SPOILERS MOVING FORWARD! I’ll be discussing reveals in both Blood and Blood II: The Chosen here, as there’s not much to say about the characters without delving into the plot, and much of the characterisation of Caleb’s fellow Chosen is not touched upon until Blood II (for better or for worse). Blood doesn’t have much story, as is expected from first-person shooters of the era (with the exception of Marathon), and most of the world-building and lore instead comes from the manuals and official websites for both Blood 1 and Blood II, but for anyone here that wants to learn about these sadistic pricks first-hand, you may want to jump out. In spite of the limited screentime they get, I find this cast genuinely interesting and love the small bits of characterisation we get from them. In addition, a shout-out once again to the Blood Wiki, which helped out immensely with its extensive documentation of the aforementioned lore and world building.

Caleb

The leader of the Chosen, the highest ranking member of the Cabal, the cult that worships Tchernobog, the Dreaming God and Devourer of Souls. Caleb was a notoriously sadistic gunslinger in the old west, already feared by age 17. A chance meeting of Ophelia, a Cabal cultist, led to him being inducted into Tchernobog’s cult, where he fell in love with Ophelia and worked his way up the ranks until he and Ophelia were side-by-side as two of the four Chosen. With his ties to Tchernobog came power and near immortality, only for that to be taken from him and his fellow Chosen in an instant with no explanation, when Tchernobog summoned the four to announce that he disavows them all. Caleb was killed on the spot and buried in a grave, but what with that aforementioned semi-immortality, all that really achieved was making him angrier. Rising from his grave, betrayed by his master, he returned to this mortal plane with only one objective: Son-of-a-bitch must pay.

I love Caleb, full stop. There isn’t a FPS protagonist out there I love more than this pyromaniac, sadistic asshole undead cowboy. He laughs maniacally when he sees explosions. He’s a level of bloodthirsty that borders on fetishistic. He repeatedly references movies that didn’t even exist in the time period the game is set in. He sings showtunes to himself when he’s bored. His diet primarily consists of still-beating human hearts. Everything about Caleb is absurd and over-the-top, and in spite of it all, he manages to make it cool. A huge contributor in this regard is Stephan Weyte’s superb vocal performance in delivering all of Caleb’s dialogue, perfectly conveying that sinister, yet sarcastic tone. Weyte can speak total nonsense in the Caleb voice and still sell you on it being the most badass thing ever because his delivery is just that damn good. He also voiced Captain Claw in Monolith’s other excellent 1997 PC game, Claw. As it turns out there’s a lot of overlap in voice direction for pirate kitty cats and undead cowboys. I kinda headcanon Claw as Caleb’s fursona.

Needless to say, Caleb doesn’t exactly “care” about much. Morality and ethics just get in the way of bloodshed. He has no qualms about killing innocents if he needs a fresh heart to consume for a strength boost, nor does he care if they’re caught in the crossfire. He’s a hedonistic character, apparently spending the majority of the time between Blood and Blood II drinking alcohol and getting in bar fights over the kinds of morally bankrupt women who are into that. After all, it’s Caleb, so I refuse to believe that anyone he brawls in a bar fight leaves with their spinal cord in-tact. In spite of his self-serving, irreverent nature, he does deeply care about his fellow Chosen. His love for Ophelia is genuine, and he even directly refers to Gabriella as a friend. He was also faithful to Tchernobog prior to his betrayal, and shows a surprising amount of hurt over being backstabbed by him like this, to the extent that when Caleb finally meets with Tchernobog again prior to their final fight, he drops the quips entirely to sincerely ask why he was cast aside like this.

Oh also, Blood’s cutscenes are adorably awful. Stephan Weyte is really doing some heavy lifting here with the voice acting, because the low-quality CG FMVs are laughable. That bit in the intro where Caleb’s hat falls off and he’s shown to be bald? Caleb has hair, the animators were just left so out of the loop on the character design notes that his hair wasn’t added to his 3D model. That’s the most glaring oversight, but then you notice that the animators also forgot to give Caleb ears. Also his eyes look like red jelly beans. It’s okay, the superb pixel-art in-game makes up for this.

