another and another and a fourth. At last Kain tired of it and ordered his men to move on and the troop rode north, leaving the paladin behind and bewildered.

Kain is pure chaos. There is no rhyme or reason to his actions. He is fated to die in his sleep.

But Kain was inspired by this image from the masterful Frazetta:

Steve
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The High Lord, Coburg the Undying

He who sits on the elephants back

Castle and Crusade Society
troll@trolllord.com

Man, droppin' some nice Aihrdian lore. Bonus.

~O
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> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

Nice.
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The Lord of Ravens
My blog

BTW in my campaign the House of Kain has had it's first victory. In the Rising Knight they tricked Gritznack into thinking he was the only one that could resurrect the priest. They then sent the party in to slaughter Gritz and his goblins. This is what was needed to get the priest back.

His rebirth was signaled by a rain of rotting flesh in Malforten and a gathering of giant flies to eat the flesh and anyone around. The priest was reborn as an entity known as the Dark Man who is uniting the other wayward houses that Kain sired.
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The Lord of Ravens
My blog

CEWL!

R-
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Rigon o' the Lakelands, Baron of The Castles & Crusades Society
The Book of the Mind

LOL Kain

In his youth Kain traveled with his brother. In an inconsequential battle in some forgotten corner of the world, Kain and his brother led the defense of a small city. Seeing that they were about to be overrun, Kain abandoned his brother to the oncoming horde and escaped into the woods nearby. Several days later he returned, acting the vagabond, to see his brother nailed to a stake, slowly dying. He left.

In another incidence, Kain, for some unknown reason, decided to depose an orc lord and scatter its army. He succeeded in slaughtering an orc army, losing thousands of troops in the effort. He finally managed his way to the orc warlord's palace and forthwith dispatched him. There were still thousands of orcs in the region and many a small regiments making there way back. But Kain had accomplished his goal of killing the orc warlord. He stripped himself of his vorpal sword, his +5 plate, +5 shield and sundry other magical items found a broadsword and wandered into the wilderness to seek out other adventures. An orc captain, upon arriving at the palace and seeing his king slain, decided to claim his status of war chief. The orc donned the plate, strapped on the shield and hefted the vorpal sword. A very well armed descendant of that orc sits upon a throne some where in the world.

He rescued a princess once from marauding bandits. Only to later leave her on the side of some road. Kain can be generous beyond measure, or a theif who would steal from a starving peasant. He might save a city or town, or obliterate it. There simply is no telling.

Kain takes copious concoctions to stay awake for days, weeks and months at a time. This leads to even more erratic and unpredictable behavior.

What Kain do, without measure in the world, is lead an army and fight. And this is what he relishes most.

Some would say that Kain's behavior results from a desire die in combat. So strong is this desire, that the gods have cursed him and will only allow him to die in his sleep.

So Kains brother was Abel?