World map

The world map
The ring menu icon for the world map as it appears in Soul Reaver 2.
Introduced in	Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996)
Appearance(s)	•

The world map was a gameplay feature in Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and Soul Reaver 2. It assisted in navigation, offering Kain and Raziel an aerial view of the land of Nosgoth, and the landmarks most pertinent to their respective journeys. A number of other maps of Nosgoth were also present in game or available as supplementary materials throughout the series.

Profile

Menu Selection

During his travels of Nosgoth as a fledgling in Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Kain could call upon the world map for a bird's-eye view of the land. Initially, the map canvas was dim, but regions would become distinctly brighter as Kain explored them. Landmarks such as the Pillars of Nosgoth were identified by text. Usually, the landmark most salient to his current objectives was highlighted with a blue aura. Kain also utilized the world map when determining a destination for his Bat Form flight.^{[Blood Omen]}

After Raziel traveled from the events of Soul Reaver to the history preceding Blood Omen, he could similarly consult an overhead map of Nosgoth in Soul Reaver 2 using his ring menu. The world map co-existed on this interface with the ability to shift, and summon or sheathe the Wraith Blade. This variation also highlighted locations of immediate importance to Raziel, and symbolized Reaver forges with the appropriate elemental icons.^{[Soul Reaver 2]}

The Blood Omen world map

The Soul Reaver 2 world map

In-Game Maps

A number of other maps have appeared in game settings, though these were not selectable and generally appeared as part of environments or cutscenes - thus they were rarely revisited. Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain featured the first of these maps, with two different views of the world - both slightly different from the in game maps - able to be found during the game. Blood Omen 2 also featured its own map of Nosgoth in a cutscene.

The first of these was discovered in Blood Omen in the chapter "Defeat Azimuth" as Kain explored the Heaven dungeon of Avernus Cathedral, where several of the floors were decorated with a mural depicting Nosgoth as if viewed from the sky looking down - even complete with clouds. The map was generally consistent with the in-game and paper maps, although a lot of the world appeared somewhat squashed in comparison.^{[Blood Omen][Blood Omen/8]}

Another similar map could be found in "Stranded in Time" as Kain explored the Stronghold of William the Just within the Land of the Nemesis in the history preceding Blood Omen. Here the map was found in a single chamber, apparently used by William the Just or Moebius to plot the conquest of Nosgoth. The map here was very similar to the 'Heaven dungeon' map - depicting an overhead view that was slightly squashed in comparison to the other world maps - although this map was significantly darker and with more 'rocky' than the green coloring on other maps. Several swords are also impaled into the map at important locatons including the Pillars, Stahlberg, Willendorf and Elzevir the Dollmaker - presumably these relate to Moebius and William's plans.^{[Blood Omen][Blood Omen/10]}

Blood Omen 2 featured a map shown at the initial Prologue cutscene, where Kain and Vorador planned the conquest of Nosgoth by Kain's vampire army. The map featured here dealt mainly with south-western Nosgoth and expanded in that direction, introducing the settlements of Freeport, Provance and Meridian and included a new coastline and sea in the southwest.^{[Blood Omen 2][Blood Omen 2/1]}

The spin-off title Nosgoth also featured its own map of the land of Nosgoth in gameplay. This map was found on the floor of a domed building in the southeast of the Sommerdamm level and resembled a bronzed version of the initial 'map of Nosgoth' given for that title (see below) inside a circular patterned border. As with the other initial Nosgoth map, this focused on the area in the southwest of the land.^[NOS]

The Blood Omen Avernus map

The Blood Omen Nemesis map

The Blood Omen 2 intro map

The Nosgoth Sommerdamm map

Printed Maps

A slightly different and more detailed version of the Blood Omen map of Nosgoth was also available through other sources. Larger than the original and printed on paper, the additional map was distributed with the Microsoft Windows port of the game and the Official strategy guide. Coming in a number of different sizes, the map extended slightly further and featured some minor changes from the menu selected world map, although it was largely consistent.^{[Blood Omen][Blood Omen manual (Windows)][Blood Omen strategy guide]}

Another printed map was associated with Blood Omen 2. With the action taking place entirely in and around the complex city of Meridian, a basic map of the city was used as a background illustration in the US version of the Blood Omen 2 manual. Although generally comparable to the layout of the areas in game, the map was notably simplified and was rotated from the traditional orientation of Nosgothic maps - perhaps leading to some of the confusion with directions within the title.^{[Blood Omen 2][Blood Omen 2 manual (US)]}

The printed Blood Omen map

The Blood Omen 2 manual map

Other maps

No maps exist for the world areas as seen in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Legacy of Kain: Defiance, although there are numerous fan depictions attempting to marry the environments of various games to create definitive maps.

