Before Lord Kain's rule, Nosgoth was a very unwelcome place for vampires. 5,ooo years before his birth, events occurred which led to the change of the world forever.

The Pillars of Nosgoth held the life force of the world.  The Circle of Nine, or the Protectors of Hope as they were sometimes called (by humans, anyway)  were the guardians of these Pillars-- "protectorates of the strange power that gives life to the land".  Each of the Pillars controlled a specific power.   Each guardian was connected to the Pillar they served, and were the living embodiments of the power they represented. A Pillar would also reflect the condition of it's guardian.   If a guardian were to be weakened, the Pillar they are tied to would begin to crumble, and the balance of the world would be disturbed.

The number of vampires grew to such a number that it caught the attention of the Circle, and thus the Sarafan was created.  Trained to be devoutly loyal to the Circle of Nine, the Sarafan was led by Malek, fanatical warrior-priest.  Their mission-- to rid the world of the "undead scourge".  Thousands of vampires were relentlessly hunted down and were impaled on large wooden pikes.  They were left there to die slow, painful deaths-- all because the Circle thought it to be 'righteous'.  Disgusting.  These victim's only crime was the fact that they simply existed.  The Sarafan called these massacres "the Vampire Purges".

A powerful, ancient vampire named Vorador tried to put an end to this madness.  The Sarafan's 'purges' had murdered everyone that he cared for: his friends, his lovers, his children, everyone.  Proud, noble, wise and courageous, Vorador fought valiantly for his kind.  He succeeded in killing four of the guardians and defeated the Circle's "pathetic little shepherd Malek".  But that was not enough.  Vorador was forced into hiding and was lost to the world of Nosgoth.

Feuding within the Circle led to the murder of Ariel, the guardian of the Pillar of Balance.  Her lover was Nupraptor, guardian of the Pillar of the Mind. He was so devastated and enraged by her murder that he went insane. For vengeance, he used his powers to attack the other guardians' minds, thereby infecting them with his own madness. The Circle dispersed. Each guardian went to a different location of Nosgoth where they began to attack the world they had once been assigned to protect.  Now they were reffered to as the "Destroyers of Hope".