Kerghan

The key villain of the 2001 computer game,Arcanum Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura. The first of the dark necromancers.

History
Millenias before the events of the game, Kerghan grew into one of the most powerful human wizards. He was hand-picked by Nasrudin to be on the elven council. For 200 years, he studied the different colleges of magic. Yet this was not enough and he searched more. He came upon the magic of dark necromancy and shared his discovery with the council.

Narrow-minded and scared, they told him to quit his research into the darker side of magick. He ignored them and put together the college. By bringing back the souls of the dead and talking to them, summoning dark beings, reanimateing dead corpses, and then quenching the lives of living beings.

Nasrudin became suspicious and sent Arronax to investigate Kerghan. Arronax told Nasrudin and the rest of the council what the sorcerer was doing. First they were going to exile him, kick him off the council. But Arronax convinced them that he should instead be banished to the void, a mysterious world, where an ancient civilization existed and where they banished other beings they saw as a threat.

When Kerghan entered the void, he discovered that there was no time and was able to enter the realms of the afterlife. He entered the world where souls go to die. There he found peace and eternal happiness. He then came to believe that life is a great mistake of the function of the universe, and in order to correct this he had to destroy it. He continued to practice his dark necromancy and although it increased his power, It also corrupted his body and spirit.

In a few years Arronax was banished as well, and tried to stop the necromancer. But Kerghan managed to get the upper hand and imprisoned him in his castle. Shortly afterwards, the dark elves called across the void. Kerghan took advantage of this by pretending he was Arronax, and told them that in order to escape, they must weaken the barrier between the two worlds, manipulate the Panarii Church (a religion of the teachings of Nasrudin and the prohecy of the living one -his reincarnation) and send him a kingdom of dwarves, known as the Black Mountain Clan.

He forced the dwarves to build a portal device that would enable him to re-enter Arcanum. One of the Black Mountainers escaped and warned the living one of Kerghan's plan and to give his best friend Gilbert Bates back his ring. Thus begininng the living one's quest to stop, join, or talk Kerghan out of his plan.

'''If only I could show you the places I have seen, you might understand the things I say. I have been to the Desolate Lands, wandered by those souls who still see the lands of the living but wear the cloak of the dead. Blind to their own ends, they cry, passing through one another like shadows in the dying light of day. I have travelled to where souls rot in torment, pierced with the jagged shards of life and vision, clinging to memory -- regrets of the flesh. I saw that this prison was of their own making, and that the key was in unknowing, in release... and still, I travelled on.''

'''And finally, I came to the place where souls go to die. Where the mirrored and worn spirits fall into an endless sea of grey, mirrored glass... and I lowered myself within...and lay among them... and I almost did not return.''

'''And do you know what I found there? There, among the silent and battered shells of the innumerable? Peace. Enlightenment. Truth. Only then I realized that this place, this "Life", is an abomination, a horrible distortion of the natural order. This "Life", who mothered Pain, and Fear, and Envy - these twisted children who exist only because we are here to feed them, to nourish them. This "Life", this... afterthought - a disturbance, a mere ripple in that great, dead sea, not even the cause, but merely an effect, sending these souls upwards, screaming for release from the day they are torn from their waters! The effect of what!''

'''I do not know. Nor do I care.''

'''Have you ever spoken with the dead? Called to them from this side? Called them from their silent rest? Do you know what it is that they feel? Pain. Pain, when torn into this wakefulness, this reminder of the chaos from which they had escaped. Pain... for having to live. There will be no more pain. There will be no more chaos''.

Kerghan Quote