Pieter Van Eckhardt is the secondary antagonist of the final Core Design-era Tomb Raider installment Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.
He was a 15th Century evil alchemist who intended to resurrect an extinct race for his planned world domination. He also is Lara's archenemy, alongside Jacqueline Natla.
He was voiced by the late English actor Joss Ackland, who also played Victor Landberg in the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street and Andrei Lysenko in The Hunt for Red October.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Born between the 14th and 15th Century, Eckhardt became an alchemist and grew evil through the advancement of his works. He then created a powerful weapon called Sanglyph, intent on resurrecting an extinct cross-angelic race known as the Nephilim. To keep the Sanglyph safe, Eckhardt split it into five pieces, hiding each piece behind five paintings he created, depicting evil images.
Sometime later, he eventually created an order known as The Cabal which consisted of an alliance between five powerful alchemists, with him as the leader. The Cabal believed that using the Nephilim would help them have dominating power over the world.
Imprisonment[]
However, this attempt only reached partial success. Their activities alerted a number of Christian clergymen and monks. One of these monks, Brother Obscura, met with these clergymen and monks and formed a Christian order called the Lux Veritatis to stop Eckhardt and the Cabal. To ensure that their secrets are not known, Eckhardt murdered the other members of the Cabal.
The Lux Veritatis acquired the Periapt Shards, which were ancient weapons of light that were used to make the Nephilim race extinct in biblical times. Eckhardt became trapped in a state of paralysis after the shards were used against him. The Lux Veritatis then sealed Eckhardt in a deep containment pit near their headquarters, Castle Kriegler, located in present-day Germany, leaving him in the area for 500 years. The seal on Eckhardt would only last if the three Periapt shards remained combined.
Following the alchemist's imprisonment, the order seized all the Cabal's properties, the five paintings that contained the pieces of the Sanglyph, being among these. Brother Obscura painted religious images over the evil ones, thus rechristening them as Obscura Paintings. Prior to hiding the paintings throughout Europe in areas only known to the order, the monk and his closest associates made secret copies of each painting, named as the Obscura Engravings. Each copy contained an encoded map to the location of the original painting.
Escape[]
During 1945, the Allied bombings over Europe caused massive damage to numerous properties and landmarks. One of these, Castle Kriegler, was bombed; the force extreme enough to cause the shards to split. Eckhardt's paralysis spell was broken, and he escaped the pit, wherein he came upon one of the guardians, Johan Kriegler, murdering him when he attempted to hide the shard that was separated from the other two[1].
Vowing revenge against the Lux Veritatis for the 500 years of pain, Eckhardt revived the Cabal, basing it in his hometown of modern-day Prague. While remaining faithful to Eckhardt's original mission, the new Cabal became devoted to hunting down any members of the Lux Veritatis. Eckhardt hid the shard in his old laboratory, deep underground beneath the Strahov.
Later on, the Cabal set out to reclaim the five Obscura paintings, in order to acquire the Sanglyph. They managed to attain three of the five paintings.
The Angel of Darkness[]
Eckhardt then hired Werner Von Croy to find the last two paintings. Von Croy did learn of the location of the fourth painting beneath the Louvre from the Obscura engravings, exchanging information of this discovery with former Lux Veritatis member Mathias Vasiley, an art dealer, historian, and fellow professor. But Von Croy became fearful in this task, and he soon learned of Eckhardt's evil plans. The fear gripped him so much that he never informed Eckhardt.
During an argument between Von Croy and his former student Lara Croft, Eckhardt breaches the former's apartment and attacks the two, knocking Lara unconscious. He proceeds to interrogate Von Croy about the painting's location; Von Croy reveals that although he found the painting, he never collected it, claiming the task to be extremely risky, but states Lara herself will be able to do the job for him. Eckhardt murders him, causing Lara to be the prime suspect.
While making attempts to clear her name, Lara found more information on the two remaining paintings and sought to find them. With information from Louis Bouchard and upon meeting Kurtis Trent in Prague, she learns from the latter that Eckhardt plans to use the paintings to revive the Nephilim race and that Cabal had retrieved the last Nephilim specimen from Türkiye: a Nephilim body which had been nicknamed the Sleeper. She also learns that Eckhardt murdered people for their body parts using a glove to revive the Sleeper.
During a final confrontation in his laboratory with Lara, Eckhardt starts the process of reviving it. He battles Lara using the Sanglyph, but he is eventually killed by Joachim Karel, the real mastermind behind the Cabal, who stabs him with the third Periapt Shard right in the forehead.
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 Villains
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Games Tomb Raider II Tomb Raider III Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation Tomb Raider: Chronicles Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword Tomb Raider: The Prophecy Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness Tomb Raider: Legend Tomb Raider: Anniversary Tomb Raider: Underworld Tomb Raider (2013) Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Rise of the Tomb Raider Shadow of the Tomb Raider Movies Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life Tomb Raider | ||