Legacy of Kain Official Encyclopedia and Tabletop Role-Playing Game

We're on the home stretch! Just THREE days left until our campaign comes to a close. We are so thankful for your huge amount of support throughout it: from chatting in our community section to spreading the word on social media, Discord and beyond. As Legacy of Kain fans ourselves, we know how special this series is, and we are grateful for your trust and support in bringing our ambitious project to life.

Our final stretch goal is a premium set of pin badges! While we have some design ideas in the works, we'd love to hear from you: what would you like to see on your Legacy of Kain pin badges? It's only right that you have a hand in choosing the design for our final (ish) milestone. We'd like all your suggestions – from your favourite characters to most obscure Legacy of Kain iconography.

Pin badges will be exclusive to the Complete Edition. As a reminder: while we're looking into ways to make our Book of Nosgoth and Scourge of the Sarafan available in the future, the Complete Edition will always remain exclusive to this BackerKit campaign. For the ultimate, all-in-one, must-have Legacy of Kain collectible, these are the final days this edition will ever be available.

This may be our final stretch goal, but we are far from finished here. Even after 28 February, we will be working hard to add even more to this blood-cursed collection. You have suggested so many excellent add-ons that we are determined to make at least some of them a reality. We'll share more about this after the campaign.

But first, let's get to £500k!

(update: please note, while we cannot guarantee it, we are looking into packaging options for including pin badges in other editions - please read our pinned comment on this and add-ons etc!)

We caught up with the immensely talented London-based illustrator and creator of our striking Legacy of Kain Encyclopedia cover: Eileen Kai Hing Kwan.

From Vampire Hunter D to Castlevania, and now Legacy of Kain, Eileen is renowned for her stunning portraits of the night's most beautiful creatures. When she is not bringing vampires to (un)life through her illustrations, Eileen runs The Little Mandarin: an independent art and sweets shop in East London.



Q: Please introduce yourself and let the audience know who you are and where they might know your work from.

Eileen: Hello! I'm Eileen Kai Hing Kwan. I'm an Illustrator who loves to draw haunting dream-like moments, with a soft spot for vampires. You may know my work from Warframe for Jade Shadows' in-game art, or book cover/illustrations for Penguin Random House and HarperCollins. You may also know my Vampire Hunter D, Bloodborne or Castlevania fanart floating around the internet!



Q: The Legacy of Kain series was new to you but what were your initial thoughts when you were commissioned to make the cover for the Encyclopedia? Did it feel in some ways familiar considering your history illustrating other famous vampires (like your amazing Vampire Hunter D images) or did this feel different?

Eileen: I was really excited to draw for a vampire game when Shaun from LIC first got in touch, and I immediately loved the look of Legacy of Kain! It did initially feel different to the usual vampires I draw, but I loved the storytelling and quickly fell in love with the characters and the world. The opening cinematic of Soul Reaver was so stunning and I knew I had to draw something inspired from it for the cover. I was also over the moon when Steve and the team asked me to draw Kain and Raziel!



Q: Your works leans toward themes of horror and you capture such a unique delicate elegance and beauty in your depictions of the characters that inhabit those worlds, have you always been enamoured with this genre?

Eileen: Thank you and I have, although it took me a while to realise! I've always had a love for vampires, gothic romance and beautiful detailed designs, but I don't think I clocked I liked horror. Over the years though, I drew what I liked and I sort of stumbled into the horror genre by chance, found I enjoyed being here and I've absolutely loved it since!

Q: If you could work on any series what would your dream project be?

Eileen: Vampire Hunter D. With all of Fromsoft and Castlevania too haha I can't pick one!



Q: Any message for the backers/fans? And where can they follow you and buy your artwork?

Eileen: Thank you so so much, the support has been overwhelming! It was an honour to be a part of such an amazing project and it has meant so much to see everyone’s reactions. I really loved drawing Kain and Raziel and their world, and am certainly a Legacy of Kain fan now too! You can find me on X/twitter, Instagram and Bluesky as @whereiseileen and you can buy prints from me via INPRNT and The Little Mandarin. I'll also be opening an online shop soon with more prints in the next few weeks!

We're well and truly in the final stretch of the campaign now - but, we're continuing to blast through more stretch goals! 🥳

Our £450,000 stretch has been met, meaning dice with the Scourge of the Sarafan editions will now come in their own high quality dice bag.

We have our secret £500k stretch goal still to hit before the campaign closes on February 28th. We think it's achievable! 🙏

Thank you again for all the support so far during the campaign - it means the world. Of course, the journey isn't over when the campaign closes. We're dedicated to making both the Book of Nosgoth and the Scourge of the Sarafan the most amazing Legacy of Kain items possible. We'll continue providing updates regarding their production, any continued availability, and any exciting new additions and updates when the campaign closes. We're aware of many of your requests, and continue to take them on board as much as we're able.

