The Ebon Road, a guide to RPing a Death Knight

DISCLAIMER: The following guide is not intended to tell you how to RP. It merely offers suggestions and advice to aid in your roleplaying. If you disagree with something stated herein, do not feel like you are forced to follow it. Use what fits, discard what doesn’t.

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-Table of Contents-

-Introduction
-Your Character is not a Death Knight
-You are Dead. Or rather, Undead
-The Runeblade
-Your Lost Soul
-Characteristics of the Damned
-End of the Ebon Road: The Cure for Undeath
-Conclusion

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-Introduction-

Something I think we’ve all noticed ever since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King is that death knights have presented nothing short of a challenge for many roleplayers (to say the least). Not only has the class attracted a significant amount of people wanting to be ‘evil badasses’, it also incorporates much more specific lore and details than most other classes. It requires a lot more work than most to really give off the feel of the class, and sadly this has caused there to be a continual lack of “good” death knight roleplay.

This guide is an attempt to help fix that.

Please note, however, that, as the disclaimer says, this is not intended to “tell you how to roleplay”. Only you can decide that. What it is, however, is a collection of information extrapolated and boiled down from canon lore mixed in with my own personal experiences in playing a death knight over the last three years as well as my experience with undead and necromancy over many different fantasy universes. None of this information is required to be followed. I couldn’t force anyone to do that, anyway. In fact, none of this information might even be accurate (or will be made inaccurate by Blizzard’s lore inconsistencies). Therefore, take what works for you, and run with it, and ignore what doesn’t. This has been what’s worked for me, and I’d consider myself fairly well-versed on the matter, so I’d like to share my experiences in order to help others who might be exploring the concept.

It should be noted, that while this guide is tailored towards death knights, certain parts of it can be useful to Forsaken players as well.

Let us begin then, shall we?

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-Your Character is not a Death Knight-

Wait, what? Yes. You heard me. Your character is a character first. Not a death knight. A death knight is what they become. This is perhaps the most significant issue I see with many death knight players. They get awed by the class, and then create a character in order to play the class instead of playing a character that happens to become the class. This often leads to a very shallow character, which, if you took away their ‘death knightiness’, would be completely unviable.

You must create a character that can stand on their own. Who, even if, somehow, lost their death knight status, they’d still be a deep, complex character with their own dreams and goals. It is absolutely essential that you understand this.

My recommendation for this is, create the character first and completely ignore the death knight stuff. Don’t even think about what made them a death knight or how they’d act as a death knight. Make a character (with a corresponding base class if any of them fit), and learn everything you can about who this character is, what background and racial culture they come from, what they are like, what their goals are, and what they do to achieve them. Build a complete, stand-alone character before ever even touching the death knight aspects.

Only after you have fleshed out who this character was when they were alive, can you begin to venture into discovering who they become when they die.

In my own case, having played the exact same character since day 1 of The Burning Crusade, I already had this down. I took my existing character, whose story was quite open for a death knight conversion, and added that element to her story. Death knight became an addition, a new development in the character’s long-spanning story. Her experiences previous to becoming a death knight colored how she acts as a death knight, giving her her own, unique character.

This also explains the question of what DKs would be doing after the death of LK. Your character's character should determine that, because they should have had their own dreams and ambitions that may or may not have changed after their death, but are still there alongside killing the LK. If you honestly cannot think of any other goal for your DK after the LK dies, then that sounds to me like the mark of a shallow character (not necessarily, though. For some chars getting revenge might have been all they wanted, and now that he is gone, they do have to struggle to find something else). The character's character should drive what kind of goal they seek post-LK. It doesn't have to necessarily be fighting, either (though because of the hunger and addiction to killing, that will be a major issue they need to deal with).

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-You are Dead. Or rather, Undead-

I’m sorry, but there is no getting around this. As long as you are playing a death knight (even second generation ones, who gradually turn undead), your character is undead. There is no such thing as a living Acherus death knight, and there are almost certainly no more living second generation (who, by the time of Cataclysm, if they have still survived have most likely become undead by now).

Let us explore both varieties in greater detail:

3rd Generation:
The most common player death knight, and the recommended one. 3rd Generation death knights are the Knights of the Ebon Blade, risen from fallen heroes in battle against the Scourge in order to unquestionably serve the Lich King’s will from the frozen necropolis of Acherus, the Ebon Hold.

There are numerous sources in-game that specifically spell out that you are undead.

"Do you feel it, ? That sensation is raw power coursing through your body. Such a thing cannot exist for mortals." -Prince Valanar

Here, Prince Valanar specifically describes the ‘raw power’ coursing through your body as being impossible for mortals. Therefore, it is quite clear that you are no longer mortal, and that that raw power is almost certainly the necromantic energy that animates your dead husk and gives you its unholy strength and endurance.

"Look at this pumpkin patch! Notice anything missing? Of course you don't, because you're a moron! Your brain was probably the first thing to die." -Noth the Plaguebearer

A rather humorous quote from Noth. By saying your brain was the first thing to die, implies that all of your body died, and that the brain was simply the first on the list.

"Now, death knight, a brief lesson in plague cauldrons. The gas that the cauldron emits is deadly to the living, but empowers Scourge. As with all scourge creations, it feeds off death and grows stronger the longer it feeds." -Noth the Plaguebearer

This is the most obvious example that all Acherus death knights are undead. The Scourge cauldrons in the death knight starter quests are poisonous to the living, yet they empower the Scourge. If you were living, you would fall over choking in agony (or similar pretty picture). Instead, you are given a rather powerful buff from the cauldron, clearly showing that you are not living.

"There will be no atonement for us, . We are forever damned to walk the earth as monsters." -Highlord Darion Mograine

Less direct, but fairly clear nonetheless. You are damned, and you are a monster. While that could be taken figuratively, it is most likely referring to the fact that you are an unholy aberration that should not exist.

3rd Generation death knights are all undead. Sorry.

Wait, what? You still think they're living? Everything above is still not enough for you? Fine.

"The souls of the undead (Forsaken, PC death knights, ghouls, etc.) are imperfectly attached to their bodies..." -Nyorloth

CASE. FUCKING. CLOSED.

2nd Generation:
This is a bit more vague. 2nd Generation death knights are those who willingly gave themselves over the Lich King in return for power (Baron Rivendare), or were risen by him directly during the Third War (Thassarian).

Many people think that these are living, because Arthas himself was living when we first encounter him as a death knight in WarCraft III. However, this is not the case. While Arthas was indeed still living during the events of WarCraft III, by the time of Wrath of the Lich King he has become fully undead. In addition, the vast majority if not all of the 2nd Generation death knights in World of WarCraft are classified as undead.

WarCraft RPG’s Manual of Monsters specifically states of Frostmourne (the model runeblade) that, “Over time the wielder will go from good to neutral and finally to evil. A non-undead evil wielder will then become undead.” This clearly shows that, while a 2nd Generation death knight, like Arthas, might initially start out as living, they will gradually become undead once the corruption has fully taken hold of their bodies.

