SPOILERS AHOY! I've avoided a lot of details here, but if you're trying to avoid hearing about what happens at the end of the Icecrown Citadel encounter, you might want to skip this post.
We were enslaved by the Lich King, turned into abominations against all we stood for and then used as fodder for the Scourge's battle against all we cared for in life. Freed by the power of the Light, we swore vengeance against him and his armies for what was done to us. It was our reason to carry on in unlife, giving us fuel for our unholy inner fire. We would destroy Arthas for what he did to us.
And now Arthas has fallen. So now what?
Those of us who are RPing as Death Knights have now, with the fall of the Lich King, found ourselves at the end of the story arc that started the moment our characters were rolled. The Knights of the Ebon Blade were formed with the sole purpose of taking down Arthas. What's next for our characters now that he's dead? Is there anything left to unlive for?
To begin, it's worth noting that the Scourge does still exist. Bolvar Fordragon's sacrifice is keeping them in check, and presumably they will no longer be spreading, but one goal for your character could be helping to clear out what's left of the Scourge. There may be even more potential here once we learn more of what will become of the Plaguelands and Ghostlands in Cataclysm. There are rumors of a possible Alliance push into the region, giving the Alliance more of a foothold against the Forsaken and Blood Elves. If the land is being retaken, either by Horde or by Alliance, your character could dedicate themself to aiding in that effort and retaking old Lordaeron. This is an especially good hook for human, Forsaken, or Blood Elf Death Knights, for whom retaking the old homeland can be a very personal cause. It will take a long time to reclaim the land from the plague, but clearing out the Scourge is a good start. Death Knights are especially suited to working in the Plaguelands as undeath would make them immune to many of the toxins lingering in those blighted lands.
But maybe now that your character's need for vengeance has been sated they would prefer to focus on their own people. With talk of increasing tension between the factions in Cataclysm, your character may dedicate themself to harnessing their unholy power in defense of their people and their homeland. For those who have fertile, vibrant homelands to return to, this can also be a deeply personal cause, but one that may remind them of just how much they have changed since death. They may find themselves more driven to defend it because of this, desiring to protect in others what they themselves have lost. Alternately, they may find themselves feeling alienated. A Death Knight feeling that they no longer belong in their own homeland may take up the mantle of anti-hero, protecting those who fear them out of a loyalty deeper than the living will ever understand. Or they may decide to find a new cause or a new people to defend. Horde Death Knights of any race may find themselves more comfortable with the Forsaken than their own people and may choose to take up their causes.
Or maybe your character has something even more personal to motivate them. Perhaps they still have living loved ones to protect. Perhaps they've found another purpose on the path to vengeance and they now choose to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to it. Perhaps they have a friend or loved one with their own path to follow, and they choose to join them. For those Death Knights who have rekindled old connections or forged new ones, finding a reason to go on after the fall of the Lich King is a little easier. Even Thassarian has a little sister to return to.
Remember, though, that a peaceful retirement is rarely the fate of one who has been bound to a vampiric runeblade. The fact that the Death Knights still retained their power after being freed from the Scourge proves that the cursed weapons don't rely on Arthas' existence. What they do require, however, and what they will continue to require is souls. Whatever path your character takes, it will be guided at least to some degree by that need to satiate the runeblade's hunger. Fortunately, in the world of Warcraft, a noble cause to kill for is never hard to find.
Showing posts with label rp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rp. Show all posts
Putting the "Death" in Death Knights
Are Death Knights actually dead? It's a question that comes up far too often in places like LiveJournal's warcraftsues community, which has seen a parade of beautiful, warm, unrotted, pregnant not-a-Death-Knights in the past year. But putting aside people who want to have blue eyes and pretend to be a High Elf, people who want to be Drow, or people who are just in it for the ERP but for some inconceivable reason decided they needed to roll their super-sexy chick with blue-black skin, just how dead are our characters? And how did they get that way?
