Diablo 3 Beta Test report

[Rhydderch Hael]

...This part of the game has been the target of certain neocon groups in the United States claiming that 'the game depicts blacks [clerics and paladins from Kehjistan -BL] as religious leaders...

Such folk would definitely not have liked my fanfiction take on the whole Diablo universe, with consideration given to the Zakarum 'Empire' and its far-flung colonial province known as Westmarch.

Within the Church and the Empire, blacks are the nobility and upper class social majority, and the whites (namely in Westmarch) are the cultural minority that struggle against economic and social presure that come with the job of being the conquered. Hence, the Paladin role in the stories, played by a black man, doesn't exactly "stand out" within the legions of the Zakarum: he is, in fact, part of the noble classes and is a well-to-do and highly educated commander.

The Zakarum Empire also exemplifies the highest order of mechanical engineering and physical warcraft. technologically adept but magically bereft, the Paladins and the like used sophisticated weaponry and plate armors of unequalled craft to wage war and protect themselves from harm (especially from magical attacks, often wielded by their enemies but prohibited from their own use).

Logic being that Kehjistan is a lush, tropical land of the far east, and the world is not as a whole a world of one color. It is all quite reasonable to see the most innovative, advanced light of the world arise from corners one would not expect-- if you took the real world as a model to work off of. Empires and cultures granted that chance theyn would not otherwise have had, to mold and re-mold the world to their understanding of it.