Hailing from the dark and dingy studies of Westmarch, the bedraggled Archivist fights not only to save Sanctuary's future but to preserve its past.

Observing the Archivist's powerful Lorenado spell--which chokes enemies with a swirling flurry of pages--we cannot help but recall former World of Warcraft director Jeffrey Kaplan's remarks at the Game Developers Conference that "we need to stop writing a fucking book in our game, because nobody wants to read it."

The Archivist's other powers include the powerful Quest Bolt spell, which freezes enemies in their steps with a curious yellow exclamation mark to float above their head.

Greatest of all the Archivist's abilities is Shush, which explodes all who dare utter a sound in the reading room--including the shushing archivist himself.

The new screenshots above also reveal a previously unknown Diablo 3 feature, a radial dialogue wheel featuring such helpful phrases as "In my day, there were no colors", "Look at this mole on my neck" and, of course, "I smell like bacon and summertime."