Diablo III: Book of Cain

Diablo III: Book of Cain
1st edition (English)
Author Deckard Cain
Genre Video Games, Fantasy
Publisher Insight Editions (English)
Publication date
 2011
Media type Print hardback
Pages 148
ISBN ISBN 978-1-60887-082-0 (English)

Diablo III: Book of Cain is the first product based on Diablo III by Blizzard Entertainment. The book was published by Insight Editions on December 13, 2011. The book was designed by Jason Babler.

Artists

Artists providing exclusive art for the Diablo III: Book of Cain include: Brom, Mark Gibbons, Jim Gurney, John Howe, Alan Lee, Iain McCaig, Jean-Baptiste Monge, Petar Meseldzija, and Adrian Smith.

Excerpt

DIABLO, THE LORD OF TERROR, is the most powerful of the three Prime Evils, despite being the youngest of the brothers. The other two being Mephisto and Baal.

In his previous incarnations on Sanctuary, Diablo has possessed a human vessel and transformed the host body. These humanoid forms have a number of features in common: a pointed chin, sharp teeth that protrude from bony gums, and a pair of horns that curve upward.

His true form could be vastly different. In the lore of the ages, it is said that Diablo takes the form of his viewer’s greatest fear.

Some sources make reference to an almost insectoid or reptilian true form for Diablo, with overlapping plates or scales of skin and a deadly tail or tentacle.

More contemporary reports theorize that the lord has been affected permanently by the time he has spent in Sanctuary, his forehead scarred by an enduring gash where the Soulstone was embedded.

SDCC 2011

During the San Diego Comic Con 2011, Blizzard Entertainment Senior Vice-president of Creative Design Chris Metzen revealed[1] further details about Diablo III: Book of Cain.

Chris Metzen: 13:04 – “Another really cool project we are working on with a brother named Flint Dille is a source book for the Diablo universe. It’s been many years since we published a Diablo game. There’s a lot of weird stuff floating out there in the internet and wikis and things like that, so we wanted the opportunity to really create a product — it’s essentially Deckard Cain’s journal … I think we are calling it the Book of Cain … where over the course of his adventures, his archaeology, and studying of the manuscripts over the years he’s put together a compendium of what makes the Diablo universe the Diablo universe.”

13:34 – “We are highlighting Heaven and Hell, the people that live there, the realms of Heaven and Hell, the history of Sanctuary, the lands of Sanctuary, highlighting maybe the classes that have been playable in the games up to this point, notable people in history and pretty much trying to create a fairly tight compendium of all Diablo lore and you know one nice edition. So with any luck, that book will pop around whenever the game comes out and will be a very useful tool in getting back up on what’s up with the Diablo universe. So that’s something we are very very excited about and working on rapidly and intensely right now."

References

Sources