Rahab

RAHAB IN SOUL REAVER

In Soul Reaver, Rahab was one of Kain's six vampire lieutenants. He was present at the meeting where Raziel was condemned for growing wings, and like the others, he did nothing to stop Raziel's execution.

When Raziel returned from the Abyss as a Reaver of Souls, he hunted each of the lieutenants in turn. He had to pass through the Tomb of the Sarafan to reach Rahab's territory. There, Raziel learned that he, Rahab, and all of their fellow clan leaders had once been Sarafan warrior-priests.

The Rahabim clan territory was the Drowned Abbey. As the name implied, the building was half submerged in water. It would have been unthinkable for any other clan to choose it as a home. Water was deadly to Nosgothic vampires, young and old. However, through their evolution, Rahab and his progeny had somehow become amphibious.

Raziel worked his way through the abbey and finally confronted Rahab. Since Raziel's execution, the Rahabim lord had turned into a large shark-like creature. He had less freedom of movement than his offspring, as he no longer had legs - just a powerful tail. This meant he was largely confined to the water, but in it he had no equal. Rahab was the 'undisputed King of the Sea'.¹ He also had the ability to shoot blue (water?) projectiles at his prey (see the encyclopaedia entry for the Rahabim for more about this).

Raziel commented that Rahab had "adapted well" to his environment, "for one so maladjusted". He found his sibling rather resigned to destruction - Rahab claimed to have spoken with Kain, who had forewarned him of Raziel's arrival. It was unclear when the conversation had taken place, but it sounded recent, possibly making Rahab the only lieutenant whom Kain maintained contact with. Raziel queried whether Rahab knew of their shared Sarafan heritage, but Rahab dismissed it as unimportant. He was still loyal to Kain, regardless. He cautioned Raziel to "mind [his] blasphemous tongue" when speaking about Kain, and said that Kain had saved them when they were lost - he had saved them from themselves. This comment had shades of Janos Audron's statement in Soul Reaver 2; that with every vampire they killed, the humans were "slitting their own throats". Maybe Rahab's talks with Kain had strayed into discussions about Vampire history and their connection to the Pillars of Nosgoth.

Rahab was invulnerable to water, but his beneficial evolution had a price: he could no longer tolerate sunlight. His resistance to it had declined since the time of Raziel's execution. Most adult vampires could cope with Nosgoth's weak daylight. It was muted by the smoke belched into the sky from the vampires' furnaces,² but Rahab couldn't even withstand that any more. Raziel exploited this deficiency to kill him. He destroyed the small stained glass windows that decorated Rahab's chamber, and let the sunlight pour in.

When Raziel devoured Rahab's soul, he inherited his sibling's resistance to water. From then on, his physical body would no longer dissolve on contact with water, and he could swim to new areas of Nosgoth.

RAHAB IN SOUL REAVER 2

In Soul Reaver 2, Raziel saw the human Rahab's portrait in the Sarafan Stronghold. Each man honoured in the chapter house had unique armour, but Rahab's stood out. His breastplate was decorated with seahorses. It was a curious coincidence, considering the creature he would one day become.

Raziel travelled further back into Nosgoth's history to find Janos Audron. Five hundred years before the events of Blood Omen, Raziel met Janos, and witnessed his assassination by the Sarafan Inquisitors. Strangely, Rahab was not among them. There is little doubt that he was an Inquisitor too, but it is impossible to know where he was during the murder. Presumably he had other orders. By the time his comrades returned to the Sarafan Stronghold, carrying the stolen Reaver and the Heart of Darkness, Rahab was ready to rejoin them.

Rahab supported Dumah in battle against Raziel. Raziel killed them both in the main hall of the Sarafan Stronghold with the Reaver (Moebius had allowed Raziel to reclaim it). Rahab's corpse was interred in the Tomb of the Sarafan, and around a thousand years later, Kain resurrected him as a vampire. Rahab is widely believed to be the fourth lieutenant raised by Kain. Based on Raziel's comments in Soul Reaver 2, we know that Rahab and Dumah were placed third and fourth. Although there is no conclusive evidence, Dumah seems a more convincing candidate for the third lieutenant (Dumah helped Turel carry Raziel to the Abyss).

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS

Rahab had shown early signs of his adaptation to water in the Soul Reaver opening video. It was almost impossible to see, but he had the beginnings of gill-like flaps of skin on his neck. A concept model of Rahab, available on Boyd Lake's website shows him with even more curious traits. His skin is unusually textured and appears to have a blue tinge to it - even beyond the image's colourization. Strangely for a Nosgothic vampire, Rahab's eyes in this concept are a striking cyan colour; yellow/gold is the normal colour.