What I’m wondering currently is whether or not Death Knights can re-runeforge weapons? There might be a fairly straightforward answer to this but I couldn’t find one when I looked. Admittedly, I didn’t look very hard but I figured that, due to the general vagueness surrounding runeforging and runic magic in World of Warcraft in general, I wouldn’t find a satisfying answer.
If re-runeforging is possible canonically, is there a limit to the number of runeforged weapons a Death Knight can have at any time? Do runes disappear off of a weapon when a Death Knight has placed too many… Or is the weapon possibly destroyed? Obviously it isn’t for game mechanics but I’m more talking about lore here.
Also, I know that it’s theoretically possible for a Death Knight to runeforge a ranged weapon but would that be seen as a snowflake type of thing to do for RP? I understand that they were essentially reprogrammed by the Lich King to be tanks in beefy, Saronite armor that use their Runeblade in melee combat and their runic magic for ranged combat but surely Death Knights, now that they have free will, are capable of using a ranged weapon.
What got me wondering this is that if Death Knights are capable of wielding two rune weapons at one time in the form of two one-handed blades or blunts by Frost Death Knights, why don’t Blood and Unholy Death Knights utilize an additional rune weapon? The strength of the runes might explain that but this leads back to more vagueness. You can also say that it just comes down to game mechanics but I’m more talking about RP in this case, once again. Surely empowering a bow, crossbow or hell, maybe even a gun with runes would be an invaluable addition to a Death Knights arsenal.
Relating to my question about ranged rune weapons, you may ask why a Death Knight would even want to use anything other than a blade or blunt for combat. Well, it mostly comes down to that idea of free will. Despite being reprogrammed, maybe a Death Knight, having some memory remaining of when they were perhaps a ranger or hunter in life, might like to pick up that skill again. This would lead back to the question of having multiple rune weapons as I know that a Death Knight cannot utilize their runic magic without one on their person.
All answers are appreciated! Sorry if this was a rambling mess.
All three generations of death knights have been bound by or rely on magical weapons that their souls are bonded to. The following deal with the gen 3s primarily.
This is my Runeblade: There Are Many Like It But This One Is Mine
By [Lady Blaumeux]
Greetings, [death knight]. By now, [Instructor Razuvious] has likely begun teaching you the first lessons of what it means to be a death knight. Allow me to begin your instruction on what is perhaps the most guarded treasure in a death knight’s possession; the [runeblade]
Without your hand to guide it, your runeblade is but a hollow shell. Separate, you are both broken entities; weak and powerless. Should you ever find yourself without possession of a runeblade, know then that your only task should be the acquisition of another with all due haste.
As a death knight, it is through your runeblade that your will shall be imposed on all who dare resist the [Lich King]. For just as you, young death knight are the extension through which the Lich King imposes his will, so is your runeblade the instrument that has been granted the honor in delivering this authority. Of this authority, understand these principles.
The 2nd generation of death knight were primarily composed of paladins that made a back breaking trek to Northrend only to fall to corruption through doubt and privation brought upon them by the Lich King, who provided them with vampiric blades that fed off the life force of their victims.
The 2nd primarily seems to die when these blades are broken (although ive read of one exception to this that seems to imply that the death knight was severely weakened, and that the weakness the breakage causes is what out the others in a position to be killed.)
Other interesting caveats include that certain rune weapons will actually influence mortals to carry them to a compatible individual and then devour their soul, resulting in another type of bond.
The main Id take away from this is that the Lich King has done countless experiments regarding his undead servants and the degree to which you rely on or need your rune weapon is up to you. If you want to incribe or bond with a gun, by all means do so (just remember the runs primary function.)
They dont cover as many of the runes as we like in lore but there are some interesting one you could etch into bullets.
Assuming the runes are etched into the weapon, and I generally do, I don’t think it would quite be possible to re-runeforge; at least insofar as replacing runes already placed. This would also mean the runes are physical fixtures on the weapon, meaning they likely wouldn’t simply disappear. I imagine additional runes could be added, depending on space and size. As far as I know there isn’t any official lore in regards to the specifics of runeforging. Everything I’ve written, and likely will write on this subject is mainly speculation, based in part on examples (visual or otherwise) of similar things.
I imagine that, like many other cases of something being overloaded with magical power, the result will probably be destructive. Of course, like I said, this is only speculation as I believe we lack any definitive example or official statement.