If you walk around Acherus during the opening quests, you'll see necromancers standing around meat wagons. The Scourge need to bolster the ranks of their new Death Knights, and quickly, so they've trucked in bodies to raise to do their bidding. Where do these bodies come from? It's not stated explicitly, but it's a safe assumption that they're soldiers who recently fell in battle against the Scourge. It's also a safe assumption that the bulk of them are from the Argent Dawn, since they have the largest presence in the Plaguelands. This is your "vanilla" backstory for the majority of the Knights of the Ebon Blade: A soldier or adventurer who fell in battle against the Scourge shortly before the events at Light's Hope Chapel and was raised in Acherus, then twisted by the Scourge there into a Death Knight. So the average Knight of the Ebon Blade was killed and raised into undeath. Who and what they were before is open to interpretation, but that much is pretty straightforward.
If you're an NPC, or if you just want to do things differently, it's also very possible that you were killed and raised at another point in the war. Darion Mograine, Highlord of the Knights of the Ebon Blade, died when he impaled himself on his father's sword Ashbringer. He freed his father's soul from the corrupted weapon but cursed himself to undeath, though it's unclear whether the sword raised him or Kel'Thuzad did. Thassarian died at the beginning of the Third War at the hands of Arthas' lieutenant Falric and was raised to join the Scourge as a Death Knight. Koltira Deathweaver was killed and raised by Thassarian during the Scourge invasion of Quel'thalas, then trained as a Death Knight. I admit my own Dariahn follows a little of both formulas, though it was more because I had his backstory hammered out a good few weeks before I played through the starting area than because I was striving to be different. He died in Stratholme and was raised to be a necromancer's personal servant, served the Scourge and the necromancer for years, but was not a Death Knight until he was sent to Ebon Hold by his master to train.
But can you become a Death Knight without dying? There are certainly examples of it in the lore, not least being Arthas himself. (Another would be a certain Drakkari you encounter in Northrend, but I'll not spoil that amazing quest-chain.) But the resulting Death Knight is no less undead. Just because they did not suffer a specific trauma that rendered their body dead does not mean they haven't undergone physiological changes that make them undead beings. Their tooltips even say they're Undead! A major factor in this conversion is the runeblade itself. When Arthas first encountered the dreadlord Tichondrius, he told the now-undead prince, "The runeblade that you carry was forged by the Lich King and empowered to steal souls. Yours was the first one it claimed." The RPG books have some useful hints here as well, as they list rules for Frostmourne as a player-wielded weapon: "An individual who wields Frostmourne will not part with it willingly. Over time the person will go from good to neutral and finally to evil. A non-undead evil wielder will then become undead. Finally the sword is able to suck the being's soul into the sword." This form of conversion likely has to be undertaken with some degree of consent, with the person willingly taking up the soul-stealing weapon. That doesn't mean brainwashing and other forms of manipulation can't be involved. Even Arthas didn't know what he was getting into when he took Frostmourne. But a Death Knight's runeweapon can cause those physiological changes in the living, turning them undead without the body ever technically dying. It's also worth noting that Scourge necromancers tend to show symptoms of undeath due to their constant exposure to necromantic energy, but they never seem to be classified as undead. Practicing necromancy alone doesn't seem to be enough for a spontaneous death-free conversion.
This brings us to the subject of metaphysics in Warcraft, how it applies to both Death Knights and Forsaken, and game mechanics vs creator intent (which is a subject I've spoken on before). Warcraft has the benefit of being one of those universes completely unlike our own where metaphysics are pretty much a known quantity. It's hard to say "There is no Light" when you keep getting hit upside the head with great hammers of it whenever you go into a contested area. Likewise, regardless of any of your personally-held beliefs about the real world, our characters have souls. While the Forsaken may be classified as humanoids so paladins don't destroy them in PvP, it's also a reasonable assumption that Sylvanas "freed" them by freeing their souls from the Lich King's grasp. That's why standard undead rules don't apply to them: They're a sort of hybrid creature with a soul in an undead body. It may have started as a bow to game mechanics, but it works.
