 | What are Humans??(1) | Category: GeneralApril-8-2013 1:01 PM PDT (10 years ago)  |
| I was doing some browsing through the items and this word kept coming up...."Humans". What are they? Are they anything like Nephalems? Any clarification would be appreciated. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/genzaniku +5–6% Damage to Humans. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/sun-keeper Long years before men civilized the land that would come to be known as Kurast, primitive shamans bludgeoned their human sacrifices with hellish devices. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/artisan/blacksmith/recipe/gehennas These pants are the result of an unfortunate bargain struck between the demon Skelon and an unwitting human. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/pig-sticker +5–8% Damage to Humans | ||
 | What are Humans??(23) | April-8-2013 6:56 PM PDT (10 years ago) |
I was doing some browsing through the items and this word kept coming up...."Humans". I reached out to our lore team for a more precise answer to this question, and the answer has quite a bit of depth! In brief, humans are the descendants of the first nephalem. What are they? Are they anything like Nephalems? Any clarification would be appreciated. Basically, when angels and demons intermingle, their offspring are nephalem – and they are incredibly powerful beings that are long lived, if not eternal, and have the potential to be stronger than either their angelic or demonic heritage. Before and following the Sin War, the nephalem interbred, and their children were also nephalem – and so it continued for several generations. After discovering Lilith’s betrayal, the Archangel Inarius (who had been Lilith’s lover) tuned the Worldstone to suppress the powers of the nephalem. Because of this, each successive generation of nephalem thereafter became less and less powerful. After enough generations, their magical powers disappeared, and they became weak, mortal creatures that could die easily. Soon they spread to be great in number – these were humans. Humans still have the latent nephalem potential in them – indeed our hero characters in Diablo III are nephalem – perhaps because of the destruction of the Worldstone years earlier. But most humans are just that – weak mortals. Here are some excerpts from Diablo III: Book of Cain that might shed a bit more light: The first generations of nephalem were called the ancients. It is believed that they set out exploring, seeking answers, attempting to understand their curious world, and that they adopted numerous philosophies as they spread across Sanctuary. ... Lilith, the first mother of the nephalem, was driven into a mad frenzy by the threat of her children’s extinction. She morphed into a far more horrific form than any had ever seen—of tooth and claw, of spike and blade—and hunted down her fellow renegades. She ruthlessly murdered each and every follower of Inarius, leaving only him to discover the carnage she had wrought. Inarius was horrified by the loss of his comrades and the terrible deed that his lover had committed. Though enraged, he could not bring himself to kill Lilith, but instead banished her from the sanctuary they had made. Inarius then attuned the Worldstone to cause the powers of the nephalem to diminish over time. He then disappeared—though some say that he still walks amongst us in a form more closely resembling our own. ... Years became decades, and then centuries, leading to millennia of time elapsed. Generations of nephalem, even with the remarkably long lives they were said to have possessed, passed away. With each generation, those events which might have been truth turned to legend, eventually settling into myth. The angels and demons faded from consciousness. The nephalem themselves slowly became mere mortals not unlike ourselves. Humankind began to populate the world. As with its nephalem ancestors, humanity set about building cities of its own and collecting knowledge from the far corners of Sanctuary. | ||
| What are Humans??(38) | April-9-2013 10:23 AM PDT (10 years ago) |
Could Covetus Shen possibly be Inarius "in a form more closely resembling our own." ? You know that makes a lot of cense. In his lore it states. "he is searching for a particularly rare gem, one he suspects you may have an eventual hand in finding." Could he possibly be looking for some kind of soulstone/gem that he desperately wants to slam into his forehead? P.S. Vae if your still following this thread I am still very curious if you could touch on how the Bonus vs humans/nephalem/elites/talking meatsacks that got linked in the OP will be iterated in the upcoming item changes. Lorewise, if something is a clear mystery up until this point, I’m not really at the liberty to divulge any juicy answers, but I’m happy to now and then offer clarification on existing lore if I’m able to. We realize that not everyone cares about game lore, and that’s totally fine. I personally dig Diablo lore, so I am keen to jump in now and then on these types of threads. :) The reality is: posting in a thread like this also in no way slows development on the gameplay aspects of Diablo III we’re currently working on. As a point of clarification that I feel needs to be said: I’m not a developer, I’m a Community Manager just like it says on the left-hand side there. While the vast, and I mean vast majority of the threads I post in pertain to gameplay in one manner or another, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t loads of other topics being eagerly discussed by players (such as lore), and it certainly doesn’t mean that I’ll be dissuaded by posting in them as well. There’s a lot that goes into Diablo, including everything from gameplay, through to art, lore, sound, cinematics, and more, and they all come together as a whole to create the Diablo series. I simply tend to post in gameplay threads more often because those are commonly the most prevalent discussions taking place here on the forums. But they’re not the only discussions. As a note that some of your lore aficionados might enjoy: I happen to know that many of your lore-filled discussions are indeed watched by … interested parties … on this end as well. >;) | ||
| What are Humans??(48) | April-9-2013 3:05 PM PDT (10 years ago) |
I've played through the game a few times, I almost have 4 level 60's and one at paragon 35. After the destruction of the Worldstone (which occurred prior to the start of Diablo III), each person was born with a chance of being a nephalem, both magically and physically stronger than regular humans. So it wasn’t that your character underwent a physical transformation to turn from a human into a nephalem, it was simply that your hero was born that way. But since at face value humans and the historic nephalem look similar in physical appearance, it likely wasn’t until adolescence or later that they became fully aware of just how “different†they were from their peers.I still don't know how I became a Nephalem even after trying to pay attention to game NPCs explain it through all the quests through one entire playthrough to 60 (on my monk). Could you clarify? In other, rarer cases, a human who undergoes extreme physical or emotional trauma can tap into the latent nephalem potential inherent in all humans. This (extremely rare,) occurrence is another effect of the Worldstone’s destruction. Again, this is not so much a transformation into something new, as someone realizing their full potential. Okay lore wise as a Barbarian you can talk to tyrael about the worldstone but the barbarian seems to not know what happened there, i was under the assumption that he was the barb from diablo 2 and you were there to kill baal. is there something im missing? | ||
| What are Humans??(67) | April-9-2013 4:30 PM PDT (10 years ago) |
According to Jay Wilson, the Barbarian in D3 IS the same one from D2. Jay’s statement was accurate when he made it, but during the development process we later revisited the idea and instead decided that our Diablo III heroes should be unique to Diablo III. Sure, you may see references to the exploits of past heroes scattered around Sanctuary, but this story belongs to a new group of heroes. :)http://www.diablowiki.net/WWI_2008:_Denizens_of_Diablo_Panel Barbarian How we approached d3 design. Barbarian concept. This is actually the same char from Diablo 2. He's aged twenty years, and he's got a personality. Look at his gear; his armor has points on which he could impale himself. It's extra protection for the harsh environment, but it's also dangerous to him. The day to day life they have to lead is very hard. Updating a classic. The Barbarian was exciting for us to work on. To take a classic char we all love to play, and bring him back to life. What's this guy been doing for the past 20 years? As Leonard was saying, this guy's 8 feet tall and 300 lbs of tall pure muscle. He saw stuff in d2 that would kill most people. Giving him some age, graying his hair, giving him some scars. What Leonard and Jay wanted to accomplish, we pulled that together with how we wanted to sell the story visually. Scars, gray hair, how he wears his armor. All that helps us tell the story visually. | ||
