Cain
Cain (or Caine, or Kaine, or...pretty much anything else that's not used to refer to a walking stick) is a popular name for a BBEG because anyone who is a Jew, Christian, or Muslim or at least raised in a Jewish/Christian/Muslim culture will know the story of Cain and Abel. The original Jewish names are usually pronounced "Qayin" and "Havel," and Muslims call them Qabil and Habil, in case you want your BBEG to be a little less obvious.
Cain and Abel were brothers, the first children of Adam and Eve after they were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Cain (the elder and first child) was a gardener, Abel (the younger) a shepherd. They both gathered their harvests to make a sacrifice to the one-and-only God: Cain offered the best of his crops, Abel offered the best of his herd animals. God gave Abel a four-star review in Zaggat's, but Cain's offering didn't even get a writeup in Weekly Sun. In a fit of jealousy over God not favoring his sacrifice, even after God explained to Cain what he should do, Cain invents murder by dis-abling his brother. God is VERY annoyed, tells Cain he's cursed to render the soil barren and lifeless around him, and he's to fuck off and never return. Cain complains this is too much, and whoever finds him out there is gonna do unto him what he did unto Abel. So God marks Cain in such a way that everyone will know messing with Cain will mean God will come around and do even worse to them. So Cain fucks off to the land of Nod and settles down with his wife there, while his parents mourn the loss of Abel and eventually have a third son named Seth. This story is where you get the quote "Am I my brother's keeper?" because God comes around after the murder and asks Cain where Abel is, allowing Cain the opportunity to further compound his crime by trying to lie to God Himself about it. Cain then gets murdered several pages later, but don't expect this to stop writers from having Cain still be walking the earth to this day.
Basically the symbolism of nomadic-to-agrarian bullshit as well as the further decline of man's nature due to sin, but being humans, we made videogames out of that.
Used in Games
- White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade uses the legend of Caine as the origin of their vampires; God's banishment from his presence meant banishment from daylight, and the curse of no more farming meant no more eating normal food, instead needing to re-create that first murder to sustain himself.
- Warhammer 40,000 novels have "COMMISSAR CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!" who is the very
worstbest Commissar ever. - Warhammer 40K also has the Eldar god of war Khaela Mensha Khaine. In Warhammer Fantasy, Khaine is the god of murder.
- To add to the 40K, we also have Kain, hero in Retribution's Chaos campaign whose main traits are being good at shutting up and being useful for popping tanks.
- Kane, leader of the Brotherhood of Nod in the Command & Conquer series. While he is not really ever explicitly said to be the same individual from the namesake story, so many clues things starting with the MANUAL from the very first game help. Like for example, how many people's Interpol files are called #GEN 4:16? Last game reveals he was a stranded alien who killed his brother and guided humanity towards enlightenment to get back to space. Sorta Horus/God Emperor/Antichrist hybrid going on there.
- Kain from the Legacy of Kain games - A pretty cool guy and the definition of a real sophisticated vampire.
