Zoltun Kulle

Zoltun Kulle
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Ennead Clan (formerly) Horadrim (formerly)
Status	Deceased
Appearances	Diablo III Book of Cain The Art of Diablo III Book of Tyrael

Zoltun Kulle was one of the founders of the Horadrim, but turned towards the side of darkness after the creation of the Black Soulstone. He was the most powerful mage in all of Sanctuary, and the Horadrim realized this. The forces of Sanctuary then banded together and severed Kulle's body into two jars of blood, his head, and his body.

Biography

The Horadrim

Kulle was one of the founding members of the Horadric order with the assistance of six other powerful mages. He had a great talent in alchemy, and was a member of the Ennead Clan. After the capture of Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal, Zoltun Kulle began an invention which could imprison the Great Evils and the angels of the High Heavens, the Black Soulstone. The creation of it drove him mad, and all he could think about was completing the soulstone. Jered Cain then realized that Kulle has learned the secrets of immortality; Cain and the Horadrim hunted down Kulle and killed him, severing Kulle's head from his body and collecting two jars of his blood. These artifacts were then hidden in vaults under the Desolate Sands.^{[citation needed]}

The Final Lords of Hell

Belial and Azmodan began to plot to overtake humanity. A group of nephalem battled their way through the Legion, and meet a witch, Adria, who told them of a soulstone that could trap all the Great Evils inside of it. However, they would need to find the head, blood, and body of Zoltun Kulle in order to find it. After finding the blood and fighting through the Archives of Zoltun Kulle, they came across the soulstone chamber. Kulle double-crossed the group, and the nephalem were forced to kill Kulle once and for all and take the Black Soulstone for themselves.

In-game

Quick Route: Begin Act II, Chapter 8, Part 3 - 'Soulstone Chamber'. Take the waypoint to 'Archives of Zoltun Kulle'

The moment player enters the Soulstone Chamber, the battle does not begin yet, but the zone is already under lockdown (no Town Portal, no changing skills). To start the battle, players need to approach Kulle from either side.

The battle takes place on a circular arena, with the central circle being impassable. Kulle is assisted by two Guardian golems, which are quite slow, but very resilient and hit very hard in close combat. Upon death, they drop a guaranteed Health Globe. Zoltun Kulle himself cannot attack normally, but can use the following abilities:

• Teleport: can teleport anywhere on the arena. Used both to approach the player and to evade combat.
• Slow Time: absolutely identical to the Wizard spell, aside from slightly different graphics. Slows movement of players within a sphere by 80% and attack speed by 30%.
• Fireball: a medium-speed projectile that deals average area of effect Fire damage. Often used immediately after Slow Time.
• Energy Twister: creates an erratically-moving tornado of Arcane energy, dealing heavy damage as Arcane on contact. Contrary to popular belief, the twisters do not home on players.
• Cave-In: after 1.5 seconds, causes a rockfall across the wide area, causing heavy Physical damage.

Zoltun Kulle has a hard enrage timer of 3 minutes. Once enraged, he no longer has a cooldown on Cave-In, and deals triple damage with that ability.

Kulle is one of the six handpicked Boss monsters to feature an Uber appearance. His Uber appearance himself has changed little in strategy, but there are a couple things to be aware of. Firstly, he has the aid of the Savage Behemoth, which can cause trouble even for the best equipped of heroes. Secondly, his Slow Time bubbles are much worse compared to his canon encounter in Act II; they mercilessly destroy a hero's attack speed and movement, leaving him/her relatively helpless, and should therefore be escaped from as soon as possible.

Quotes

Main article: Zoltun Kulle/Dialogue

Personality and Traits

Kulle possessed curiosity towards anything associated with magic. Such fascination led to many magical experiments. At his heart, Kulle was a humanist, having a high opinion of humanity's place in Creation, and believing angels and demons couldn't be trusted. However, while he believed in the worth of humanity, he believed himself amongst the greatest of humanity, which led to a dichotomy between his goals and his actions.

Albeit cynical, arrogant and sarcastic, he is also fond of honor and (according to his own words) finds truth more entertaining. In particular, he apparently did not have any intentions of betraying the Nephalem, and was ready to surrender the Black Soulstone, until he discovered Adria's manipulative plot. Even then, he revealed his concerns to the Nephalem, although his words of allies seeking to control him or her proved to be true.

Zoltun Kulle also finds pleasure in taunting each and every person he encounters, always speaking in mocking tone, the only exceptions being Tyrael and the Nephalem, who Kulle appears to show some respect to. 

Kulle is, to say the least, brilliant, both in terms of his magical abilities (far beyond those of any regular sorcerer) and in his judgement, as he was, after being dormant for centuries, able to figure out the truth behind the current events, and even to identify Belial and Azmodan as mere pawns in someone else's machinations. However, his obsession with his personal goals did not serve him well.

Trivia

This section contains facts and trivia relevant to this article.

• Kulle was voted as players' favorite Diablo III villain in a poll conducted by Blizzard Entertainment.

• When questioned on the subject, Chris Metzen answered that if Kulle walked into an Outback Steakhouse he would order chicken McNuggets because "he's a dick."

• It was intended that in Diablo III that Kulle be a morally ambiguous character. Brian Kindregan has commented that this distinguished Kulle from other antagonists in the game, who were purely evil.

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