The protagonist, Raziel, is an ancient vampire, one of Kains' first brood. Nearly as old as Kain himself, Raziel had achieved a highly evolved vampire state, and acted as one of Kain's lieutenants.

Rather than evolving slowly over time, vampires experience periods of accelerated metamorphosis, actually entering cocoon-like stages from which they emerge transformed. Raziel committed the ultimate blasphemy, having emerged from his last cocoon state more evolved than any other vampire - including Kain himself. He alone, out of all Nosgoth's vampires, evolved into a winged state - a bat-like membrane stretched from his back to his fingertips, allowing him the power of flight (which no other vampire possessed).

For this unforgivable transgression, Raziel was condemned. On Kain's orders, the other lieutenants hurled him into the depths of Nosgoth's deepest lake.

Falling endlessly into the murky depths, Raziel's skin burned with white-hot fire as he tumbled to the lakebed, blue fire shooting from his eyes and screaming mouth. As he settled to the bottom, much of his flesh burned away, the world shifted around him, and the pain receded - he had fallen to the deepest watery pit of Nosgoth, into the very seat of the Underworld.

The mysterious god of the Underworld revived Raziel, and in resurrecting him transformed him into the Soul Reaver, his angel of death and retribution. As a fledgling Reaver, Raziel resurfaces in Kain's Nosgoth, galvanized by a hunger for revenge, and a thirst not for the blood of humans, but for the vampires' apostate souls.