Considering how long Arthas has been dead, and the fact that any 2nd Generation death knights have likely been around for years, it is almost guaranteed that there are no remaining 2nd Generation death knights who have not become undead.


All that being said, there is one exception. Someone who has picked up the vampiric runeblade of a dead death knight and seeks to wield it. They will remain alive for some time before the corruption takes hold of them and they become undead. Therefore, if a 3rd Generation death knight of Acherus is killed, and their vampiric runeblade falls into the hand of someone who allows it to corrupt them, then that does allow for a small minority of living 3rd Generations. These new death knights (we could consider them 3.1st Generation) can remain living for some time, before the blade ultimately turns them undead.

This exception could prove to be a very interesting RP story, particularly if the blade being wielded used to be an older death knight player’s blade. Such a death knight will not be a king of battle nor a master of necromancy, nor have any of the unholy strength of the undead. They will be a new wielder, mostly blind to the powers they seek to wield. They will slowly grow in both strength and evil, until becoming undead.

This also means, by the way, that one is not limited to making a 2nd Generation from the Third War or a 3rd Generation who was at the Battle of Light’s Hope. These 2.1st or 3.1st Generation death knights can be new, without years under their belt. Despite Arthas’ death, new death knights can in fact be made…

… as long as the runeblade is not destroyed.

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-The Runeblade-

"The runeblade is an extension of your being. A death knight cannot battle without a runeblade." - Instructor Razuvious

“Separate, you are both broken entities; weak and powerless.” – Lady Blaemeux

The runeblade is the single most defining element of a death knight. It is what makes them a death knight and not a standard, sentient undead. Without a runeblade, a death knight is not a death knight.

Let us, then, explore what runeblades are, how they operate, and what they do.

First off, let’s explain the nature of runes and runic magic.

Runes:
Runic magic is the act of inscribing a natural symbol of the world onto an object and then infusing that rune with magic in order to activate its specific effect.

The world of Azeroth (and all worlds) is teeming with veins of energy known as leylines. Leylines are essentially the world’s arteries, channeling the pure, natural arcane energy of the Well of Eternity across the globe and spurring new life.

Leylines are of great importance to magi, who can siphon energy from them in order to feed their spells. Places where many leylines converge have an aura of power to them, often being seen as holy, blessed, or strong in magic or spiritual energies.

More important for rune magic, however, is the patterns of the leylines. Each leyline has a small pattern (and is usually part of a larger pattern), and each pattern generates a certain kind of power. For instance, some patterns might generate strong windy conditions (such as the leyline pattern beneath Stormwind, hence its name).

Those patterns, when transcribed into a smaller format, can then be infused to activate a ‘localized’ version of it. For example, that same Stormwind rune could be inscribed on a tablet and then infused with arcane energy, generating a strong gust of wind.

Using runes:
In order to use a rune, it must first be scribed on an object or person, and then have energy poured into it. The type of energy poured into the rune most likely alters its end effect in a small way, as death knight spells are often unholy or corrupting even though rune magic is normally pure and uncorrupting.

Runes are limited in what they can do. A rune is not variable, it does not have alternate applications. You cannot activate a rune and then use a spell that that rune does not normally activate. Therefore, death knights should not be making up new spells/abilities on the spot unless they have magical training or have inscribed new runes on their blade at some point. Death knights as a whole are using the ‘training wheels’ version of magic, which is basically magic on rails. You flip the on button and then follow the preset path. It is a powerful path, but it is limited in application (in the death knight’s case, that application is death, destruction, and murder).

Now, death knights do have abilities that can be activated without using any runes at all. Those abilities are not based on runes, but on the blade itself (or rather, what’s contained within it). Some minor necromancy training might be involved in them, however.

A death knight’s runeblade is inscribed with several runes. Frost, Blood, Unholy*, and Death (again, runes aren’t variable, so you actually have much more than just the 6 runes seen on your UI). The powers you have in-game are the powers you are limited to, in general, because those are the runes that have been inscribed. Now, you could ICly add new/more runes to your runeblade, used to power new abilities, but this would most likely require magical/runecasting knowledge (or outside assistance) in order to know what you’re doing. Again, though, some abilities do not require runes or runic power, and those can be considered either powered by the blade’s own energy or by some limited magical/necromantic training the death knight may have received.

*It should be noted that, as leylines are natural, and unholy is not natural, that unholy runes are most likely simply runes that can be commonly used to unholy purposes but are not, themselves, unholy in origin. Similar to how Black Lotus is a natural plant but has a practical application in many dark, unholy spells and concoctions. Alternatively, they theoretically could be what I call “universal” runes, patterns of the bands of magic in the Twisting Nether that apply to all worlds (these patterns are the possible origin of demonic runes due to the Nether’s association with demons). That is completely hypothetical, however.


Okay. Now that we know how runemagic itself works, let’s move on to the actual weapon itself—the runeblade. We shall split this into two sections, as there are two different types of runeblades. Vampiric, and Non-vampiric.

Non-vampiric:
Non-vampiric runeblades are what I’d consider ‘true’ runeblades. They are a rune-inscribed weapon and nothing more. They are not unholy, not evil, not corrupt. They have been used by elves and mages for centuries, with two prominent elven runeblades being Felo’melorn and the Orkenblade.

A non-vampiric runeblade requires a mage or similar user who can infuse energy into the rune. A death knight with no magical training cannot use a non-vampiric runeblade’s power. You must have magical training in order to use a non-vampiric runeblade.

The vast majority of death knights (99%+) do not use these. A handful that had training in magic prior to becoming a death knight (or have learned it since) could, but the majority of non-magic-inclined death knights cannot.

Vampiric:
The meat of a death knight’s abilities. Vampiric runeblades are wholly evil, corruptive, and unholy. 2nd Generation death knights obviously use these, though for 3rd Generation death knights it is less clear. However, in-game dialogue does show that 3rd Generation blades are, in fact, vampiric. (it would also not make sense for them to use non-vampiric runeblades due to the above notes)

"The runeblade also acts as a vessel to store the death knight's runic power." -Instructor Razuvious

Storing runic power. Runic power is, obviously, power you use to charge your runes. Where does runic power come from? That’s right. Beating the snot out of someone. Bloodletting. Runic power is the life energy that the blade absorbs when in combat, which is then used to power the runes emblazoned upon it. The existence of runic power proves that the weapon consumes life energy, basically confirming that it's a vampiric runeblade, not just a regular one.

"The blood of innocents was once used to sate the thirst of the blade. Alas, such options are no longer available to me . . . Take this blood gem and use it on a deranged villager. If I cannot take the blood of innocents, I shall have the blood of the meek!" - Koltira Deathweaver

Though this could be taken figuratively, Koltira’s dialogue is almost certainly spelling out that his runeblade, Byfrost, is indeed vampiric, for it needs to feed on blood (life energy).

Okay, so now we’ve proven that death knights use vampiric runeblades. What, exactly, separates a vampiric runeblade from a non-vampiric one? Well, a good indication is from the very first runeblade you get. It’s called a Runed Soulblade.

