Me and my friend keep having an argument about Death Knights being actual undead. I say they are for obvious reasons but he keeps referencing a blue post some dev made about them still having biological functions. Does this blue post exist? or is he mistaken?
Played and rped a Death Knight for years and I and the other thousands of DK rpers haven’t heard of it. Not talking about 1st and 2nd Gens. I’m referring to the ones RAISED by the Lich King.
Yes, they’re undead. The Death Knight starting zone literally begins with you, a corpse, being brought to life by a bunch of necromancers. It really couldn’t be more clear.
As to “biological functions”… maybe? They’re not mutually exclusive. Abominations have all those ichors and such pumped into them for a reason. Some undead clearly do have biology of a sort.
They’re undead.
A blue did make a post saying they were lifelike because ERPers were desperately clamoring for attention, but the starter zone lays it out plainly: Death Knights are undead. They aren’t alive.
Having biological functions doesn’t mean you’re not undead. It’s why forsaken can recover when cannibalizing another corpse. They’re “digesting” it.
It sounds like he’s being pedantic over dictionary definitions to win the argument. If they weren’t expressing some kind of biological functions, then they wouldn’t even be undead; they’d just be an immobile corpse. Y’know, regular dead.
I take it more as a cursed existence than ‘simply’ undead. Kind of like different forms of vampirism. The body can remain whole and still have several functioning aspects, but there is the magical parts that work because of ‘magic’ or some such nonsense.
We aren’t just magically animated corpses, Death Knights are kinda special. The original inhabiting soul returns to the body, sometimes with Domination magic being used to bind the soul, and it functions on some level. Again it makes me think of the curse of vampirism from different genres. Not alive, not dead, but something more. Not trying to romanticize it, just explain it to the best of my ability.
That Blizzard has intentionally left things vague or untold leaves us a lot of wiggle room. Reminder that you can only use Shadow Bolts on yourself when you activate Lichborne. Even the mechanics recognize we aren’t just undead.
Skeletons, ghouls, gheists, and magical undead constructs like abominations and gargoyles are all under the umbrella of ‘undead’. But things like gargoyles were never alive in the first place, abominations were multiple people(or other) stitched together and animated. Abominations can speak, and have personality. But is that due to the original souls of the bodies it is made of being interred within it? Or is the construct’s own created soul on display?
Lots of things to think about that Blizzard leaves blank. Your friend and you are, in my opinion, both correct in a sense. Death Knights are rather unique in WarCraft. So are Forsaken, if that were to come up. Though that may be due to similar reasons of writing following gameplay.
Corpses just magically animated are considered Flesh Golems not Undead…
Proper Undead always has a Soul shoved into it! Forsaken, Scourge and Player Death Knights both have the original Soul returned to the Corpse.
Maldraxxi have Souls shoved into newly crafted flesh constructs.
Ghosts in general are considered Undead. Yes that means Kyrian, Venthyr, Soulshapes and Mawsworn are all Undead by definition just like the Maldraxxi, Scourge, Forsaken, Death Knights, and Zombies!
Of the Races who live in the Shadowlands only the natives of the Shadowlands aren’t Undead.
Natives of the Shadowlands include Attendants, Stewards, Larions, Etherwyrms, Cloudrunners, Cloudstriders, Bloodtusks, Flayedwings, Crawbats, Larvae, Tauraluses, Spiders, Bloodlice, Night Fae, Vulpin, Gorm, Ardenmoths, Veilwings, Dredgers, Nathrezim, Devourers, Mawrats, Soul Eaters, Death Elementals, Gromits, Razorwings, Shardhides, Skrats, Brokers, Automa, Jiro and Zereth Mortis Wildlife(Meat coated in Metal half of the time having a floating core in the center of the animal).
I tried to find the post, but couldn’t. Though I def remember it being out there.
I dunno what else to tell your friend. They’re DEATH Knights. They’re risen undead.
They have customization options to give them rotting flesh.
You can be Undead and still have a working circulatory system. But instead of blood, it’s usually the Ichor of Undeath running through your veins.
Some Undead still have intact lungs and can breath, but don’t need to breath.
For Undead, biological functions can still exist. They’re just optional now.
DKs are most definitely undead and don’t even need to eat or sleep. They do it because of habits and personal reasons. Unlike your lesser undead they are as “alive” as an undead can be meaning they’re mostly intact to resembling the living with occasional rot.
They’re undead, yeah.
