Diablo III Website Teases Reaper of Souls — Diablo III Expansion Title?

According to “MMO-Champion” Blizzard Entertainment opened a new page on the official Diablo III Battle.net website. The teaser page has the following words:

The last part of that message is a reference to the Insight Editions Diablo III: Book of Tyrael is a sequel to the Diablo III: Book of Cain.

The quote in uppercaps have been ringing my ears for hours, and now I know why. I have indeed read that sentence before. It is part of a longer paragraph.

That sentence on the official Diablo III is part of the “Prophecy of the End Days”.

Two of the references are now ironed out. Now the URL where the new Diablo III page is is named “Reaper of Souls”.

This one truly baffles me. None of the Prime or Lesser evils had this name or title. All of their souls are currently stuck inside the Black Soulstone. If this “Reaper of Souls” was to be the title of the Diablo III expansion, then it is referring to an entity — one that hasn’t been known by that name in Diablo I, Diablo II nor Diablo III by that name. Just take a look at any wiki sites out there, and nothing comes up remotely close to that name.

The name “Reaper of Souls” means “one who collects, harvest or gathers souls”. Definitely catches one’s attention, but no one we know from lore. However, I do have one suspect.

Up until now, the Prime Evils had been imprisoned in Sanctuary for ages. Belial and Azmodan were reigning the Burning Hells in the Prime Evils’ absence. Those who haven’t read the novel yet, I recommend you do immediately.

So my point is, if the spirit of three Prime Evils and the four lesser evils are all imprisoned within the Black Soulstone … then … who is keeping tabs on their prisoners down there in the Burning Hells?

There is one prisoner in the Burning Hells who have been unaccounted for since the Sin War. Those who haven’t read Richard A. Knaak’s novel (2007), the origin of Sanctuary was revealed in that novel.

Basically, Archangel Inarius tired of the Eternal Conflict decided to steal the Worldstone. The Worldstone was actually right there at the Pandemonium Fortress, but somehow Inarius calibrated the Worldstone to sort of warp into a pocket dimension making the Worldstone invisible to everyone’s eye even when it was sitting at the same spot.

In this warp of reality so to speak, Sanctuary was created — cloaked from view by either the High Heavens and the Burning Hells.

Archangel Inarius and other archangels approached other rogue demons who were also tired of the Eternal Conflict. Basically, angel and demon alike united to live in peace in Sanctuary. Inarius and the daughter of Mephisto: Lilith fell in love. Everyone got a party, bees and flowers … all that — and the first children were born. The humans are descendants of the Nephalem.

Without going through the whole storyline, at the end of the Sin War, Uldyssian defeated Archangel Inarius. The Angiris Council was about to judge Inarius, but Mephisto played a good one. He offered a deal to the Angiris Council, but in exchange they wanted a prize.

The prize was … Archangel Inarius. The founder of Sanctuary. He’s been tortured ever since somewhere in the depths of the Burning Hells.

Archangel Inarius is imprisoned in the Chamber of Mirrors, bound by chains and hooks, and his eyelids ripped to torture him with the perpetual sight of his own appearance in the mirrors.

As someone who was given as a prize to Mephisto, Inarius should be pretty pissed off at the Angiris Council. The children of the nephalem — his own blood — turned on him and defeated him. Reason enough to hate Sanctuary. For milennia he’s been mocked, and tortured by the Prime Evils and later by Azmodan — last who reign over the Burning Hells. But now … Who is now Inarius’ jailor? Is he free?

I’d have to speculate — if I was a novelist or a Creative team’s story writer — that either the leaderless demons free him to seek Inarius’ leadership, if Lilith is still around, she could safely go after her former lover’s rescue to together reap the vacuum of power left behind by the now absent evils. But if I wanted to go really big and stun everyone … I would make a “omg-I-didn’t-see-that-one-coming” and make Malthael (Archangel of Wisdom) be the one rescuing Archangel Inarius and siding with him in whatever agenda they come up with.

Another interesting thing to mention is that Inarius and Lilith’s son is … Rathma … the ancient nephalem who the Necromancers venerate. Reaper of Souls sounds very necromancer-ish too.

I could go on and on all day spinning speculations on the web of “Reaper of Souls”. Maybe none of this is related. What I do know is that Blizzard is announcing something at GamesCom.

Blizzplanet was invited to the press conference to be held on August 21, 2013. An old-buddie of mine, Handclaw, is going to this event to take video and photos. So please, make sure to check out Blizzplanet to find out more about the video.

Book of Tyrael

“then ultimately it is Tyrael who put this all together and comes as an inheritor of the story and we get his perspective on even more ancient events that might have seeded all these game events — and it really allowed us to round up the story in other parts of the history that umm (Chris Metzen makes sounds with his tongue and mouth**) weren’t directly relevant to the last game, umm , but umm maybe relevant some day …”

**Decoding Chris Metzen — Chris Metzen makes special effects sounds with his tongue and mouth, or moves his eyes into the roof for imaginary snipers — something he usually does when he wants to signal NDA is holding back his thoughts and looks for a way to subtly tease, hint or early leak a possible upcoming announcement in this case he meant Diablo III: Book of Tyrael will reveal new info relevant to the Diablo III expansion.

Chris Metzen and Micky Neilson talked about Book of Tyrael at the Blizzard Licensing Panel. A Blizzplanet correspondent was there to take video for the community. Watch the video segment where they talk about Book of Tyrael: https://youtu.be/32HPuRQbgnM?t=9m28s

On to that matter, it is extremely interesting that Joseph Lacroix will be signing at GamesCom — because he is one of the artists of Book of Tyrael which as per Metzen’s quote above is tied to info “relevant some day” — cough, Diablo III expansion.