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

Kindreagan: I think Justin can speak to The Book of Tyrael.

Parker: Morbed specifically will be appearing in fiction, not in Reaper of Souls. Was there other specific ones you were questioning about or … ?

Parker: In upcoming fiction.

Kindreagan: So his story will be told.

Chu: He has some like hacked white items from Diablo II, I think. (laugh)

Kindreagan: And I’m glad you enjoyed the book, by the way.

Kindreagan: I think Leonard can. I hear Leonard laughing, so I’ll ask him to answer that.

Boyarski: We actually had a long discussion about that and I said if all you have to do is take the wings off angels that would be a great strategy for demons. You know you get one in front of them waving their hands, and the other one sneaks up behind and tears off his wings. But, the wings was more of a symbolic gesture. I mean, he needed to lose them to become mortal; but that wasn’t what caused it, that was a symbolic gesture. It was part of him shedding his angelic being. But that wasn’t in any way, shape or form the cause of it.

Kindreagan: And you were asking of the ramifications of …?

Kindreagan: Or even all the angels, I don’t know. It would be chaos.

Watrous: The world would get some really nice people tough. Sorry, mortals.

Kindreagan: And a couple of jerks.

Kindreagan: Yes, we will go to Pandemonium and we will actually visit the Fortress. One of the things that we are revealing about the fortress in the game is that it is a constantly changing structure. For a couple of reasons. One, it’s been owned by both angels and demons at times, so whoever controls the fortress tends to put additions on it and remodel if you will, so it tends to change appearance quite a lot. But also, because it’s a fairly mystical place. It’s not just a giant building, it actually reflects the appearance of its current owner. Whoever is in control of it, actually influences the appearance and feel and even layout of the fortress. So, we will be going back to the fortress but it will not look like the fortress did in Diablo II.

Kindreagan: That’s a very good question. Justin?

Parker: The original three soulstones that he gave to the Horadrim were made from the worldstone, so there’s no more worldstone.

Kindreagan: So there’s no way for him to shave more of the worldstone off to make…

Boyarski: Are you asking about the whole thing with Tal Rasha?

Boyarski: There was kind of a time constrain and Tyrael didn’t really have the time to go back and reformulate the soulstone. So Zoltun Kulle kinda stepped in with what he taught was a good answer.

Kindreagan: Yeah, I’m glad Leonard caught that. We were answering a question you weren’t asking. But yeah, I think that time constrain is the most important part of that. They had to act very fast.

Kindreagan: That is an excellent question! So, we haven’t really explored yet what this means. That he became a mortal, but he was still a member of the Angiris Council. So was he still the archangel of Justice until he declared himself Wisdom, you know? And we haven’t actually explored it. The one thing I’d say though is that an angel and, please Justin, correct me if I’m making this up, but when an angel dies a replacement is not instantly born at the Crystal Arch. I believe that it has to achieve a perfect alignment.

Parker: When the Arch decides it happens, it happens. It’s not an instant.

Kindreagan: And of course, the other part of that is that Tyrael didn’t die. He transformed into a new sort of being and so I think that the big thing is that Tyrael’s transformation into being a mortal is really a completely unprecedented thing in the Diablo universe. The ramifications of it are something that I think are gonna come out over time. But it’s definitely not gonna work the way things usually work.

Boyarski: Well. I think also you misspoke slightly, if I may. He’s no longer the archangel of justice but he’s still the Aspect of Justice. There’s a little bit of leeway there. Everything else you were saying, I agree with. I just wanted to point that out.

Kindreagan: Leonard!