Brotherhood of Light



The Brotherhood of Light is an organization formed by knights, whose main objective consists to remove the forces of darkness that plague Europe in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

Lords of Shadow
The Brotherhood of Light was an order of knights founded centuries ago by three great warriors dedicated to serving God. This was their sole purpose and the order was tasked with combating the forces of evil. At an unknown time they fought the sovereign of the elemental Plane of Darkness known as The Forgotten One. This powerful demon was summoned by the evil Bernhard family, but broke free of their control and had to be stopped. During their battle with the creature, the founders combined their powers to create a dimensional rift to imprison the Forgotten One within the centre of the Bernhard castle. For decades the three Founders fought fiercely against the minions and spawn of Satan until finally tipping the balance in Heaven's favor. Their sheer commitment to their crusade led to them uncovering in their studies, discovering the location of three sacred sites where the power of God converged so immensely that they each created a bridge between the spiritual and physical planes. Using this power, the founders purified themselves and abandoned their physical bodies, becoming nigh-omnipotent spirits who's power was second only to God himself. Unknown to them and many others, the bodies they left behind weren't simply devoid of souls but were instead consumed by their darker sides. Thus the founders inadvertently created the Lords of Shadow who rose to power and plagued the lands with their evil.

Some time later, the link between the Heaven and the Earth began to grow weak for unknown reasons. The Brotherhood attempts to stop the End of Days by defeating the Lords of Shadow and hoped to discover the one who cast the spell that seperated Heavan from Earth, and released the forces of Hell, however many knights of the order died throughout Europe in an attempt to discover and defeat that evil. This led to the Brotherhood consulting an ancient prophecy which spoke of a Warrior of Light who would be sent into the domains of the Lords of Shadow and end their reign of terror. Thus, they selected one of their own, namely Gabriel Belmont. Gabriel is eventually successful in his quest but ended up becoming a vampire, obtaining astounding powers from the Forgotten One and started refering to himself as Dracul (meaning "The Dragon").

As an insurace policy, the Brotherhood hid and raised Gabriel's son, Trevor Belmont, who later started a journey to defeat his demonic father.

Mirror of Fate
Out of thirst for revenge Trevor Belmont sought to kill his father for the death of his mother. Decades later Trevor's son Simon would attempt to finish what his father started. It is currently unknown what part the Brotherhood played in these events, though they did desire the end of Dracula.

Lords of Shadow 2
By the time of Lords of Shadow 2 the Brotherhood now sees Dracula as an enemy and attempts to invade his castle to kill him. It is shown that they now posess advanced technology for their time in the form of a large Titan made of wood and machinery. Dracula, however, proves more powerful than they anticipated and their entire army is destroyed.

Epilogue
It is unknown if the Brotherhood survived it's confrontation with Dracula, or even if the order still exists in the modern age.

Background
The signature weapons of the order was the Combat Cross which the origins of were largely unknown, but what was known was that many of the additions to these weapons were made on the orders of chief artisan and alchemist, Rinaldo Gandalfi, though certain designs that he included were rejected by the elders of the Brotherhood. They also use unique sub-weapons like the Silver Daggers, Electric Bomb, Glaive and Holy Water.

Founders

 * Zobek
 * Cornell
 * Carmilla

Other

 * Cardinal Volpe (Leader)
 * Gabriel Belmont
 * Trevor Belmont
 * Victor
 * Stefano
 * Michael
 * Sister Laverne
 * Brother Bernard
 * Rinaldo Gandolfi
 * Danasty
 * Chupacabra
 * Mario (assumed)
 * H
 * Many other knights

Trivia

 * It is unknown if the Brotherhood is still active at the time of the journey of Simon Belmont in 1103.
 * It seems that the Brotherhood has been in contact with Pan. It was to him that Gabriel was sent to find the Lake of Oblivion and it was he that convinced Marie to keep the birth of Trevor a secret from Gabriel, thus assuring the continuation of the Belmont line.
 * The Brotherhood seems to borrow broad concepts from other orders of warrior monks.
 * The Knights Templar was a group of holy warriors which existed in the same time frame as the Brotherhood.
 * The Brotherhood also bears much in common with the Order of the Dragon (Dracul in Romanian), a Christian order of knights who defended Europe from the Muslim Turks. It was to this order that Vlad Țepeș belonged and from which he drew his surname (Dracula).
 * The Brotherhood also has traits in common with the Jedi of the Star Wars franchise.
 * Both organizations serve a higher power (God/The Force).
 * Both grant their warriros special weapons (Combat Cross/Lightsaber).
 * Both were betrayed by a "Chosen One" who turned to darkness (Gabriel Belmont/Anakin Skywalker).