Diablo II Easter Eggs

The Blizzard North developers stuck a lot of Easter Eggs in Diablo 2, both major and minor.

This page covers a variety of undocumented features, many of which may not meet the strictest definition of an "Easter Egg" but all of which are of interest to fans of the game.

• See also Diablo I Easter Eggs and Diablo III Easter Eggs.

Major Easter Eggs

These are Easter Eggs and undocumented features that are large enough features to justify their own page coverage. They can be accessed in the game and used to some advantage.

The Secret Cow Level

The Secret Cow Level is a hidden level, included as a bonus based on the old cow level jokes/rumors/legends from Diablo I. It's real in Diablo II, and provides players with a whole level of Hell Bovines, with halberds ready to cleave you like firewood. See the quest page for full details about the origin of this level and how to access it.

The Pandemonium Event

The Pandemonium Event is a special end game multi-part quest added in the v1.11 patch, enabling players to reach Uber Tristram and fight the most difficult monsters in the game for the Hellfire Torch. See the page for full details.

Uber Diablo

The Uber Diablo quest was added in the v1.10 patch. He is a much more powerful version of Diablo who spawns semi-randonly, as Stones of Jordan are sold on that particular realm server. Uber Diablo is the only source of the Annihilus Charm. See the page for full details.

Natalya

Natalya.

Natalya is an NPC, found in the the Act Three town the Kurast Docks. She serves as a preview of the Assassin character, which was added in the expansion pack. See her article page for full details.

Minor Easter Eggs

Act Five Mercenary Name Change

This mysterious event is probably a Diablo 3 Easter Egg. It occurred when the D2 v1.13 patch was released in 2009. The patch.txt said that two Mercenary names, "Klar" and "Tryneus" were added, and when fans dug into the code they discovered:

In 1.13, MercX136 is called 'Klar', in 1.12 it was 'Weohstan'.

In 1.13, MercX135 is called 'Tryneus', in 1.12 it was 'Erfor'.

Blizzard has offered no explanation for this inexplicable change. There is some fan speculation that it's meant to set up some plot development in Diablo 3, but if that's the case, why would Blizzard do it like this? If Klar and Tryneus are important Barbarian names in the story of Diablo 3, why wouldn't Blizzard have just given those 2 names from the existing list of Act 5 Mercs? By putting the change into the patch notes they purposely drew attention to it.

Wirt's Corpse

Wirt was a one-legged, boy merchant NPC in Diablo I. He sold magical items, potentially with better mods than could be obtained in any other way, which made him tempting to visit. But he charged 50 gold just to see what one item he had, and since 99% of the time it was nothing the player wanted, and since Wirt was a long walk out of town, and since that 50 gold was a lot of money to a new player, most players developed a raging hate for the little peg-legged bastard.

Wirt's corpse was found in the ruins of Tristram in Diablo II, as a clickable object lying on the ground on the west side of town (near where the bridge over to his location was in Diablo I.) When clicked, Wirt drops Wirt's Leg, a semi-unique item that's required to enter the Secret Cow Level, and a lot of stacks of gold in random amounts.

During the D2 beta, Wirt's corpse dropped numerous stacks of 50 gold, to the delight of all long time Diablo I players.

SoundChaosDebug

Type /SoundChaosDebug in-game to hear a massive jumble of every sound in the game, playing all on top of each other. Type it again to turn off the noise. This isn't actually an Easter Egg; it's a debug feature left in the game from the development stage.

• See all in-game commands.

Play Diablo 2 Windowed

To play Diablo 2 in a window, add -w after the command line. This is not an Easter Egg, but it's a useful trick that's not well-documented.

• See the instructions to implement this and various other Target Line Commands on the Game Commands page.

Names and Shout Outs

Dozens of items, monsters, mercenaries, and other things in the game were named after Blizzard employees, friends, fansite operators, figures in the news, and more. None of these names affect game play or require anything special to activate them. They're simply interesting for trivia or general information.

Locations

• The Halls of Vaught were named after Fred Vaught, a background artist.

Monsters

• Creeping Feature, a zombie boss in Act 2, was named as an inside joke, in honor of the continually-growing list of game features that were causing delays. The name is a variation of the term Feature Creep, which is described by wikipedia as, "...the rapid expanding of features in a product such as computer software."

• Frozenstein, the Act V Super Unique, is a clear reference to the fictional Frankestein's monster.

• Lord de Seis was named for Rick Seis, Diablo II's Lead Programmer.

• Shenk the Overseer was named for Phil Shenk, a Character Artist.