How does this apply to Death Knights? The bulk of the Scourge may be mindless, and your average Forsaken was one of these, but there are numerous soldiers among them who are able to act and think on their own like the Death Knights trained in Ebon Hold. But they still serve the Lich King unquestioningly and are unable to act against his will, and this can be extrapolated to be because he controls their souls every bit as much as the mindless ones. Death Knights' souls are absorbed into their runeblades, which are Scourge creations. (Liches, as a side note, keep theirs in phylacteries.) But when you're sent back to your faction's capitol for what I like to call the Walk of Shame, you're given a letter from Tirion Fordring declaring that you have "the soul of a champion. A soul that has only recently been reunited with the body. " Whether it was because the power of the righteous souls at Light's Hope returned your soul or the Lich King freed the Death Knights as a way of casting them out after Mograine's betrayal is up for debate, but your soul is now your own.
So Death Knights are, like Forsaken, a sort of hybrid undead that once again has a soul. Some are raised from the dead, and others are enslaved and converted from Living to Scourge, but they are all free-willed undead. The Forsaken are usually just a little worse for wear.
If you walk around Acherus during the opening quests, you'll see necromancers standing around meat wagons. The Scourge need to bolster the ranks of their new Death Knights, and quickly, so they've trucked in bodies to raise to do their bidding. Where do these bodies come from? It's not stated explicitly, but it's a safe assumption that they're soldiers who recently fell in battle against the Scourge. It's also a safe assumption that the bulk of them are from the Argent Dawn, since they have the largest presence in the Plaguelands. This is your "vanilla" backstory for the majority of the Knights of the Ebon Blade: A soldier or adventurer who fell in battle against the Scourge shortly before the events at Light's Hope Chapel and was raised in Acherus, then twisted by the Scourge there into a Death Knight. So the average Knight of the Ebon Blade was killed and raised into undeath. Who and what they were before is open to interpretation, but that much is pretty straightforward.
If you're an NPC, or if you just want to do things differently, it's also very possible that you were killed and raised at another point in the war. Darion Mograine, Highlord of the Knights of the Ebon Blade, died when he impaled himself on his father's sword Ashbringer. He freed his father's soul from the corrupted weapon but cursed himself to undeath, though it's unclear whether the sword raised him or Kel'Thuzad did. Thassarian died at the beginning of the Third War at the hands of Arthas' lieutenant Falric and was raised to join the Scourge as a Death Knight. Koltira Deathweaver was killed and raised by Thassarian during the Scourge invasion of Quel'thalas, then trained as a Death Knight. I admit my own Dariahn follows a little of both formulas, though it was more because I had his backstory hammered out a good few weeks before I played through the starting area than because I was striving to be different. He died in Stratholme and was raised to be a necromancer's personal servant, served the Scourge and the necromancer for years, but was not a Death Knight until he was sent to Ebon Hold by his master to train.
But can you become a Death Knight without dying? There are certainly examples of it in the lore, not least being Arthas himself. (Another would be a certain Drakkari you encounter in Northrend, but I'll not spoil that amazing quest-chain.) But the resulting Death Knight is no less undead. Just because they did not suffer a specific trauma that rendered their body dead does not mean they haven't undergone physiological changes that make them undead beings. Their tooltips even say they're Undead! A major factor in this conversion is the runeblade itself. When Arthas first encountered the dreadlord Tichondrius, he told the now-undead prince, "The runeblade that you carry was forged by the Lich King and empowered to steal souls. Yours was the first one it claimed." The RPG books have some useful hints here as well, as they list rules for Frostmourne as a player-wielded weapon: "An individual who wields Frostmourne will not part with it willingly. Over time the person will go from good to neutral and finally to evil. A non-undead evil wielder will then become undead. Finally the sword is able to suck the being's soul into the sword." This form of conversion likely has to be undertaken with some degree of consent, with the person willingly taking up the soul-stealing weapon. That doesn't mean brainwashing and other forms of manipulation can't be involved. Even Arthas didn't know what he was getting into when he took Frostmourne. But a Death Knight's runeweapon can cause those physiological changes in the living, turning them undead without the body ever technically dying. It's also worth noting that Scourge necromancers tend to show symptoms of undeath due to their constant exposure to necromantic energy, but they never seem to be classified as undead. Practicing necromancy alone doesn't seem to be enough for a spontaneous death-free conversion.
