Sanctuary
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Contents
Locations in Sactuary
For details on all places within Sanctuary, check out the Sanctuary category:
Magic in Sanctuary
Sanctuary is located on the Physical plane of the fabric of reality, and intermingling with this is the Etheral plane, as some explain it; located "under" the plane of reality. Certain strong-willed individuals are able to harness the spiritual essence of themselves (called "Mana") and use it to channel power from the Etheral realm, creating magical effects in the physical one. Read more in the Magic article:
- Magic in Sanctuary
Sanctuary Languages
As most fantasy worlds, Sanctuary consists of cultures that shares different social traits. For now, the only thing that is known about these is that there is a mutual understanding of languages between the continents, and whether this is due to the fact that people speak multiple languages through their culture, of if there is a "common" language (English) that everyone shares is unknown. Players as well as characters and NPCs in the world travel to either side of the globe, and can still communicate with people.
Names are more socially inspired though, and does show there must be some diversity with languages in the lands. Country names such as "Westmarch", and town names such as "Tristram", has a clear "Western" reference from our world, as does the architecture. Deckard Cain is a character name from a person of the west, while "Abd al-Hazir" is the name of a character from the flourishing East. If everyone shares a "common" language, they still seem to retain their own cultural names.
The only known specifically mentioned language is the Umbaru people's tongue from the Teganze area of the Torajan jungles [1].
Language/Name Inspiration
This is of course a lot more complex than just saying they speak one of our real world languages, and "inspiration" is the best word here. Blizzard were inspired by these real world languages when they created names or words in the fantasy languages of Sanctuary. Some names have a related meaning, some sound like the related language, and some are completely unrelated:
- Druidic - Irish (seems like a 100% conversion)
- Barbarian - Scandinavian (mostly)
- Kehjistani - Arabic (mostly)
- Umbaru - Aboriginal/African/Haitian/Indian. There are some connections with an Aboriginal "King" who apparently was clairvoyant, and the name is similar to an Indian village, but there's also heavy inspiration from Haitian Voodoo culture.
- Western Kingdoms Tounge - English (mostly)
- Xiansaian - Eastern Asian. Hard to know, since not much information about Xiansai is released, and the clothing seems to have both Chinese and Japanese inspiration.
Sanctuary Calendar
This is a list of known date names and numbers from the Sanctuary Calendar (really the Kehjistani calendar), based on journals made by Deckard Cain and Elder Aust of Harrogath in the years 1265-1266, during the war with the Prime Evils. From Cain's notes, it looks like months are about as long as our own world's, and they obviously have both their own month names as well as week day names.
It is unknown exactly how many days are in a month, how many months there are in a year (but we can make a guess at 12), how many days there are in a week, if weeks/months/years length vary (like Earth's "Leap Year") and many other details. We currently know this:
- There are at least 9 months in the Kehjistani calendar.
- There are at least 28 days in one of the months (Kathon), and 27 in another (Damhar), indicating similar month length to our own earth.
- Kathon is the first month in a year.
- Solmoneth is the second month.
- Montath is the third month.
- Ostara is the fourth month.
- Vasan is the fifth month.
- There is an unknown number of months between Vasan and Jerharan (likely 12 months in a year)
- Jerharan is the fourth last month (likely 9th).
- Damhar is the third last month (likely 10th).
- Ratham is the second last month (likely 11th).
- Esunar is the last month (likely 12th).
At least some of these month names were inspired by names in the real world. "Ostara" is an old Germanic name for Easter, while "Damhair" is the Scottish Gaelic name for October, the tenth month.
Worth noting is also the similarity with Nephalem names: Bul-Kathos (Kathon), Rathma (Ratham), Esu (Esunar), Vasily (Vasan). Perhaps the months, or some of them are named after the Nephalem?
These are the dates we know to exist from the journals of Cain and Aust:
- 1265 Anno Khejistani
- Montath
- Unknown months
- 1265 Anno Khejistani
- Jerharan
- 15th
- Damhar
- 1st
- 12th
- 20th
- 27th
- Ratham
- 1st
- 21st
- Esunar
- 6th
- 18th
- 20th
- Jerharan
- 1266 Anno Khejistani
- Kathon
- 2nd
- 28th
- Solmoneth
- 11th
- Montath
- 1st
- Ostara
- 4th
- Vasan
- 2nd
- 10th
- Kathon
Sanctuary Time
Time of day is given by named hours. We have five examples in Aust's journal. Based on the other time clues in his journal entries, we can guess that the names used correspond to the hours of the same name on Earth, with the exception that Matins and Lauds, which are synonyms on Earth, appear to be different in Sanctuary:
- Lauds - sunrise
- Sext - noon
- Vespers - sunset
- Compline - midnight
- Matins - uncertain, possibly first light of morning
There may be other named hours in the day, or times might be given in forms like "An hour past Lauds" or "Halfway from Lauds to Sext".
Sources
Worth noting is that these two sources would be more or less compatible if it were not for the fact that Aust is talking about events in 1265 and Deckard Cain talks about 1266. As Deckard Cain's Journal is more recently released from Blizzard, it's probably safe to say that this is the "canon" lore.
Important Events
The only reoccurring event known at this time about sanctuary is the mysterious Night of Souls.
References
- Writings of Abd al-Hazir: Entry no. 0009
- Journal of Elder Aust of Harrogath
- Deckard Cain's Journal
- Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Manual
Footnotes
The names of the hours, like the general pattern of angelic names and a few other details of the world of Sanctuary, bear striking similarity to elements of Judeochristian religion on Earth but do not quite match under detailed scrutiny.
