Sets & Unique Items
Diablo/Blizzard influence
- The level 1 class sets were named after Classic Diablo II unique items and sets
- Many of the classic Diablo unique items were brought back with buffed stats
- Several of the Necromancer shrunkenheads were named after characters in the series
- A number of items were themed after Warcraft characters, as well
- Wrathamon's Omens - this was named after a friend's character in my highschool D&D campaign. We all played evil characters to try something new, and he went with a necromancer. The character started pretty weak, but eventually grew too powerful for me to DM any type of campaign with him in it. So, I laid out a few quests to amp up the characters to retirement. The amulet was something like the one ring for his character at the end, which he named Ebola. It granted extra spells, bonus to initiative and a blink-like ability. The gloves were named after Dr. Wier (sp?) from the movie Event Horizon, and the scythe & cloak were the names of spells for the necromancer class kit. The campaign is the same one where my D2 name of Kain came from (he was a dark knight/paladin type character)
- Waves of Ascension - same friend as above, that wanted more cool stuff to collect in the stash. The Wrathamon and Kain sets got him interested enough to give up on his 3rd ladder toon and start playing the mod. once he had an idea of how sets work, he helped create this one, which was built around the theme of the four horseman
- Ordnance of the Dark Brotherhood - I thought it up pretty late one night, and tried to make it something like an angel of death / demon type theme. The Goat Lord was the closest morph I could get to the look I wanted(I tried an overlay with Tyrael's wings, but it looked awful)
- Darkshade's Ruin - an NPC I used in my D&D campaign back in highschool. A gladiator-type warrior that dual wielded flails with minimal armor (a breastplate and helm, I think)
- Darien's Glory - Darien's Wit was orginally going to be a unique item, but I changed it to a set instead when I ran out of ideas for names for Paladin sets. It was named after my high school's valedictorian
- Nature's Rule - each of the items were named after some of the more dangerous monsters I could think of from D&D at the time
- Jade - another D&D one. A female mage that was half succubus (half demon?)
- Sparhawk's Spirit - this is the reason I came to post, because I thought it was a good story to share. I came from a fairly big family--eldest of 3 boys and 2 girls--and wanted add something nice to the mod for my youngest brother (he was 8 or 9 at the time). He used to play regularly with Sparhawk and another player on the weekends, anywhere from two to five hours a day.
At some point, it became just my brother and Sparhawk (the other guy worked in a dangerous line of work, so I think I know what happened, I just never told my brother). Then, a while later, Sparhawk stopped play for a couple weekends. My brother kept asking me what happened, but they stopped checking private messages on the Phrozen Keep, so I didn't know.
I decided, since he and Sparhawk played Amazon (and the other guy a sorceress), I'd add a new class kind of item for them to get excited about. I ended up adding other class items, to be fair, but that was the beginning of the idea. Since my brother didn't really understand much about computers or files back then, I'd regularly just copy the updated mod to his computer on Friday after school and then he'd have a bunch of new stuff for that weekend.
I remember that he was ecstatic when he first saw the new base item drop. He came telling me about a new helm with amazon skills on it, and then he messaged both of them to tell them there was a cool new amazon helm. He reconnected with Sparhawk for a while longer (who let us know he had to move cities for work very suddenly).