This brings us to the subject of metaphysics in Warcraft, how it applies to both Death Knights and Forsaken, and game mechanics vs creator intent (which is a subject I've spoken on before). Warcraft has the benefit of being one of those universes completely unlike our own where metaphysics are pretty much a known quantity. It's hard to say "There is no Light" when you keep getting hit upside the head with great hammers of it whenever you go into a contested area. Likewise, regardless of any of your personally-held beliefs about the real world, our characters have souls. While the Forsaken may be classified as humanoids so paladins don't destroy them in PvP, it's also a reasonable assumption that Sylvanas "freed" them by freeing their souls from the Lich King's grasp. That's why standard undead rules don't apply to them: They're a sort of hybrid creature with a soul in an undead body. It may have started as a bow to game mechanics, but it works.
How does this apply to Death Knights? The bulk of the Scourge may be mindless, and your average Forsaken was one of these, but there are numerous soldiers among them who are able to act and think on their own like the Death Knights trained in Ebon Hold. But they still serve the Lich King unquestioningly and are unable to act against his will, and this can be extrapolated to be because he controls their souls every bit as much as the mindless ones. Death Knights' souls are absorbed into their runeblades, which are Scourge creations. (Liches, as a side note, keep theirs in phylacteries.) But when you're sent back to your faction's capitol for what I like to call the Walk of Shame, you're given a letter from Tirion Fordring declaring that you have "the soul of a champion. A soul that has only recently been reunited with the body. " Whether it was because the power of the righteous souls at Light's Hope returned your soul or the Lich King freed the Death Knights as a way of casting them out after Mograine's betrayal is up for debate, but your soul is now your own.
So Death Knights are, like Forsaken, a sort of hybrid undead that once again has a soul. Some are raised from the dead, and others are enslaved and converted from Living to Scourge, but they are all free-willed undead. The Forsaken are usually just a little worse for wear.
On Runeblades
As I've mulled over possible subjects to kick off the lore part of this blog, I've come back again and again to thinking that many of them require me to lay out some of my most basic interpretations of what Death Knights are. The biggest problem with lore in World of Warcraft is the conflict between creator intent, or what the game designers originally had in mind, and game mechanics, or what the game designers had to do to make those ideas fit into a game that requires things like class balance. As a writer, I am a big fan of creator intent. I recommend anyone who can get ahold of them to browse through some of the tabletop RPG books published a few years ago (and now sadly out of print) by White Wolf to see an alternate World of Warcraft unhindered by such things as Forsaken who can be healed by the Light because having warlocks as raid tank healers is untenable, or Forsaken who can't speak Common so they can't grief Alliance players, or...well, suffice it to say that Forsaken without game mechanics make way more sense and are much more interesting.
To start discussing the creator intent of the Death Knight class, it's also important to lay out the creator influences, and there is none more obvious than the runeblade Stormbringer from British sci-fi/fantasy writer Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné stories. Even the Wikipedia page on Stormbringer mentions the nod in Warcraft:
"In the Warcraft mythos, Arthas (a prince who betrays his country and becomes undead, ending up looking rather like Elric) wields a soul-stealing runeblade named Frostmourne (the name is similar to [Stormbringer's sister sword] Mournblade). Also, the minor character, Highlord Mograine, carries the Ashbringer, an anti-undead blade whose name seems a clear reference to the Stormbringer. (The 'corrupted' version of this blade, which behaves more like the Stormbringer right down to the blade speaking to its wielder, was one of the strongest blades available to player characters of World of Warcraft for a significant length of time.)"
So whether you're familiar with Moorcock's books or not, it's pretty clear that the people at Blizzard are up on their classic fantasy, and I'd strongly recommend the Elric books to anyone looking to get a handle on the whole soul-stealing runeblade concept. Stormbringer and its effect on its wielder give one an excellent basis for WoW's Death Knights and their own runeblades. Death Knights are literally soulbound to their swords, often giving them names like Koltira Deathweaver's Byfrost, and they form the core of their power with the souls they consume. But they are also a dark, corrupting influence, and they ask a terrible price of their wielders. Elric's Stormbringer was as addictive as a drug, and it often took the lives and souls of his friends. Frostmourne took the soul of its own wielder, turning Arthas into into an undead slave of the Lich King.
