The Seraphic War

The First War Between Nulgath and Dage

Earlier in the war against Chaos, Dage had built the Undead Legion into an army capable of challenging his former master Nulgath for the Underworld. You could support either side or work between them as a mercenary.

Rogath recruits for Dage while Klunk and Dilligas demand service to Nulgath. Among the Legion's agents is the Stranger, who calls himself Laken and claims to have traveled back in time using a machine he invented. For now, he gathers souls for Dage's hidden preparations.

The Legion wins the first campaign, but Nulgath's Nation wins the second and the final war race. Neither commander tolerates hesitation: Dage violently punishes a soldier's joke, and Nulgath destroys a recruit who loses his nerve.

At the Oblivion Gate, Laken oversees its magical realignment into the Legion's colors, then orders Dage's forces through before Nulgath is ready. Their retreat is a trap: a soul-bond gives Dage temporary control of the gate, and he presents the Legion as an extension of his own power before driving Nulgath through the portal and claiming the Underworld. Nulgath survives in another realm, despite Rogath's boast that he will never return. Klunk tells the Nation their master now rules Oversoul and urges them to await him.

Dage and the Underworld

On Fotia, a volcano threatens the Femme Fatalities and the Frozen Flame they worship. Their leader, Amia, says the relic shelters a queen whom Dage abandoned in his pursuit of power. Heartbreak shattered her body and mind, leaving a fiery soul that enclosed itself in ice against another betrayal. Her followers brought that effigy to Fotia, trusting it to protect their island. You help restore its strength, but offerings and ancient staves of Fire and Ice do not quiet the mountain. Even an offering of Nulgath's favor, invoking his shared hatred of Dage, leaves the worshipers with little beyond faith.

The Frozen Flame then speaks to you directly, claiming it can save Fotia if you sacrifice it in the volcano. Amia begs you not to destroy it, but you throw it into the lava before she can explain. The eruption turns to ice, covering Fotia in snow and frost. You congratulate yourself on a rescue while Amia murmurs a warning about the woman Scorn. Beneath the ice, a red soul breaks free. It reaches Dage at his Soul Forge, where a voice announces its freedom and that it has found him again.

You follow the escaped soul into the Underworld, guided by Aeneas or Sibyl. Helping the souls awaiting judgment earns you a Golden Bough, which opens the chambers of the nine Guilty Joys. These monstrous embodiments of suffering must be overcome before you can pass the Elm of False Hopes and reach the River Acheron. Your guide warns you not to trust the peaceful tree's fabricated dreams.

Charon offers passage through waters haunted by Sullen and Wrathful Souls, insisting that you remain aboard if you want to live. His boat crashes anyway. When you manage to stay aboard through another collision, the ferryman shoves you off himself, leaving you to fight your way back. Your complaint that this is not cool earns a joke about the Underworld's heat. Beyond the souls condemned to drowning or endless fighting, the Styx Hydra supplies another unwelcome greeting. Defeating it brings you to the riverbank, where Dage's three-headed guard dog, Cerberus, must be overcome before Charon leaves you at the Palace approach.

Scorn has passed ahead through the Field of Asphodels and the Vale of Mourning, spreading her refrain among the women there. The fields hold souls who are neither Good nor Evil, while the Vale confines those consumed by unhappy love. With your guide's help, you bring white Asphodel Flowers to the mourners you defeat, allowing them to be reborn into the happier fields. Beyond the Vale, the Dishonorable Judges await: Rhadamanthys weighs your conduct as a hero or villain, Minos your adherence to Legion standards, and Aeacus your allegiance to Dage.

All three approve, but the Palace portal still refuses you. Aeacus explains that their judgment cannot overrule Dage, who must review their reports before admitting a mortal. The process could take another eternity. He adjourns the court over your protests, leaving your guide furious at the obstruction. Later, Dage's Dark Seal grants you permission to approach him, but Scorn has already reached the Palace. Your guide warns that she has turned its inhabitants against their master, making the Seal's bearer a target for the enchanted guards.

Dage and the Future Legion

Dage tests your strength in an arena guarded by the Horsemen of the Undead Apocalypse. After you defeat Conquest, War, Famine and Death, he explains the purpose of the challenge: he needs someone strong enough to enter a realm closed to him. Nulgath imprisoned part of his soul deep in the Underworld, while the other half animates his armor. Dage promises anything for its return, convinced that reunion would make him unstoppable.

After the Infernal Army moves away from Swordhaven, you and Dage discuss Victoria's search for Darkovia's survivors outside Shadowfall. A visitor from the year 3017 interrupts with a warning of what Dage's ambition could become. You recognize Laken, but Dage distinguishes this traveler from the Laken who came into your past and later joined the Seraphic Order. This one remained in his own timeline as Dage's lieutenant. You and Dage follow him to the ruins of Oaklore. Laken says he helped recover Dage's soul and defeat Nulgath, only to watch his master conquer the rest of Lore and gather the souls of the living. The Legion Dreadnaught overhead can carry that conquest into other worlds and timelines.

To reach the ship, you defeat four Legion commanders and take their souls so Dage can activate its teleporter. Aboard the Dreadnaught, you damage its fuel cells and break through its defenses to the SF3017 Shogun, Future Dage's second-in-command. You defeat his Legionator, whose soul strengthens present-day Dage, but the Shogun retreats behind an army. The confrontation becomes a war between the two Legions, with the Shogun offering you a place beside the future conqueror and Dage seeking the strength to oppose him.

