Dark Wanderer

The Dark Wanderer is an NPC seen just outside the entrance to the Kurast Docks, the first time a character leaves town. He lives up to his name, walking silently along in his dark cloak, before pausing, then vanishing into thin air. He leaves a gift though; half a dozen Flesh Beasts that appear in his place, and promptly attack any nearby characters.

The Dark Wanderer has no dialogue and can not be clicked on. He is a physical object though, and it can be fun to stand in his way or cast Decoys or other obstacles in front of him, just to watch him bounce off of them and try to move past, during the few seconds before he dematerializes, leaving Flesh Beasts in his wake.

This sequence of events recalls the scenes shown in the Diablo II opening cinematic, in which Marius recalls meeting the Dark Wanderer in an opium den, and witnessing the tormented man summoning up skeletons, flesh beasts, and other demons that destroyed the building and killed everyone inside but Marius, who then followed the Dark Wanderer out into the snow, and continued to follow him throughout the other cinematics, seen after each act of the game is completed.

In the game fiction, the Dark Wanderer is the Warrior hero from Diablo. In that game's concluding cinematic, the hero smashed Diablo's hellstone into his own forehead, in a mad effort to contain the power of the demon. The effort, though noble, was doomed, and the hero gradually succumbed to the corrupting influence of Diablo. He destroyed Tristram, summoning up demons there, and continuing to do so as he wanders throughout the land, trailing destruction as he seeks to find and free his brothers, Mephisto and Baal.

Much of the plot of Diablo II revolves around following the Dark Wanderer and trying to stop him from freeing his brothers. These efforts are ultimately unsuccessful, and the Dark Wanderer meets his end in the pre-Act Four cinematic, when we see Diablo completely consume the human shell and assume his true, red, scaly, spiked form, before stomping through the portal and descending back down into the Burning Hells.