Soulblade is my personal preferred term for vampiric runeblades, to set them apart from ‘regular’ runeblades, as it very clearly spells out the difference. A runeblade is a runed weapon. A soulblade is a weapon that feeds on souls, or life energy. Which is what vampiric runeblades do.

Arthas’ Frostmourne, as well as the legendary Shadowmourne, are both consummate examples of what, exactly, a vampiric runeblade does, and one should look to both of these as examples.

Simply put, a vampiric runeblade has a dark presence, a near life of its own, created out of the life energy that swirls within it. As it absorbs more life energy, more souls, it gets more and more powerful. Arthas’ Frostmourne consumed thousands of souls, and in order to make Shadowmourne as powerful as Frostmourne you are required to have it feed on countless souls to bring it to full power.

Remember when we talked about how you need to use energy to power runes? The souls you absorb are how you power it. There are two methods, one for short-term abilities and another for long-term.

For short-term abilities, one absorbs a small amount of life energy immediately and then expends it instantly. Consider it a temporary charge on the weapon, which increases with the more physical harm you inflict on another. As that person bleeds, more and more of their life energy is siphoned by the blade, which then allows the death knight to instantly discharge it to power certain abilities like Death Coil or Frost Strike. These abilities are quick and messy; basically the life energy quickly converted into dark, unholy energy and then sent screaming back at the target.

You need more than just runic power for your weapon, however. Many of your abilities are far more powerful. For that, you need something more substantial.

That something is the soul itself.

Vampiric runeblades absorb souls. It is what they do. It is why they are beyond evil. They are a death knight’s personal soulshard. When a death knight kills another individual, they absorb their soul into the blade, where it becomes part of the blade’s ‘internal battery’. The more people you kill, the greater the reserve, and the more powerful your abilities.

When you activate a rune on your sword, what you are doing is tapping at this internal energy. It is not truly ‘free’, because runes do not have power of their own and must be infused to work. And as you are not using magic for this, then the only other option you have available to you is soul energy.

But what about for a new death knight? One who hasn’t killed anyone? With an ‘empty’ sword? That means his blade has never absorbed a soul, right? So how can it use the runes?

Well, that is because the sword is never empty. The sword feeds on the first soul that comes into contact with it.

Yours.

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-Your Lost Soul-

Death knights and liches share one thing in common. Though one is melee and the other is a spellcaster, both have great power that comes through the anchoring of their soul to a physical object.

"The souls of the undead (Forsaken, PC death knights, ghouls, etc.) are imperfectly attached to their bodies; the dark magic that sustains them is a buffer that prevents their souls from properly joining with their bodies. This is why undead feel only faint sensations of pain or discomfort from most physical stimuli, and why the Light is so painful to their existence." -Nyorloth

When you die, your soul leaves your body, and to be undead is to have no soul physically present. This is clearly shown in the original Ras Frostwhisper quest line, where merging Ras’ soul with his body returned him to his mortal self. It is also rather apparent with many resurrection spells, like Recall Spirit, Raise Ally, and Soulstone, all of which are based around restoring the soul to the body in order to restore life.

If you’re undead, anchoring your soul is, in general, a good idea, though extremely complex from a necromancy point of view. Your soul cannot be bound to your physical body, afterall. For the recently departed, one can restore them to life by restoring their soul to their body. For the undead, this is not possible. There has been a permanent ‘scar’ placed upon their souls, a dark and twisted corruption that prevents the soul from merging with the body (this is why Forsaken cannot be returned to true life, they can only have their unliving bodies repaired).

Once the soul is gone, it’s gone. It drifts off into the spirit realm, becoming all-but impossible to retrieve without the aid of a powerful spiritwalker like a shaman or val’kyr. Therefore, you either lose it, or you anchor it to something more stable.

Not having your soul anchored is very bad. Forsaken, for example, are a lesser form of undead and have no anchored souls. Many of them slowly go mad over decades/centuries from a slow decay of their sanity before they become a ghoul or other kind of mindless undead (Horde Player’s Guide). A handful of strong-souled ones might last for longer, but it is likely that even they too will eventually succumb.

Liches and death knights, due to having an anchored soul, do not have to worry about that. In fact, in other fantasy universes liches are typically the only type of undead that is truly immortal for exactly that reason—the anchored soul.

For a lich, this is mostly beneficial, in that their phylactery is a nice, happy house for their soul that will keep them from ever permanently dying unless the phylactery is destroyed.

For death knights, who are, for the most part, forced into servitude, we don’t get a happy relationship with our anchor. Ours is a cage. A dark shackle that binds us to the Lich King’s service, and more specifically, the runeblade’s desires. While a phylactery has loyalty to its one master, a runeblade is a leach, a parasite, and cares nothing for the user. Though runeblades are not truly sentient, they have a very powerful level of control over their host due to the presence within them. They are addictive, an extension of the host (or rather, the host is an extension of them). A runeblade should be RPed as more than just a weapon. It is a malevolent object that defines how your character views the world. You want your runeblade to be happy. When your runeblade is happy, you are happy. And you make your runeblade happy by feeding it souls.

“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.” – Lady Blaemeux

If your runeblade is destroyed, you feel a terrible, gaping hole that must be filled by doing whatever you can to construct a new runeblade and perform the rituals necessary to recover your soul and bind it to it. Additionally, if you to use a new runeblade, you must perform rituals to transfer your soul (and all of the souls you’ve already acquired) from your old sword into your new one. The old one will then cease to be a vampiric runeblade.

Despite the level of devotion the death knight has towards its runeblade, the runeblade does not share it with the host. A phylactery will regenerate a lich who falls in battle, but a runeblade won’t. It will instead look for a new host. The original host will simply become one of the many souls imprisoned within the blade. Any new master will, like the old, have his soul bound to the blade, eventually turn undead, and, if slain, the process will be repeated once again.

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-Characteristics of the Damned-

So. You’re dead. Or rather, undead. This means a lot of things. You get some awesome perks, but some really nasty side-effects. Let us explore what it really means to be one of the unliving. This section is pretty well-suited to Forsaken characters, too!

Appearance and Biology:
You’re a corpse. There is no mistaking this fact. Even if you are the most well-preserved corpse in the world, you’re still a corpse. I don’t care if you were a looker before you died; you’re always going to suffer in vanity afterwards.

Let’s look at what happens when a body dies.

Upon death, a body will go through five stages of decomposition. Fresh, Bloat, Active Decay, Advanced Decay, Dry/Remains.

In the Fresh stage, the blood has stopped pumping, and generally settles into various parts of the body based on gravity. This causes a pallid or bluish appearance. Within hours, the muscles become rigid. Cells begin to undergo autolysis, which is when they begin to break down. During this period, flies will start laying eggs in your tissues. Yummy. The body will generally be very cold (room temperature), because the organs no longer work and blood no longer pumps.

During the Bloat phase, the body starts to break down, releasing many fine-smelling toxic gases, which get trapped in the body, causing it to bloat. These gases expel slowly through natural openings, like the nose and mouth. Tissues begin to liquefy, and those eggs begin to hatch, resulting in our beloved maggot populations.

