Rathma

Rathma, the name taken by Linarian, was the first of the nephalem, the hybrid offspring of angels and demons who came to inhabit the hidden world of Sanctuary. His parents were Lilith, a demon, and Inarius, an angel, the leaders of the renegades who fled the eternal conflict between Heaven and Hell. Rathma's significance extends far beyond his origin: the order of Necromancers, formally known as the Priests of Rathma, bears his name, and his written prophecy stands at the heart of the events in Diablo IV. He served as tutor to Mendeln ul-Diomed, the first Necromancer, and as a steadfast ally to Trag'Oul, a mystical dragon-like being who guards the Balance. From an early age, Rathma rejected the domineering ambitions of both his mother and his father, choosing instead to embody the principle of equilibrium that would define his entire existence.

As a child among the Firstborn, the original generation of nephalem who lived before their kind weakened, Linarian was tormented by dreams of a world without Balance, a realm lost to chaos and ruin. Seeking reprieve, he descended into a cave beneath the Temple of the Firstborn, where he first felt the call of the cycles of life and death. He shared those early years with a childhood friend named Indira, though her later fate is not recorded. The great conflict known as the Purge erupted when the renegade angels and demons, seeing the nephalem's power surpass their own, argued over whether to destroy them. While Inarius deliberated alone, Lilith took matters into her own hands and slaughtered the other renegades, so savagely that she did not distinguish between those who wished to spare the nephalem and those who wished to destroy them. Inarius responded by banishing her from Sanctuary, but the damage was done.

After the Purge, Linarian found peace with a woman named Kessime. They married, had children, and eventually grandchildren, and the call of the Balance receded to a faint whisper. Centuries passed in relative tranquility. One day, however, he found a dead flower in a field, and as he held it, he received a vision that shook him deeply. The next morning, after Kessime had died—the precise circumstances not recounted—he set out to find the entity known as the Bloodless Queen, intending to avenge his wife and protect his children. As he traveled, he reconnected with the Balance and discovered he could raise small plants from the soil. He gathered an army and marched on the Temple of the Firstborn. There, the gatekeeper was Narus, an old friend from before the Purge, now resurrected in an ethereal form. Linarian broke the Bloodless Queen's hold over Narus, and his forces clashed with the undead army pledged to the Queen.

As each generation of nephalem grew weaker, eventually blending into mortal humanity, Linarian lived among the first humans and observed the enduring tension between Light and Darkness. He concluded that both cosmic forces posed an existential threat to the world, and that only a careful equilibrium could preserve it. It was then that he took the name Rathma, a name given to him by Trag'Oul, the dragon-like guardian of the Balance. Rathma devoted his existence to maintaining that Balance, working from the shadows to prevent either Heaven or Hell from gaining supremacy. This devotion defined his actions during the Sin War, a conflict that took place approximately three thousand years before the events of the Darkening of Tristram.

During the Sin War, Rathma sensed the return of his mother Lilith, who had been working to awaken the nephalem powers of a farmer named Uldyssian. Rathma and Trag'Oul worked from the shadows to counter the schemes of both his parents. They recruited Mendeln, Uldyssian's brother, who would later become the first Necromancer. After Lilith incapacitated Uldyssian, Rathma brought him into Trag'Oul's realm to recover. Rathma warned Mendeln that Lilith would slaughter him if he interfered directly. When Uldyssian altered the Worldstone, Rathma counseled patience, cautioning that Uldyssian was growing arrogant and blind to Inarius's schemes. Rathma later went to the Cathedral of Light to warn Inarius about the coming Heavenly Host. Inarius mocked him, asking if he had come to beg forgiveness, and then banished him to the Void. At the Battle of the Golden Path, Uldyssian sacrificed himself to end the conflict. The Edyrem, Uldyssian's followers, had their memories altered, but Mendeln retained his because of his link to Trag'Oul. Mendeln reunited with Rathma and asked for a new name, just as Rathma had once received his own. Mendeln went on to found the Priests of Rathma, teaching the doctrine of the Balance.

Rathma's fate remained a mystery for a long time. Sometime before or during the Great Enmity, the era of Diablo IV, his disturbing visions returned and he wrote them down as prophecy. Inarius, back in Sanctuary and leading the Cathedral of Light, learned of this prophecy and believed it referred to himself. He went to the Necropolis of the Firstborn, the place where Rathma had sealed himself within his personal sanctum, to take a key to Hell that belonged to his son. Rathma refused to surrender the key, having foreseen his own death. Inarius killed Rathma with Rathma's own staff, but could not find the key, which was hidden inside that very staff. In 1336, Lilith discovered her son's body where Inarius had left it. She mourned him, saying she would have saved a place for him in her new world, and then took the key from his staff.

Rathma's legacy persists through the Priests of Rathma, and his prophecy remains central to the conflict of Diablo IV. Within the order, he is depicted as a great serpent, a symbol of the cycle of life and death he championed. His presence appears across the Sin War novels, the Book of Cain, the Diablo III Necromancer lore, and the Rathma origin story in comic and short fiction. As the first nephalem, his story bridges the ancient origins of Sanctuary and the present struggle against the forces of Hell. Rathma's commitment to the Balance, even in death, continues to guide those who follow his teachings, ensuring that his name endures as a bulwark against the extremes of both light and darkness.