^^^Raziel as portrayed by Melissa Ismail Celestial^^^
Basic Info
Name: Raziel
Goes by: Raziel
Age: Unknown
Blood Type: Unknown
Race: Wraith
Clan: Razielim
Mother: Unknown
Father: Unknown
Favorite Quote: The Soul Reaver...pure of all corruption! This is what it is for!
Allies: Jenna Kelly, Julie Dashara, Vorador, Kain, Ariel, Janos Audron
Enemies: Kain, Julie Dashara, Mesalx, Sarafan, Sarafan Lord/Hylden Lord, Moebius, Mortanius
Biography
Raziel is a soul devouring wraith. While he may seem quite harmless on the outside, Raziel is anything but non dangerous. Inside him burns a rage and hate for Kain, whom he believes threw him into the Abyss out of jealousy for growing a pair of bat like wings.
Origins
Raziel was born between 520-550 years before the first Legacy of Kain game. At some point, Raziel became one of the Sarafan Warrior Priests. He, along with four of the other six Sarafan Lieutenants, Turel, Dumah, Zephon, and Melchiah, stormed the mountain retreat of Janos Audron and slew the ancient vampire. Before heading back to their stronghold, Raziel and his allies removed Janos' heart, known as the Heart of Darkness, and the Reaver, the Ancient Vampires' holy weapon.Having returned to their stronghold, the culprits, along with their fellow Sarafan Rahab, were confronted and slain by a wraith who, unbeknownst to them, was Raziel's future self. The Wraith Raziel as he appeared in the opening scene for Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.
Raziel first appeared in Soul Reaver, during the time of Kain's Empire. He was the first-born of Kain's lieutenants and his second-in-command. Raziel had served his master faithfully for a thousand years.
Under Kain's leadership Raziel led a crusade against all who opposed Kain's will carrying out his order with unflinching loyalty. All was within Kain's grasp: an empire, immortality and finally evolution. "Over time we became less human and more...divine" due to their evolving and with this ensured evolution came power- the thing Kain revered most. Kain being the first of his kind before Raziel and his lieutenants "would enter the state of change"(a form of stasis in which the Vampires physical body would undergo a sort of accelerated evolution) "and emerge with a new gift'. Years after his rise to the next step in their evolution, his sons would soon follow making them all stronger.
He soon began to form a bond with Jenna, a vampiress that Kain had taken in. Over time, Jenna began to fall deeply in love with him. It was clear that he trusted her greatly (as he says in A Rose Among Thorns) and he even cared a great deal for her, enough that he would protect her from other vampires. Once he grew his wings, it was Jenna that he first went to for help, asking her to rip them off him. But Jenna couldn't bear to destroy his body so much, and she refused saying 'You alone had the honor of surpassing our lord. Surely he would see no wrong in this." This statement deepened Raziel and Jenna's bond, but it was to end in trajedy after a meeting at the Pillars.
So it was made known in front of Kain and his lieutenants in his throne room the site of where The Pillars collasped, that Raziel first of his undead sons, had surpassed him in his own evolution, evolving a pair of majestic bat like wings, similar to that of the Hylden. Although this new development in Raziel was stunning it was still obstructing a fundamental rule in Kain's empire: No one shall ever surpass the King in evolution. So while observing Raziel's wings Kain in what appeared to be an act of jealousy (but was actually Kain trying to make Raziel into a being capable of having free will) tore the bones from them and had his lieutenants Turel and Dumah cast him into a swirling torrential whirlpool called the Lake of The Dead to suffer for eternity. For water was like acid to any vampire it touched, so for what seemed like a timeless eternity of pain Raziel plunged deep to the bottom of the Lake where his torment receded and soon after Raziel looked over what his body had become due to plunging through water. His body lost much of it's muscle, organs, skin and his lower jaw. Also his external skin became a dark blue. The place in which he died was different as well for he was now in the afterlife (or possibly a pseudo afterlife created by the Elder God to stop any dead souls from passing on to the true afterworld, the purpose being to trap them in this purgatorial limbo in order for their souls to be hunted down by his ethereal agents to be captured to have their souls energy converted into sustenance to feed their "God") and in this strange place he was greeted by a deep ominous voice saying "Raziel you are worthy." The entity greeting him was The Elder God.
Personality
Raziel is a very upstanding and moral character (and, thus, he rarely questions his own actions and their consequences, since he believes they are always good and moral), with a strong inherent sense of noblesse oblige; however, the conditions and situations he finds himself in (almost never of his own making, unlike Kain) rarely lend themselves to unambiguous ethical judgments and he often ends up doing the wrong thing for the right reason (unlike Kain who generally does the right thing – mostly for his own, often evil, reasons). As a mortal man, he engaged in the systematic extermination of countless Vampires in his fanatical quest to rid the world of his perception of evil. As a Vampire he helped Kain establish his empire, under the controversial belief that Vampires deserved (as a higher form of life, and thusly "knowing better") to rule the world. He became The Soul Reaver, the state he found himself in after being "betrayed" by Kain and his brethren, then "saved" by the Elder God, by being thrown into the Abyss, a swirling vortex of water. (Its depth is such that it could almost be described as endless although its exact depth is not known for sure.) he stalked Kain and massacred his former brethren, prevaricating that he was not only exacting vengeance, but just settling the balance of existence. Ultimately, most of his actions turn out to be in some way flawed and generally immoral in the logic or lack thereof in their formulation, as he often finds himself the willing or unwilling pawn of those around him, for good or (mostly) evil.
Abilities
Raziel's abilities are the following:
Fly/Glide
Phase Through Gates
Scale Walls
Swimming
Constrict
Telekinesis
Soul Reaver
Immortality
Plane Shift
Wraith
Soul suck
Fury
Berserk
Spirit Projection & Body/corpse Possession
Resurrection
Force glyph
Stone glyph
Sound glyph
Water glyph
Fire glyph
Sunlight glyph
Weaknesses
Unknown
Did You Know...
-Raziel was voiced by Michael Bell
