Diablo II

Video Game
STUDIO Blizzard Entertainment
RELEASED 2000

The Lord of Terror is back! Diablo has taken over the hero who managed to defeat him, and is on a quest to release his brothers, Mephisto, Lord of Hatred, and Baal, Lord of Destruction. You choose from seven heroes to go after Diablo and destroy him once and for all. Through the course of the game you are taken to the ruins of Tristram, destroyed by Diablo, to the deserts of Lut Gholein, and down into the bowels of Hell itself. Aided only by the last Horodrim, Deckard Kain, and a benevolent Acrchgangel, Tyrael, you must find and destroy Baal, Mephisto and Diablo's soul stones and lock them in the bowels of Hell forever. In the expansion, Baal, escapes to Mount Arreat, where the Worldstone, the Heart of the world is kept. He is trying to corrupt it for his own purposes, you have to stop him, and send him to hell with his brothers.

Knowledge

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Diablo Source

The Man Who Wrote Diablo Also Wrote Half of Azeroth

Richard A. Knaak, the author behind most of the Diablo novels, has also written extensively for Warcraft and StarCraft, on top of his own long-running Dragonlance series. The guy clearly doesn't take a day off from world-building.

Diablo Source

The Novels Take You 3,000 Years Before Diablo

The Sin War trilogy isn't set anywhere near the events of the games. It rewinds the clock 3,000 years before the fall of Tristram and follows a farmer named Uldyssian as he gets tangled up in the ancient war between angels and demons over Sanctuary.

Diablo Source

Every Demon in the Series Comes From One Dragon

All seven of the Great Evils, including Diablo himself, were originally born from the seven heads of a single primordial dragon named Tathamet. Three of those heads became the Prime Evils, and the other four became the so-called Lesser Evils.

Diablo Source

The 'Lesser' Evils Aren't Actually One Family

Unlike Diablo, Mephisto and Baal, who consider themselves true brothers, the four Lesser Evils split into two separate pairs. Andariel and Duriel call each other twins, while Belial and Azmodan see themselves as siblings, and that lack of unity is a big part of why the Lesser Evils struggled to team up against the Three.

Diablo Source

The Three Brothers Ruled Hell by Force

Mephisto, Baal and Diablo styled themselves as a dark ruling triumvirate over the whole of Hell, using brutal strength and cunning to keep the four Lesser Evils in line beneath them. It's this power imbalance that eventually sparked the rebellion known as the Dark Exile.

Diablo Source

Diablo Has More Than One Name

Outside of the name players know him by, Diablo also goes by al'Diabolos in older Horadric texts, and followers of the Triune sect refer to him as Dialon, the Spirit of Determination. Different cultures in Sanctuary clearly weren't on the same page about what to call the Lord of Terror.