The two Legions compete for your support, but the war ends with present-day Dage victorious. The Shogun retreats, leaving you to confront Future Dage in the engine room alongside his younger self. Future Dage insists that destroying Nulgath was always meant to make room for another tyrant. Dage rejects that purpose: freedom from the master who enslaved him and stole his soul is enough. Unable to kill his future self, he binds that soul into its own sword and entrusts it to this future's Laken.

Laken offers to lead the freed Future Legion without continuing its terror, allowing its members to choose for themselves. Back at the SoulForge, you wonder whether Dage now has enough strength to defeat Nulgath. He has considered it, but remembers what victory did to his other self. He resolves to preserve a balance between life and death, keeping the Underworld as his domain while leaving Lore to the living.

Dage's Soul and the Void Vault

After seeing a future in which his conquest destroys Lore, Dage seeks to sever Nulgath's hold by recovering his soul and contract, while leaving the Underworld and the Void separate.

With Nulgath absent, Dage opens a route into the Void and binds a guide called Zep, whose eagerness to help comes from compulsion rather than loyalty. You follow its hidden paths toward Nulgath's vault of souls.

After defeating the Void Wyrm guarding the vault and obtaining its key, you find the souls inside in no convenient order. You search until Dage recognizes the one that feels like his own, leaving him to decide whether to reunite his divided soul.

Remembering his destructive future, Dage binds the recovered half into his sword instead. Zep then leads you to the contract, only to trap you and reveal himself as Zeph'gorog, the vault's guardian. You escape and defeat him. Dage spares Zeph'gorog's life, sealing his soul inside the guardian's own mask. Back at the Forge, Dage says the cursed Dark Shard remains a conduit for Nulgath's control.

The Legion Infiltrators in the Seraphic Order

The Seraphic conflict begins earlier, when Darkon asks you to investigate why his Order has failed to oppose the undead. He wants you to pose as a recruit, with the trusted knight Thomas sponsoring you. Unknown to the investigators, Dage has anticipated the plan and told Envy to ensure that you find interesting information.

Thomas's hatred of the Legion comes from its attack on his family's village, where his father died defending it. With his help, you question recruits and inspect altered scrolls and Legion sigils. Your investigation provokes accusations that you are a spy, but also leads toward the corruption Darkon suspected.

Darkon confronts Grand Master Adventus over his dealings with Dage, accusing him of seeking personal glory while Adventus insists he acted for the Order, whatever the cost. When his supporters remove their helmets to reveal Legion infiltrators, Darkon calls on the loyal Seraphs to drive them out.

As you approach Adventus, an infiltrator attacks Thomas from behind and your warning comes too late. Darkon later confirms his death. You defeat Adventus and he is discharged, but he escapes into the woods, where Laken intercepts him.

Laken and the Dark Shard

Darkon introduces the Seraphic Order's Laken as its new Grand Master. This is the traveler who came into your past, not the lieutenant you met in 3017. He explains that leaving his role as Dage's second-in-command forced him into hiding until the restored Order was strong enough for him to emerge. He came from the future to help Dage against Nulgath, but can no longer return to the timeline his actions changed. Offering you Dage's secrets, he introduces J6 as his bodyguard.

The Order next pursues the Dark Shard, a fragment of Dage's soul. Envy captures Darkon and tries to use it to replace Dage. Darkon takes a blow meant for Ada, but Envy still claims that her bond to Dage makes her immortal. J6 arrives with a weapon that severs her borrowed power and makes her mortal. He sends you and Ada away with the Shard, then stays beside the fallen Darkon. At Darkon's request, he agrees to Protocol 6. A red light appears on Darkon's chest before the castle explodes. Laken later recounts rescuing Ada from her father's experiments in the future and choosing to bring her into the past despite an Oracle's warning.

Laken claims the Seraphs are turning the Shard into a weapon against Dage, but at the World's Soul he reveals the deception: he has been working for Dage, using the Order's power of Good to remove Nulgath's curse from the fragment. He expects Dage to consume the World's Soul and conquer Lore, only for his master to refuse. Having decided that the Underworld must preserve life's balance and leave Lore to the living, Dage will not follow the plan, and Laken turns against him to declare a Blood Legion.

Siege of the Underworld

Wounded by Ada as she defends Laken, Dage tells you that two souls share Laken's body and that the stress of the confrontation has destabilized them, unraveling his sanity. Although both sides agree that Laken must be stopped, they cannot agree on whether he can be saved.

Caelgar recruits you to protect Dage and bring Laken down. J6 supports Ada's attempt to hold the Legion back long enough to rescue him. Whichever side you choose, you fight your way toward Supercharged Laken.

Ada wants Laken incapacitated so she can stitch his souls together and take him away. She admits that she might be wrong and that protecting him could endanger Lore, but he is her only family. J6 supports the effort as his hired bodyguard without claiming to know whether the repair will work.

Laken's Defeat

Laken intends to take the World's Soul's power through the device prepared for Dage and rule in his place, but Dage attacks his Supercharged form and brings him down. As Ada rushes to Laken, Dage takes the Dark Shard and declares himself bound to no one, calling it the last fragment of his soul and the last of Nulgath's hold over him. The Seraphs' work has removed the curse that the Legion's power alone could not break.

Ada wants to take Laken back to the Order for healing, but he can feel himself fraying and believes too much is already gone. Instead, he asks her to remember her training and strike true. She cannot bear the request until he tells her that he raised her to be strong and that he, or they, are proud of her. When she brings down her scythe, his soul leaves his body, divides into two, and disappears.

Dage tells Ada he is sorry, but she blames him and promises vengeance. If you fought for the Legion, she accuses you of betraying a trusted friend too. Later, she questions her own part in the war after attacking Dage.

In the alternate ending, 'What If Laken Had Won?', Ada gives her own soul to replace the one he lost and save him.