In Blood Omen, Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2, it is possible to extract the individual room maps from game files - and these could also be arranged to create maps of the areas, although this approach often highlights inconsistencies between the game and real-world geography, with several areas apparently clashing.^{[Blood Omen][Soul Reaver][Soul Reaver 2]}

The début of Nosgoth saw a number of supplementary materials supplied through the official website that fleshed out the background of the land of Nosgoth in the mid-events of Soul Reaver. Among these was a map of Nosgoth focusing on the southwest (much as Blood Omen 2 had done) - where its first four playable areas were based. Later updates also included overhead area maps in the style of those extracted from previous games.^[NOS]

The initial Nosgoth map

Behind the scenes

Nosgoth

The land of Nosgoth and its geography were originally conceived by Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack and Ken McCulloch; McCulloch in particular was cited as the creator of "detailed mythologies in the world of Nosgoth". The setting was originally intended to serve as the game world for an initial concept named The Pillars of Nosgoth, which was sent to Crystal Dynamics and accepted for production with the help of Lyle Hall.^[Defiance] The Pillars of Nosgoth was internally referred to as Dyack's "vampire project", evincing that vampires were intended to serve as a central element of the games' mythology from the outset. Early influences in Nosgoth's development included The Wheel of Time and Necroscope - the Pillars of Nosgoth specifically were inspired by cover art from The Pillars of the Earth.

Nosgoth banner from atop the Blood Omen printed map

Beyond its obvious nature as a fictional land, it is (deliberately) never explained what Nosgoth actually is. Formally, it should always be referred to as the Land of Nosgoth. The breadth of territory referred to under its name (including several entities that may be considered sovereign states) could suggest that Nosgoth is a continent, but it has also been indicated that it is a world or planet.^{[Soul Reaver 2][Soul Reaver][Defiance][Blood Omen 2][Blood Omen]}

As no game has ever gone beyond the bounds of Nosgoth, and no references have been made of lands outside of it, some have speculated that it may indeed comprise an entire world, or may be a Pangaea-like supercontinent. Thus far, all maps depicting Nosgoth have presented it at a large expanse of land, with the only known ocean on the south and west.^{[Soul Reaver 2][Soul Reaver][Defiance][Blood Omen 2][Blood Omen]}

Nosgoth is a vast realm with a diverse landscape, including mountains, forests, plains and swamps, but very little non-polar desertification. Real-world seasons such as winter are mentioned, and the land appears to have a temperate climate, similar to that of northern central Europe.^{[Soul Reaver 2][Soul Reaver][Defiance][Blood Omen 2][Blood Omen][Blood Omen/Miscellaneous]}

Map Development

Blood Omen

the original Blood Omen map with 3D models

Although the features of the Nosgoth world map remained largely consistent through the later titles in the series the map of Nosgoth originally looked very diferent and the layout of the land that appeared throughout the series only came about at the beta development stage of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. Prior to this a very different layout had been used in the Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain alpha which featured many landmarks in different places. This version of the world was largely consistent with the maps presented in the Avernus Heaven and Stronghold of William the Just - indeed the map presented in the Heaven area was a version of the map originally designed to function as the map view of the game. Notably this function would initially be 'flat' but the landmarks of the world would 'pop out' into 3D models as each was visited by Kain. By the time of the Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain beta many incomplete areas were cut and the world map ws reshuffled with the hand drawn 'world map' replacing the original.

Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2

The world map ring menu icon from Soul Reaver 2

Crystal Dynamics did not implement the World map or Compass features in Soul Reaver 2 until some time after May 2000. Amy Hennig mentioned in an interview that it was introduced as a player aid, in response to criticism of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver that determining directions within the game world was difficult. She said:

"we knew it was a problem, and it was just one of those things that just in the rush, we really have to get it out, we just said that's unfortunate, but there's nothing we can do about it. It's too big of a problem. [...] Well, what we're going to do is, we haven't done it yet, but we're going to put a compass on the screen. We've talked a lot about having a map at this point, an in-game map, a living map that shows your progress and stuff. At this point, though, I think we won't do that. Just because it's a lot of work for the programmers and the artists to do that, keep it up and make sure that it's right and I'd rather spend that time on the game itself and not a map that you open sometimes."

