Caleb (computer game character)
Caleb is the protagonist of the computer games Blood and Blood II: The Chosen. He is created by Monolith Productions, which is also the creator behind the series. Stephan Weyte did the voice of Caleb for both games.
Background story
Caleb is considered, by many, as an anti-hero. One who does not care for those surrounding him, all except his own love interest, Ophelia.
This is his story.
In an age and a region renowned for cruelty and violence, Caleb was legendary. Born in 1847, western Texas, he had sealed a reputation, at the age of 17, as a merciless gunfighter. However seven years later when he met Ophelia Price, his hunger for bloodshed took on a menacing new timbre.
Ophelia was Caleb's doorway to the Cult and its dark purpose. He could not have known that in time he would come to love her, nor that their service to the Cult would find the two of them beloved among the Chosen, elite servants of the dreaming god Tchernobog, the One That Binds, Devourer of Souls.
In the Hall of the Epiphany, a temple that spans the chasm between the worlds, the four remaining Chosen stand at the forefront of a procession of worshippers. Tchernobog's presence is felt more than seen-the great, frigid weight of a hunger that spans millennia. He speaks in a cacophony of voices stolen from the dead, summoning the Chosen to the center of the sacrificial ring. They stand before the Dark God, united by a sudden, inexplicable sense of doom.
A wordless cry rises up from the seething shadows, one voice swallowed up by many until the hall resounds with them. The members of the procession behind the Chosen melt away in a gust of ethereal wind, extinguished like so many candle flames. There aren't even ashes to indicate they ever existed.
The Chosen look to one another in confusion and dread. They can already feel the ties that bind them to Tchernobog fraying. "Why? How have we failed you?", they ask with a trembling voice of fear.
But there is no answer other than the shattering scream that threatens to tear the universe to shreds. Darkness swells around them, swallows them. Their cold, abandoned souls fall through the abyss. They burn.
Caleb awakens in cold and damp in a body he no longer knows. It has long lain as a corpse that refused to rot, protected from putrefaction by some unearthly link to its master. The pain of protesting muscle and flesh invigorates and awakens him. He welcomes it. It distills his hate into the maelstrom raging in the center of his mind.
An agonizing cry breaks out of him, shattering the stone lid of the tomb in which he lies, knocking loose sediment, cobwebs, and the small, unnoticed creatures that have shared his grave with him. A single word rings out through the darkness, echoing Tchernobog's lingering howl: "Why?"
Now, in 1928, an unspecified number of years after he and his fellow Chosen were cast down (the date of which that happened has never been stated, it is presumably a number of years after he joined the Cabal in 1871, as the Chosen are the most esteemed generals of Tchernobog's army) Caleb goes on a rampage, slaughtering hundreds of Cabal loyalists, human and not so human, in his search for vengeance fuelled by unrelenting bloodlust. He confronts Cheogh, the stone made leader of the gargoyles, after discovering Ophelia crucified at the Alter of Stone. After the battle, he cremates Ophelia, and blows Cheogh's brains out with his sawed-off shotgun. He then proceeds to the frozen north of America (probably Alaska) to find Shial, the spider queen, who executed Gabriel. After he squashed her, he untangles the cocoon and drinks Gabriel's blood in order to gain his power, as with a lot of his other victims. The third episode leads him to Cerberus, the legendary Guardian of Hell. When both heads are blown off, Caleb decides to blow the rest of him up with it. Finally, Caleb makes the journey to the Hall of Epiphany for the showdown with his former God. When Tchernobog's 16th incarnation is brought down by Caleb, the power is suddenly bestowed unto him, effectively making him the 17th incarnation. Only then does he find out that is the reason Tchernobog cast down his Chosen ones. He sought the power Caleb would bring back with him after slaughtering countless Cabal servants. Too bad Caleb won the final battle. After gunning down one last prisoner rambling on about Christianity, Caleb strolls out back into our world.
For the next century, Caleb wanders the earth looking for a way to resurrect his fallen comrades, the Chosen. However, in 2028 the Cabal's new leader, Gideon, seeks out to destroy Caleb, dubbed The Great Betrayer, and become Tchernobog's 17th incarnation instead. A position he believes is rightfully his, and Caleb does not deserve. However, being the undead demigod and unstoppable killing machine Caleb is, Gideon, and most of his Cabal army, is defeated. However, this is not the end. It turns out that the reason the dimensions have collided (bringing the other Chosen along with them, plus some not too friendly creatures) is The Ancient One (not to be confused with Tchernobog). Caleb doesn't know what it is exactly, but blasts it into oblivion anyway. The order of the universe is apparently restored, and the four Chosen, united for the first time in about 150 years, walk away from the closing rift.
But, more bloodshed lies ahead, and not just for Caleb this time. Whilst camping in the wasteland between realms, each of the Chosen are pulled into the Nightmare's Realm, and subjected to reenact their worst nightmares (Caleb's time in his frozen grave, Ophelia's sorority days, Ishmael's stint as a circus freak, and Gabriella's night in a haunted mansion). Once the four Chosen's nightmares are defeated, the nightmare itself is defeated. The nightmare itself resembling a giant black warthog.
Once the Chosen are eventually back in our world, their fate is unknown. It is presumed that they took over the Cabal, Caleb was hailed as the 17th incarnation of Tchernobog, the Chosen were reinstated as the grand rulers, and Caleb, Tchernobog, the Chosen and the rest of the Cabal dominated the world.
Catchphrases
A few of Caleb's one-liners.
- "Hehe, let's boogey, boogeyman!" - During the second confrontation with Gideon.
- "Life's not fair, but neither is death. Get used to it." - After defeating Gideon.
- "Eugh! And I thought I was ugly!"
- "Time to start piling up the bodies!" - After activating God mode.
- "Well, that's one way to open somebody up, but not nearly as quick or fun as my method! Hehehehehe!" - After observing a dissected corpse.
- "Point away from face and fire, sounds easy enough!"
- "Looks like there's killing to do..." - At the beginning of the game.
- "Mmmm, grape flavour! My favourite!" - After discovering cabalco's meat flavouring room.
- "Mmmm, I've been dreaming of you all tied up like that!" - After seeing Ophelia tied up in Gideon's temple.
- "Better than kool - Aid..."