Ophelia Price

Ophelia was found by Caleb in the razed ruins of her homestead, driven mad by what had unfolded. Her husband had attempted to abandon the Cabal, which led to the cult burning his house to the ground, resulting in the death of both Ophelia’s husband and her son. What enraged her the most however was not the slaughter of her family, but her husband’s unfaithfulness to Tchernobog which she considered cowardice, to the extent that she directly blamed her husband for the death of her child. She's not a good person, but she's also clearly an emotional abuse victim who needs help. Whether or not Caleb genuinely helped Ophelia through that episode or just further enabled her is ambiguous. Either way, Caleb’s interest was piqued by Ophelia's story, and thus she introduced him to the Cabal, where their relationship blossomed.

Following Tchernobog’s disavowment of the Chosen, Ophelia was taken from Caleb’s arms by Cheogh the stone gargoyle. By the time Caleb finds her, it’s already too late, as she’s been executed by crucifixion to a stone slab by Cheogh, driving Caleb to genuine despair, heartbreak and enragement. Once Cheogh is killed and Ophelia is avenged, Caleb takes her body and gives her a funeral pyre, softly whispering “Sleep, Ophelia” to his beloved as a final message.

The deaths of Caleb’s fellow Chosen stuck a bit longer than Caleb’s did (and there’s a reason for that we’ll get into later), but ultimately they did all return, being summoned back into the mortal plane by mishaps with the singularity generator in Blood II (an experimental reality-warping weapon developed by CabalCo in 2028), giving us a chance to learn more about these characters. Unfortunately, Ophelia got done a bit dirty in Blood II. Obviously, Caleb and Ophelia’s dynamic was never the healthiest, given all of the indoctrination and such, but rather than exploring that in an interesting way the Blood II manual instead just claims that Ophelia actually hates Caleb and the relationship Caleb thought he had with her was an illusion. In-game, she doesn’t show any such hatred, so it’s uncertain as to if that was a scrapped or unfinished plot thread that was meant to amount to something more (of which there are plenty of examples of in Blood II, thanks to the game’s rushed development). But hey, we do have the Blood II expansion, The Nightmare Levels, which tells us more about the backstories of the Chosen through levels set in flashbacks starring them! In which we learn, um, that Ophelia apparently was staying in a modern sorority house during her college years? Like, Ophelia, the lady that was already married and had a child by the time Caleb met her in 1871, that Ophelia, apparently prior to even joining the cult, had somehow stayed in a sorority house that has modern furniture, washing machines, electric lighting and computers? Man, screw this. I’d just disregard Blood II’s lore contributions if not for the next character, I swear.

Gabriella

Blood has a trans woman in it. 10/10 best 90s FPS. Happy pride month, everybody!

Pre-transition Gabriella (known as Gabriel in this game) shows up in the intro of Blood, where following Tchernobog’s betrayal, she is snatched up by Shial, the mother spider. What does Gabriella look like in Blood 1? Well, uh, she’s depicted as bald, which based on what we learnt about Caleb likely means that she actually has a full head of hair, but rendering that was too advanced for Monolith Productions in the 90s. Much like Ophelia, by the time Caleb reaches Gabriella it’s already too late, with her corpse being strung up in a webbed cocoon for feeding. Once Shial is killed, Caleb apologises to Gabriella’s body before tearing the heart from her chest and consuming it to gain her power for the ongoing fight.

Once Gabriella is resurrected by the singularity generator in Blood II, she is brought back to the mortal plane in a female body. Her only explanation as to why she’s a woman now is “It’s a long story,” and you know what, good job Monolith. For all the fault of Blood II you absolutely nailed something here because that is the most trans thing I have heard in my life. Yeah, transitioning is a long story with a lot of hardships that most trans people probably aren’t going to be ready to exposition dump at the drop of a hat. She’s depicted as dark-skinned and long-haired from here on, as opposed to the blank slate model from the first game.