―Amy Hennig

Although Hennig was reluctant to include a map in the game and voiced her preference to package a printed map with the game or within the manual, the proposed Soul Reaver 2 printed map ultimately did not come into fruition as artist Daniel Cabuco was able to create a version for the game, adapting and redrawing from the printed Blood Omen map to fit both the world seen in Blood Omen and the game world of Soul Reaver 2.^{[Soul Reaver 2]} Cabuco commented:

"The overall locations were laid out on paper and I added symbolic (non scale) elements to signify areas like swamps, mountains, valleys, etc. It was pretty much done as the game descriptions came in for each area. I had to rectify the game areas with the Blood Omen map to try and preserve both. Wasn't easy when there was discrepancy, but hey, who's gonna sit there and look at every little detail, right? (Of course LoK fans would)."

―Daniel Cabuco

The redesigned World map ultimately was not completed in time for the issuing of the Air Forge demo, and the icon is missing from the Ring menu in the demo. A placeholder dot is present in its position, suggesting that the map had been decided upon but was incomplete or the icon was yet to be designed at that time.

Blood Omen 2 developers also considered the map of Nosgoth when choosing the locations for that game and seeking "to create some fairly new locations that fit better with [their] needs", the developers "elected to move down the map of Nosgoth into some unexplored areas in the southern regions"; a map of this south-western region of the land can be briefly seen in the Blood Omen 2 introductory cinematic.^{[Blood Omen 2]}

Notes

• In Blood Omen, alongside the World map, Kain could also call upon a distinct overhead "Area map" which showed the full detail of the current area.^{[Blood Omen][Blood Omen manual (Windows)]} This function was not present later titles, however the practise of splitting the world up into distinct "areas" persisted and these could be selected at will from Debug menus in later games, with the models and overhead area maps also able to be extracted from some of these titles.^{[Soul Reaver][Soul Reaver 2][Blood Omen 2][Defiance]} Area maps were also documented in the official guides of Blood Omen and Defiance.^{[Blood Omen strategy guide][Defiance strategy guide]}
• The initial maps provided for Nosgoth appear to have been inspired by and adapted from a number of earlier fan-created maps. The Sommerdamm map also seems to have been directly adapted from the initial map provided by the Nosgoth website.^[NOS]
• Because of the nature of the gaming mechanics a number of the areas and maps seen in the series could not physically exist together in real life. In a number of locations, areas can be shown to 'clash' or 'pass through' each other undetected. Ultimately this is due to them not existing within the game at the same time, with areas being loaded as single areas or small batches at a time to prevent excess memory usage which would hinder game performance.

Gallery

A map of Nosgoth (BO1).

The in-game version of the map of Nosgoth (BO1).

A bird's-eye view of Nosgoth from the Heaven dungeon (BO1).

A Nosgoth map in the stronghold of William the Just (BO1).

The ring menu icon for the world map (SR2).

A map of Nosgoth (SR2).

A map of south-west Nosgoth (BO2).

A map of south-west Nosgoth (BO2).

The Blood Omen 2 manual map (BO2)

Map of Nosgoth with the Human cities highlighted. (NG)

The Nosgoth Sommerdamm map (NG)

Videos

See also

• Nosgoth
• Compass
• Ring menu
• Category:Gallery/Blood Omen maps
• Category:Soul Reaver maps
• Category:Soul Reaver 2 maps
• Category:Nosgoth maps
• SEF The Revived and Updated (Almost) Definitive LoK Maps Thread at the Square Enix Legacy of Kain Series Forums (by Baziel, Guilherme Coelho and Tenaya).
• Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain - Maps of Nosgoth at Nosgothic Realm (by Tenaya and Guilherme Coelho).
• Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - Maps of Kain's Empire at Nosgothic Realm (by Tenaya and Guilherme Coelho).
• Soul Reaver 2 - Maps of Nosgoth at Nosgothic Realm (by Tenaya).
• Blood Omen 2 - Maps of Meridian at Nosgothic Realm (by Tenaya and Daniel Von Stein).
• Legacy of Kain: Defiance - Map of Nosgoth at Nosgothic Realm (by Tenaya).
• Nosgoth - Map of Nosgoth at Nosgothic Realm (by Tenaya).
• Blood Omen: Map of Nosgoth at Dark Chronicle (by Ardeth Silvereni).
• Soul Reaver: Map of Nosgoth at Dark Chronicle (by Ardeth Silvereni).
• Soul Reaver 2: Map of Nosgoth at Dark Chronicle (by Ardeth Silvereni).
• Legacy of Kain: Map of Nosgoth at Dark Chronicle (by Ardeth Silvereni).
• Blood Omen Maps at The Lost Worlds (by Ben Lincoln)