Headless Statue Chamber - The Dark Prophecy - Legacy of Kain: The Lost Worlds

Headless Statue Chamber

article by Divine Shadow

Media

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Description

The screenshots show us an underground chamber with at least three stone statues of knights presenting shields, with lit burners at their feet. The knights are fitted into framed stone alcoves, with a carving of wings descending from the peak of each alcove. In one of the screenshots, one of the knights does not have a head, but in another screenshot the same knight appears to have been restored.

Between two of the knights is a short wide doorway. In one screenshot, this is blocked by what appears to be a vertically-shifting wood and metal door. In another screenshot, the door is unblocked.

Between another two knights is a tall passageway, with two steel-looking thick vertical pipes descending down the height of the room and into the stone ground. At the base of each pipe appears to be a pocket of steam. Beyond these pipes, there appears to be raised rocky area in the distance. There are a large number of stalactites on the chamber roof, and a hole is letting some sunlight and snow into the area.

One of the screenshots (in which the central door is sealed) has the boss battle bar (from Defiance and other Dark Prophecy screenshots) at the top of the screen. However, neither Kain or any enemies can be seen.

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Story Speculation

We can assume that Kain accesses the Hallway Elevator through a door in the Inner Bastion area, and descends to a series of caverns beneath the Bastion. One of these would have been the Headless Statue Chamber. The light shining in through the hole in the cave ceiling would suggest that the area is not too far underground.

What could the purpose of this chamber be? Consider that we know the Soul Machine area is beyond this point, it seems reasonable to assume that Malek and the Sarafan would have fitted some form of security measure to prevent malicious access. Perhaps the statues are some sort of magical detection system, designed to allow Sarafan Armour Wraiths access to the deeper levels while obstructing intruders. The statues would detect that Kain is an unrecognised interloper, seal the door, and some sort of defense system may be triggered. Given the presence of the Defiance boss battle bar in one of the screenshots and a lack of visible enemies, it could be possible that one of the statues is in itself the boss. Like the stone golems seen in Vorador's Mansion in Defiance, one (or more) statues may come to life, and must be defeated for progress to be made.

The Hylden Armour Wraiths would probably not trigger this defense system, as if we assume it has been designed to allow living armour to pass, it may be incapable of differentiating between Sarafan and Hylden Armour Wraiths. Thus Kain may be the first person to activate the system in a considerable time.

One of the statues does not have a head in one of the screenshots. If the theory that the statues come to life and attack Kain has any validity, then it may have lost its head in battle with him. Alternately, perhaps the statue's missing head is a puzzle, and Kain must trawl through the caves to find and recover it.

The pipes running down the height of the cave may be significant. Consider that so far, the pipes seen winding through these caves and in other parts of the Bastion have been primitive, rusty and leaking. These two thick pipes, of very solid construction and installation, suggest far more advanced industrial capability than earlier efforts. For Malek and his Sarafan Wraiths to have refined and installed such an engineering feat seems an unlikely prospect.

Here is a working theory. When Malek and the Sarafan inhabited the Bastion, they fitted primitive winding pipes to connect the buried Soul Machine area with their base above. These pipes may have funnelled steam, fluids, or some other resource. When the Hylden occupied the Bastion, they still needed this resource but armed with a far more advanced knowledge of materials, construction and engineering, they installed the bulky modern pipes we are seeing here. Ideas as to what resource these pipes could be directing are discussed in the dedicated essays on the Soul Machine (see Soul Machine Mine and Soul Machine Core).

A possible series of events is this: Kain arrives at the Headless Statue Chamber and discovers the area to be unresponsive and notes the missing head. He explores the previous caves (possibly including the Steam Pipe Cave) and finds the missing head. He takes it back to the Headless Statue Chamber and installs it onto the statue, causing the boss battle with one or more of the golems. Kain defeats them, and progresses onwards.

It is unclear if this area, or the Steam Pipe Cave is encountered first. However, when both areas are completed, Kain may travel deeper underground and enter the Subterranean Campfire area.

Speculative Map

Speculative arrangement of this area in relation to others

Speculative progression through the game world

Source

The screenshots discussed here were discovered on the official website and portfolio of Aaron Hausmann in 2008. Shortly after they were added to his site, the images were removed, but fortunately had been saved and preserved for the purposes of this essay.

Aaron Hausmann's Portfolio

Aaron's LinkedIn page confirms that he was employed as an artist at Ritual Entertainment between December 2003 and January 2007, and now works for Nerve Software.

Some very limited description was provided on Aaron's site, now removed:

Environment Artist on Legacy of Kain: The Dark Prophecy - PS2, Xbox, PC CANCELLED

LEGACY OF KAIN: CANCELLED SEQUEL

Modelled and unwrapped props to hand off to texture artist.

Modelled, mapped, and lit environments based off of designers' layouts. Textures created by another artist.

— Methhaus.com

The name "Headless Statue Chamber" has been used based on the features shown in the screenshots. No official name for this area has been revealed.

Links

Aaron Hausmann's Official Portfolio Site, where some of the attached images were originally discovered. They have since been deleted from the site.
The Linkedin page of Aaron Hausmann, confirming he was an artist at Ritual Entertainment during the development of Legacy of Kain: The Dark Prophecy.
The discussion concerning this concept art that took place at the Nosgothic Realm forum.
The discussion concerning this concept art that took place at the Official Eidos Forums.
The discussion concerning this concept art that took place at the Neogaf forums.