Tell your friend that’s on them to produce. If they are taking the stance then they have to back it up.
Both are true. They are a special class of undead.
There’s a naugty book in Ebon Hold that has evidence of (for lack of a better word that will not land me a forum vacation) arousal secretions.
So yeah the word is still out if undead actually have bodily functions without the capacity of a beating heart to pump non existant blood to extremities that would be the first things to fall off. But they explain that DK’s are not normal undeads, they are almost amimated with magic, and “frozen in time” so everything about them gets handwaved off as magical in nature.
The very notion of undead being able to move without working biology is handwavium from the start.
instead of blood they do have ichor but it’s the lack of a pumping heart that is the problem.
If you were part of the second generation of death knight, you might be “alive”.
These former heroes were
given untold power and the promise of immortality in exchange for
their loyalties. Although they retained their humanity, their twisted
souls were bound to the Lich King’s will for all time
There are 4 ‘generations’ of Death Knights in canon, and most are fairly without a doubt undead.
Generation 1: Souls of Orc Warlocks shoved into the corpses of Stormwind Knights. Very undead.
Generation 2: Paladins or Priests who fell to the allure of power from the runeblades or were cursed by said runeblades. Started as alive but all slowly converted to undeath.
Generation 3: Warriors of the Argent Dawn who were killed and raised. Undead.
Generation 4: Allied Race Death Knights. Created by Bolvar, we have zero lore for them at all, presumably they’re undead as opposed to necromancers who hit the gym and signed up for Ebon Blade membership.
Now as to the degrees of undeath, that’s up for debate, though dead is dead is dead. Powerful undead or unique ones seem to have no issue with rot or decay, and can be ‘almost’ alive in that sense. Sylvanas was literally a buck toothed crab-handed elf ghost who just possessed her own corpse, but if you look at any media of her you’d have no idea she’s undead at all if you didn’t know who she is. The val’kyr are also undead, at least the Scourge/Forsaken ones, but they’re all universally scantily clad nordic angel things (fun fact: the Dragonflayer vrykul all competed to see who would be made a val’kyr, and the strongest would become one of them, even the men).
And of course you have Calia, whose only inklings to being unalive are glowing eyes and skin that needs SPF 10000 sunscreen.
The san’layn are another beast altogether, but occupy the ‘yeah probably’ niche. The undead kaldorei are weird because undead elves tend to be more unique in that they become banshees or san’layn. The kaldorei dark rangers are not the same as the Forsaken ones, because those Dark Rangers specifically were banshee former rangers who were taught the same corpse possession trick by Sylvanas.
So basically they’re all undead, and though some are close enough to alive to be passable, they’re still walking corpses with PTSD and angst.
San’layn are undead, as are all vampyr.
Undead night elves tend to become undead night elves when directly resurrected, if not faced with outside influence you will find them as banshees or wisps, yes.
[edited for phrasing]
Well they still feel, the unworthy DKs we kill in the starting are ones that still have emotion, Forsaken can feel love and everything as well.
Generation 4: Allied Race Death Knights. Created by Bolvar, we have zero lore for them at all, presumably they’re undead as opposed to necromancers who hit the gym and signed up for Ebon Blade membership.
The Allied Race Death Knights are undead. They’re Fourth War victims that were mass-reanimated by Bolvar as quickly as he could. They are also not trained at all; they hold none of the experience of the original Knights of Acherus.
The San’layn are another beast altogether, but occupy the ‘yeah probably’ niche
The San’layn occupy no niche, they just simply are undead. They’re former Sunfury soldiers specifically raised by LK Arthas with complete mastery over life manipulation, shape-shifting, and the ability to warp/control the minds of the living, alongside the traditional gifts of vampyrism. They are the strongest form of Vampyr on Azeroth - the vampyr that we see in Stormheim hold none of the gifts Arthas specifically granted the San’layn. All San’layn are Vampyr, but not all Vampyr are San’layn.
These are pretty important distinctions, I find;
DKs are dead, what really makes them unique is the magic that binds their souls and bodies together is Domination Magic rather than the sort of garden variety necromancy that forsaken for example were raised with.
San’layn are a very powerful subset of what Blizzard now calls Darkfallen, which are essentially specters and banshees who have merged back into their own corpses. The Kaldorei Darkfallen just sort of skipped the step of manifesting outside of their bodies and were crammed into them immediately by the Val’kyr. Provided they did not reject Elune’s blessing which turned them into a wisp and thus unable to be controlled in such a manner, anyways.