“Who is Karras, but the hand of The Builder? What the Builder wills, Karras does!”
Father Karras was the head of the Mechanist Order and the main antagonist in Thief II: The Metal Age. He was a brilliant inventor and sociopathic prophet who left the Hammerites due to extremist beliefs, namely that all organic life was flawed. He went on to found the Mechanist order.
Navigation
I. Overview
II. History
III. The Metal Age
IV. Defeat
Overview
Karras possessed a distaste for the conservative nature of the Hammerites and their slow technological progress. Though he suffered from a speech impediment, he was very charismatic and had many devoted followers.
History
Karras showed initiative during his time as a Hammerite where he rose to the rank of Master Forger. When a thief named Gibson attempted to steal Lord Bafford’s prized scepter, Karras offered Bafford an unknown ransom for him rather than letting him be turned over to the City Watch.
While it is unknown why he wanted Gibson, it is possible he used him as one of the early experiments for his Masked Servants.
When Garrett lost his eye to the Trickster, Karras was the one who designed the mechanical eye that replaced it.
The Metal Age
Karras planned to eliminate all organic life in the City, and to do so he offered the Nobility numerous gifts, namely his new Masked Servants. These servants were designed to be tireless and completely obedient.
In actuality they were vagabonds, beggars, and prostitutes converted into placid slaves using Mechanist biochemistry and strange masks salvaged from the ruins of Karath-Din.
Each servant was also secretly equipped with a canister of rust gas. This gas fed on organic matter, killing it and converting it into an inert red powder that resembles rust.
Although the gas dissipated under normal atmospheric conditions, the reaction also released more rust gas, allowing it to propagate if more organic matter was nearby.
The rust gas dispersed in the large gardens of the City’s Nobility would fuel a chain reaction that would destroy all organic life. Using this method, he planned to create a ‘Builder’s Paradise’ in adoration of his god.
Defeat
Karras distributed his servants and was nearly ready to carry out his plan when he was killed by his own creation. Viktoria and Garrett infiltrated Soulforge Cathedral and turned his inventions against him by re-configuring the beacons that controlled them.
Viktoria had also spread vines throughout the Cathedral’s many vents so that instead of releasing the gas on the hapless Nobility, it was released inside the cathedral. By the time Karras realized what was happening it was already too late.
In Thief: Deadly Shadows, a recording containing his last words can be found in the Wieldstrom Museum.
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