What Are Darkhounds?

Now I’ve recently been driving myself crazy trying to get an exact match to the Shadow Hound Dark Ranger talent, which randomly procs a guardian dark hound for single target DPS. They’re tiny and on screen for maybe fourteen seconds so I can’t seem to get an exact pet to guardian match and am beginning to wonder if they’re not a unique untamable pallette.

But while on this darkhound safari I’ve had the time to ponder- just what the hell are these devil doggos?

They’re one of the earliest hostile NPCs I encountered as an undead player in Vanilla and were responsible for more than a few noob deaths. They also pop up in the Plaguelands and I think Felwood though that might just be one rare spawn.

They also turn up in Maldraxxus in stitched form and Revendreth as normally as they do in Tirisfal. And more recently Hallowfall as well.

So WTF are these things? I initially figured they were just dogs exposed to the plague of undeath but they exist where that was never a thing, and also on the primordial plane of death magic and sin itself.

Is it just kind of the same principle of spiders being everywhere? Everything eventually evolves into crab, spider or doom dog?

Or could it be more insidious? Are they perhaps the personal pooches of the perfidious Dreadlords and are serving as their eyes and ears across worlds and even realities?

Could it be Blizz not thinking about this much because admitably I didn’t either until embarking on a crusade to get matching mauler minions?

Who’s to say. Well you. You’re to say. What are these devil doggos in your opinion?

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Dead dog, don’t know who’s it is

Is it possible the Hallowfall ones are somehow related to the Kobyss? They use a lot of necromantic magic, and there’s a slime elemental in one of the areas they attack that has Plaguestomp as an ability.

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It just seems to be that they are mutated dogs, or a term for dogs raised to undeath