Rayne (Bloodrayne)
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Rayne (sometimes, though quite rarely, referred to as "Agent BloodRayne") is the protagonist of the BloodRayne franchise.
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[edit] History
Rayne is a bloodthirsty American Dhampir, born c.1915-1916 after her mother was raped by her vampire father, Kagan. Kagan later murdered her mother's entire family so that the only family member Rayne could turn to is him. This wasn't cruelty, but a policy for all of the Dhampir he "created", possibly so that humans wouldn't revolt and use the Vampire/Dhampir weakness of the sun, holy items and water against them.
Circa 1932, she spent her teenage years trying to hunt down and kill her father, to get revenge for her family. It was a search that led her to Europe, where she committed a series of murders along the way before being apprehended. Claiming that her victims had been vampires, she was disbelieved by the authorities, but quickly managed to escape from them and continue her hunt.
She was recruited into the mysterious Brimstone Society via an invitation. The Brimstone Society sent her on missions to eliminate supernatural threats to the world. One of these missions required her to use her vampiric powers against the Nazis, who were on the verge of using magical artifacts to bring Hitler to power. Rayne also learned of a plan to use demonic parasites called Daemites against the enemies of the Nazis, after they had been tested on prisoners. The background to the story is influenced by the existence of various historically real Nazi occult groups such as the Thule society.
Most of Rayne's family are evil, however there is evidence she may have had a half sister who was also either a Dhampir or a Vampire, but good. In the opening cutscene in the first game, Mynce mentions Rayne being just as impatient as her half sister. In the second game, in the flashback that shows Kegan breaking into Brimstone's HQs looking for the Vespar Shard, he mentions Prof. Trumane having yet stolen another one offspring of his, and raising it as his own. However, this probably could be a reference to the previous Terminal Reality game Nocturne character Svetlana Lupescu, who is a dhampir and have a story similar to Rayne, except that Svetlana never learned the identity of her father. This is either an in-joke for the game designers or has relevance to the story. This can't be confirmed until there is a a third game.
[edit] Playboy appearance
Rayne is the first videogame character that appeared in the Playboy Magazine, in the October 2004 U.S. edition as part of an article entitled Gaming Grows Up. She has also made appearance in MTV in which a music video portrayed her performing Evanescence's song "Everybody's Fool". In the music video, Rayne swayed and sung as various enemies from the game were shown playing the instruments.
[edit] Abilities and Weapons
In the video games, Rayne is highly athletic and versatile, thanks to her Dhampir nature as well as a lifetime of training. In addition to her ability to jump more than 20 feet into the air, she can also fire one gun in each hand at different targets (and is strong enough to dual-wield assault rifles one-handed), use her "Aura Vision", which is a type of vampiric sensitivity to detect mission-specific targets enemies and their strength, and pull her foes towards her using a wrist-mounted harpoon (given to her by Mynce) in order to feed on their blood, though she is also able to jump on enemies close-range, and then feed on them with her legs wrapped around the enemy. She can also heighten her reaction time using "Dilated Perception" which is slowing down time, by information going though her mind so fast that everything appears slow. She has one final ability dubbed "Extruded View", which allows her to zoom in on distant targets with her eyes like a sniper scope. Aside from the guns she would pick up from fallen enemies, she wears swiveling blades mounted on her forearms and metal stilettos on her boots.
In Bloodrayne 2 Rayne's athletic abilities were severely cut. In Bloodrayne Rayne could jump more than 20 feet into the air, and ran unnaturally fast compared to her enemies; in Bloodrayne 2 she could only jump moderately higher than the enemies who were either the same speed as her, faster than her. Some of generic enemies were even faster than Rayne. The reason for this maybe to make the game more challenging, and more realistic, or perhaps because she is fighting Dhampirs, turned-Vampires and full-blood vampires.
