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Added questions

8) What is Ureh, and how does it tie into everything else.
9) Will Imperius show up, what are his intentions? (includes analysis of new artwork.)


On Nephalem:

Note: I'd like to state a theory here which would support the giant skeletons being Nephalem, who have not otherwise been depicted as giant. The Nephalem are hugely varied as we can tell based simply on the two we've seen, Rathma, and Bul'kathos. Rathma was tall, maybe 7 feet tall and had solid black skin, not just dark or brown like real African's but straight, true black, she was essentially the first Necromancer. Bul'Kathos, however, was essentially the opposite, he was the ultimate Barbarian, huge, strong, white and massively powerful. The Sorcerer and Sorceress from Diablo 1 and 2 were also likely members of a faction founded by a Nephalem, meaning some of them were also very adept of magic. All this variety seems to indicate a trend that whatever attribute or trait you can see in any human could be easily multiplied, advanced, perfected, and maximized in a Nephalem. So simply a large human could be an indication of absolutely giant Nephalem.


On Diablo's return

New Answer: [/b]

Simply put, if Blizzard follows the lore and lets it guide the story, Diablo will return, if they follow their usual tendencies and just make the story up, to make it more epic, and make excuses for the loose ends, then it's impossible to tell, whatever they think will be most interesting for the players.

I think Blizzard will do whatever it is they want to do, but reading their collective mind isn't what I'm here to do, down to the lore of why Diablo would return.

Stebo88 pointed out that the only time we saw Diablo's soulstone being destroyed was in a cinema, as dictated by Marius, who was drunken, insane, and not present at the events he was describing. He said he [i]heard that the stone was destroyed, and as we know from Blizzard, the events of Diablo 2 were disregarded by most of the world as false, so any news Marius may have heard may easily have been inaccurate.

The best counter-argument I have is that in Cain's journal on Blizzard.com he says that the soulstone was destroyed, unlike Marius, Cain was there, and Cain is reliable. The only way the destruction of the soulstone could have not happened is if the Hero himself faked it, and I doubt that, the hero in Diablo games are essentially grunts, that and the Barbarian is returning, even though in terms of canon it was a group of heros who killed Diablo, the barbarian probably would have known about it.

So anyway, Diablo could still return, he's not dead, he just gone to the void and it's totally possible to return from the void. According to the Arreat Summit Izual even did the same at one point. The destruction of the Worldstone could have had a kind of snowballing effect even, like breaking the borders between Heaven and Hell rolls over and opens up the void.

One more thing, I'll go into more detail later, but Ureh is a city between Heaven, Hell, and Sanctuary, possibly a place like the void where the Brothers are is, probably not the same though, as the faded Ureh can be almost glimpsed while in Sanctuary. Diablo is responsible for them being there, he may have planned it so that he and his brothers could drift into Ureh, then have Ureh be pulled back into Sanctuary (something which would be possible, as we know simply by the fact that if it can go one way, it can probably come back, if it does come back it could take the brothers with it.

Question 8:

New Answer: [/b]

Simply put, if Blizzard follows the lore and lets it guide the story, Diablo will return, if they follow their usual tendencies and just make the story up, to make it more epic, and make excuses for the loose ends, then it's impossible to tell, whatever they think will be most interesting for the players.

I think Blizzard will do whatever it is they want to do, but reading their collective mind isn't what I'm here to do, down to the lore of why Diablo would return.

Stebo88 pointed out that the only time we saw Diablo's soulstone being destroyed was in a cinema, as dictated by Marius, who was drunken, insane, and not present at the events he was describing. He said he [i]heard that the stone was destroyed, and as we know from Blizzard, the events of Diablo 2 were disregarded by most of the world as false, so any news Marius may have heard may easily have been inaccurate.

The best counter-argument I have is that in Cain's journal on Blizzard.com he says that the soulstone was destroyed, unlike Marius, Cain was there, and Cain is reliable. The only way the destruction of the soulstone could have not happened is if the Hero himself faked it, and I doubt that, the hero in Diablo games are essentially grunts, that and the Barbarian is returning, even though in terms of canon it was a group of heros who killed Diablo, the barbarian probably would have known about it.

So anyway, Diablo could still return, he's not dead, he just gone to the void and it's totally possible to return from the void. According to the Arreat Summit Izual even did the same at one point. The destruction of the Worldstone could have had a kind of snowballing effect even, like breaking the borders between Heaven and Hell rolls over and opens up the void.