In Active and Advanced Decay, the body truly starts breaking down. It loses significant amount of mass due to insects feasting and the liquefaction of tissues. This will eventually lead to the Dry/Remains stage, which is exactly that… dry skin, cartilage, and bones. There isn’t really a body left at this point.

For us walking dead, we don’t like these stages. Considering how often we’re walking about, if we didn’t slow down our decomposition we’d enjoy our final deaths within a couple of weeks.

Therefore, we have to preserve ourselves, like a mummy. Preservation involves removing all moisture from the body and the use of specific ointments and chemicals to repel insects and slow natural decay. Coupled with preservative necromantic magic, this can allow us to persist for decades, if not centuries. That being said, all undead will most likely eventually truly decay (our Forsaken friends tend to be a bit further along here, poor guys).

Let us summarize what this means, then.

• Our bodies are very cold. Room temperature. Our body does not pump blood.
  
• Our bodies are very pale. Blood settles based on gravity. This also means we do not really bleed when cut—there might be a small dab of settled blood at the site, but blood will not stream out the wound since it does not pump.
  
• Our bodies smell. Provided we are preserved during the Fresh stage, we won’t smell too bad, though, and perfume/cologne might be enough to cover it up. For Forsaken and other ‘late preservers’, no amount of perfume is going to hide that lovely scent. It might pass in a few years though, once the gas has all been released.
  
• Our skin will be very, very dry, because proper preservation requires the removal of all moisture from our bodies. Moisture is very bad for us. Rain and water are your enemies if you want to remain preserved.
  
• Insects might be attracted to you. If you don’t like maggots crawling around the inside of your body, make sure to keep those embalming fluids applied regularly.
  
• Most animals really won’t like being around you. Animals tend to have a way of being able to tell dead things from living things. This means Worgen can probably tell that a DK is undead even if that DK is extremely well-preserved and hiding all other signs.
  
• We cannot digest things. You know what happens when you swallow food and drink? It sits in your stomach and starts to rot. What happens when it starts to rot? It starts to smell. Where does that smell go? Out your orifices, like your mouth. This will give you really bad breath. You’re already going to have bad breath, try not to make it worse on yourself. Note: We might actually be able to necromantically digest certain kinds of meat/blood, similar to ghoul and Forsaken methods of cannibalizing. This is not the primary method of gaining life energy for death knights, however.
  
• “Alcohol is simply not the same. My apologies.” You cannot get drunk. Get over it. Most normal poisons do not affect you, either (a handful of magical ones might).
  

Now, some other, general notes, on the supernatural rather than biological level. These are based on observations of undead in lore, and seem to have no basis in reality but are common in fantasy.

• Hair almost always turns stark white. Arthas went from blonde to white, and most undead seen in WoW have white hair. If you want to have different colored-hair, it should probably be dyed.
  
• Death knight eyes tend to glow icy-blue, like many Scourge creations. This is a dead giveaway of our condition, regardless of how preserved you are. Some races can get away with it, like draenei and high elves, due to having naturally glowing blue eyes.
  
• We have an unholy aura, perceptible by those more spiritually attuned. Priests, paladins, magi, many elves, shaman, druids, and so on should be able to innately sense that something is not right about a DK, if not outright know that they are undead.
  
• Voice. This is something that I personally have not played with much, myself, even though I should have. 3rd Generation death knights have a reverb, while many 2nd generation don’t (even some of the undead ones). If you are 3rd Generation, you should most likely have a reverb, or use some kind of magic to cover it up.
  

Do note that magic can be used to cover up certain aspects of undeath, if your character is skilled in its use. For example, illusions might be able to make the skin look and feel healthy (when it is in fact dry), or even make it warm to the touch. If doing these, you should make it clear that it is not real (since otherwise it’s just a cop out). In my case, Drustai’s illusions feel too perfect, making her skin feel almost like wax rather than real skin.

Emotions:
Now that we have finished discussing what it means to be a death knight, physically, we shall concentrate on what it means to be one mentally. The issue of emotions is a prominent one, and therefore essential to address.

In the past, many people have said that death knights do not have any emotions other than anger and hatred. While anger and hatred are their most common emotions, it is not all they are capable of. I have not, in fact, been able to find any canon resource saying that positive emotions are completely impossible for them. However, dev resources have said that positive emotions are rare, though undead can have “flashes” of them. Negative emotions are the only ones that they feel with any true strength or regularity.

My preferred way of playing emotions is that positive emotions are extremely dulled, much like undead physical senses. One can feel content, but not happy, be wary but not terrified, and so on. What this leads do is a general ‘cold’ personality, offset by violent and aggressive behavior when upset. Indeed, since negative emotions are the only ones with any real strength, they might in fact be used to substitute positive ones. For example, when an undead gets upset and sad, they might respond with anger and lash out at people around them. This might lead other characters to believe they are angry, when in fact that undead is in fact feeling very hurt and is simply expressing it in the only way they truly can.

The following is based on my own style of play, and is presented merely as an example of what an undead could be like. It is not to say that all death knights would express emotions in this same way, this is merely my own take on it in the RP that I do:

My death knight, Drustai has a few primary emotional states. The most common one is a disciplined, controlled coldness, which is able to express very limited positive emotions. This is the general behavior she will present to others. Though she is generally rather snarky in this state, she can show genuine caring and empathy (however subdued it might be).

After that, comes a few different degrees of negative emotions. When sad, she can have a dulled, depressed distantness—a kind of ghost-like subdued sense of sorrow. No wailing or screaming, just an emptiness. When thoroughly upset, however, she flies into a rage as the only way of expressing her hurt, often attacking others near her and throwing things. That happens likewise with anger. In those angry states, she has the potential of losing complete control, going into a bloodlust that won’t stop until she has been subdued or her target has been killed. She generally tries to avoid these, and often leaves an argument before it can arise.

Her next primary negative emotion is a kind of sadistic lust. This is the only type of pleasure she can feel and it is one that she dislikes to express, as it is a danger to everyone around her (and is glorifying the fact that she is a monster). It is, more or less, a kind of arousal off of the killing of others. Undead, especially death knights, have an addiction towards killing others, it feeds and sustains them and if they do not do it, they start feeling great pains and begin losing their sanity. With Drustai, therefore, I treat killing as a state of absolute bliss and ecstasy—an uncontrollable and thoroughly desirable state that leaves her feeling positively renewed and invigored. When in this state, very little stops her—she will not attack allies if there are enemies to slaughter, but will if there is nothing else. I tend to roll ‘self-control’ dice every minute or so to determine how soon she is able to break out of this, if she is attacking allies.

The last one I do is a type of fear. It is not the kind of terror in which one cowers in a corner, but rather represents an animalistic self-preservation instinct. It is almost always in response to powerful or mentally violating Holy spells, since very little else can terrify the undead in such a way. She will flee at maximum speed from whatever is threatening her, only attacking things if they get in her way. If cornered, she will fight back with extreme ferocity until she has a chance to escape. The state will not fade until she considers herself safe from the threat.

