In the World
Two generations of death knight precede you.
The first were orcish warlocks of the Shadow Council, their souls stuffed into the corpses of fallen Knights of the Silver Hand during The Second War. Gul'dan built them. Teron Gorefiend was the first, and he is dead.
The second is Arthas Menethil's, and it is the one that matters. Rune-blade wielders raised by The Lich King in Northrend and seeded through the Plaguelands as officers. The Argent Dawn exists specifically because of them.
You are the crack in the second generation. How the crack happened is your character — pick one at session zero.
The Three Origins
1 · The binding failed
The runeblade took less than it should have. Whatever Arthas does to bind a will did not fully take on you — because the ritual was rushed, because the blade was flawed, or because you were more stubborn than he budgeted for.
Nobody knows this happened, including the Scourge. You spent some time pretending, and then you ran.
Plays as: paranoia. Every death knight you meet might notice. Best for a player who likes the tension of passing.
2 · The Lich King let go
The Lich King's attention is not infinite, and in Year 29 he is spending nearly all of it on Northrend, rebuilding after the Third War. Control at range degrades. Some of the officers he seeded in the Plaguelands have been running on old orders for years.
You are one whose orders ran out. Nobody released you. You were simply forgotten long enough to become someone again.
Plays as: dread. He has not lost you. He has not looked. Sooner or later he will look.
3 · Somebody cut you loose
The Argent Dawn has been trying to sever Scourge bindings since it formed, mostly unsuccessfully. They have had exactly one success, or think they have.
You were captured, worked on for months by people who were not sure it would work and did it anyway, and woke up owing a debt to an organisation that still is not certain you are safe.
Plays as: obligation. You have a faction, a handler, and a leash you agreed to.
At Level 1
You died. You remember dying. You have been walking for somewhere between a month and a year and you have not yet met anyone who knows what to do with you.
Your body does not tire and does not warm. The runeblade is louder when you are angry. You are not sure whether the hunger is yours.
Specializations
| WoW Spec | Subclass | Fit | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blood | Paladin — Oath of the Ebon Blade (WoW book) | ✅ Direct | Self-healing tank. Death Strike is the whole spec and it needed a purpose-built feature. |
| Frost | Paladin — Oath of the Ebon Blade, dual-wield | 🔄 Shared | Same oath, two weapons and cold damage. Obliterate and Howling Blast. |
| Unholy | Paladin — Oath of the Ebon Blade, with a ghoul | 🔄 Shared | Same oath plus the raised minion. |
Species Pairings
Anyone the Scourge could reach, which in The Third War was nearly everyone.
- Human — Lordaeron. You were in the levies, or the clergy, or you were nobody, and Arthas came through anyway.
- Forsaken — you are the only being in Azeroth who has been raised twice, and the Royal Apothecary Society would very much like to know how
- Night elf — taken at Mount Hyjal. The kaldorei have no word for what you are and they have had four years to invent one.
- Dwarf — an Explorers' League dig that went into the wrong barrow in the Western Plaguelands
- Orc — the first generation's inheritance, and the Shadow Council would like it back
- Tauren — Lordaeron is a long way from Mulgore. How you got there is the character.
Playing One Here
The death knight's problem is not power. It is that there is nowhere to put you.
The Argent Dawn hunts your kind and might make an exception. The Scourge wants you back and does not consider your opinion relevant. The Forsaken are the only people in Azeroth who would recognise your situation, and joining them means joining the Horde.
What you are still walking toward
The three origins above are how you got loose. This is why you are still upright — and none of it depends on your species.
- Somebody alive still knew you — a spouse, a sergeant, a daughter. You have not knocked on the door. You have stood outside it.
- You want the ones who did this — not The Lich King first. The officer who gave the order, the captain who told you to hold the gate. Start small, start specific.
- You are testing whether you are still a person — the experiment is empirical. Do the right thing often enough and the question answers itself, or it doesn't.
- Restitution for what you did while held — you were not driving. You still remember the steering. There is a village, and a ledger, and you are working through it.
- You are immune to the thing that killed everyone you knew — the Scourge cannot turn you twice. That is a weapon, and the Argent Dawn is the one faction that takes recruits of any race and might one day count you among them.
- You want to be allowed to stop — a real death, chosen, at the end of something worth doing. Nobody is sure they can grant that. You are asking anyway.
