Finally finished this piece. I started it back in 2012 and finished most of it then, but then things got in the way, then I moved on to other projects, other endeavors, and I wasn't able to get back to it. I dusted it off and worked a little more on it a few years ago, but now I was determined to finish it. Probably the last painting I started by drawing such detailed line work first and then keeping some of it in the painting.

I wanted to tackle the Ancient and Hylden war within the Legacy of Kain games that we get the history on but never get to experience. The history often comes through murals in the games, so I took those as inspiration and made one big mural of the history with all of the events as one, but told in a more nutral way. The raising of the Pillars to banish the Hylden while they cursed the Ancients with the blood thirst on their way out. Added in the dragons as a possible look for the skeleton of one seen in Blood Omen 1. I figure the Hylden domesticate the demons once they are banished, so maybe they were already used to taming monstrous and powerful animals. The right side of the painting it the Hylden's return into Nosgoth thousands of years later, setting up the events of Blood Omen 2. Back when I started this, it wasn't certain whether the concept art for the Hylden King was the Hylden Lord, so I used it as his look before he was banished with the rest and deformed by the Demon Realm. It still works, as the Hylden's leader of the past oversees their last stand, and the Hylden Lord, his successor, sees their return for revenge. I added a bit of texture to it as if this were one of the murals from the games.