In general, the way I play on the emotional side of a death knight is in relying primarily on very basic, animalistic instincts. Fight or flight, with the hunger and addiction to killing playing a large role in determining how she will respond to situations. During these states, I tend to avoid using any significantly complex activity—most spells are right out, though runeblade abilities are available. This is under the assumption that the runeblade’s ‘soul’ provides some measure of control over itself, even if the host is currently in a rage—afterall, that is what the death knight is designed to do in battle.

Again, the above is only my personal take on playing out death knight emotions. All characters are different. The general idea, however, is that positive emotions must be limited and dulled, while negative ones must be active, powerful, and difficult to control due to the inner hunger.

Strengths/Weaknesses:
The following is a list of prominent strengths and weaknesses of the undead. There is great power in what we are, but we sacrifice much for it.

Strengths:
Endurance – Endurance is the most powerful strength an undead possesses, and it reflects on almost every other strength they have. Simply put—the dead don’t tire. Unholy vigor courses through their bodies. Their muscles do not function based on realistic biological functions, they operate on supernatural power alone. This means you don’t get physically tired. Ever. You don’t get winded from a jog, you don’t go to sleep at midnight every night. You are literally at your very best all the time. Even extensive punishment often doesn’t really phase the undead significantly (these guys don’t need shields). Only extremely significant injury might cause you to lose some of this endurance—and only because the greater your injuries, the more of that unholy energy is lost and thus the more of the body’s ‘dead weight’ comes into play (and even then, you’ll still be at a much more functional level for your state of disrepair in comparison to any mere mortal. Legs chopped off? I can crawl, baby!). Blood Presence is the most obvious in-game example of this… it grants 8% additional stamina and an 8% reduction in damage taken.

Strength – In almost every incarnation of undead ever, it is remarked that an unholy strength runs through the limbs of the unliving. Not only that, but, as discussed, undead don’t get tired. Know when you lift something, how you put in that initial burst of strength and then very quickly start to lose energy? Imagine if that initial burst of strength was constant. That you could lift a barbell as many times as you wanted at the same power as your very first rep. Yeah, the unliving are pretty damn strong. Indeed, death knights using the Unholy spec even have the ability ‘Unholy Might’, which is a passive 20% increase to their strength.

Speed – Again, undead are commonly remarked as having an unholy speed, moving far faster than their decrepit, torpid forms would allow. This is not only because of the unholy power coursing through their bodies, but, once again, because they don’t get tired. Just like the initial burst of strength while lifting, imagine if you could sprint at your fastest speed 24/7. 100 yard dash? Hah. These guys do the 100 mile dash. When your limbs don’t get tired, you don’t need to run at a jog. You can run at your absolute fastest speed at a constant rate. The speed of the undead is commonly represented by the 15% run speed increase from Unholy Presence.

Senses – The undead have both greater and weaker senses than mortals. They lose the fineries and pleasures of life, but they make up for it in those that are useful for the hunt for sustenance. They are extremely perceptive, have great hearing, and a very powerful ability to sense the presence of life. They also feel only limited pain (enough to know you’ve been struck, but not enough to debilitate you). The undead are hunters of life, and especially in the case of the death knight, are completely and utterly built towards it. They have perfect vision, can hear minute sounds, and know when 'food' (the living) is near.

Necromantic – As an undead being, corrupted life energy is what fuels your existence, that unholy power. Absorbing life energy from your surroundings, usually through killing, heals your wounds and grants you greater power. See Death Strike and the entire Blood tree. Blights and plague cauldrons are good for your health, too. Remember that whole food deal? Yeah. It’s generally good for you if you indulge on that.

Breathless – You do not need to breathe. You can stay underwater for as long as you want. Make sure to carry water breathing potions on you to be able to represent this efficiently in-game.

Weaknesses:
Hunger – As a creature of shadow, you must constantly feed to sustain yourself. That corrupted life energy that fuels your existence also chains it. While you may not truly die from lack of life energy, it will send you raving mad. The longer you go without feeding, the less control you have, the more your body burns and craves for sustenance.

“If death knights do not regularly inflict agony upon another creature, they begin to suffer wracking pains that could drive them into a mindless, blood-seeking hysteria.” –AskCDev Round 2

As much as people might dislike vampires, that is basically what the undead are (look at the Blood tree)—they just don’t ‘suck blood’ to do it. The undead needs to feed on life if they are to thrive. For death knights, this means killing. It also means a pretty intense bloodlust, that is very difficult to control. You are constantly hungry, and constantly surrounded by food. That food smells really good. Your entire unnatural physiology is built on feasting on life energy. As an undead, you look at people as porkchop first, sentient beings second.

Senses – We’re working backwards here. The undead gain in their sight, hearing, pain reception, and spiritual senses (sensing the presence of the living). They lose almost everywhere else. You lose the ability to truly smell anything. Dull smells, but nothing strong, overpowering, or flavorful. On the positive side, you can’t smell yourself rotting. That’d really suck.

Touch is the major lost sense. While you still maintain some sense of touch, it is extremely dulled. It is just pressure, more or less. You can tell you’re touching something, but the texture of it is lost to you. You won’t be able to feel the difference between wool and satin. This goes for the caress of a loved one, as well. You will not feel the warmth and sensation of their skin against yours—only simple, dull pressure.

Sex – This goes into senses, but deserves it’s own category. Your senses are dulled… including those ones. If male, you might be able to will yourself to perform (forcing your heart to beat and sending blood to that region), but you’re not going to be feeling anything, nor orgasming, any time soon (no semen production, either). Again, it will be just empty pressure.

And since you have no true emotions, you won’t be feeling aroused or turned on, either. It’s an utterly boring, drab experience. Ever had sex when you really didn’t feel like it? Imagine that, but worse.

On the female side, do note that your body no longer contains much in the way of moisture, in order to keep preserved. Not only are you as cold as a dead body down there, but you’re utterly dry.

Sex as the undead is possible. But it is an incredibly boring and senseless activity for them, while an extremely creepy and disturbing one for any living partner (… though some people might like that. ).

Sleep - You cannot sleep. Imagine just what it would be like to not be able to sleep. Sure, you don't get physically tired as an undead. But mentally? Imagine going through your life as if it was one very long day--never being able to lie down, relax, and push your problems aside for 8 hours in order to wake up refreshed. Instead, your problems linger, throughout the entire night, in the darkness, while you are alone to your own thoughts. Every single night, for years on end.

Being undead is not a pleasant experience.

Healing - The undead do not naturally heal. An open wound remains an open wound unless sewn shut, at which point it becomes a sewn-shut open wound, not a healed wound. Killing and feeding on life energy will heal wounds, as will necromantic magic if the death knight knows how to use it, but otherwise a death knight's wounds remains as open as the day they got them.

Fire – Remember how we said that the undead are very dry, because they don’t contain moisture anymore? And you know how corpses tend to get put onto burn piles? Yeah. Living bodies are fairly moisture-packed, and thus rather uinnflammable. People on fire are normally on fire because their clothes are flammable. Living skin doesn’t do that. Dead skin does. Dead skin is very dry, and therefore very flammable. If someone takes a match to your undead, they will go up like the Human Torch.

