Tomes

Tomes are books filled with ancient lore, myth or wisdom. In the Diablo series, tomes can be found throughout the games, often used to fill in extra story and/or lore details.

Diablo
In Diablo, there are several tomes to be found within the dark labyrinth beneath Tristram. Reading a tome will trigger scrolling text with voiced narration. These tomes are used to trigger quests and/or fill in lore/story details.

In addition, Spellbooks can be found throughout the game or bought and used to learn (or augment) various spells and abilities.

Three extra tomes can be found in Diablo: Hellfire. They chronicle a sorcerer's attempts to control Na-Krul.

Diablo II
Tomes are rarer in Diablo II than its predecessor. When read however, the text similarly scrolls up across the screen with voiced narration.

In Diablo II tomes are also items which can collect magical scrolls. The two types of tomes, Tome of Town Portal and Tome of Identify, are designed to hold volumes of similar spells, each tome can store up to 20 scrolls of the same type. Vendors who sell scrolls generally sell tomes as well. Right-click on a tome to cast one of the scrolls stored within it. When a tome is empty, it remains in inventory until it is replenished with more scrolls, sold, dropped, or traded. Add scrolls to a tome in your inventory or Stash by dropping the scroll directly onto the tome. Dropping one tome onto another will consolidate both into a single tome, unless the tome being placed has more scrolls than the other tome has room for.


 * You may also hotkey the use of a tome, so that, for example, when you click on your pre-selected hotkey, a single scroll from your tome will be used to cast Town Portal.


 * Fill Tome: By pressing the shift key while right-clicking on a scroll you want to buy, you automatically purchase enough scrolls to fill the first unfilled tome of that scroll type in your inventory. Early on, however, new heroes may want to avoid pressing said key while buying scrolls if they have little gold, as it can leave them unable to buy desired equipment.

Diablo Immortal
In Diablo Immortal, a single 'mega tome' called the Horadric Bestiary features. However, there are a few cases of tomes that can be found in the larger world. In most cases, tomes do not exist per se, but rather, pieces of writing (or even illustrations) can be found. The writing is displayed on-screen, then disappears.

Diablo III
In Diablo III, tomes are approached differently and indeed, few actual tomes are found in the game. Rather, in the game, short writings can be found across the game's acts, sometimes encompassing different parts of the same overall writing. These tomes are voiced, but appear in a corner of the screen, allowing the player to keep control of their character while listening to/reading the text. Any discovered manuscripts can be accessed at will.

Diablo IV
Tomes return in Diablo IV. They function in a similar manner to Diablo III.

Trivia

 * The voice actor of the Diablo I tomes returns in Diablo II as narrator of the Moldy Tome and Horazon's Journal. In Diablo III, each tome is narrated by its original author.