One more thing, I'll go into more detail later, but Ureh is a city between Heaven, Hell, and Sanctuary, possibly a place like the void where the Brothers are is, probably not the same though, as the faded Ureh can be almost glimpsed while in Sanctuary. Diablo is responsible for them being there, he may have planned it so that he and his brothers could drift into Ureh, then have Ureh be pulled back into Sanctuary (something which would be possible, as we know simply by the fact that if it can go one way, it can probably come back, if it does come back it could take the brothers with it.

Question 9:

9) Will Imperius show up, what are his intentions?

Yes, Imperius will show up, and he plans to destroy Sanctuary, or at the very least, massacre every human, demon, and Nephalem on it.

Explanation: Now the whole meteor thing is enough evidence that he'll be returning, but this new artwork just about confirms it.

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/artwork.xml#55

I'll prove it's Imperius, thrice (as in three times.) First off look at him physically, he has gleaming red wings, and the silhouette has armor, the very same armor as in the image below, of Imperius in the meteor. The tentacles are just as they should be, as in they are red, which Imperius' would probably have. The inconsistency in the meteor images and in this new artwork can be credited to us knowing virtually nothing about Angel's physical characteristics. They could quite possibly change form and color at a whim, or it could be that flying in a metoer to Earth has adverse affects.



Ok, secondly, look at the so-called alter he's standing in, it's an upturned sword. It's obviously ornamental, though, it's not like Imperius is standing a giant real sword. The sword itself is like impressionistic art, it just guides your thoughts instead of simply showing you an image.

[b]More importantly though, you remember the artwork with Tyrael, and how he seemed to be lifting up, and in pain, and so on,

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/artwork.xml#48

well that's not important, what is important is that he is being lifted in the middle of five glyphs on the ground, only four of which we can see. I believe each glyph represents a member of the Angris council, and each glyph is the emblem of it's given angel, like an upturned sword is of Imperius, one of the images looked like an upturned sword to me, neither it or the alter/sword in the new artwork appear to be real practical swords you would take into battle, but they are different from a real sword in the same way. Observe.



That's the glyph, you know what the alter thing looks like, so anyway notice the blade, it's narrow then all of a sudden it bulks out and becomes bigger. The same in both.

Additional summary:
8) Ureh is a city between Heaven, Hell and Sanctuary. Speculation below.

9)Imperius is back, and he's going to try to destroy everything.


Additional Speculation

Theory 3: Diablo's return

This theory assumes Diablo will return, and the whole thing from his exile to Sanctuary until the end of Diablo 3 was all his devious scheme, which if he returns, that will certainly be how, it won't be any accident.

Ok, so it's been 20 yrs, Hell is finally coming out of the worldstone crater and pouring forth to the first bastion of defense against such an attack: Harrogath.

Meanwhile Imperius has gotten his vote from the Angris council and has come down via a meteor to Tristram, where Tyrael has appeared for the first time in twenty years, because he knows something has happened which is allowing Hell to invade, so he is contacting Cain, the only Human he can truly trust, unfortunately, as we know from Blizzard, Cain may be the first victim of the new Evil, meaning he could be corrupted or physically in danger.

So, then Lilith and Inarius walk in and BOOM the greatest army (Nephalem) rises up to not only conquer Sanctuary, but take advantage of Heaven and Hell's weak position to strike out and massacre them, therefore making them the overarching rulers of the universe. That's the plan, Anyway... then they move to the former city of Ureh which has the full collection of Mortal knowledge and powers relating to both Heaven and Hell in it, meaning it would probably be the perfect nursery for the budding revival of the Nephalem race, so you the hero move in to stop them (possibly after either you or they take care of the invading forces of Heaven and Hell.)

Intentionally or not though, Lilith, either trys to summon the brothers themselves, or the whole city of Ureh, with the brothers tagging along.

Note: The Pandemonium event is not canon, but it may be an indication of what is possible, in that the plot of it was essentially that Lilith returned and summoned the Brothers straight out of the void.

So then with Diablo and his Brothers back your launch a one man assault and smite down, Lilith, The brothers, Inarius, and any other nasties hanging around, I'm betting that either you or Lilith will have already taken care of Azmodan, Beliel, and Imperius. Diablo will be the finale, the apex of the end of the trilogy, he could even be the expansion boss.

Note: I simply don't have enough of anything to go off of to work on the spider-lady artwork, more on Lilith or Inarius, or Hell's invasion, I'm holding off on those till Blizzcon, after which I'll give you guys the update I meant to give. This it Version 1.5, after Blizzcon you get v. 2.0

Thanks to Stebo88 for proofreading the older version.

So that I can keep on adding to this article, please discuss here:

http://www.d3armory.com/forums/topic/2847/

Freezing article.