And even though you might have limited pain reception, you will feel that. Fire is very, very bad for the undead. It’s the second greatest weapon against them. The first is…

Holy – You’re a creature of shadow, an unholy abomination that breaks every single law of nature. It doesn’t matter how pious you might be. You are unholy, and therefore, the Light (and any other holy religion) burns, and it burns like hell. Every single attribute to being undead is overruled by divine judgment. Pain? It completely bypasses your limited pain reception and assaults the spirit—it’ll be the most unimaginable pain you’ve ever felt. Emotional response? You don’t feel terror normally, but you WILL feel terror in the face of holy wrath. There’s a reason paladins are the only ones that can use ‘Fear’ on the undead.

However, one positive note. Unlike other fantasy universes, healing spells don’t actually damage your body. They will heal your body, they’ll just do it with the greatest pain you’ve ever felt. An undead willing to be healed by a priest of the Holy Light is more or less martyring themselves.

Undead can also use holy spells, if their faith can withstand the pain. Every time they use holy spells, they literally feel as if every fiber of their being is being ripped apart. Therefore, you need an enormous amount of faith, conviction, and strength of will to be an undead Holy priest/paladin. This is less important for death knights, but just throwing it out there. Those who wield holy spells and show great, great faith for significant amount of time even start seeing a reversal of their condition… granting them restored touch, smell, and positive emotions. However, due note that you’ll start being able to smell your own rot, and feel the maggots crawling under your skin--an even greater test of faith than the pain.

On this note, religious locations can cause you discomfort (they won’t destroy you outright, though). However, the exact nature of the religious location varies. A pristine chapel that is nonetheless ruled over by tyrants and greedy gold-leaching priests is not going to greatly affect the undead. On the other hand, a poor, rundown shack of a church (like Light’s Hope), overseen by the most devout of the faithful will be extremely discomforting. What matters isn’t the construction of the church, nor the name. What matters is the amount of faith the community puts into it. Faith makes the church, not toll bells and candelabras.

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-End of the Ebon Road: The Cure for Undeath-

It is the endless quest for many of the more noble undead. Having become an abomination, they seek to right the wrong—but not with their own deaths. Instead, they seek a return to life.

Many RPers are likely to tell you that this is bad RP. That the undead can never return to life, and that you should never try it.

I’m going to tell you that that is poor mindset to have.

RP is, at its core, about telling a story. And stories must have ends. Some characters might be seeking a way to restore themselves to life, and they should not have that quest go unrewarded. It should be hard. It should take a very long time. It should have a good chance of failing (even resulting in final death or a permanent inability to return to life). But it should, ultimately, be able to succeed.

Despite this, there is one very important guideline that you should keep in mind.

You must respect the law of the world regarding undead. That is, it takes ‘nothing short of a miracle’ to bring the undead back to life. Any cure you make must therefore be extremely personal—it must not be a ‘cure all’ that can be mass-produced and restore all undead everywhere to life. Forsaken and others have been trying for years to find a cure and have yet to do so. You’re not going to be the one person to find a way to save all undead. The only one you might be able to save is yourself.


Others might be able to follow in your footsteps, and try to use a similar cure. But it must be exactly that—similar. Not the same. Every individual undead who wishes to cure their undeath should have to go through their own, grueling personal quest. They should not be able to follow a step-by-step program. What worked for your character should not work for them. Certain patterns might be the same, but the details should be different.

Now, some might say that canon says that no undead can ever be restored to life. That is untrue. There is a very prominent quest line in the game that involves the restoration of an undead being to life. For the sake of requiring people to put work into discovering the solution, I am not going to state that quest line in this section. I also recommend that, even if you already know it, if you are seeking a resurrection you should try to discover or learn about it ICly, rather than simply metagaming that knowledge.

Now, while I won’t state an exact formula, I will give some general ideas that should be involved in returning to life:

• Access to the soul. All resurrections involve restoring the soul to the body. If you do not have access to your soul, a resurrection will simply not work.
  
• An anchor for that soul. Souls without an anchor slip away into the spirit realm, where they become all but impossible to locate for anything short of val’kyr or skilled shaman. Traditional death knight anchors are runeblades. However, do note that a runeblade will not let go of its host soul easily, and will have to be destroyed before any kind of resurrection can take place (and your character will not like having it destroyed). Additionally, most Forsaken, not having anchors, cannot be restored to life until they acquire their soul and create one.
  
• Cleansing the soul of necromantic taint so that it might be successfully merged with the physical body. Many of the things below are used for this purpose.
  
• Keepsakes from life. An undead must show that he wants to be returned to the life he once lead, to be willing to give up all the strengths of being unliving in order to once again experience the joys of life. Keepsakes from one’s life before are essential—and also can be very hard to find if an undead has been dead for a very long time. Objects acquired after becoming undead do not count—they must be from the character’s living state. Note that keepsakes can work as soul anchors.
  
• Meaningful locations. The character’s former home, the very spot in which they were killed, the spot where they were risen into unlife, all of these things are very potent, personal locations that could be used for aiding in the restoration… and many of them might have since been destroyed or become lost in memory, thus being difficult to find or use.
  
• Aid. An undead should not be able to restore themselves to life through their own selfish effort. They must be willing to allow others to help them. This is a fundamental difference between Light and Shadow—seflessness, or selfishness. Being an undead is about shadow, about selfishness. Living is about life, about being selfless. Returning to life should not be a representation of the character’s own personal power and knowledge. It should be about them willing to understand that they need others; that they are ultimately at the mercy of others. To be humble.
  
• Trials and challenges. It should not be easy to restore one’s self to life. It should be a taxing, challenging endeavor that could fail at every turn if one is not dedicated to pursuing it. It should take years (that’s IRL years!) just to discover the formula that works for your character, and even when it does, each step of the way should be extremely difficult. Obstacles (especially mental barriers) should have to be overcome, and one should not be allowed to move on if they fail at truly conquering their inner demons.
  
• A healthy chance of ultimate failure. The character should, at the very end, be evaluated based on their performance throughout the trials. Do they deserve to be restored to life? Have they earned it? Have they changed and proven that they are worthy of living again? If not, then they should fail, permanently revoking their chance at returning to life or even suffering a final death right there. It’s supposed to be a miracle, and miracles don’t happen just because you follow a specific formula to acquire it.
  

However, if they have shown they deserve it, if they have shown they were worthy, then they should be allowed to become living again. If a character makes it that far, and has gone through a truly memorable quest experienced by multiple people, then they deserve to be rewarded.

Some people might know that my character has been seeking a restoration ever since she became a death knight (3 years ago as of this writing). I can also tell you right now, that while she is close to unlocking the formula, she is very far off from deserving it, and therefore still a long way from actually accomplishing it.

That’s 3 years of seeking, only to reach a point where I am just starting the real challenge. Resurrections should be exactly that—epic personal quests that require years and years of RP.

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-Conclusion-

Playing a death knight can be extremely challenging, and is very rarely done well, but when it is it can be very rewarding. It is rather sad that most people who play them end up disregarding everything it means to be a death knight, instead preferring to use it as simply a chance to play a badass evil-doer, when the class can be so much more.

