The Prime Evils

The Prime Evils is the designation given to the three most powerful beings of Hell in the Diablo series of video games. Hellspawned demonic brothers, the three originally ruled Hell jointly as a triumvirate, until the conspired against them and overthrew them onto the mortal plane.

Before the events of the original game, Diablo, the three Prime Evils were captured by the Horadrim and imprisoned inside soul stones. Diablo's soul stone was then buried deep beneath caverns under the town of Tristram. Then several years before the start of the game, Diablo was set free, causing havoc to Tristram and the hero of the game must fight through the horde of monsters and slay Diablo.

After the hero defeated Diablo, he attempted to prevent Diablo's return by containing the demon lord within him. However, the hero slowly became corrupted and was driven by Diablo to seek his brothers: Mephisto and Baal. The game Diablo II continues the story of the first game, with the player cast as a pursuing adventurer, trying to prevent Diablo from reuniting with his brothers. In the course of Diablo II Mephisto is defeated and his soulstone is destroyed. Eventually, Diablo himself is defeated and his soulstone is destroyed as well. The story of Diablo II is completed in the expansion pack, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, which explains the whereabouts and fate of Baal.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction's story-line introduces a new mythical object into the Diablo Universe, the Worldstone, which is an ancient crystal that prevents the Heavens and the Hells from completely enveloping the mortal realm. Baal is seeking it inside Mount Arreat. However, true to the games preceding it, Baal is defeated. The Worldstone is destroyed by the archangel Tyrael due to Baal's corruption of it.

Diablo

Diablo is the Lord of Terror, responsible for the seeding of humanity with violent images of bloodlust and terror, his primary weapon being the victim's fear. Diablo's appearance is that of a massive, red-skinned humanoid with sharp fangs and claws and curving horns, as well as long, bony blades sticking out of him (some have suggested that he is similar to a carnivorous dinosaur). In Diablo II, he additionally has a lizard-like tail and uses all four limbs to run. In a video sequence between acts, however, Diablo is seen walking through a portal completely erect on two feet.

He was the last of the three brothers to be captured into the soulstone by the Horadrim. Several tomes that may be found beneath the cathedral of Tristram speak of Diablo being the leader and the strongest of "The Three", though he is the youngest of the three brothers.

Initially trapped in his soulstone, he managed to corrupt Archbishop Lazarus, compelling him to kidnap Prince Albrecht. Seeing his beloved son missing, King Leoric has led expeditions to the labyrinth to find his son, only to have them all die gruesome deaths. Leoric had then gone mad, and later turned into the Skeleton king, though Diablo was not successful at completely corrupting him. It was later revealed that Lazarus had shoved Diablo's soulstone in the prince's forehead and allowed him to take over the prince's mind and body and re-manifest Diablo in the physical world.

Diablo was originally defeated under the labyrinths beneath Tristram. However, the hero then pressed the soulstone into his forehead, attempting to contain the Lord of Terror's essence. It was there that Diablo corrupted the hero and took over his body, being known from that point on as the Dark Wanderer. He then destroyed Tristram, and then passed through the rogue camp, reaching the monastery, leaving few survivors. One such survivor was Marius, who escaped into hiding. He reached Marius's hiding spot and destroyed it, leaving only Marius alive. Marius followed him from then on. He traveled east with Marius in an attempt to free his brothers.

He then successfully freed Baal, despite the intervention of Archangel Tyrael. Diablo, Baal, and Mephisto reunited in Kurast, using their combined powers to open the portal to Hell and Diablo reshaped the body of the Dark Wanderer to reveal his true self before he entered the gateway.

In Hell, Diablo is found in the Chaos Sanctuary, and will only come forth after the seals of the sanctuary have been broken. There, he was defeated by the pursuing adventurer and his soulstone was destroyed.

Game Context
Diablo appears as the final boss of the first game. He's the strongest enemy in the game, possessing powerful ranged and melee attacks. He reappears in Diablo II as the final boss of Act IV (serving as the final boss until the Lord of Destruction expansion). In the Lord of Destruction expansion, there is an even more powerful black colored version called "Uber-Diablo", which replaced Baal as the strongest monster in the game, but doesn't serve any storyline significance. Uber-Diablo is only fought on Hell difficulty (the highest difficulty setting).

Mephisto
Mephisto is the Lord of Hatred who is described as the eldest of the three brothers.

Mephisto was originally captured by the Horadrim in the deserts near the city of Lut Gholein, the same place where Baal was captured. He was imprisoned inside a soulstone, moved to Kurast and was kept locked inside the Guardian Tower beneath the city of Travincal. His corruption of the regional priesthood led to his release. He was eventually defeated by the pursuing adventurer and his soulstone was subsequently destroyed. He is the most intensely evil brother, whose greatest weapon is his victim's irrational hatred. Among his underlings, the undead compose the vast majority.

