The Zod rune has a mythical place in Diablo II lore. The incredibly rare socketed item, which can make other in-game gear indestructible, has just a 1 in 2,987,183 chance of dropping from the game’s highest class of enemy, according to one calculation.
To this day, it’s not hard to find dedicated players admitting online that they’ve never seen a legitimate copy of the rune despite years of play (though duplicated versions made using glitches can be less rare).
So when Diablo streamer and speedrunner Kano saw a Zod rune drop during a livestreamed Diablo II: Resurrected run Wednesday (as noticed by GamesRadar), it was something of a legendary moment. And when Kano sold that rune for a relatively unimportant 35,000 in-game gold mere moments later, it was something of a legendary troll.
“Please, for the love of all that is holy…”
“Yo, that’s my highest speedrun rune—here we go,” Kano said calmly on-stream when the rune dropped, projecting a cool detachment that belied the import of the moment. “That’s the first-ever Zod I’ve found, by the way. Like, ever.”
Kano’s full stream. The Zod rune drops at around the 8:15:30 mark.
Viewers seeing the moment live on Twitch chat were not nearly so detached. “That’s easily the rarest thing ever dropped in a speed run, lol,” Twitch user R__A__C__E stated, probably accurately. “I just opened the stream WHAT THE F hahahha” Twitch user creatingmadness added.
The chat’s mood changed mere moments later, though, when Kano left the dungeon, walked to an in-game vendor, and quickly sold the incredibly rare item. “Do not vendor that!!! Please for the love of all that is holy,” YouTube viewer Ragnar begged, to no avail. “YOU ASSHOLE,” Twitch user R__A__C__E added in all-caps outrage.
Kano just chuckled a bit to himself at the reactions he was getting from his viewers. “What, dude, it’s 35K, it’s good… it’s good money,” he deadpanned. Later in the same stream, he feigned ignorance over why the sale would even generate controversy. “Why would they be angry at me for selling a Zod, dude? It’s 35K gold. I don’t get it. What’s the problem? I think I should be more angry at people who keep a Zod rune, to be honest.”
Elsewhere in the stream, though, Kano dropped the act and fully appreciated what had just happened. “I can’t believe it, like, that’s so sick,” he said. “Hello, it’s my first ever Zod rune, dude. Now, whenever people ask me the question ‘What’s the highest Rune you’ve ever seen in a speedrun?’ I can finally say it’s a Zod, man.”