I will again repeat the key rule. If you ignore everything else here, then at least listen to this one: Your character is a character first. Death knight is something they become, and if you play a death knight just because you like death knights, you’re going to end up playing a very shallow and unfulfilling character. For death knight to mean something, it must be an incident in a character’s life that has changed that character, for better or worse. It is not a beginning to that character’s life—they were a living, breathing person long before they ever touched a runeblade.

If you want to play a death knight, or were looking for advice on playing one you already have, then I hope this guide has provided you with helpful tips that you will be able to use in your RP. Thank you for reading.

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*It should be noted that, as leylines are natural, and unholy is not natural, that unholy runes are most likely simply runes that can be commonly used to unholy purposes but are not, themselves, unholy in origin. Similar to how Black Lotus is a natural plant but has a practical application in many dark, unholy spells and concoctions. Alternatively, they theoretically could be what I call “universal” runes, patterns of the bands of magic in the Twisting Nether that apply to all worlds (these patterns are the possible origin of demonic runes due to the Nether’s association with demons). That is completely hypothetical, however.

I believe that Runes aren't limited to the planet they are found on. Like apparently ogre magi could use runes and I doubt they took the time to figure out what Azeroth's were. Following that line, with a lot of experimentation you might find a rune that works, but the natural ley-line nexus is found on another planet.

Death knight eyes tend to glow icy-blue, like many Scourge creations. This is a dead giveaway of our condition, regardless of how preserved you are. Some races can get away with it, like draenei and high elves, due to having naturally glowing blue eyes.

Looking at wowpedia and the ingame models. DK's have the glowiest eyes, looking from the side you can see the blue glow outside of the eyes, it's that strong(A trait shared with Night Elf males and to a lesser degree females). Draenei have their whole eyes glowing and are, looking from the frond, very close to DK eyes. High Elves only have a blue iris (and pupil), Blood Elf eye glow isn't much stronger than that either. At best this would mean 3 things for the High Elf: It's extremely aggresive, has no control or has a lot of power.

Cure etc.

There's a religion among the forsaken that wants to use the Arcane to acquire access to their former lives: http://www.wowpedia.org/Echo_of_Life.
And what about the Trauma, assuming they remember what they did as a Death Knight.

A healthy chance of ultimate failure...

That maybe as the life starts to return, the undead one realises what he/she/it has done and instead of something else deciding if it's worthy, the undead decides that itself.

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:

*It should be noted that, as leylines are natural, and unholy is not natural, that unholy runes are most likely simply runes that can be commonly used to unholy purposes but are not, themselves, unholy in origin. Similar to how Black Lotus is a natural plant but has a practical application in many dark, unholy spells and concoctions. Alternatively, they theoretically could be what I call “universal” runes, patterns of the bands of magic in the Twisting Nether that apply to all worlds (these patterns are the possible origin of demonic runes due to the Nether’s association with demons). That is completely hypothetical, however.

I believe that Runes aren't limited to the planet they are found on. Like apparently ogre magi could use runes and I doubt they took the time to figure out what Azeroth's were. Following that line, with a lot of experimentation you might find a rune that works, but the natural ley-line nexus is found on another planet.

Is it confirmed?

Just feels blegh to me and kind of takes away from rune magic if the runes somehow still work on different planets. With Dru I've always played it that she can't use her Argus/Draenor/etc runes on Azeroth, and every time the draenei have switched worlds she's had to research entirely new runes because the old ones stopped working.

Death knight eyes tend to glow icy-blue, like many Scourge creations. This is a dead giveaway of our condition, regardless of how preserved you are. Some races can get away with it, like draenei and high elves, due to having naturally glowing blue eyes.

Looking at wowpedia and the ingame models. DK's have the glowiest eyes, looking from the side you can see the blue glow outside of the eyes, it's that strong(A trait shared with Night Elf males and to a lesser degree females). Draenei have their whole eyes glowing and are, looking from the frond, very close to DK eyes. High Elves only have a blue iris (and pupil), Blood Elf eye glow isn't much stronger than that either. At best this would mean 3 things for the High Elf: It's extremely aggresive, has no control or has a lot of power.

Draenei should actually have the DK eyes normally. If you look at Velen, he's always had the DK glow.

Cure etc.

There's a religion among the forsaken that wants to use the Arcane to acquire access to their former lives: http://www.wowpedia.org/Echo_of_Life.

I'd say that's actually something that'd turn you away from finding a cure. It's an escape. It's not accepting what they've become and trying to use something else to replace it. It'd be like someone using drugs/alcohol to get over bad stuff in their real life. It's not a solution, and in fact, actually leads you away from finding a way to solve it because you're relying on the bandaid instead of looking at fixing the real cause.

That is something that my own DK does, though, being that she uses and is addicted to her magic.

And what about the Trauma, assuming they remember what they did as a Death Knight.

A healthy chance of ultimate failure...

That maybe as the life starts to return, the undead one realises what he/she/it has done and instead of something else deciding if it's worthy, the undead decides that itself.

The undead can and should on an IC level, yes. What I meant about deciding about worthiness, though, was actually a purely OOC choice, not an IC one. IE, another player who has been involved with the process evaluates things from an unbiased viewpoint to decide whether or not the character has actually earned it (the DK's player could, too, if they're reasonable). For example, I look on Drustai and I can tell right now, on an OOC level, that she's not worthy for it yet. So even if I had her attempt something tomorrow, I'd fail her, because she hasn't earned it yet, and may not ever.

It's up to the character to prove they've earned it (through IC actions like you've described). But people need to look at it on an OOC level, too. A character might think they have (out of arrogance), but OOCly we'd know they haven't.

After some more reading, the ogre-mages were created on the azerothian side of the Dark Portal, but I can't find any reference to a the runes that the ogre use to trap.
And the places where it is said that runes can be used for non-Azerothian things, are rpg books and therefor not canon.
And that line of thought was mostly because you mentioned “universal runes, patterns of the bands of magic" etc.

One of the power of runes is that their shape is so natural, than magic wants to flow through them, and it would seem odd if what is "natural" is different on every planet.

I always had the idea that the DK runes were made by the animators as a battery of sorts that the DK could then tap into, making them unconnected to leylines and unrelated to the runic magic connected to those.

Very thorough guide, Drustai. I appreciate the effort you put into this and it's rather inspiring!

Cirenae wrote:I always had the idea that the DK runes were made by the animators as a battery of sorts that the DK could then tap into, making them unconnected to leylines and unrelated to the runic magic connected to those.

That's not really how rune magic is described in WarCraft, though.

Runes are mimicries of leyline patterns. The pattern would have no power if it was just some random shape. It takes knowledge of magic to force energy into non-rune patterns, which most DKs do not have.

Unless Blizzard decides to describe an entirely new system, I'm going to assume that the runes that DKs use are the same runes that every other runecaster uses. There's no basis for it being anything else currently.

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:After some more reading, the ogre-mages were created on the azerothian side of the Dark Portal, but I can't find any reference to a the runes that the ogre use to trap.
And the places where it is said that runes can be used for non-Azerothian things, are rpg books and therefor not canon.
And that line of thought was mostly because you mentioned “universal runes, patterns of the bands of magic" etc.

