The "Book of Cain": On its inspiration, compilation and the Diablo lore

The good folks at Blizzplanet.com caught up with Blizzard's Publishing Lead and Senior Story Developer Micky Neilson to talk to him about the new Diablo III text: the so called "Book of Cain". Neilson talks about how the idea of releasing such a book came to be and what part of the Diablo III lore will it cover.

Neilson begins the interview by explaining how the idea behind creating the "Book of Cain" came from Chris Metzen, Blizzard's vice president of creative development. Metzen approached the publishing team with the idea of creating something of a mix between a lore book and a history tome and its exact current form coming after juggling a bit with the whole idea.

According to Micky, the book will cover a great part of the previously written "Sin War Trilogy" (novels written by Richard A. Knaak) as well as some other books, but will aim to set straight the lore discrepancies that have been born in the process of building the Diablo universe.

"We knew going into the creation of this book that there were already some contradictions that existed in the lore and the history. So we took this as an opportunity to set the record straight. We definitely identified a few things."

fdfe7b50fcc5ccf576ba17e34bb457e686ab2f77630c1ef466deb9cbf6.jpg

One specific example given by Nielson is the way Baal's imprisonment into Tal'Rasha's body occurred and more precisely - whose idea was the whole process. During the Diablo timeline both Tal'Rasha himself and Tyrael have been thought to be originators of the idea but Nielson and his team have ultimately set their minds this one to be Zoltun Kulle - a character players will familiarize themselves with with the release of Diablo III.

The "Book of Cain" will also help readers plunge deeper into the world that Diablo III will be set in, more precisely the prophecy about Azmodan's arrival and the comet. Nielson assures us that there will be no spoilers at all in the book but it will help players to get put in the mood. The "Book of Cain" will provide Deckard Cain's texts on his research about the set prophecy and the approaching end so it will be an interesting prelude to playing Diablo III.

One of the most intriguing parts of the interview was Nielson's words on what the book will tell in terms of NPCs and groups that players have already interacted with. It is revealed that the read will provide some insight on the Horadrim and King Leoric, the former to be more extensively covered in a second book.

"For sure we get into Leoric a lot more. We do touch into a lot of the history of the Horadrim, the hunt for the three, we get into a lot more detail as far as the events that took place back then. We’re also working on another book, Nate Kenyon is writing a book for us called The Order and that is really going to go into a lot more detail also into the history of the Horadrim and Cain’s involvement and how he learned about the Horadrim and the events at Tristram."

The "Book of Cain", in its hardcover 148-page entirety, is bound to hit the shelves December 13th.