There's a lot of terrifying stuff in Diablo 4, and that's not a surprise, since the setting is an in-between world between heaven and hell that's populated by demons, undead, and other hideous things. This time, the game developers got creative and created the Tree of Whispers, a mysterious and chilling entity that's just as threatening as any Balrog.
The Tree only appears in Diablo 4 once a player has reached a certain point in the main quest storyline, and after the campaign is resolved and Lilith is defeated, there's an option to return to the Tree and make a new friend. Or friends, depending on how many of the hanging heads speak at once.
8 Hidden Location
Players won't be able to reach the Tree of Whispers until they find it while pursuing Elias as part of the campaign. It's required to travel there on foot the first time, but Lorath and Neyrelle are included in the party at this point, so at least it's not necessary to travel alone.
The Tree is located in a far northern part of Hawezar, a southern region that's a mix of dangerous swamps and rocky cliffs. The location has a convenient waypoint and a single vendor, Reznik the Lost, who sells rings and amulets.
7 The Bargain Of Elias
The Tree offers knowledge, normally unattainable by normal means, in exchange for a flat rate; a head. After the bargainer dies, their head joins the others, but Elias cheated the Tree out of his payment.
The Tree of Whispers agrees to help the adventurers by telling them what was told to Elias, but there's something they want in exchange. The quest that Tree gives the player almost writes itself after this point. Suffice it to say that Elias cheated the Tree out of the price of his head by gaining knowledge that granted him immortality, and it's the protagonist's job to follow him and extract the Tree's price.
6 The Taissa Connection
At first, Taissa seems like another one of many pawns in Elias' game; a helpless vessel intended to host Andariel, one of the Great Evils, also known as the Maiden of Anguish. Although the main character and their companions fail to stop the ritual, but Taissa is resistant to the Prime Evils and aids the party in tracking down Elias.
It's later revealed that Taissa is a Witch of the Swamp, like other NPCs like Gulya and Aneta from The Heretic quest chain. She was working for the Tree of Whispers and trying to do what the player must do; get Elias' head.
5 The Coffin Quest
The first thing that players need to do to make friends with the creepy tree is get into a coffin that drops into a lake a drowns them. That pretty much sets the stage for any future dealings with the Tree of Whispers.
The name of this quest is actually "Picking Through The Bones" and it's one of the more memorable quests in the whole game. It's part of a chain that includes exploring haunted shipwrecks, among other things, and is an adventure of quiet horror as opposed to a series of gory jump scares.
4 The Nature Of Grim Favors
Most players will focus on the range of colors and symbols that rate the value of Grim Favors and where they are, but the descriptions tell their own story. These are just snippets, but other sad and sobering reminders of life and death in Sanctuary.
Many of the tasks to gain Grim Favors include killing several smaller enemies before a bigger one appears. This is often a disturbed or violent form of undead, like a ghost or a zombie, and it could be wandering the wilderness, hiding in a cellar, or roaming around in a nearby dungeon.
3 Cellars, Dungeons, And The Wilderness
Players have several different ways to collect Grim Favors to appease the grim spirits of the Tree of Whispers, but it all involves returning balance to the spirits of the region. What the player is doing is similar to what the Witches of the Swamp are trying to accomplish, and any quests that involve them are connected to the Tree somehow.
The Grim Favors will appear in various places and will be visible on the world map. This is the only time that locations that would normally be hidden, like Cellars, are marked for the player to find.
2 An Endgame Feature
The Tree of Whispers is referred to as an endgame feature even though the game doesn't have level progression in the conventional sense. Thanks to level scaling the player can finish the main story campaign at any time, so the term doesn't refer to characters who are max level.
It's not only the end of the storyline, but also the rewards players get from the tree. Instead of single items, players get whole caches of goodies, and that can include more than gear, jewelry, or weapons.
1 A Collection Of Chaos
The caches that players get as rewards from the Tree of Whispers are always generous, and players wouldn't do this kind of dirty work for the usual handful of gold and a blue item anyway. The Tree's expressions of material gratitude consist of large caches that are leveled as "Collections" and it's a whole pile of stuff as opposed to only one or two things.
The more favors that a character does for the Tree, the better the caches will get. They'll be of Epic or Legendary quality and will also include the occasional Collection of Chaos, which can include a variety of resources or gear of much better quality.
Diablo 4 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.