With this newest unlock, here's a breakdown on every additional stretch goal unlocked so far:


🖼️ £250,000: Art prints for the Encyclopedia

🎨 £275,000: Art expansion for Scourge of the Sarafan from Lukasz Kowalczuk

📖 £300,000: Marbled end papers for the encyclopedia

🎨 £325,000: Art expansion for Scourge of the Sarafan from Alexey Gorboot


🔖 £350,000: Bookmark for all backers for use in either book

📔 £375,000: Front cover embossing for Scourge of the Sarafan


🧛 £400,000: Vampire ruleset for Scourge of the Sarafan


🎨 £425,000: Art expansion #3 for Scourge of the Sarafan from Godmachine


🎲 £450,00 - Dice bag upgrade


🔒 £500,000 - We'll be revealing this (likely final) stretch goal soon!

Today, we're shining a spotlight on one of the artists behind our Legacy of Kain collection.

Max 58 is an illustrator with frankly exceptional talent and skills. Himself a fan of the Legacy of Kain series - as are most artists we have hand-selected for our books - you have likely already seen some of his breath-taking images in our trailers, with the original voices of Kain and Raziel narrating over.

As well as creating artwork seen in our trailers and our primary BackerKit assets, Max58 is creating the scene-setting images that will appear in the Scourge of the Sarafan. We asked them to give us some insights into their work, what the series means to them, and some examples of their past work.

Please check out some of Max58's work at the links in this post - remember, the more you support artists, the cooler you are! 😉



Q: Please introduce yourself and let the audience know who you are, where you're from and where they might know your work from.
 
Max58: Hi, my name is Max58, I'm an illustrator/painter, mostly making art inspired by video games. You might mostly know my work from the [lock-on] magazine from Lost In Cult.



Q: What does LoK mean to you? What's your relationship with the series?

Max58: The Legacy of Kain series played a big role in shaping my taste in games, movies and just art in general.

Soul Reaver specifically, being one of the first games I ever played, had a huge impact on me. I still remember watching the intro cinematic and being completely mesmerised by it, it was really special.



Q: How does it feel to create official LoK artwork?
 
Artyom: Exciting, surreal and a bit stressful, looking at all the concept art and work that went into making these games gave me a much deeper appreciation and respect for the people that made them and for the games themselves.

Also, hearing the voices of Kain and Raziel over my art in the trailers feels insane!!!



Q: Your work is absolutely incredible in its painterly details, you frequently take inspiration from video games for your subject matter. Has gaming been the most major influence on your work or do you also draw inspiration from other sources?

Max58: Thank you! Video games are definitely a big part of what motivates me to draw, but I can be inspired by pretty much anything, art, music, nature, whatever.

Q: How did you hear about Lost In Cult/ Cook & Becker?

Max58: I first heard of Lost In Cult when [lock-on] issue 1 was coming out, and it immediately caught my attention, the design and presentation were just so clean. I knew Cook & Becker before then, also because of some really interesting books!

Q: Any message for the backers/fans?

Max58: Just a huge thanks to everyone that's a part of this community. The amount of support for this project and LoK series in general has been incredible to see and it makes me really hopeful for the future of the series.

Q: And where can they follow your work?

Max58: I post my work on BlueSky @Max58 and Instagram @max58art, I also have prints, available in my Inprnt shop.

Please consider supporting Max58's work if you're able - we'll be snatching some of his prints ourselves to adorn our walls with! 

We are thrilled to announce that YouTube reviewer, podcaster, all-round video game news guru, and big time Legacy of Kain fan Ralph Panebianco (AKA Skill Up) will be writing the foreword to our Book of Nosgoth encyclopedia.

We have been fans of his channel for a long time: no week is complete without getting our news roundup from This Week In Videogames. We've also worked with Skill Up many times over the past year with sponsorships on his videos promoting our various books and projects. You may even be here on this very page thanks to his most recent shout-outs of our Legacy of Kain campaign!

We asked Ralph for some words on what Legacy of Kain means to him, and why we chose him to write the foreword pages to our encyclopedia:



“Kain is deified…”

I still vividly remember the very first time I heard these words. It was immediately after setting up our brand-new PlayStation. One of my brothers had elected to get the PlayStation as a birthday present after it became clear that the four-controller port limit on the Nintendo 64 was an insurmountable problem (there were, after all, five brothers). 

Fresh off playing and replaying The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time half a dozen times, it’s unsurprising that the first game we popped into the disc drive would be one that, we thought, would be fairly analogous. Here was Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, another 3D action-adventure game in a fantasy setting with a focus on melee combat and puzzle solving through an interconnected world. 

But what’s this…music? This curiously named Ozar Midrashim?  Why does its dirge bury its way into my psyche? And what’s this? The characters all have voices I can hear, and they use words I don’t yet fully understand at 15 years old, but I can still sense their meaning through the theatre of it all. And what’s all this blood, all these demonic visages, these ruined palisades and palaces that coil and uncoil as I move between realities? 

There was something here that was both like and unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and with these few opening words, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver ushered me into a new chapter of my relationship to videogames, one that would eventually lead me to where I am today. I was so honored, then, when Lost in Cult asked me to play a very small part in this project, and I really do look forward to the moment when we all get to see and experience what they’ve been working on because if there’s one series that deserves the Lost in Cult treatment, it’s this one. 

- Ralph Panebianco (AKA, Skill Up)