| “ | How lovely to see you again, Sam! And how nice of you to bring your friends, so i can take care of all of you in one go. But you should know that i feel a kind of gratitude. You taught me something about this planet, Sam. It's loud and garish and annoying and surprisingly hard to kill. And that's precisely why it needs to die. It's a disease. And after i've killed you, Sam, i am going to do my very best to wipe out every single- | „ |
| ~ Lord Achriman to Sam before getting interrupted by his friends. |
Lord Achriman is a major antagonist in the Serious Sam video game series.
He is an alien warlord in service to the god of destruction Tah-Um, known to humanity as Mental, and one of his oldest servants. He has been placed in charge of directing the invasion of Earth and the subjugation of its populace.
He serves as an unseen antagonist in Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope, the main antagonist of Serious Sam 4 and a posthumous antagonist in its standalone expansion Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem and Serious Sam 3: BFE.
He was voiced by Simon Paisley Day.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- Tricked a council of powerful sorceresses into allying with him, turning them into his so-called "Witch-Brides" and servants of the very evil he was supposed to help them fight.
- Aided Mental in conquering and destroying thousands of worlds and civilizations.
- Planned to turn the human populace into mindless berserkers under his control by having parts of their brains surgically removed and replaced with cyber-parasites. These "Processed" are common enemies in the game, being fought by the hundreds.
- Holds no true loyalty towards his master, serving him only because he believes Mental is invincible and because doing so grants him power over what he considers inferior beings.
- Takes sadistic glee not only in watching the cities of Earth burn, but in crushing humanity's hope by deconstructing every value they hold dear via his propaganda.
- Forced Sam to fight in the Colosseum in Rome for his own amusement, meanwhile belittling him and all of humanity's efforts.
- Murders the young rookie Kenny, whom Sam had mentored and protected over the course of the game, purely to spite Sam and see him suffer.
- Fully acknowledges that he is the villain in humanity's eyes and mocks their desperate hope that they will triumph in the end like in so many of their epics.
- Believes humanity to be a disease that needs to be removed and swears to Sam that he will personally see to it that every human is exterminated.
- Even after being defeated, Achriman mocks Sam's victory by calling it meaningless and daring him to give one of his famous one-liners, which he deems "the perfect manifestation of empty human wit".
Trivia[]
- Lord Achriman and Howard Brand are the only villains in the Serious Sam series to be taken completely seriously and have no redeeming or comedic traits whatsoever. Even their master and ultimate evil Mental has some of these traits.
- Despite being killed towards the end of Serious Sam 4, Achriman continues to have some presence in its standalone expansion Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem and its canonical sequel Serious Sam 3: BFE. His Witch-Brides remain powerful enemies to humanity even after Achriman himself can no longer exert his influence over them, meaning their corruption is permanent.