BlizzCon 2013 – Diablo III Lore and Story Q&A Panel Transcript

Kindreagan: Valerie, would you like to take this?

Watrous: Well, the worldstone as we know it was shattered into pieces. Where these pieces are and what is being done with them is unknown at this point. It would be interesting to explore for the future perhaps. But, as far as we know right now, it’s gone.

Kindreagan: I think Leonard wants to answer that one.

Boyarski: Once again, thank you. He is not human, he is mortal. He chose the form of a human. He’s always been, ever since the Sin War, he’s been on the side of the humans. He has a lot of respect for humanity and he really thinks humanity is the way of the future to a large degree. And even during the cinematic between him and Imperius in Diablo III, he’s trying to convince Imperius if they should side with the humans. So he’s basically casting his love with the humans, he felt he should look like a human. But he is not a nephalem, he never had any demon in him whatsoever. He was pure angel, now he’s just a a mortal who has a really cool sword.

Boyarski: Humans in the Diablo universe are half angel and half demon. So, that would be pretty much it. He’s not nephalem. He’s not descended from nephalem. He’s 100% descended from angel DNA, I guess you would call it. But he gave up his powers, gave up a lot of what made him a celestial being, I guess you’d call it, to join with the humans and do what he could from that end. Because he was forbidden by angelic law from interfering.

Kindreagan: I guess I would say that yes, there’s absolutely a lot of references to Deckard in Reaper of Souls. He was obviously a huge part of the Diablo Universe and certainly a huge part of the events in Diablo III. So, there’s no way that this expansion would be able to play out without hearing his voice and feeling his influence.

Kindreagan: That’s a good question. And at the risk of wearing his throat out, I’m gonna ask Leonard to fill that one as well.

Boyarski: The reason we decided that Deckard Cain was going to pass on was, we really wanted to up the emotional stakes. Not only for Leah, but for Tyrael, and for the players, because he’s a beloved character. We loved him as much as everybody else did. I think you pretty much hit it on the head. It was to pass the torch from a storytelling standpoint. He kind of filled the same role as Tyrael ended up filling after him. We meant for it to be a lot of drama and just emotional depth, with the fact that he passed on and this is what was kind of moving it forward. And a lot of the stuff, I think there’s kind of an undertone of the fact that he might have figured out a lot of what was going on if he had been around. So, it was doubly tragic that he had passed on.

Kindreagan: In response to Malthael?

Kindreagan: Oh, alright. That’s a also an excellent question and I’m gonna ask Michael (Chu) to address that.

Chu: Well, I think it’s definitely a big deal in heaven that all this is happening and a lot of the different factions, they’re sort of react in different ways to all the events. Obviously Tyrael has a more human centric focus, because he’s really, dead on, humanity is being his best hope for the future. Imperius, of course, is not quite as big a fan of the mortals as Tyrael is. So he’s very much going to be representative of that other perspective.

Kindreagan: I think Valerie can speak very well to the demon hunter.

Watrous: Yes, thank you for asking. So, the events of Diablo I and Diablo II, obviously started this tremendous effect on the world and all of the people living within it and all of the demons attacks were happening when you were playing Diablo I and trying to defeat the forces of Diablo. Other people were noticing and our hero demon hunter, their lives are being effected, their families are being slaughtered and these people want vengeance. So they gather together and they went to the North to the Dreadlands. They started training because they knew these things were out there. These monsters in the night that maybe not everyone believes in. And they were ready to fight and to work and to give whatever it takes it to take them out.