Unfortunately most of the adoption of this into the game had to stop with NPCs because of game mechanics.There was talk early on of having Death Knight runeblades as upgradable weapons, possibly with a way to transfer stats from looted weapons, so that we would wield the same sword throughout the entire game. That was sadly dropped even before the Alpha testing, partly due to a belief that the player preference for a striking visual representation of new loot was more important. (Apparently I was misremembering, because after getting home to where my work firewall is not I researched and found that was just fan speculation. It's not unreasonable to think they considered it, especially as similar as it would be to the Heirloom system, but there's no confirmation it was proposed. Sorry!) We still have the Runeforging system, which gives us excellent enchants for little more than the price of our character's immortal soul, but it's not really the same as a persistent upgradable weapon to drive home how important the runeblade is to the concept of the class. In one of the first Death Knight starter zone quests, "The Endless Hunger", immediately after runing your blade Instructor Razuvious tells you, "The endless hunger will soon take hold of you, Death Knight. When it does, you will feel pain immeasurable. There is only one remedy for the suffering: the hunger must be sated." You're then instructed to kill one of those declared unworthy to be a Death Knight. "Kill and the pain will cease. Fail and suffer for eternity." It's a beautiful setup, but after that there's not a great deal of follow-through.
Personally, as a fan of Moorcock's books and an avid RPer, I have a pair of [Frostguard]s playing the role of Dariahn's twin runeblades, Reckoner and Revenant, and declare any actual useful weapons to be OOC. This sort of "RP armor" thing is pretty common on RP servers as you're lucky if you can get a PvE set that even matches, much less actually looks good, so I don't have any trouble getting people to go along with it. Naturally, the [Greatsword of the Ebon Blade] also makes an excellent RP runeblade, and you'll already have one by the time you get out of the starting area. I encourage anyone playing as a Death Knight to find a nice weapon to play the part, give it a name, and succumb to the hungry singing of your own black blade!
To start discussing the creator intent of the Death Knight class, it's also important to lay out the creator influences, and there is none more obvious than the runeblade Stormbringer from British sci-fi/fantasy writer Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné stories. Even the Wikipedia page on Stormbringer mentions the nod in Warcraft:
"In the Warcraft mythos, Arthas (a prince who betrays his country and becomes undead, ending up looking rather like Elric) wields a soul-stealing runeblade named Frostmourne (the name is similar to [Stormbringer's sister sword] Mournblade). Also, the minor character, Highlord Mograine, carries the Ashbringer, an anti-undead blade whose name seems a clear reference to the Stormbringer. (The 'corrupted' version of this blade, which behaves more like the Stormbringer right down to the blade speaking to its wielder, was one of the strongest blades available to player characters of World of Warcraft for a significant length of time.)"
So whether you're familiar with Moorcock's books or not, it's pretty clear that the people at Blizzard are up on their classic fantasy, and I'd strongly recommend the Elric books to anyone looking to get a handle on the whole soul-stealing runeblade concept. Stormbringer and its effect on its wielder give one an excellent basis for WoW's Death Knights and their own runeblades. Death Knights are literally soulbound to their swords, often giving them names like Koltira Deathweaver's Byfrost, and they form the core of their power with the souls they consume. But they are also a dark, corrupting influence, and they ask a terrible price of their wielders. Elric's Stormbringer was as addictive as a drug, and it often took the lives and souls of his friends. Frostmourne took the soul of its own wielder, turning Arthas into into an undead slave of the Lich King.
Unfortunately most of the adoption of this into the game had to stop with NPCs because of game mechanics.
Personally, as a fan of Moorcock's books and an avid RPer, I have a pair of [Frostguard]s playing the role of Dariahn's twin runeblades, Reckoner and Revenant, and declare any actual useful weapons to be OOC. This sort of "RP armor" thing is pretty common on RP servers as you're lucky if you can get a PvE set that even matches, much less actually looks good, so I don't have any trouble getting people to go along with it. Naturally, the [Greatsword of the Ebon Blade] also makes an excellent RP runeblade, and you'll already have one by the time you get out of the starting area. I encourage anyone playing as a Death Knight to find a nice weapon to play the part, give it a name, and succumb to the hungry singing of your own black blade!
