Tal Rasha

Tal Rasha was a powerful human sorcerer and the original leader of the Horadrim, the order of mages assembled by the archangel Tyrael to hunt the three Prime Evils, Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, after they were banished into the mortal realm of Sanctuary. He was known as the Keeper of Baal, a title earned through his ultimate sacrifice. Few sorcerers in history have matched his fame, and his deeds became legend. His tomb, located beneath the desert of Aranoch, is the goal of the second act of Diablo II, and in Diablo III, a set of items bears his name, Tal Rasha's Elements.

In his youth, Tal Rasha visited the court of a man he called the Halfwit Count, Coshumat. The count ruled over starving fiefs yet refused bread and help to those who did not impress him. He kept ten burly show fighters called the Eminents, who had just finished beating a man who had begged relief for his village after a poor harvest. Tal Rasha witnessed this cruelty and indifference.

Tal Rasha led the Horadrim in their hunt for the three Prime Evils. He inducted new recruits into the order and was among those who bound their essence into vessels so that their knowledge would outlast death. When Baal, the second Prime Evil to be found, took refuge in the city of Lut Gholein for three days, Tal Rasha ordered the Horadrim to wait so that no innocents would be caught in the fight. When Baal left the city, Tal Rasha confronted him alone before Zoltun Kulle and the other Horadrim arrived. Together they defeated Baal, but Baal's soulstone, the crystal meant to imprison his essence, was cracked. Tal Rasha volunteered to have the shard driven into his own body and to be bound in a tomb beneath the desert, holding Baal with his own will. Kulle bound him there.

Over the centuries, Tal Rasha wrestled with Baal's spirit while legends of his tomb spread. The mage Horazon found and recorded its location. Tal Rasha's body withered from hunger and thirst until it was barely alive and no longer entirely his. Baal, controlling it, struggled to escape and tormented Tal Rasha's mind by replaying the moment of his binding. Eventually, Baal consumed Tal Rasha's essence, gaining insight into Horadric knowledge. In Diablo II, Diablo, in the guise of the Dark Wanderer, found the tomb to free Baal. Tyrael confronted the Wanderer in the tomb, and while they fought, Baal called to the Wanderer's companion Marius and tricked him into pulling the soulstone free. The heroes of Diablo II reach the tomb in Act II, one of seven false and true tombs, and find Tyrael imprisoned there after Baal's escape.

Horazon considered Tal Rasha perhaps foremost among the Horadrim. Tal Rasha supposedly wrote memoirs, but they were lost, and the Crusader Anajinn searched for them. A ring he once owned was found in the sands outside Lut Gholein and sold for a handful of coins by a finder who did not know its value. Tal Rasha appears in Diablo II, Diablo Immortal, and Diablo III, and is referenced in the novel The Order and in Heroes of the Storm.