Ancients (Legacy of Kain)

The Ancients are a blue-skinned winged race found on Nosgoth in times long before the Legacy of Kain video game series in which they are found chiefly take place. While they are otherwise relatively human in appearance, their blue skin, black wings and three-fingered (nearly clawed) hands grant easy recognition.

The Ancients were worshippers of The Elder God, and believed his doctrine of a fatalistic pre-fated world in which all souls go through a purifying cycle of death, birth and rebirth under the supervision of the Elder God. The Ancients eventually tried to convert the other chief race on Nosgoth at the time, the Hylden, to their religion, starting a war that proved devastating for both races.

To end the war, the Ancients banished hte Hylden to another dimension and raised the Pillars of Nosgoth to seal the passages between the two realm. Before the process could be completed, however, the Hylden cursed their enemies with their final act of war. The Ancients were afflicted with a thirst for human blood and a fear of the sun, but the true curse was their new-found immortality.

The Elder God, ever requiring more souls to feed his Wheel of Fate, despised and condemned the now immortal Vampires/Ancients, and many of their number slew themselves in anguish. A few remained, chiefly the Guardians of the Pillars, as the Pillars required accomplished magicians to tend to them if the Hylden should stay banished. As more succumbed to despair, the Pillars began selecting human guardians for themselves, forcing the Ancients to infect humans with their curse to keep the binding strong. In the end the Necromancer and Death Guardian Mortanius and the Time Guardian Moebius, revolted against the vampiric members of the Circle of Nine (another name for the Pillar guardians) and overthrew them.

The Ancients dwindled over the ages, and the only one to survive long enough to be seen in the games was the guardian of the blade destined for the Messiah-like figure most Ancients believed would come to restore them. This Ancient was Janos Audron, sire of Vorador, and the blade was the Soul Reaver wielded by Kain.

The Ancients prophesied a champion known as the Scion of Balance, who would have the power to right the Pillars should they ever fall, but first the Scion would first have to defeat, or be defeated by, the champion of the Hylden. A secret prophecy was made, however, speculating that the powers of the Scion and the Hylden champion could be united, creating a truly pure and uncorrupted hero in command of the greatest weapon of all: free will.