Who was Tremayne?

Tremayne was meant to hang around the church a lot, supposedly near the position that the slain villager now inhabits at the start of Diablo. However rumor has it that in Diablo he would appear and disappear as the game progressed. Tremayne was responsible for giving you the quest to kill Lazarus and upon completion of this quest, he gave you the powerful unique mace 'Lightforge'. This unique mace was actually never removed from Diablo, and often appears as a hacked item. Tremayne's final role in Diablo was to issue the quest to find Shadowfang. After you recovered Shadowfang and handed it over to Tremayne, he was killed by the demon-blade.

The Quest Itself

"I have had a most disturbing experience that I must share with you my friend. Earlier today I was called upon to help one of men who escaped from the labyrinth. He was deranged, violent and kept lashing out at all of those who were trying to calm him. I suspected that he had been possessed by some sort of demonic entity and so began to drive the evil from within him. After many hours, I was able to exercise a demon, who called himself Fleshdoom, but the hellion escaped into the Labyrinth. You may think that I am mad, but after speaking with the man and battling Fleshdoom, I believe that the Labyrinth has somehow become a gateway to the underworld. As you descent deeper you may find yourself on the doorsteps of hell itself. Finally the man who was possessed, retained memories of an ancient Demonblade called ShadowFang. If you find the demon Fleshdoom beware this foul sword. While I believe the dangers below grow even greater, you must find the demon Fleshdoom and slay him. Bring the sword to me and I can destroy it. Do not wield it, for its power can corrupt absolutely."

Another thing that we know, is that even though Fleshdoom was involved in the Shadowfang quest, he did not actually wield the Demonblade. After you kill Fleshdoom and return to speak with Tremayne, you hear another wav sound. In this .wav, Tremayne tells you that although you have done well in killing Fleshdoom, the Demonblade. still remains and must be found and destroyed. No other information on Fleshdoom exists on the CD, so all we can do is speculate.

Once Shadowfang is found this quests takes a very, very interesting turn. When the demon sword is given to Tremayne, the sword consumes the priest with hellfire. Tremayne's final instructions as he burns, are to take the blade back to the Hellforge, from which it came. To do this, you must venture into the very depths of hell itself.

This quest raises a hundred questions, and yet I can only address a few in this article. The first question that I need to ask, is where exactly was hell located, in the original game and how were you meant to get to it? According to the Shadowfang quest, you still had not ventured into hell, well after you killed Lazarus. Was Lazarus originally an early boss character? Or was Diablo originally a much, much bigger game. Speaking of bosses, when exactly did you actually get to fight Diablo? The Shadowfang quest implies that you would have not been able to face Diablo until well after level 16.

A lot of other questions that I have been pondering on, but haven't been able to answer, concern Shadowfang itself. How would you have found Shadowfang? It obviously wasn't found when you killed Fleshdoom. And it wouldn't have been found in hell itself, because you were meant to return the weapon to hell, after you found it. This would have been an amazing quest had it been put in.

Izual the Fallen Angel

Izual was originally a character involved in Diablo. Both he and his mystic blade Azurewrath remain partially implemented in Diablo. Izual has his own .wav sound file, which you can listen to here. The graphic for his blade Azurewrath is shown on the left. Most likely as you ventured through hell in your efforts to be rid of Shadowfang, you would confront Izual. Assuming that you battled with Izual, the battle would have probably been the hardest in the entire game. More importantly: would Blizzard have let you kill off this character? I strongly believe that battling Izual was a run off quest from Shadowfang. And I also believe that you would have battled against Izual before you confronted Diablo.

Izual says "Hows much does it take before you lose your grace mortal, let me show you." This implies that you would have indeed battles Izual. The only other thing we know about this battle is that it would have taken place in Hell, because Izual has been situated in Hellforge since he fell to the forces of darkness. This would have been a very interesting sub quest. It is a shame that enemies of this caliber were never introduced in the finished game, and this definitely hampered Diablo's overall gameplay.