Diablo IV

He himself described himself as an "angry and jealous God", so...yeah xD

Hence the New Covenant after Jesus's birth.

The dev team has put up a Diablo IV Quarterly Update blog post, mainly focusing on the sound design. To me this is a fascinating subject, especially when it comes to creating ambient soundscapes for the environments.

What do you guys think of the series' portrayal of demons? Do you think they should've been fallen angels instead or are they just fine as an entirely separate race?

I'm not sure I understand the question. Why should I have a preference for the portrayal of the demons? That's up to the writers to decide. It's their story.

I don't do this "second guessing" thing.

Edited by Fighteer on May 31st 2022 at 7:13:34 AM

"It's not the place of people who consume media to have opinions on writing" remains a truly bizarre stance.

Edited by Perseus on May 31st 2022 at 9:44:06 PM

That said, if I wanted a game where demons are fallen angels, I'd play a game where demons are fallen angels instead of complaining that the demons in the game aren't fallen angels.

Edited by M84 on May 31st 2022 at 7:44:08 PM

> What do you guys think of the series' portrayal of demons?

Like the Prime evils and stuff? I really like how they portrayed them.

> Do you think they should've been fallen angels instead or are they just fine as an entirely separate race?

I'm fine with their demons just being demons,fallen angel stuff just complicates things

This exactly.

Bollocks. I can have opinions for days, but if I don't like a story's writing, do I bully the writers into making something that I want, their creative vision be damned, or do I find another story that matches my preferences better?

I can't think of any writer who crowdsources their stories, because that creates absolute garbage 99 percent of the time. But again, if you find one, great. That's what's wonderful about creativity: there's an infinite supply of it.

It is the right of the writer to pursue their creative vision. It is the right of the reader to choose a story that they like. It doesn't work when you reverse those roles.

Edited by Fighteer on May 31st 2022 at 8:48:25 AM

"Expressing dislike for a writing decision in a public forum" (entirely hypothetically here, mind you!) is not the same thing as "bullying the writers into doing what you want". You've spent far too much time around the Fan Dumb we both know you're talking about if you truly can't differentiate the two, which certainly seems to be the case when you automatically accuse anyone who does the former of the latter.

When the perfectly benign question of "do you like this, or do you think another thing would be better?" gets met with "well, why should I have a preference? That's not for me to decide!" how am I supposed to take that but that you think people cannot reasonably express preferences about stories that aren't theirs?

Edited by Perseus on May 31st 2022 at 11:27:08 PM

In the Diablo IV thread, may I remind you, not the "Here's how I think the writers should have done it" thread. If that were the title of a topic in the forums, it would be chopped for complaining.

Edited by Fighteer on May 31st 2022 at 9:43:33 AM

Alright, perhaps my initial summation wasn't quite accurate. "It's not the place of people who consume media to express opinions on writing", then. Still an utterly mind-boggling belief.

For the record, I think the Diablo lore is fine the way it is, but sheesh.

Edited by Perseus on May 31st 2022 at 11:53:03 PM

What gets me is that superboy already asked this question on this very thread nearly a year ago.

You can express opinions all you like. I never suggested otherwise. But, "Here's how I would have done it differently in my own story," is not really constructive, and that is the question that was asked. Again, according to this.

Edited by Fighteer on May 31st 2022 at 9:55:21 AM

I'm happy with demons just being demons instead of fallen angels.

Heck, we know the lore of how the High Heavens and Burning Hells came to be to begin with.

The story isn't terribly original, but it fits the concept the writers were going for. It's a Gothic Horror setting in which neither the angels nor the demons are on humanity's side, but Humans Are Special due to the unique circumstances of their creation and have the ability to surpass both angels and demons. Since Humans Are Bastards, this isn't necessarily going to work out to anyone's benefit.

Cliff Notes version:

A singular god whose name I don't recall off of the top of my head split into two warring halves: Anu and Tathamet, who killed each other. Anu's corpse became the High Heavens and Tathamet's corpse became the Burning Hells. Heaven gave birth to angels and Hell gave birth to demons; because of their inimical nature, they fought an Eternal Conflict, but this was a stalemate.

A group of angels and demons, sick of the war, got together and sought refuge, led by the angel Inarius and the demon Lilith. They stole the Worldstone, another artifact of that original super-god, and used it to create a new world, called Sanctuary. They also had children, which were called the Nephalem. With both demonic and angelic essences, the Nephalem had enormous power, capable of rivaling or even exceeding their sires.