I consider the RPG books still canon, despite what Blizzard says, considering it makes up a huge bulk of WarCraft lore (I use several quotes and ideas from them in this guide).

One of the power of runes is that their shape is so natural, than magic wants to flow through them, and it would seem odd if what is "natural" is different on every planet.

What is natural varies from world to world, though. On one world, oxygen-based air might be toxic for the things living there, for example.

Seems more to me that each world would be its own self-contained biosphere with rune patterns based on that planet's own evolutionary process. They might be natural for that world, but on another world they'd be completely alien.

There is such a thing as a Necromantic Rune, but they have the ingame skin of other runes, so can't derive anything from it.

What is natural varies from world to world, though. On one world, oxygen-based air might be toxic for the things living there, for example.

Both would be natural possibilities in the universe.
And the universe of Warcraft is, through magic, very interconnected.

Edit:
The (old) warlock quests require runes to summon demons atleast.

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:There is such a thing as a Necromantic Rune, but they have the ingame skin of other runes, so can't derive anything from it.

A necromantic rune is actually possible naturally. Necromancy is about the study of the forces of life and death. While creating unliving things is unnatural, much of the rest of necromancy is very natural (death, decay, disease, rot, etc). So necromantic leyline patterns are certainly possible naturally. Areas with them would be ones more prone to death and decay (Desolace could have one, for example).

Drustai wrote:

Cirenae wrote:I always had the idea that the DK runes were made by the animators as a battery of sorts that the DK could then tap into, making them unconnected to leylines and unrelated to the runic magic connected to those.

That's not really how rune magic is described in WarCraft, though.

That was bit of my point actually, that the DK runes aren't runic magic as such but rather necromantic energies being held in place in a focus (that happens to be called a rune).

I just can't see how the DKs could be connected to world spanning leylines when they're in effect a Sentinent Combat Zombie Mk. II (e: or, designed as such rather), and when the necromancers that made them seems more interested in playing with corpses than runes/leylines.

These are also called runes.

Cirenae wrote:

Drustai wrote:

Cirenae wrote:I always had the idea that the DK runes were made by the animators as a battery of sorts that the DK could then tap into, making them unconnected to leylines and unrelated to the runic magic connected to those.

That's not really how rune magic is described in WarCraft, though.

That was bit of my point actually, that the DK runes aren't runic magic as such but rather necromantic energies being held in place in a focus (that happens to be called a rune).

I just can't see how the DKs could be connected to world spanning leylines when they're in effect a Sentinent Combat Zombie Mk. II (e: or, designed as such rather), and when the necromancers that made them seems more interested in playing with corpses than runes/leylines.

Exactly why you'd use runes. Runes are actually very efficient means of using magic. Inscribe a rune on something, pour a little magic into it, and blam, you have your spell. Very, very simple. The souls and life energy absorbed by the weapon provide the power, and then one empowers the runes with that power. It's a great way of making a magic-using shock troop without actually having to teach them magic.

The big flaw with runes is their lack of versatility. As DKs don't have any magic training anyway, that's not really an issue.

If the runes simply contained necromantic energy, then there's no explanation for how the DK transforms that energy into an effect, because they don't really have magical training. And if they did, it means it'd take longer to train them which makes them less viable as shock troops.

And necromancers are researchers, just as much as magi are. Understanding runic patterns is part of being a powerful caster. Besides, there are already necromancer runecasters in lore (Dark Inscribers that focus on necromancy).


Half of the expansion was based around runes and leylines (Malygos), and the devs had considered runemaster as a possible heroic class instead. It wouldn't make sense that the Malygos runes, Vrykul runes, and the DK runes weren't all running on the same system. If anything, the Vrykul explains just why the necromancers knew about runic magic/leylines.

There's nothing in lore to indicate that DK runes are operating outside of that established system, and you'd think when they wrote about Rune Magic in the books they'd have mentioned if Frostmourne worked under a different system since it was an established rune-based object at the time. Runeblades and death knights have been in lore for quite some time and were never described as using a separate runic system from the established one.


In fact, watch the WotLK intro movie. Arthas absorbs energy from the snow particles and then clearly activates the runes on his blade. They were not activated before he absorbed that energy. They were not the source of energy, they were activated by the energy.

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:These are also called runes.

Yeah, that's runes as language (unless Titan written language is entirely based on leyline patterns... which I wouldn't put past them).

Could the ley line patterns actualy be created by the Titans, Malygos showed the ability to change how they run. That it's one of those "ordering" things they like to do.

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:Could the ley line patterns actualy be created by the Titans, Malygos showed the ability to change how they run. That it's one of those "ordering" things they like to do.

The Well of Eternity was created by the Titans, and that's where the leyline patterns come from, so yes.

Drustai wrote:

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:Could the ley line patterns actualy be created by the Titans, Malygos showed the ability to change how they run. That it's one of those "ordering" things they like to do.

The Well of Eternity was created by the Titans, and that's where the leyline patterns come from, so yes.

Does this mean that worlds that have not been visited by Titans wouldn't have ley lines.. What would the consequence for the magic be?

Drefurion wrote:

Drustai wrote:

Kristeas Sunbinder wrote:Could the ley line patterns actualy be created by the Titans, Malygos showed the ability to change how they run. That it's one of those "ordering" things they like to do.

The Well of Eternity was created by the Titans, and that's where the leyline patterns come from, so yes.

Does this mean that worlds that have not been visited by Titans wouldn't have ley lines.. What would the consequence for the magic be?

Was Draenor visited by the Titans? It has leylines.

Echoes of Life, The practice of the arcane that offers the undead flickering sensations and memories of their former lives. Is infact, yeah more a form of escapism then an actual cure.


It tends to apply with Fel magic, aswell.

I don't think there is any evidence that it has been visited by Titans.

Then perhaps the WoE only altered the ley lines already present?

.. I'll stop pretending I know anything about this stuff.

The ley lines come together under Kharazhan.

ctrl + f "sex"

glilya wrote:ctrl + f "sex"

Necrophilia is kinky, ain't it?

<3

Anyway, it's a very well written and interesting guide, though I don't entirely agree with all of it myself (mainly the decomposition part). I do have a question, though - what's up with death knights that dual wield? Is their soul split in two? Or is only one of their weapons actually a runeblade? Seems a little odd since they can channel abilities through both weapons.

glilya wrote:<3

Anyway, it's a very well written and interesting guide, though I don't entirely agree with all of it myself (mainly the decomposition part). I do have a question, though - what's up with death knights that dual wield? Is their soul split in two? Or is only one of their weapons actually a runeblade? Seems a little odd since they can channel abilities through both weapons.

I've always imagined that the main hand blade is the proper runeblade while the offhand blade is just a normal weapon. Your runic abilities don't deal damage from the off-hand weapon, afterall (aside from a 30% chance with Threat of Thassarian), all you really get from the off-hand is auto-attack. So makes sense it's just a side-weapon while the main hand is the real runeblade.