Melchiah

MELCHIAH IN SOUL REAVER

In Soul Reaver, Melchiah was the least powerful of Kain's vampire lieutenants. He was the last of the six to be raised by Kain, so he received the weakest portion of Kain's gift. Although Melchiah was immortal, "his soul could not sustain the flesh, which retained much of its previous human frailty". This weakness was passed on to his vampire offspring, whose "fragile skins barely contained the underlying decay". Both they and Melchiah skinned their victims; the US Soul Reaver manual says:

'Melchiah's vanity was such that he would search among the human slaves for the most stunning specimens. After feeding on them, he would skin them and don their flesh to cover his putrescence.'¹

In the Soul Reaver opening video, Melchiah's neck and face were bloated, presumably from this underlying putrification, and a detailed concept model of him (available on Boyd Lake's website ) shows an ugly network of stitches holding his epidermis together.²

Melchiah, like all the other lieutenants, witnessed Raziel's swift fall from grace and his subsequent execution. When Raziel returned from the Abyss as a Reaver of Souls, Melchiah was the first of his brethren that he encountered. Melchiah's clan territory was located next to Raziel's own, desolate, former stronghold.

Since they had last met, centuries had passed, and Melchiah's appearance had changed dramatically. His evolution had been cruel to him - he had turned into a huge mutated beast. He moved by dragging himself forward, using his powerful front limbs. It was possible to see the human shapes of his victims in his flesh. Melchiah admitted that he was revolted by what he had become. (Note: The Designer Diary, previously available on Eidos' official Soul Reaver site (US) says: "His skin is made up of patches of skin from his victims including their tortured faces... the faces on the Skinner boss' body are composites of the [Crystal Dynamics] team members' faces.")³

Raziel fought Melchiah. He found that his sibling's evolution had brought some benefits along with the shortcomings. Melchiah was very strong physically, and by accessing the Spectral Realm, he could pass through Material Realm gates to pursue Raziel. The skirmish took place in an underground chamber, and in the centre of the chamber there was a circular cage, with a vicious serrated wheel positioned above it. It was a giant meat grinder, presumably used to kill individuals (likely humans) en masse. Dark blood stained the floor in and around the cage.

Melchiah was not as agile as Raziel. Raziel lured his deformed sibling into the circular cage, then activated the grinder. Melchiah seemed to welcome his release as his hideous body was utterly destroyed. Raziel consumed Melchiah's unfettered soul, and gained the ability to phase through gates in the Spectral Realm. He expressed brief remorse about the circumstances of Melchiah's demise, despite the Elder God's praise. He had a need for vengeance, but the idea of fratricide was still repulsive to him.

Raziel voiced his doubts again when he found the Tomb of the Sarafan. There he learned a shocking secret: Melchiah and all of Kain's lieutenants had once been Sarafan warrior-priests. He was on a mission to kill those men who had been his brothers-in-arms, not only as vampires, but as humans too.

MELCHIAH IN SOUL REAVER 2

In Soul Reaver 2, Raziel saw the mural commemorating the human Melchiah's martyrdom in the Sarafan Stronghold. When he ventured further into the past, he saw that Melchiah had actually been a Sarafan Inquisitor, one of the order's elite. Five hundred years before the events of Blood Omen, the Inquisitor Melchiah infiltrated Janos Audron's aerie with his comrades, and assisted in Janos' murder.

Raziel followed the Inquisitors back to the Sarafan Stronghold to avenge Janos' death and reclaim the Heart of Darkness. He fought and killed Melchiah and Zephon in the open air courtyard, using the Reaver. Melchiah's body was interred in the Tomb of the Sarafan, and there it remained until Kain's arrival, around a thousand years later.