History
Within the game's story, the originators of a religion known as Zakarum locked Mephisto in a tower deep within the holy city of Kurast. Over the years, Mephisto slowly extended his influence over every priest in the council except for Khalim, the Que-Hegan (head of the council). Khalim stood against the Lord of Hatred, but the council members, under Mephisto's command, literally tore him to shreds and scattered his remains throughout the jungle. Mephisto had the council members work spells to shatter the soulstone into seven pieces, and he pressed a shard into each member. The new head of the council, Sankekur, received the largest shard and eventually became the embodiment of Mephisto.

Eventually, the council members themselves became Mephisto's most trusted and most powerful lieutenants, and the humans of Kurast either fell to his dark influence or fled to the last bastion of light in the jungles, the Kurast Docks. To ensure his control over the council, Mephisto erected a powerful arcane device known as the Compelling Orb which held the council members in his will.

With Khalim gone, Mephisto and the high council members managed to extend their influence past the capital of Travincal, into the three levels of Kurast; Upper, Lower, and the Bazaar, and then extending their influence into the surrounding jungle, driving the usually peaceful pygmy tribes into insane cannibals who made travel between the Docks and the main city nearly impossible. Council members Geleb Flamefinger, Toorc Icefist and Ismail Vilehand stayed near the entrance to Mephisto's Durance near the compelling orb in Travincal, while members Bremm Sparkfist, Wyand Voidbringer and Maffer Dragonhand stayed on the third level near Mephisto and the portal to hell.

Game context
Mephisto is the boss of Act III. Most of the act consists of finding Khalim's scattered relics; his Heart, his Brain, his Eye, and his Flail. All four items are then transmuted with the Horadric Cube to create Khalim's Will, which is used to destroy the Compelling Orb. Doing so will break Mephisto's control on the Zakarum Priests and open the way to his sanctuary.

After finding the Durance of Hate on level three, players encounter at least two of the remaining high council before fighting Mephisto himself. Killing the three outer councilmen, Geleb, Toorc, and Ismail, is required to gain entrance to the first level of the Durance.

In all difficulty levels, Mephisto's attacks carry large elemental damage. His melee produces a poison-like cloud that lingers for a while, while his other spells (charged bolt, lightning, frost nova and ice orb) deal massive elemental damage.

Offspring
In the new Diablo novel, The Sin War, it is revealed that Mephisto had two children: a son, Lucion, and a daughter, Lilith.

Baal
Baal is the last brother to appear in the Diablo games, and is title character and final boss of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Baal is said to strive for destruction and disorder and is often associated with animals, particularly those bred as soldiers or serving some purpose on the battlefield. By the time he launched his assault on Mount Arreat, his army is an amalgamation of not only beasts, but also the undead and demons.

Though he was the second brother to be captured, he proved to be the most difficult because his soulstone had been shattered, making the shards incapable of containing him for long. Then the great Horadric mage Tal Rasha stepped forward, believing that his will was strong enough to contain Baal's spirit. The mage was bound to a pillar in one of seven ancient tombs in the desert, and the shard of the soulstone was jammed into his chest, releasing the Lord of Destruction's spirit into his body. The tomb was then sealed.

Baal was freed when Marius removed the soulstone from Tal Rasha's body. This came moments after Diablo (in the Dark Wanderer's guise) had found the tomb and had nearly reached Tal Rasha when he was interrupted by the Archangel Tyrael. Knowing that he was now faced with the combined might of Diablo and Baal, Tyrael ordered Marius to have Baal's soulstone destroyed in the Hellforge. Diablo and Baal easily overcame Tyrael and imprisoned him in the tomb, until the adventurer discovered the Archangel.

Diablo and Baal reunited with their older brother Mephisto at Kurast, and their combined powers opened up a portal to Hell. Marius had also followed them there in his mission to destroy Baal's soulstone. Marius then witnessed the Dark Wanderer's bloody transformation into Diablo and subsequent passage through the portal, but was too afraid to step through Hell to destroy the soulstone himself.

Mephisto and Diablo were defeated by the adventurer and their soulstones were destroyed, preventing their return. Baal, the only brother to initially escape the pursuing adventurer, came to the asylum where Marius was held and was mistaken as Tyrael. Once Marius surrendered the soulstone, Baal revealed his true identity and "rewarded" him with a quick death.

Baal raised an army of demons and minions and attacked the barbarian homelands of the north, assaulting the capital city, Sescheron, and finally besieging the last city, Harrogath.

His objective in the Lord of Destruction plot is to reach the Worldstone Chamber at the summit of Mount Arreat. Baal easily gained entrance to the Worldstone Keep thanks to the Relic of the Ancients, which meant that he and his forces did not have to battle the three Ancient Barbarian guardians that defended the entrance to the fortress. Baal had previously made a deal with Harrogath elder and necromancer Nihlathak to acquire the relic, in return for letting the city survive. Once inside the keep, Baal's power was able to block Tyrael from intervention.