The Sorceress Orbs were added so my brother could tell the other guy about more new stuff, but my brother never heard from him. I remember my brother thinking he was a bit of a knob (he was less than 10 yrs old!), so the unique version of the orb had its name changed to reflect his thoughts about the guy
- Xiao Ji Ji - mostly an inside joke I shared with other Chinese that played the mod (I married a Chinese girl early in my 20's, so it was one of the reasons the mod had a Chinese translation for all the strings). Xiao Ji Ji is the mandarin translation for p*nis. I told my brother about it years later, and we shared a good laugh. I think he got over his grudge
- Gabrielle's Innocence - the sidekick from Xena Warrior Princess
- Autolycus' Magic Tools - yes, definitely renowned in greek mythology, but this was added because Bruce Campbell played him perfectly in Xena
- Sarevok's Sacrilege - the main bad. The reason the sword was two-handed only was to match the character in that game
- Jaheira's Tenacity - I think she was warrior/druid, so I left out a weapon in case anyone thought to suggest it wasn't proper
- Nupraptor's Keep - a wizard/warlock type in the game
- Malek's Charge - he was a knight with white armor, and I thought it fit the theme of a Paladin
- Vorador's Essence - a vampire from the game, he quickly cast spells and could teleport. The teleport oskill was too imbalanced, so I went with move speed
- Divada's Trickery - this one's from a character in Weaponlord, a game I played back in the days of video stores and video game rentals
- Danarak's Divinity - I got desperate for names of sets by the time I got around to this one. I jumped on LoD Battle.net and checked the name of online druid players on the ladder. This druid had the coolest name, so I asked him if I could use his name in a set. He didn't mind since he didn't play mods, so I guess everyone walked away happy
- Nature's Passage - I think Fyrre was the player that suggested a greek god themed set. I couldn't find a fourth name that fit, and used his name for the weapon as a nod
- Shepherd's Delight - I remember this was actually named after one of the players active on the forums, but it was spelled exactly the same as the sheepherder
- Phrozen Heart - This one was named after the founder of the Phrozen Keep, and one of the reasons why it was a bit overtuned compared to a lot of other uniques
- I created Planet's Veneration with set pieces named after the staff of the website. Modding wasn't seen in the best light ("modding = hacks") back then for some reason, and I remember people attacking mod players on the PlanetDiablo forums in its early days. I wanted them to be more widely accepted, so put together a promo tie-in with the website to get some coverage for the Phrozen Keep (then and still the best Diablo II mod community). It worked out great for Phrozen Keep as they got more traffic, and many more modders became interested and active. PlanetDiablo didn't stay around long, sadly, as IGN shut them down along with the rest of the sites run by Gamespy
- Quite a few direct translations from Japanese romaji of the translated word from English. I didn't/couldn't make all characters otherwise it'd make the runes far too complex (cube shi to make ji, tsu to make a small tsu for double consonant?)
- A couple players that were active on the forums watched anime, so suggested a lot named after anime or characters. Depending on the romaji, some of them were incorrect. Some of them were also from some pretty adult anime, though I don't know which ones
- Machine (Ki Ka I) - an outlier. Kikai was the name my brother used when he played the original Quake Team Fortress. He was crazy good at soldier, rocket jumping, bunny hopping and plain damage. Our friends would randomly just say "Machine!" to him when he pulled off something we found unbelievable, and the name stuck. He changed it to Kikai once I told them how to say it in Japanese (mostly so they'd stop shouting it at him when they visited)
- Composure (U Ki Yo) - closest I could get to Ukyo from Samurai Shodown. My favourite character. Themed as best I could
- Exuberance (A I Ka) - a super cheerful character from Skies of Arcadia. Heard my brother playing this game every time I was working on the mod, and added one of the characters in (she was a little over the top with excitement)
- Ascend (Shi Yo Ri Yu Ke N) - closest with ES runes I could get to the dragon punch from Street Fighter (Sho Ryu Ken)
- Royalty (A E Ka) - closest possible combination to get 'Ayeka', the character from Tenchi Muyo
- Journey (Ri Yo Ko U) - a mispelled approximation of Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo
- Master Key (Te N Chi) - more Tenchi Muyo stuff
- Impetuous (Mi Sa To) - I loved Misato from Evangelion. She often made decisions without much thought
- Fox (Ki Tsu Ne) - my second favourite character from Love Hina
- Illustrious (A Yu Ka Wa) - named after Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road. I picked a fancy word for noble
- Fury (O Ru So N) - a berserker from the anime Record of Lodoss War
- Deception (Sa Wa) - named after Sawa from Kite. I think I tried theming it, but just went generic. The name was because I found the bullets in her tiny gun deceptively destructive
- Pillar of Faith (Ha Shi Ra) - the group from Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba