Your Death knight Story?

Lore World's End Tavern: Role-play and Fan Fiction
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Personally Ive been loving death knight from a gameplay sense. But I’ve been struggling with it from a story perspective.

I have a lot of trouble playing characters that are “bad” I don’t like picking villain options in RPGs and such. It’s a silly hang up, but I’ve never felt good about it.

What sort of head cannon do you have for your death knight? Do they revel in their disregard for the living? Are they cursed to use the weapons of the enemy to bring a brighter tomorrow for those who will never know their sacrifice?

Id love to know your thoughts! Gimme that sweet head cannon!

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Death knights do not need to be bad, luckily! :slight_smile: I have never felt comfortable roleplaying a villain, either. After being freed from the grasp of the Lich King, there are some great examples of death knights in quests and the lore displaying some degree of emotion. Drawing upon these, I have a death knight who tries to remain rather optimistic and amiable towards others. It can come off as stilted, but sincere. She still struggles with sudden urges for blood, but she has learned to harness it against enemies of the Alliance. She feels deeply for her allies and protecting them with her skills is all she has now.

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My Deathknight becomes a villain through ambition and frustration within the Order of the Ebon Blade.
Since the destruction of the Helm of domination, and the power vacuum left by Bolvar, he feels his order should be more than custodians of the left over scourge in Northrend (and I suppose Azeroth in general).
In fact, he wishes to take it a step further and subvert ALL undead under one rule/control/banner so that they could easily be accounted for. This includes the Forsaken which he DOES NOT like or tolerate in his presence, seeing them as potential problems in the future, a notion caused by the Banshee Queen herself.
Fed up with Darion Mograine’s stagnant rule and the Forsaken problem, he has more recently found titan ruins under the forge of souls, aluding to his ultimate plan of “freeing Azeroth” from the cycle of catastrophy we as the adventurers find ourselves resolving over and over again.
The cost to accomplish such a feat would bring unwanted turmoil within the ranks of the Ebon blade, let alone reaction from both the Alliance and the Horde.
What concerns of the living that had once meant to him have long been forgotten in his mad quest to free Azeroth from her titan prison.
All endeavors to this end is what ultimately sets him in a villainous status, casting aside once flourishing allegiances among the factions of Azeroth.

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As with my current short story with Vyra, I have been approaching the Death Knights at a more humanizing angle. She’s battling with her failure at accepting death, the endless hunger curse tormenting her, and trying to reconcile things with her Father. I don’t view the Death Knights as bad, they are risen from death and tormented by their memories. I think most are trying to make up for failures or mistakes they made in life. Some just aren’t ready to die and want to continue fighting for Azeroth.

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I have two Death Knight characters, neither of which I’d consider ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ in most cases. They certainly do things that could be considered such in vacuum, but much of that is more a matter of survival or pragmatism. None of the playable classes are inherent villains, some just work in less overtly moral ways, either by nature or happenstance.

Of my two main Death Knight characters, a Night Elf and a Pandaren, the former is a selfish unabashed monster for who life as a Death Knight was more or less an upgrade from how she was in life. She was always a monster, being something of serial killer in life before taking up an adventuring career to avoid getting caught. Now she’s empowered to be more of one while being tempered by a sense of comradery and purpose, performing her duty to the Ebon Blade while serving her own, often comparably smaller, interests. The affairs of the living are a means to pass time between battles, torture or smithing, and any time spent elsewhere is used for reading, maintenance or torpor.

My Pandaren is significantly more virtuous. She shares with the former a relatively positive view on her situation due to an unfortunate event in her past, which ultimately led to her death in the first place. She sees service under the Ebon Blade as means of redemption, giving her a second chance to serve Azeroth as she (in a way) intended. She laments the caveats of her current nature, but her guilt for past transgressions goes beyond anything her current life in undeath may bring. She’s a morally upstanding individual with a since of pragmatism, who uses her knowledge and experiences to balance against the worse aspects of unlife.

Both characters are built on more or less the same general foundation, building who they were before becoming Death Knights, then applying peculiar traits and culture of the class after. They may change in some parts but remain the same at their core.

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The story of my death knight is one of constant atonement.

During the Third War, he he was a member of Arthas’ guard, and participated as a loyal soldier through Lordaeron’s fall, including aiding in the Culling of Stratholme. He goes to Northrend where he helps Arthas gets Frostmourne but is abandoned like the rest of them when the prince runs into the wilderness and goes mad. After that, again like the the rest of the military stranded in Northrend, he is killed and turned into a death knight. So basically imagine Thassarian, but more faceless.

When he returns to Lordaeron under the Lich King’s control, he’s significantly more sadistic. Inhibitions gone, while Arthas is running off to get Invincible and letting the Scourge do what they want until they regroup, my DK goes out of his way to return home, kill both his parents and little brother and turn them into undead to fight for him. When his father’s undead is destroyed in holy fire during one of their battles, he grows bored of not having his “complete set” and abandons his mother and brother, leaving them to their fate (they would eventually join the Forsaken).

Once freed at Light’s Hope and forced to have a conversation with his, very disapproving father, he’s now practically crippled by an almost unending desire to atone for his actions, as he is personally responsible for how hilariously messed up his family is. To this end, he’s basically taken up a warped perspective similar to demon hunters; he’s willing to go through any pain and torture, as long as he believes he’s making some sort of difference. And as being a death knight is all he has going for him, he wants to continue using his dark power for good until something finally comes along and kills him.

Personality wise, to cover up the issues he has above, he adopts the stereotypical brooding death knight demeanor. Standoffish, man of few words, that sort of thing. He only opens up to his family, and even then it’s under a layer of hilariously broody angst. Still finds that he enjoys fishing.

(In full death, he still would still not believe he had atoned enough and would if given the choice be sent to Bastion where he would willing give up his memories, since he hates thinking about how he murdered his own family, except for his desire to be of service.)

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I’ve been working on a twist for my new DK: He is OG DK, one of Gul’dan’s creations rather than the Lich King. I made a separate thread where I’m hashing out ideas. My next step (maybe not for a few weeks, after ideas gestate) is to convert all the bullet points into a story. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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My Druid found Snuggles wandering disoriented in the Plaguelands. She’s been adopted into the family, and spent over a decade trying to find out who she was, but always got torn away to deal with demons, Orcs from another world, and rebellions in the afterlife.

Suddenly one afternoon in Valdrakken she heard a high pitched shriek “Bets!” and was tackled by a red haired Gnome named Molly, who explained that she was in fact her cousin. Everyone thought that Snug and her family had all died fighting the Lich King. In fact, they all had, but Snuggles had been raised into the Lich King’s service, and escaped.

So after more than a decade she got her answer. Her name was Betsy Hatchet, born in Anvilmar. Last survivor of her parents and two brothers.

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My death knight was still a teen when Arthas murdered King Terenas, and plunged Lordaeron into chaos. Her mother was killed in the chaos, but her father, a priest of the Holy Light, was able to get her out of the city and regroup with Uther’s forces, then head further east again, making his way to Tyr’s Hand. Thus they fell into the tender mercies of the organisation that would become the Scarlet Crusade.

Sarestha became a dedicated paladin of the crusade, truly believing in the Light, and the dream of a restored Lordaeron. Then Acherus appeared in the sky, and the Ebon Blade attacked. Sarestha was slain defending New Avalon, and killed. Deeming her combative skills sufficient, she was raised as a death knight.

Breaking free with the rest of the order, Sarestha struggled to reconcile her deeply held Scarlet beliefs with her new state as an undead. Eventually, she discovered the Forsaken. Fellow Lordaeronians, who shared her free will. In short, people, not monsters, no matter how traumatised and broken they may have been. Thus she transferred her fanatical loyalty to the crusade to the Forsaken, seeing them as the true heirs of Lordaeron. Now she’s deeply committed to her people, still seeing herself as a Paladin, a pleasant delusion, while she goes about fulfilling her dream of a united Lordaeron.

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DK’s usually have a more grim outlook on life, but it’s very likely that your character isn’t evil, since you most likely turned your powers against Arthas.

My DK always wanted to die heroically in battle, got one-shotted by Arthas in the battle of Silvermoon. And was freed during an assault on a Necropolis. While she’s fairly violent, she tries to use that for good and acts as a hero-for-hire for those who need it. She also (unlike a lot of her Undead kin) tries to have a more positive outlook on her unlife.

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My Death Knight’s Head canon? Well there’s a story.

He’s… interesting I guess. He’s not evil, but by no means good. He left the Ebon Blade after accidently losing his original armor from when he was raised. His original runeblade was a battle-axe he’d been buried with so, so many years ago. That runeblade was destroyed during the Legion invasion and became the “twins”. A pair of smaller single axes he’s used ever since.

He doesn’t socialize but has been trying to recapture his old life, but many dwarves he knew when he was “alive” no longer are.

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I have a fleeting thought about how this human ended dead an in the halls of Archeron and tbh just thought about a soldier, after a bad night of drinking, was kidnapped murdered and sold to some devious characters making business by amassing death bodies for the Scourge. Being a simple soldier she just went with it, then changed masters and still went with it.

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I’m someone that lives with chronic pain and physical disability, so I found that the undead story revolving so much around “suffering,” whether as a death knight or as any forsaken, very relatable.

My pain comes from multiple genetic factors which only presented as I became an adult, but fibromyalgia symptoms are usually something that start after a traumatic event. For my sister, it was childbirth. For my mother, it was an emergency surgery, and for me it was a car accident when I was 16. Suddenly having pain and fatigue that affects my life every day is something that I’ve had to adjust to for over 15 years, and honestly I’m still adjusting. Something that I’ve seen in every person I’ve met or spoken with within communities for people with varied conditions, we all try very hard to defy our disabilities while learning how to live with them at the same time.

That’s how I like to play my death knights. Suddenly they are faced with pain and their bodies have betrayed them. They have to handle such a dramatic change that seems to have happened in an instant. They have to figure out who they are now that they’ve changed. They have to deal with the trauma of whatever they remembered of their own death and all the emotions that come with it. The meat suit is now alien and antagonistic to their being, and from experience, that’s an enormous thing to reckon with, especially while grieving the person they used to be and the loss of everything they USED to be able to do.

One of my DKs is a Lightborne Dranei and used to be a priest. The Light was such a huge part of her identity and now her whole connection to The Light is gone. I love doing some edgelord stuff with her where she cries blood from the deep sense of loss as she fights (blood dk) One was a sailor who hates himself as he is now, but found a few pirates that accept him even if he won’t. He’s prone to intense and brutal anger so he tries to only engage in combat when totally annihilating an opponent is beneficial to the crew’s goals. He takes out the anger that he has for his own circumstance on others, but has the luxury to decide who might deserve it (in his mind).

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Aran is a death knight who seeks purpose through constant work and connections.

He remembers nothing of himself due to how he was raised, and has gone on a journey to discover those parts that he’s missing through what few documents remain with his name on them.

He craves companionship with other death knights, and with the living-- a difficult endeavor, given the endless hunger’s endless demands and threatening whispers. Helping others brings him satisfaction, along for standing up for those who can’t. He occasionally ends up over-invested and excessively passionate about some topics. He’s also got a complex for defying authority, and that occasionally gets him into pretty big trouble.

He’s a rebel with a cause, though: looking out for his people above all else.

In many ways, he’s just trying to prove to himself and others that he can be more than the monster he’s seen as. How successful that is… well. That remains to be seen.

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Death Knights allow for really interesting stories given how unique the position they’re in is. My Death Knight was a Paladin, a Knight of Lordaeron that followed Arthas to Northrend, trusting his Prince to have the best interests of his people in mind. Of course, that wasn’t true, he died, later to be raised into undeath and servitude of the very same Lich King. As such, he deals with a lot of self-hatred and regret at this choices in life, and an inability to accept the circumstances of his death. I don’t think your character has to be necessarily bad or evil, mine seeks redemption in his own way, but does evil deeds to achieve that; Death Knights, like most undead can have a warped sense of morals and justice. I think a Death Knight can allow you to explore themes, lore, stories, and aspects of the culture of your race of choice that don’t get explored too often due to them being outcasts by default. My Death Knight enjoys inflicting pain and suffering, because he’s wired to do that, but the former Paladin within feels a profound sense of guilt every minute he’s “alive” in this state of unholiness. There’s a lot you can do imo.

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“Growing up after the Second War was proving to be its own challenge. The costs the War had brought the Seven Kingdoms was insurmountable. Most of us even while working as farmhands could not manage to live without resorting to theft.

In desperate times people really didn’t care to consider what the grain would do. Even when we heard the rumors. Hunger will make someone lose all sense of logical thought. We had just stolen some crates that had made its way through to Stratholme. My brother had volunteered to help at a small camp where he found the Prince and overheard his plan to burn down the city. We were able to get rid of most of the grain, but a few of our companions had already consumed some & it started taking effect.

Weeks later, after Stratholme was destroyed we heard that the Prince had left on boats in his mad attempt at stopping the plague of undeath that affected the kingdom. In his absence, whispers of a group, the cult of the damned, started to circulate around and waves of undeath would quickly follow. We were all scared.

I cannot remember how long it had been. We heard that the Prince had returned and killed his father, and was ravaging the countryside. At this point my brother, myself, and our little group of bandits was trying to avoid all conflict and escape in the elven lands to the north. A fatal mistake.

The smell of death filled the air. We didnt hear the wagons until they was right on top of us. I do not remember my days when I was a ghoul. But I do remember the second I died. I watched as my party was torn apart as I myself impaled and bleeding out, I could still hear the necromancers whispers about my ‘strong will’ and being of use.

Was it days? Months? Years? I do not know. I remember waking up as if I had slept far longer then I should have, my body stiff, my mouth dry. As I tried to collect myself I took note. My skin seemed to be falling off. The stiffness of my body was because the flesh was torn and wore away around my joints. I realized what I was. But then I could see I was not the only one. I heard her.

She told us that she was free from the control of the Scourge, and she had managed to free us as well. The Dark Lady Sylvanas Windrunner was a strong leader that most of us, knowing we could never return to our human lives, followed willingly.

I served her as one of her Deathstalkers for many years. Utilizing talents learned from my human life.

It started again. Like a plague, more and more undead servants of the scourge would appear. Weakening forces & spreading them to thin. Once again. I found myself being torn apart by the Scourge.

This time was different. When I awoke, I felt, stronger. My senses sharper, my body moved more freely. But there was a overwhelming thirst to cause pain. It wasnt long before I learned what had become of me. I was raised as one of the Lich Kings new Death Knights.

I couldnt control myself. I am now afraid that even if I could, I wouldnt have wanted to. The pain and suffering I unleased as I honed my new abilities. I learned I myself could raise my own servants, use the blood of my enemies as a weapon against them, even freeze the air around me until everything around me was frozen.

It truely was a miracle. I was freed once again. I’m starting to believe I was just lucky. I should not have been able to survive the battle at Lights Hope. I can still feel my skin burn just from walking across that sacred ground.

You see? The beginnings of my story are not that pleasant. I was always susceptible to being manipulated and controlled. Until now. I am a Death Knight. And as quoted by my creator. ‘I will show you the justice of the grave, and the true meaning of fear’…..”

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