Learning of the Nephalem's existence, the Prime Evils sought to corrupt them to their service. In a panic, the Archangels locked away most of their power into the Worldstone, which was placed at Mount Arreat. The beings that remained were humans, uniquely capable of choosing between good and evil. This situation persisted until Archangel Tyrael shattered the Worldstone to prevent the demon Baal from corrupting it, allowing the Nephalem to rise once more.

See, easy.

Note that while most demons are born in the Burning Hells, there are angels who have fallen and become corrupted, Inarius among them. I am not aware of any demons that have been turned to the Light, however.

Edited by Fighteer on May 31st 2022 at 10:59:19 AM

The tragedy of humans and Sanctuary is that Sanctuary was originally born from an Angel and a Demon hoping to find a way to end the Forever War. But they turned out to have different ideas of what that meant — the Angel hoped Sanctuary would be a place of peace and refuge away from the war. The Demon otoh thought Sanctuary would be the key to winning the war.

The story of Diablo is a story of eternal conflict. Heck, the entire setting exists because its God literally couldn't stand himself.

Do we know anything about the story of Diablo IV yet, other than that Lilith has been summoned back to Sanctuary and is apparently going to start wrecking shit? The ending of Diablo III left us with the open question of whether the Nephalem that could defeat both the Prime Evil and the Archangel of Death would end up saving the world or falling to corruption. I can't help but think that isn't going to go well given the tone of the setting.

Edited by Fighteer on May 31st 2022 at 11:12:51 AM

One thing is that it seems like the world of Sanctuary has regressed somewhat due to all of the devastation wrought in Diablo III.

Besides Lilith, it seems the antagonists will be the Triune, the cult of Prime Evil worshipers that previously were only in the Sin War novels. The summoner who brings Lilith back to Sanctuary in the trailer is a Triune member. Malthael's defeat left a power vacuum in Sanctuary, which is why the Triune decided to make a power play.

Edited by M84 on May 31st 2022 at 11:30:02 PM

Huh, I got the distinct impression that it was one of the original Nephalem. Seems less impactful if it's just some guy.

The Triune are interesting in that they are actually the first true religion in Sanctuary. The Cathedral of Light was founded later by Inarius in an attempt to counter the Triune's influence.

The Triune in its early days was insidious, presenting itself as a benevolent religion that preached values such as selfless devotion and worship and seeking peaceful resolutions to avoid conflict. Even worse, the "guiding spirits" of the Triune (actually fronts for the Prime Evils) were deliberately modeled to be the exact opposite of their true Prime Evil selves.

• Dialon was the Spirit of Determination who brought purpose to humanity. In truth he was Diablo, Lord of Terror.

• Bala was the Spirit of Creation who seeded life and praised humanity's triumphs. In truth he was Baal, Lord of Destruction.

• Mefis was the Spirit of Love who allowed Creation and Determination to thrive. In truth he was Mephisto, Lord of Hatred.

The religious conflict between the Triune and the Cathedral of Light would be known as the Sin War. Even long after it ended and memory of the true nature of the conflict was wiped from humanity's collective memory, it still echoed in Sanctuary. Deckard Cain at one point claimed that the Sin War never really ended:

And now the Triune's back.

Didn't the Triune also show up in 3 or am I misremembering?

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 31st 2022 at 8:24:07 PM

They were replaced by the Coven in the game, though early concept art indicates they were initially planned to appear in III.

BTW, according to the cinematic files for the original Diablo IV announcement trailer, the cultist who summons Lilith is referred to as "Rathma".

Rathma is indeed one of the first-generation Nephalem. Not only that, he was a major character in the Sin War novels and he would go on to be the founder of the Priests of Rathma aka the Necromancers.

Things must be truly desperate for a guy whose whole thing is balanced would release his mother.

By all accounts, things are desperate in Sanctuary. The damage inflicted in Diablo III, particularly Malthael's rampage, really set Sanctuary back.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Lilith will be the one to help Sanctuary — some of the background details for Diablo IV reveal that Lilith's arrival to Sanctuary is causing a Hate Plague.

Which makes some sense considering she's Mephisto's daughter. And that her original plan for her children was to use them to win the Eternal Conflict as opposed to hiding from it like Inarius wanted.

Edited by M84 on Jun 2nd 2022 at 3:02:20 AM

Looking it up again and the Coven are apparently supposed to be The Remnant of the Triune.