Not 100% sure this is the right forum so if it isn’t, please forgive me.
Is there any precedent or other Lore reason why a Death Knight wouldn’t be undead? This is mostly for the Alliance side as Horde side a Zandalari Troll could just say he got his powers from Bwonsamdi.
Yes, this is mostly for creating an RP backstory to one of my favorite classes (ever since Warcraft 2) but also not wanting to be exactly like every single other DK out there.
Thank you in advance.
They’re all dead, undead, all of them. The power that makes them is frm the Maw created by the Runecarver by force from torture by the Jailer. When Bolvar shows up in Oribos, the attendants notice that he and the four horsemen with him are “touched by the maw but able to resist its influence. interesting.”
I don’t know if there is precedent. Some people say Arthas wasn’t dead right away, but I think Frostmourne taking his soul essentially made him dead.
As far as necromancy lore goes, I think that RPG lore made it so that if you used necromancy it would slowly turn you undead, but there’s no evidence in canon that that is true anymore. Cult of the Damned wasn’t all dead; they didn’t have living DK’s, but i’d imagine if one of them put on some plate, and picked up a sword, they would essentially function like one.
As far as mechanics go- it feels like DK’s are barely undead. They cant breath underwater, and have to use “lichborn” to make themselves classify as undead. So it would probably feel natural to rp a living DK.
Yeah basically he slowly died and became undead. He didn’t need to fall over and get back up. His organs just shut down one by one.
The player DK was either killed by the Scourge or during the 4th War and raised by Arthas / Bolvar. Either way, they’re definitely undead. Just not mechanically.
game mechanics don’t equal lore. forsaken have to eat to regain health and mana. Why would a dead thing need to eat? Mechanics. Remember to separate them.
at one point Arthas removes his own heart, I think that was there dramatic way of saying he had finally died.
ahh yes the “Pulsing Crystal” in Ice Crown is actually Arthas’s Frozen Heart after he defeats Illidan he cuts it out himself symbolic to show he finally has died, and then proceeds to dawn the helm of damnation and the “now we are one” cinematic takes place.
A more pressing matter regarding DK lore and Shadowlands is the preamble to the events that lead to the Maw (including the pre-patch).
The Death Knight Player character is named the Death Lord after/during Legion and apparently shown to be on par with Bolvar LK, he (Bolvar) expresses his fear of the Death Knights power in Legion campaign.
But the most immersion breaking thing is that the horsemen are bound to the Death Knight Player character in Legion, you litterally raise them and then make them your horsemen as they carry out YOUR bidding. the entire SL pre-patch was baffling for ignoring this fact when you play a DK… how does Lor’thermar tell you what the Horsemen have done… if anyone knows it should have been you first.
SL ignores these facts as if Bolvar raised Whitemain, Nazgrim etc etc and then named them the Horsemen which the campaign makes clear YOU are raising them and they are bound to your will because of this.
I mean no one even knows they are raised except for the Paladin Order Hall champion and survivors of the Paladin Order hall and no one would refer to them as the Horsemen outside of the DK player character and Bolvar.
2nd generation dks can be considered not undead. First generation are shadow council orcs that were placed in the bodies of stormwind heroes who died in the first war by guldan if im not mistaken. Second generation dk are paladins who followed arthas in his quests and became dk in the process. There was no point where they were killed and raised, they just eventually became dks. Third generation dk are the playable class we came to know and love in WotLK. And fourth gen dk are allied races that became dks during bfa (and to a lesser extent legion). What you are looking for are second generation dks before WotLK who are paladins of the Silver Hand who followed Arthas faithfully in duty to Lorderon only to slowly become corrupted by the influence of the undead, the helm of domination, and frostmourne, much like Arthas himself. You would have prob been by his side during during the culling of stratholm and going to northrend, stranding some followers there by destroying their ships, arthas taking up his helm and sword, and his killing his father and king of lorderon. And I applaud you if you chose this as a backstory because it sounds very fun.
Btw if you go this route you should probably be a paladin human from lorderon or somewhere in the Eastern Kingdoms before following arthas
That is likely an issue of Blizzard wanting the Player Character to have as little influence to the in-lore characters as possible.
Being a leader to 4 notable characters, I can see why(albeit still disgruntled) they would want that to happen. Can’t write a novel if the characters are heavily influenced by the Player Character.
Ignoring the fact that the PC takes the mark of the Lich King, who declares the Deathlord to be the enforcer of his will. The horsemen were made with the power of the Lich King, who is still able to dominate them in the short story.
I’m sure word gets around pretty fast. Someone is going to notice Nazgrim’s grave being defiled… and Lady Liadrin probably told everyone about what happened at Light’s Hope Chapel.
As for Lor’themar knowing about what’s going on, he just happens to be in Orgrimmar and the KOTEB probably wanted to communicate with Stormwind and Orgrimmar about the new problem in Northrend that the PC doesn’t know about because he’s off screwing around doing world quests somewhere.
I’m pretty sure they’re pining for the Howling Fjords.
Is…is that a Monty Python reference? Complete with a WoW pun tossed in? That is awesome!
2nd Gen death knights are knights that where given vampiric runeblades, similar to Arthas and where thus corrupted and or where already greedy and power hungry.