Folks might not be suprised to find out that I’m a huge Diablo 2 fan! Especially when one of my games is a huge love letter to it!
I’ve been playing the game a lot since the new Reign of the Warlock expansion dropped last week introducing a new class for the first time in 20+ years. I’ve been loving it and it has me thinking so this post is very much about Abbadon based on my reignited Diablo hype which had slowly been killed with newer games in the series. The new class that was introduce is the Warlock, a spell caster who uses the very powers of hell itself, and I really think it fits the world of Diablo so much so I had already thought of a Warlock archetype for Abbadon before I even finished the Kickstarter for the core book.
Both have similarities base on how warlocks are portraited in other forms of fantasy media. Their power is derived from knowledge of Demons. While the Reign of the Warlock warlock can summon demons, bind them, and use hellfire and chaos magic. The Abbadon Warlock vibes a little differently. They don’t summon or bind demons infact they know such communication with demons opens the soul to corruption. They use their knowledge and even demons themselves differently.
Like all of the other Abbadon Archetypes the Warlock comes with 4 skill trees that they can mix and match between. These four trees include Alchemy, Arcana, Chimeria and Demonology.
Alchemy allows them to harve and use components of monsters and demons to make potions and other consumables that can be shared with party members that go over and above the healing and magic regen potions already found in Abbadon.
Arcana is maybe the closest to what Diablo 2’s Warlock ended up with where it’s devisating magic rooted in knowledge of Hell and it’s destructive and chaotic power.
Chimeria allows the Warlock to attempt and harvest body parts from monsters and demons to then Frankenstien their own bodies into monstrous forms, sacrificing their own humanity to combat the forces of Hell.
Demonology is the literal study of demons and monsters, enough to glean insight into their strengths and weaknesses and pass that knowledge onto your allies as well as benefiting from it yourself. Demonlogy functions similarly to the Veterans Tactician skill tree.