I don’t think there is really any logic that outright defeats the idea. The way I see it as long as the weapon in the DK’s hands it works. I will say that it might be unlikely but not quite snowflakey.
Considering Death Knights have various ranged magical abilities, including ones that can either pull a far away assailant right to them or stop them from doing anything long enough to get close, I fail to see the reason for a physical sidearm in most cases. This may have less to do with the runes specifically and more to do just with what Death Knights are capable of. Add to this the likely very high pain threshold of an undead person and the magically repulsive nature of saronite and I’d say Death Knights are pretty secure as they are. That’s not to say one couldn’t still have a ranged weapon if they desired, I personally just see it as extraneous.
As a slight addendum to the points about runes, as they are essentially just a power source, I like to think they could be placed on armor as well to similar if not the same effect. Again it’s just speculation but I’ve yet to have anyone yell at me for it so I’m left to assume its fine.
I thank you two for the replies, once again! You’ve clarified quite a bit for me.
After reading both replies, however, I was wondering exactly how in-game runes transfer over to the lore and/or roleplaying? I don’t exactly know how to word this but I’ll try my best to make it clear.
In-game, the runeforging menu refers to the runes singularly, “Rune of Razorice,” and “Rune of the Fallen Crusader,” for example. Following that, each actual rune weapon in the game that we have access to as players has a varying number of runes, up to and even past five, and yet Death Knights are only able to place one actual rune on them through the runeforging menu.
This is purely the case because of game mechanics as being able to place multiple Death Knight runes on a single weapon would obviously be incredibly broken, especially for Frost. However, if the strength of these runes compared to regular enchantments in the game is to be projected into the lore where things are even more powerful, not being hindered by the limitations of game mechanics, and any given Death Knight can place up to and even past five of these on any given weapon, the strength of a Death Knight in RP would be absolutely absurd. Well past what most people would consider “meta-gaming,” even. How might a Death Knight roleplayer go about handling this?
Obviously you can try to just be chill about it and do more casual roleplay but if a Death Knight that’s roleplaying accurately by lore standards entered a fight using their rune weapon, the person or persons they are fighting would get absolutely slaughtered in almost all cases. Not to mention Death Knights that try to RP in a neutral, less OP way get ridiculed and ignored to begin with as no one likes RPing with people that play Hero classes purely for the fact of their base power being much higher than most of the the base classes. I’m really not sure what to think there. It kind of just seems like a lose-lose situation.
Edit: Extending that idea of runeforging over to armor which, as you mentioned, is entirely possible, I can only see that making the point of Death Knights being OP even more exaggerated.
Personally I haven’t bothered much with the enchantment runes that constitute in-game runeforging. I do think there is a way to deal with it, however.
Considering the implied connection between Death Knights and their weapons, along with the nature of runes in general, one might consider the enchantment-like runes in game to be like a catalyst to that connection. It is likely they may benefit directly from the wielder and vice versa in a kind of symbiosis. To that end one might think of them a primary power source for the weapon itself while the other, relatively generic, runes are fuel for Death Knight’s peculiar abilities.
The individual effects could be written as being more of a product of the wielder’s will rather that the rune itself; requiring a particular ritual to be done with the rune, explaining how they could be changed but not on the fly.
It might be that this primary rune is also not persistent in its outward effect like in-game, requiring its own activation; otherwise the effect could be relatively minor but significant, reflecting in-game interpretations.
If we are assume that this primary rune has its aforementioned role there could be a few reasons as to why one wouldn’t be able to affix multiple ones onto a single weapon. One idea I particularly like is this rune needing certain configuration of lesser ones to sufficiently support it, making multiple of such runes impractical. Another idea entails the previously raised point of overload; perhaps more that one of this particular kind of rune would compromise the weapon’s integrity.
The size of the weapon could also contribute to overall power, which would theoretically place two one handed weapons together on a similar scale as a single two handed weapon. Lets not forget that due to their previously implied symbiotic relationship the weapon could be seen as accounting for around only half of their overall power.
Various situations in an actual combat scenario could potentially be additional caveats, such as the impact of hostile strikes, the environment, vulnerabilities in armor and various other things. Many of these, I’d imagine, could still at least slow a Death Knight down which could provide enough of an disadvantage to gain the upper hand, especially for someone experienced in fighting them. We may be powerful but were aren’t invulnerable.
![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")