by Whitney "Neinball" Fairchild - 11 years ago     show comments

In the past articles we looked into the who, what and whys but how about the wheres?  We’ll start looking into some of the places we may end up traveling to in the Reaper of Souls.

Pandemonium

There is one place that just keeps coming up time and again in speculation for RoS and that place is Pandemonium. When we first set foot in the Pandemonium Fortress it was the ‘last bastion of Heaven’ before the gates of Hell in Diablo II. That’s been retconned slightly with the fortress being something of a neutral territory between Heaven and Hell that has exchanged hands many times between the battling sides. It is also the home of the Worldstone before its theft by Inarius. There are some lead ins at the end of Diablo III that point us towards Malthael’s departure to Pandemonium and it’s here that I believe the bulk of the expansion to take place.

This place will make for a great setting. It’s a huge abandoned fortress literally floating in the middle of pure chaos. It has absorbed the essence of both the Heavenly Host and the Demonic Hordes over the millenniums it has existed.  These aspects can serve to break up the monotony and we don’t have an entire expansion of a single tile set. Will we get to see the resting place of the Worldstone? What about the graves of those who have fallen defending the fortress? I would love to see what kind of ‘graveyard’ could have formed over countless eons of demons and angels killing one another.

If we look back at Diablo II there is only precedence for a single, gigantic act with the expansion, but lets get hopeful and look at some other places we may see if they add in multiple acts in RoS.

Ureh, Kingdom of Shadow

Ureh was a kingdom built into the side of a mountain and one of the most pious lands in all of Sanctuary. They allied themselves with the forces of Heaven and did everything they could to emulate the angels. They were so enraptured with Heaven that when an angel appeared before them and offered a way to join Ureh with the realm of Heaven they immediately set on completing a complicated ritual to ascend from the mortal realm. Sadly, they were duped for it was no angel that appeared before them, it was Diablo. He tricked them into completing a ritual that would cast all the souls in Ureh into Hell, but thanks to the intervention of one man, Gregus Mazi, the spell was interrupted right before its completion and the inhabitants of the city were instead cast into a place between Heaven, Hell and Sanctuary. While not explicitly said where it was that Ureh went to, this place in between the realms sounds a lot like Pandemonium. Given the inter-dimensional aspect of Ureh it could make a great opening act in RoS.  They could force us there because some ‘mysterious ward’ has prevented direct travel to Pandemonium but we find a way through some ley line in Ureh.

Also the ever popular Priests of Rathma, the necromancers, reside in the jungles near Ureh and could make for an easy tie as one of the new classes.

The Western Kingdoms, Westmarch and Kingsport

Westmarch has always been an important place in Diablo lore across the series, we’ve just never been there. It is home of the Templar Order and the subject of most of Kormac’s story. Kingsport was brought to the forefront by everyone’s favorite scoundrel, Lyndon. Could we see some of these areas? If we do I doubt there will much in the main story to draw us here, but it would make for some interesting side areas if instead of adding in a full second act we get the ability to travel to other areas to expand on some of the side stories of our followers.

Hell, the Safe Fall Back

In Diablo, when in doubt bet on Hell. We had the descent into the Arreat Crater in Act Three and Hell Rifts in Act Four but we didn’t get to see a lot of Hell this time around. What’s changed in the last twenty years? Who’s in charge now that all the Evils are defeated? While it’s in the realm of possibilities I don’t think we’ll revisit Hell just yet.  I think they’ll save Hell for the finale in the Diablo III series with the rumored third expansion.  Here Inarius may come into play and I would love to faced down all seven of the Evils in their individual forms and who knows what we may learn by the end of RoS.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these articles as much as I have writing them. Will I be eating some crow tomorrow? I’m likely far off the mark on many things, but it’s always fun to speculate. One thing I feel certain about are that the major plot points are going to be Malthael, the Worldstone and Pandemonium. Hopefully we will see some a healthy amount of information tomorrow, but it’s likely we will have to wait to hear more during Blizzcon in November.

Would like to know more? Check out the previous articles in the series.

Part 1 Who is the Reaper?

Part 2 The Usual Suspects

Part 3 Eternities of Conflict