Welcome to Chill of the Grave!
I know, there are already so many WoW blogs out there, why start another one? Well, for one thing, because my boyfriend was getting tired of me keeping him up all night debating to myself the relative merits of Glyph of Death and Decay and Glyph of Obliterate. I'm a writer deep down in my bones, and a chatty one too, so this is largely a place for me to talk about things.
It's also a place to provide information for people who want to actually learn to play this class, though I'm more interested in debate than simply saying "This is how you have to do things or you fail". While there are definitely things you have to follow, there's plenty that is open to your own personal playstyle, and I believe all valid ways of playing the game are, well, valid. I prefer debating the advantages and disadvantages of one thing vs another to outright declaring that one is the only way to do things. I personally prefer to play as DW Frost, both in my Tanking and DPS roles, and that's the view I'm going to bring to this blog, but I don't think other specs are wrong. In fact, if this blog catches on, I'll look into getting Blood and Unholy columnists, too. I'm planning to approach things more in the fashion of sites like Mania's Arcania than Elitist Jerks. So expect that to be the attitude of the blog going forward: Informing and discussing decisions, not making them for you.
I'm also planning to do something most class sites don't: Discuss the lore of the class. I'm a creative type and an RPer at heart, and part of what made me so certain I would love playing a Death Knight from the start is the compelling lore around which the class is based. Expect to see discussions of lore and write-ups/reviews of things like the Death Knight manga in between posts about PvE mechanics and tanking.
And just who am I? My main is Dariahn of Thorium Brotherhood, Forsaken Death Knight of the RP guild Hand of the Blightcaller. I don't do much in the way of progression at the moment because of time limitations, but I do weekly 10-mans, roflstomp Heroics, and stay abreast of everything going on with the class. I was raid-tanking in Burning Crusade as a Forsaken Prot warrior, and I knew from the announcement of the Death Knight class that the combination of tanking capability and Forsaken-esque lore was going to make me love them. Since before I could roll one I was determined to learn to play the class well, and I like to think I've done a pretty good job of it.
So check back every so often! I hope to update at least once a week, ideally more, with assorted thoughts and opinions on WoW's most misunderstood class, and always feel free to comment!
It's also a place to provide information for people who want to actually learn to play this class, though I'm more interested in debate than simply saying "This is how you have to do things or you fail". While there are definitely things you have to follow, there's plenty that is open to your own personal playstyle, and I believe all valid ways of playing the game are, well, valid. I prefer debating the advantages and disadvantages of one thing vs another to outright declaring that one is the only way to do things. I personally prefer to play as DW Frost, both in my Tanking and DPS roles, and that's the view I'm going to bring to this blog, but I don't think other specs are wrong. In fact, if this blog catches on, I'll look into getting Blood and Unholy columnists, too. I'm planning to approach things more in the fashion of sites like Mania's Arcania than Elitist Jerks. So expect that to be the attitude of the blog going forward: Informing and discussing decisions, not making them for you.
I'm also planning to do something most class sites don't: Discuss the lore of the class. I'm a creative type and an RPer at heart, and part of what made me so certain I would love playing a Death Knight from the start is the compelling lore around which the class is based. Expect to see discussions of lore and write-ups/reviews of things like the Death Knight manga in between posts about PvE mechanics and tanking.
And just who am I? My main is Dariahn of Thorium Brotherhood, Forsaken Death Knight of the RP guild Hand of the Blightcaller. I don't do much in the way of progression at the moment because of time limitations, but I do weekly 10-mans, roflstomp Heroics, and stay abreast of everything going on with the class. I was raid-tanking in Burning Crusade as a Forsaken Prot warrior, and I knew from the announcement of the Death Knight class that the combination of tanking capability and Forsaken-esque lore was going to make me love them. Since before I could roll one I was determined to learn to play the class well, and I like to think I've done a pretty good job of it.
So check back every so often! I hope to update at least once a week, ideally more, with assorted thoughts and opinions on WoW's most misunderstood class, and always feel free to comment!
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