Now, let us ask the big question that has to be asked any time a protagonist in 90s media is faced with the reality that trans people exist; Is Caleb transphobic? Uhhhh, less transphobic and more transapathetic I guess. His only response to “It’s a long story” is “Save it for someone who cares”, which okay, a little rude for an introduction to a close friend you thought you’d never see again, but he’s also not arguing that she isn’t a woman. He also calls Gabriella “Gabriel” in the Nightmare Levels expansion, to which Gabriella corrects him and he responds with an apathetic “whatever”, which is the worst he does. Overall though, possibly by accident, I actually think this is one of the stronger examples of a trans character in 90s media just because of how little of a big deal it’s made out to be. You don’t have over-the-top melodramatic reveals and shock and horror, nor any of the usual standard transphobic jokes of people vomiting at the sight of a trans woman that you get in every bad comedy from the 90s, she’s just Gabriella now and everything carries on. That kinda rules. She’s easily my favourite of the Chosen aside from Caleb himself.

In the Nightmare Levels, Gabriella has a flashback to a time that she was in a spooky mansion. What follows is a level where she is in a spooky mansion. Nothing interesting happens. The end. According to the official Blood II website, there actually is further lore regarding Gabriella’s backstory, with her having been groomed to be a bloodthirsty warrior since birth, but that isn’t touched upon in-game as far as I can tell.

Ishmael

If you thought Gabriella got a raw deal in Blood 1 with how little screen time or characterisation she got before dying, Ishmael is only seen briefly from behind and then as a smoldering corpse. He’s never even mentioned by name throughout the entire game. If not for a passing comment mentioning his name in the manual, we would have no idea who Ishmael is. Wait, wait I think I found Ishmael. If you pause at a specific point in the intro, you see that Stonks looking dude to the left of Caleb and Ophelia? He’s in a blue shirt, and Gabriella is in a red shirt when she’s taken by Shial, so maybe that’s Ishmael? Anyway Cerberus immediately lights him on fire and eats him in the intro. Cerberus really gets to the point, none of this kidnapping nonsense that Cheogh and Shial were doing.

Blood II shows Ishmael to be surprisingly soft-spoken and polite by Chosen standards. He’s the black mage of the team contrasting Gabriella being the berserker. The fact that Ishmael is a studious magic nerd and not really a physical fighter is likely the reason why the poor guy has a base HP cap of only 50, half of what Caleb has. Oh also, he’s bald. Like, actually bald. Can’t blame Blood 1’s FMV quality this time since he’s bald in Blood II as well. I like the inversion of standard game mechanic gender stereotyping here, since most games have bald male guys like Ishmael as physically strong berserkers, while the girls like Gabriella are more likely to be physically frail magic casters, but here the roles are reversed, which is cool.

Ishmael also has the honour of being the only member of the Chosen to have an actual backstory reveal in the Nightmare Levels that kind of makes sense. So, throughout Blood 1 and parts of Blood II, there’s mentions of a circus act starring “Jo-Jo the Idiot Circus Boy”, which is implied to be some kind of typically unethical freakshow as you’d expect from a carnival in the 1920s. Nightmare Levels then gives some actual context to this recurring background gag by revealing that Ishmael was Jo-Jo. Listen, I only said it kind of makes sense, don’t think too hard about it. According to Ishmael, Jo-Jo is not a singular person, but instead a character played by many different actors across generations. Prior to joining the Cabal, Ishmael took the role of Jo-Jo when he was desperate for cash. He was mistreated, abused and humiliated, as you’d expect. Eventually he is contacted by Tchernobog and is commanded to kill the entire circus crew and come to his side, which Ishmael goes through with, liberating himself and getting revenge against his abusers.

Monolith’s inspiration for the name Jo-Jo and Ishmael’s backstory is unknown and debated among fans, but there’s one theory in particular that I thought was interesting. There was a real person called Fedor Jetfichew, who was known by the stage name of Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy. Fedor had hypertrichosis, a condition that causes thick fur-like hair growth across the body and face, hence the stage name. P.T. Barnum, an American showman who introduced Fedor’s act, claimed that Jo-Jo was an uncivilised savage who barks and growls like a dog, which Fedor played along with. So yeah, about as horribly insensitive as you’d expect. Behind the scenes, Fedor was very intelligent, being a polyglot who knew how to speak Russian, German and English. This makes for an interesting parallel to Ishmael, who is also portrayed as animalistic and unintelligent in the role of Jo-Jo, but is in actuality an intelligent and skilled mage.

