KURTIS & LARA AS PRODUCTS OF ECKHARDT’S BREEDING COMMUNITIES

We continue to publish exclusive Angel of Darkness documents from Murti Schofield, the writer of the game. This one reveals more details about Eckhardt

ECKHARDT AND BREEDING

KURTIS & LARA AS PRODUCTS OF ECK’S BREEDING COMMUNITIES (?).

  1. The long term story arc for both     Kurtis and Lara would be fascinating to explore if they were the     contemporary results of some obscure branch of Eckhardt’s breeding     community experiments from the 1300s onwards. It would explain some of     their outstanding qualities and drives.
  2. Obviously the Lux Veritatis     and other family trees could believably have ties with improved bloodlines     branching off from Eckhardt’s improved humans experimentation.
  3. I’ve long felt that some deep     shadowy part of Lara’s past, as yet undisclosed, might link her to some     ancient historic forces that have been battling in the shadows of mythic     & recorded history. She might be more deeply tied into the ancient and     archaic world than has ever been hinted at before. And that, of course,     was the starting point of AOD, taking Cappadocian angelic myths and the     idea of ancient beings. But what if the links to her own genetic past (and     that of Kurtis) were to be explored.
  4. After returning from his meeting     with the Nephilim in 1345 with the promise of 100x years of extended     life he forged ahead in his attempt to create a Nephuman bloodline     capable of becoming incubation vessels for the emergence of the     neo-Nephilim. Many improvements were bred into his human stock. Strength     and cognitive abilities would be enhanced as well as many other desirable     human traits.
  5. Once the ‘improved’ human stock     began to exhibit stable signs of endurance and vigour Eckhardt would     introduce sample individuals into the population at large to ‘seed’ a     wider genetic pool. The development and improvement of such seeded     bloodlines would be closely monitored and selected individuals exhibiting     the qualities he sought would be reintroduced back into his more closely     controlled breeder communities. This would more rapidly enhance and     advance his genetic pool, his ‘…crucible for the flux of vitality and     transcendent celestial potential.’
  6. Generations on there would be extraordinary     individuals appearing in the world at large but it would be almost     impossible to keep track of every emergent exemplar. The Lux Veritatis     would be constantly on the look out to recruit families with outstanding     abilities or potential as warrior mystics.  They would watch and nurture any specials     and Kurtis’ family tree could be one of these promising branches, a     line traced back to one of these ‘lost’ Eckhardt breeder-batches.
  7. Lara too could easily be a     twentieth century product of a family line with roots deep in the dark days     of medieval genetic transmogrification. There would be a certain     cosmic irony there.
  8. The coming together of Lara and     Kurtis in Paris could have been chance or possibly the culmination of     circumstances manipulated from the shadows regions by an ancient agency of     a malignant and undying force. To be explored…!

NB Reference Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe where he creates a common point of origin, a bllodline, for such eternals as Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Nathanial Bumpo (Hawkeye of Last of the Mohicans), Dr Syn, Bulldog Drummond, Sherlock Holmes, The Spider, James Bond et al. Also Warren Ellis’ Planetary for reinterpreted & revitalised heroes of yore.

FURTHER TO THE FOLLOW ON GAME:

  1. Explore the bloodline of new     character Morgau Vasiley, daughter of the renegade LV Mathias     Vasiley as a part initiate into LV skills and know how. She will have gone     to the dark side and can go head to head with Kurtis wielding similar     weaponry and abilities in ding-dong smash ups! Yeah! Reference document on     alternate LV Chirugai-like weapons.
  2. See document on revised last     meeting between Lara, Kurtis and Karel at the end of AOD. As a kick     off for game II this is one of those, ‘Oh, so you think you know what     happened at the end of AOD huh! Well…get THIS!’ For a precedent, see how     the third Bourne film fits almost completely into the tiny gap between     Bourne’s leaving the rail station in Moscow and turning up in New York to     have it out with Jessica Landy.

Clearly this all needs more thinking about and some timelines drawing up but the depth it gives to both L and K promises many exciting & worthwhile story possibilities.

Tags: angel of darkness aod core design documents eckhardt gamedev kurtis kurtis trent lara croft murti schofield narrative the tomb raider unreleased