Khazra

Goatmen are Animals. The name "goatmen" is a colloquial name, but the real name is Khazra. The only type of goatman yet named in Diablo III are Moon Clan Warriors, but it's certain there will be various clans of Goatmen, as there were in Diablo I and Diablo II.

The goatmen foot soldiers seen thus far are much as they were in Diablo II. They mill around in medium-sized packs, wielding huge two-handed polearms, and attack quickly, but not very effectively. The D3 goatmen have quick footspeed and a fast swing, but they pause for a long time between attacks. Their death sounds seem to be improved over how they were in D2, though they're not quite as delightfully bleaty and goaty as they were in D1, when their enticing noises put them amongst everyone's favorite monsters to kill.

Goatmen Shaman are a new type of goatman in D3, though it's not yet known what types of buffs or resurrection spells they might possess.

Goatman camp.

Goatmen are now found in camps, and in the WWI 2008 gameplay movie a vast mob of them comes running out from behind a tent like the one pictured here.

Background

The Goatmen are a race that used to be five clans of the umbaru race from the Torajan jungles of Teganze, but were separated, and later used by the Vizjerei mage clan in the Mage Clan Wars as deformed "goatmen". They engaged the Vizjerei in war for many centuries, and became completely obsessed with taking revenge on the sorcerers, to the point of the rest of the non-transformed clans captured a Vizjerei mage, took control of their "lost" clans in the shape of goatmen, and transformed themselves as well to better fight the mages.

They paid the price of servitude to the demon Zagraal in exchange for their feral power, raiding villages and caravans to sate their bloodlust and procure sacrificial victims for their demonic master. The names of the original five clans was forgotten at this point, and they were now given the name Khazra, which roughly translates as "demon" or "devil" in the umbaru tongue.

The umbaru Witch Doctors of lower Teganze started to rid the jungles of the Khazra, and in a truly legendary battle they defeated Zagraal. Without demonic powers, the goatmen became weak, and besides power surge that came with Diablo's emergence in Tristram some 20 years ago, they have been the sluggish and muddled beings we know today.

Some of the history of Goatmen (Khazra) is detailed in the Writings of Abd al-Hazir, especially named in entry no 8, from which the following excerpt is taken:

The khazra (colloquially known as "goatmen") were long thought to be natural inhabitants of our world, akin to the lacuni "panther-men" tribes of the desert and mountain regions, but I have recently discovered evidence revealing that nothing could be further from the truth. The history of the khazra is much more complex and disturbing than has been previously imagined.

According to ancient carvings that I have succeeded in translating, the khazra were originally human, part of the umbaru race found in the thick Torajan jungles in the Teganze region of the eastern continent. At some point in the distant past, the five clans that would come to be known as the khazra migrated to higher elevations and began developing along different lines than the clansmen they left behind. They lived in relative peace and began the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to a farming one. This state of affairs changed dramatically when they encountered the Vizjerei about two thousand years ago (if my translations prove to be correct).

This was the height of the Mage Clan Wars, and even the mighty Vizjerei mage clan was showing signs of stress brought about by the prolonged struggle. A faction of the Vizjerei resolved to construct an army using demon-possessed victims, and the peaceful umbaru clans seemed to fit the Vizjerei's needs. It is unknown how the clans first came into contact with the Vizjerei, but within the span of a decade or so, some of the future khazra clans had turned from their peaceful existence to all-out warfare with the Vizjerei. This was surely the result of seeing their brothers being painfully transformed into savage goat-like creatures by the Vizjerei.

Though they were primitive by the standards of the Vizjerei, the umbaru clans held the powerful mages at bay through familiarity with the terrain and sheer ferocity. But this state of affairs could not hold forever. As decades of savage warfare took their toll on the umbaru's culture and minds, the clans began to search for any means to prevail over their enemies. In fact, they lost sight of anything else.

Media

See screenshots and concept art of goatmen in the Image Gallery.