In the Bloodrayne 2 storyline, Rayne acquires two replacement range weapons, the Carpathian Dragons. These are weapons that fuse blood with chemicals in order to make lethal projectiles. They gain their blood-ammunition supply by draining it from Rayne's victims and storing the blood in their reservoirs or when empty, drawing it directly from Rayne herself. They can only be used by Dhampirs, though it isn't explained how or why, and have numerous lethal upgrades from their base Blood Shot (single shot) firing mode, including Blood Stream (fully automatic fire), Blood Spray (shotgun fletchette like shot), Blood Bomb (a time-delayed explosive round), Blood Flame (bursts of fiery material) and Blood Hammer (high-explosive, analogous to 40mm grenade rounds).
[edit] Weakness
While Rayne has Vampire-like strength, durability and reflexes, she also shares at least some of their weaknesses on a lesser scale. For example, standing in water burns her, causing her gradual damage, while it immediately incinerates full-blooded vampires. On the other hand, she seems unaffected by holy items. While sunlight inflicts damage roughly the same as exposure to water, it also will not instantly kill her as it would full-blood Vampires.
[edit] Rayne's Physical Appearance
Rayne's character design is highly sexual in nature. Her outfit in BloodRayne is a revealing, formfitting black and red leather corset-like top and skin-tight black, red striped leatherpants, which are also her boots. Her primary costume in BloodRayne 2 is an updated variation of her original outfit, though shinier, similar to vinyl, but she also wears a variety of different, very revealing costumes. In both of the games she is always seen in 6+ inch metal stiletto heels, which also add greatly to the sexual factor of Bloodrayne.
Rayne's physical appearance went through a serious renovation from Bloodrayne, to Bloodrayne 2. Her body is now more proportioned, and looks more realistic overall.
[edit] Profile
- Race: Dhampir (Born of a Vampire father and a Human mother)
- Age: Unknown. She was a young adult in Bloodrayne set in 1933, and 1938. However, while Bloodrayne 2 is set in the 2000s, Rayne's physical appearance is like that of someone who is around 21.
- Eye color: Green. Seen as red while in blood rage and 1 eye red as it being Beliar's eye. Both are only seen in Bloodrayne. It is unknown why she doesn't have Beliar's eye in Bloodrayne 2.
- Hair color: Bright red
- Skin Color: A variation on classic 'pale beauty'. She has pale skin, due to not being able to withstand sunlight, i.e., not being able to have a tan, though her skin in darker in Bloodrayne 2.
- Blood type: unknown, probably none due to her lust for blood, as she feeds on others.
- Weapons: Dual blades in both games, small guns, medium sized guns, large guns, grenades, grenade launchers, and rocket propelled missile launchers in Bloodrayne, harpoon in both games, Carpathian Dragons pistols in the sequel, stiletto heels (used only in certain attack combos, not player controllable) in both games.
- Powers: Both games: Dilated perception, Aura Vision, Blood Rage. Bloodrayne 2:
- Height: 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m); 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) in her heels
- Measurements: 36-22-36
- Hobbies: Hunting Nazis, arcane occult rituals, martial arts
- Favorite food: Blood sausage
- Turn-on's: Men in uniform, big blades, leather, bite marks, stiletto heels
- Turn-off's: Sunlight, hairy backs
[edit] Voice Actress
- Rayne is played by Laura Bailey, a Texas-based voice actress primarily employed by Funimation Studios.
[edit] Trivia
- Rayne may have been inspired by the character of Durham Red from the comic book 2000 AD. In the comic, Durham Red is a vampire mutant with red hair and a tendency to wear skin-tight black leather outfits.
- She is portrayed by the actress Kristanna Loken in the movie Bloodrayne. In the sequel, BloodRayne II: Deliverance, that is waited for sometime in 2008 or end of 2007, she will be replaced by the actress Natassia Malthe.
- Bloodrayne is an unlockable character in the PSP game Infected.
- Rayne is the first videogame character ever to pose for Playboy magazine.