• Sextons, one subtype of the Act Three Zakarum Priests, share a name with Eric Sexton, another of the game's designers. This is thought simply to be a coincidence though, since the word sexton is a noun describing a church official.

Items

• The Aldur's Watchtower Item Set is named after Aldur, one of the seven gods who created the world in David Eddings' novel, The Belgariad

• The Blade of Ali Baba (Unique Tulwar) and its properties are a reference to the famous hero of Arabic literature.

• Bverrit Keep -- The unique tower shield is thought to be a phonetic play on the last name of David Brevik, Diablo 2's designer and co-founder of Blizzard North.
  • Dave's younger brother Peter Brevik joined Blizzard North and worked as a programmer on Diablo 2, so he might be tied into this one as well, somehow.

• Ginther's Rift -- This unique sword got it's name from Gray Ginther, a fan who won a contest to have a D2X unique item named after him.

• Heaven's Brethren All of the items in this D2X set are taken from Korean mythological figures. The images as well, are all copied from historical Korean weapons. See the note on Historical Accuracy for details and pics.

• The Messerschmidt's Reaver Unique Axe (also found in Diablo I) was (apparently) named after a David Gottlieb Messerschmidt, a German physician, naturalist and geographer.

• Schaeffer's Hammer was named for brothers Max and Erich Schaefer, co-creators of Diablo and co-founders of Blizzard North. (This was one of the few returning unique items from Diablo I.)

• Sexton's Trophy is the name of one an exceptional quality Necromancer-only totem. This may be named after Eric Sexton, or may just be a coincidence. (See "Sexton," in the monster listing of this page.)

• Tancred's Battlegear is named after a real person, a knight crusader from the first crusade in the Ninth Century.

• The Diggler -- This unique dirk is a play on words, inspired by the fictional male porn star Dirk Diggler, from the film Boogie Nights.

Other Names

• The Steeg Stone, an object that was to act as a guild treasury in the begun but never-finished Guild Halls was named after Stieg Hedlund, one of the game's designers.

• Reziarfg -- This monster is not found in the game, but is listed on the official Diablo 2 site on Battle.net, complete with a hideous image. The name comes from long-time Blizzard web developer G. Fraizer, spelled backwards.

Mercenaries

Many of the Mercenaries were named after Blizzard North employees or friends/family. A few were also named after prominent members of the Diablo fansite community. Not all the name shout outs are known or can be known, since many had private/personal meaning to individual Blizzard North employee. As such, this should be considered a partial list.

Act One Rogues

Full listing of Act One Rogue names. Many of the rogues were named for girlfriends, wives, or other relatives, but the relations have not been made public, so only a few can be listed here.

• Elly -- One of the four staff members of Diabloii.net with a merc named after her.
• Gaile -- One of the four staff members of Diabloii.net with a merc named after her.
• Isolde -- One of the online nicknames for Peter Hu, a Diablo 2 lead programmer.
• Divo -- Named for Divo Palinkas, a Diablo 2 programmer and one of the few female Blizzard North employees.

Act Two Desert Mercenaries

Full listing of Desert Mercenary names. The origins of most Act 2 merc names are unknown.

• Azrael -- The online name of the webmaster of Diablo2.com, a popular community site pre-Diablo 2.

Act Three Iron Wolves

Full listing of Iron Wolf names.

• Flux -- The online name of one of the four webmasters of Diabloii.net to be so honored. (Flux also got an NPC named after him in Torchlight, as thanks for his webmastering work on a Hellgate:London and Mythos fansite. [1])

• Jarulf -- The author of Jarulf's Guide, a fan possessed of legendary Diablo I knowledge.

• Scorch -- The webmaster of Darkness, the first Diablo 2 monsters-specialized fansite. Hosted by Diabloii.net.

Act Five Barbarians

The full list of Act Five Barbarian names is massive; by far the longest of any type of merc. Most are inspired by or taken straight from Norse mythology, but a few more shout outs appear here as well, for people who missed the cut to make it into D2C.

• Bill -- Possibly a shout out to Bill Roper, Diablo 2 producer and ex-Blizzard PR guru.

• Lanth -- The online name of a long-time Diablo fan, who used to regularly chat about game features with Peter Hu in the Diabloii.net chat room. Presumably that contact got him into the game.

• Varaya -- Online name for one of the best-known Diablo I mod-makers.

• Khan -- Online name for one of the best known Diablo I mod-makers. Best know for their Varaya and Khan Middle Earth mod.