Tchernobog

Tchernobog is known by many titles. When without a physical form, he’s known as The Sleeping God, or The Dreaming God. If you’re getting Lovecraft vibes from that, you’re on the right track. Tchernobog is also known as The One that Binds, which refers to his role in the stability of the universe. Without Tchernobog’s power holding reality together, the dimensions outside of our own would fall apart, crash into one another and result in the destruction of the multiverse. He’s a cosmic power beyond mortal comprehension, in short. Tchernobog has been a force across all realities since the beginning of time, but in spite of his Godhood he is not immortal, at least not physically. In fact, Tchernobog has died 15 times prior to the events of Blood 1. Tchernobog’s cult exists not only to enact his will upon the mortal plane, but also to provide hosts for future physical incarnations of The Sleeping God.

Sacrifice as a result is an integral aspect of the cult, since that’s the only way for Tchernobog to take a physical form. However, exactly how evil Tchernobog is varies from incarnation to incarnation. The personality of the host body Tchernobog incarnates into has an influence on the personality of Tchernobog himself. The fifth incarnation was a Buddhist priest, and the influence of said priest resulted in the reformation of the Cabal, turning it to a peaceful sect focused on self control and penance. The host of the 16th incarnation however was a particularly cruel and hateful man, resulting in the violent reform of the Cabal into a destructive cult that uses fear and threat of execution to keep its followers in line.

When Tchernobog is without a physical form, it’s the duty of the leader of the Cabal, ruling the cult in Tchernobog’s stead, to prepare themselves for becoming the host of The Sleeping God’s next incarnation. When Tchernobog does have a physical form, as he does during the events of Blood 1, he instead fills the role of the Cabal’s leader, with the Chosen being the highest ranking followers of the cult, chosen by Tchernobog himself as the name implies. So, why did he have his own Chosen killed? He claimed that they “failed him”, but this was a cover-up for the real reason why. Caleb coming back to life wasn’t an accident, it was very much intended by Tchernobog. On Caleb’s quests for revenge for the death of his fellow Chosen, every life he had taken and all of the life essences (hearts) he had consumed made him stronger. It wasn’t just the Chosen that Tchernobog sacrificed. All the cultists and fanatics you fought across the entire game? All sacrifices to make Caleb stronger, to consolidate as much of the Cabal’s collective strength as possible into a single person for Tchernobog to incarnate into. Too bad for Tchernobog that made Caleb too powerful for Tchernobog to take down. As Caleb defeated Tchernobog, he inadvertently inherited his role as The One that Binds upon absorbing his power, leading to the events of Blood II.

The name Tchernobog is derived from Chernobog, the Slavic Black God. My girlfriend, Araignee, is more mythology-savvy than I and has noted some parallels between Chernobog and Tchernobog of note. I’ll let her take over from here.

“Chernobog is a slavic god who is recorded by name (and maybe likeness), but almost nothing about him (them?) as an entity is really known - their name means "black god", a sufficiently ominous title, and they are believed to be a counterpart to Belobog, another slavic god whose name means "white god". The fact of the matter is Chernobog's believers do not seem to have recorded much about him, so we don't know him in turn. Despite this, he is often believed to be a god of darkness, evil, or even a devil figure in slavic mythology (an interpretation spearheaded by Catholic priest Helmold of Bosau), of which there is no known basis for other than "black" in his name so it's a kneejerk association.

“As to the connection with Tchernobog, we also don't actually know him very well. His personality has been heavily influenced by his hosts over the years, and it isn't clear how much of himself is still actually there - he's clearly been taken over by the vices and megalomania of his villainous hosts, to the point that his good natured aspects are not seen.

“Chernobog, who is forgotten by his followers, and Tchernobog, who is forgotten by himself, have quite a lot in common in my mind as a result of this. It's quite possibly coincidental, but my mythology nerd bullshit couldn't let me pretend I didn't see the links.”