Roleplaying a Death Knight (Part Two)

Last time we took a look at the racial backgrounds of Gnomish, Blood Elf, and other death knights, to shed some light on how each race deals with their returning undead brethren. Follow us for part two of this roleplaying extravaganza as we complete the circuit...

Humans: More than any other race, Human death knights have truly followed in the steps of Arthas himself. As a race which is quite invested in the Holy Light, it is certain that a returning death knight will encounter some abrasion upon returning to Stormwind. Uther still has many loyal supporters. The truest paladin even has an entire holiday for him, for crying out loud. So among the paladin-set, and those who were there when Arthas turned against his people and betrayed Uther, it is unlikely that a death knight will make friends. Yet, Humanity is wildly varied – one of the few races in the Alliance which accepts Warlocks not just as a necessary evil, but as a viable form of study and exploration. Humans boast both paladins and rogues in their number, and both mages and warlocks. And any race which has such a series of polar opposite classes is bound to have supporters on either end of the Holy/Unholy spectrum. Thus, assuming they can find their appropriate niche, the only thing a returning Human death knight probably has going against them is the fact that Arthas himself is currently the most powerful baddie in the entire world, and Humanity cannot forget or forgive that the Lich King was once one of their own.

Night Elves: To say that all Kal’dorei society would shun a death knight upon her return to Teldrassil is probably incorrect. Night Elves have always claimed to follow the tenets of nature, and to walk in balance with all living beings. To that end, a Night Elf death knight is probably an aberration, as are, claim Kal’dorei priests, all undead.

But Night Elf society is also riddled with individuals who enjoy, wield, and strive for power. Some of the greatest, most powerful, and in many cases, most evil beings in all of Azeroth were once Night Elves, including Illidan himself. Ancient Night elf civilization was a magocracy, not like that of modern-day Dalaran, but certainly a society where those who were possessed of and adept at using the magic powers of nature (which were and are at least partly Arcane) were the ones who ruled.

There is no denying that death knights are powerful. They have, in every sense of the phrase, cheated death itself to inflict the desires and will of the Lich King upon the world. And now that they are free, all that power and capacity has to go somewhere. And there may be no other race on Azeroth which is more capable of using their power and ability to shift the very currents of the world than the Night Elves. In this case, it might be a better option for the Kal’dorei to adopt these wayward death knights than it would be simply to lock them up somewhere or cast them aside – both methods of dealing with magical heretics have been used in the past, but neither punishment met with much success. Assuming the returning death knight wasn’t too big on the “undeath for all” campaign, she might be accepted back into her birth society with little upheaval.

Orcs: It is not widely known, but the very first death knights were Orcs. In fact, as many today have forgotten, the Lich King himself, before Arthas took up the blade of Frostmourne, was Ner’zul, the spirit of one of the Horde’s most powerful Orcish shamans conscripted into service by Kil’jaeden.

In some ways, Orcs know death knights better than the other races of Azeroth. Death knights fought alongside the Horde in the Second War, after being raised from the dead and bound into service by Gul’dan, the most powerful warlock of the age.

And Orcs certainly know what it is to be led, blood and soul into battle as a pawn for others. They were conscripted into service by the Burning Legion, and only recently have broken the fel-blood curse. It is therefore quite possible that Orcish death knights would be accepted back into the Horde and treated like any other soldier. A soldier to keep an eye on, certainly, but in no greater a threat category as that in which Thrall currently places warlocks.

Tauren: When your entire civilization has been shaped by the idea that life is cyclical, and that death itself has a place and a status which confers honor, not loss, where do you fit in if you’re big, mean and undead?

Well, to the Tauren purists out there the answer would be “nowhere,” but even the most educated Tauren sage cannot deny that death knights are a reality now, that the tide has turned, and that their new-found allies, contrary, strange, and fearsome though they may be, cannot simply be turned away or forgotten.

On the one hand, the returning Tauren death knight may be met with open arms. Tauren lore is heavily infused with the idea that the spirits of the ancestors never leave us, and that every previous generation watches this one. Heck, even Tauren humor revolves around this ideal: “You know how hard it is to get your groove on with the spirit of your great grandmother watching over you?” The very nature of death is not to destroy, but to change. For some Tauren, the fact that their relatives and loved ones are returning to them after death might not be too big a leap to make – after all, death knights are just ancestors in the flesh, unlike the spirits unseen.

But on the other hand, like the Night Elves, Tauren society has an affinity for the natural balance of things. The dead should remain buried (or at least enshrouded) – they should not rise up to wreak vengeance. Thus, at least among the more dogmatic Tauren, death knights are an affront against nature, beings which should have accepted that their time walking the earth was done but didn’t. Still, these are strange times we live in, and even the most stalwart Tauren may find it in their hearts to accept that death knights may be the best way to beat the Lich King at his own game.

Trolls: It is certainly a strange conundrum that while the majority of Trollish society practices voodoo, a strange mystic art frequently associated with necromancy, Trolls, at least the playable Darkspear race also fear, even revile the undead. Perhaps this is because most undead Trolls we encounter on Azeroth are mindless servants of the evil voodoo priests who animate them. Sunken Temple, Zul’Farrak, Stranglethorn Vale – these former Troll bastions are riddled with evil witch doctors raising zombie Trolls who are intent on destroying civilization, or bringing the Old Gods back to life. And the undead minions the priests of Hakkar and others like them employ are completely without free will, utterly evil, and bent on destruction, not unlike the zombie crack troops of the Lich King.

Add in the fact that the Darkspear just recently escaped from certain doom at the hands of the wicked voodoo doctor Zalazane, who actually bound the spirits of dead trolls to do his bidding, and it is perhaps understandable that on the surface at least, death knights would be met with suspicion, fear, or outright hostility. After all, who is to say that the Troll walking before them is really an entity with free will? Aren’t they still a pawn of Arthas? And since so much of Troll magic relies on spirits – forces which cannot ever be seen, but which can still possess, consume, or wreak terrible destruction upon mortals, death knights bear the double cross of being undead and formerly bound to the service of what is perhaps the most evil spirit of all, the Lich King himself.

So the question of whether a Troll death knight could be able to successfully assimilate back into the Darkspear is probably one of trust. Trolls talk to spirits all the time, and one possible plus for the Troll death knight is that there seems to be no Trollish bias against being dead; the prejudice lies instead along the assumption that if one is dead and still walking the earth, one is probably not doing it of their own free will. If the death knight can find a way of proving to her former friends that there really is no one else pulling her strings, then she may be allowed to re-enter Darkspear society.