CCRB RECORD No. 0017
Diablo
Determination: Explicit — Corruption 3
The town cathedral is the entrance to Hell, and its Archbishop put the demon there.
The first Diablo sets the pattern the series returns to: the church is where the evil is. The player descends sixteen levels beneath Tristram's cathedral, through catacombs and crypts, into the Burning Hells. The architecture is ecclesiastical for the first third of the game — pews, stained glass, altars — and the enemies in it include fallen clerics. Archbishop Lazarus, a loyal Zakarum cleric manipulated by Mephisto, is the reason any of it happened: he travelled to Khanduras, freed Diablo from the Soulstone beneath the church, and later led the townspeople's children into the labyrinth. King Leoric, driven mad by Diablo's presence under his own cathedral, becomes the Skeleton King. Lazarus is fought as a boss.