The adventurer confronted Baal at the "Throne of Destruction" at the end of Act V and followed him into the Worldstone Chamber to ultimately defeat him. However, after Baal's defeat, it was discovered that his corruption has already tainted the Worldstone and the only option was for the archangel Tyrael to destroy the Worldstone to prevent the forces of hell flooding the mortal realm. The consequences of destroying the Worldstone are, as of yet, unknown.

Game Context
Baal possesses a much greater variety of attacks than his two brothers, though his melee attacks have no special qualities. For long range he uses his own version of the nova spell, but with fire instead of lightning, which is extremely damaging, and shoots chunks of ice, which while they aren't very damaging (for the point in the game they're used) they slow down the player if they connect. He also teleports around the the Worldstone Chamber, making him harder to hit. He has two abilities that are particularly dangerous for classes that rely on magic, the ability to cut the player's current mana in half, and to cast a spell that deals damage to the player equal to amount of mana they have. He can also use a Necromancer skill called Decripify, which slows the player down and there's no effective way of stopping him from using it. Quite possibily Baal's most dangerous ability is that he has can create clones of himself. Baal clones have far less health then he does, they can still confuse the player. The only way to tell them apart is that Baal's name and the word demon underneath it are aligned differently. Until Uber-Diablo was later created, Baal was the most powerful monster in the game.

The Lesser Evils
According to the manual for Diablo, there were seven Great Evils - the three Prime Evils (Mephisto, Diablo and Baal) and the four Lesser Evils. While the Prime Evils controlled Hell as a sovereign triumvirate, the Lesser Evils were powerful in their own right, serving as Lieutenants to the Prime evils, but often jealous of them.

* Azmodan, Lord of Sin, and Belial, Lord of Lies: Azmodan joined with his brother Belial during the Sin War to overthrow the Prime Evils, who they believed were unwilling to continue the war with Heaven. Rallying Hell's legions behind them, Azmodan and Belial overthrew Diablo, Mephisto and Baal and banished them to the mortal realm, believing that if the angels were focused on battling the Prime Evils in the mortal realm, the Gates of Heaven would be wide open. Once the Prime Evils were gone, Azmodan and Belial argued over who had the greater authority, and thus their alliance fragmented and a civil war broke out in Hell. Azmodan's and Belial's fates are unknown. In the first Diablo novel, Legacy Of Blood, Belial is referred to as the Lord of Hell, though this may just be exaggeration on the part of the speaker, a demon named Xazax.
* : Once allied with Azmodan and Belial when they overthrew the Prime Evils, Andariel re-aligned herself with Diablo upon his resurrection in the mortal realm. Upon entering the world of Sanctuary, Andariel took over the Monastery of the Sightless Eye, the stronghold of the Rogues, and forced High Priestess Akara and her surviving warriors to flee to a ramshackle camp. Andariel's motives were clear when the Dark Wanderer (Diablo) was discovered - Andariel was attempting to block the pass into Aranoch in order to prevent adventurers from stopping the Wanderer/Diablo from reaching the Tomb of Tal Rasha. At the behest of the Sisterhood, an adventurer battled through demons and undead into the Monastery, and defeated Andariel - thus opening the pass to the desert port of Lut Gholein. In later sources, Andariel was said to be the strongest daughter of Lilith (see below), which might make her Mephisto's granddaughter.
* Duriel, Lord of Pain: Once allied with Azmodan and Belial when they overthrew the Prime Evils, Duriel aided Diablo in finding the Tomb of Tal Rasha in the deserts of Aranoch, where Baal was imprisoned. Once Diablo freed Tal Rasha/Baal, Duriel was left in the tomb to confront the adventurer searching for it, as a punishment for his previous infraction. Duriel was defeated by the adventurer.

Since the release of the 1.11 patch, only Azmodan and Belial have yet to appear in-game.

Lilith
Lilith is introduced in the 1.11 patch. She appears in a quest called the Pandemonium event requiring the hero to collect three keys and transmuting them in the Horadric Cube to form a portal to her realm. She is described as the Queen of Succubi and the Matriarch of Demons.

The addition of Lilith has caused some controversy, as she was never mentioned in previous texts (which had only seven Great Evils and named all of them). Many players do not consider her canon. However, Lilith (almost certainly the same character) is a major character of the Sin War trilogy, where she is revealed to be the daughter of Mephisto and sister of Lucion. It is possible that offspring of the Great Evils are not considered to be Great Evils themselves. This presents another problem, as Lilith is described as Andariel's mother. Unless, of course, lineage is not the primary or sole consideration in a demon's title or position.

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