Possibilities for Forsaken Death Knights

I've had Death Knights running through my head all week. We've just recruited two to my guild, and after one of them joined and got all set up, someone told him 'hey, you got approved as Death Knight. That's awesome.' I didn't realize why they were putting the inflection on the word  Death Knight right away, but soon after it hit me: that Forsaken Death Knights would be trickier than your average Orc or Human Ebon Knight.

I should note that I'm only talking about playable Death Knights, the third generation ones raised in Archeus.

So, what makes Forsaken Death Knights so different? The double dead factor. They've died and been risen in service of the Lich King twice now. The life and death cycle of a Forsaken Death Knight goes something like this:

Alive > Dead > Scourge > Free willed Forsaken > Dead again > Death Knight.

Forsaken Death Knights have a bit of a trade off. As you can see, they have a lot of potential for layering and an obvious level of depth due to their multiple lives and times serving the Lich King. If you're a sucker for long character histories and old characters than Forsaken Death Knights are perfect. The problem is that some roleplayers struggle with their personality because they're just so dead.


Before I continue I should clarify that the Forsaken and Death Knights in general are quite different, and yet all too often they get lumped  together. Worse yet, sometimes people will assume that your average Forsaken and a Forsaken Death Knight would be the best of friends because they're both dead. However, it's important to remember two things: first, willing or not, all Death Knights bent a knee to the Lich King and served him; second, the Forsaken hate the Scourge and the Lich King. Which isn't to say that the Forsaken hate all Death Knights, all the time, no questions asked; but, the general Forsaken loathing for the Lich King is important to consider.

Another thing I try to take inspiration from when roleplaying my own Death Knight is that, when Death Knights went back to the Horde, they were despised. Guards wanted to lynch them, and  people threw rotten fruit at them. As a result I think a lot of Horde-side and Forsaken Death Knight roleplay, in particular, boils down to being an anti-hero that's not liked. However, now that three years have passed since the Lich King was defeated, and since the Death Knights had a hand in his defeat, there's much more room to allow for the initial hatred the Horde felt towards Death Knights to have cooled and it is more likely now that other, non-Death Knight characters would be willing to get along with them. I could write an entire blog entry on the differences between Forsaken and Death Knights though, so I'll cut myself off there.

Getting back to Forsaken Death Knights, they definitely have a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” feel to them. And that's part of the fun you can have with them. How do they deal with serving the Lich King twice? A Forsaken Death Knight could think they've cheated death twice now and are exceptionally lucky or impossible to kill. Conversely, they could believe they are weak and that's why they've twice fallen to the Scourge. Perhaps at first they considered Undeath to be a curse, but on their second time around they're starting to see it in a more positive light.

Forsaken Death Knights also allow you to step away from the typical 'mold' of the class without appearing to be singular or unique (and the unfortunate truth is that Death Knight roleplay has a bad reputation, so you'll want to tread carefully). For example, in Northrend many of the Death Knight NPCs said their knowledge of inner workings of the Scourge made them invaluable allies, but an ashamed Forsaken Death Knight might not show off that knowledge, for fear that other Forsaken would see it as pride in his service to the Lich King.

Continuing in that vein, Darion Mograine, leader of the Ebon Blade, said that Death Knights were abominations with no place in the world. A Forsaken Death Knight could find that notion very wrong, since they would have spent some time as an ordinary Forsaken: a freed servant of the Lich King fighting for a place in Azeroth.

In addition to allowing opportunities to break the “Death Knight” mold, Forsaken Death Knight roleplay also allows you to stray from the typical mold of the Forsaken a little more easily. Your Death Knight may have been one of the Forsaken members of the Argent Dawn, and can fall right in line with the idea that the Alliance and Horde aren't going to save Azeroth by fighting each other. There's also the fact that some members of the Ebon Blade believed that undeath made them all brothers, and their respective factions in life meant nothing.  Though with Cataclysm's arrival, these feelings of brotherhood seem to be less common since we see Death Knights fighting each other as they do battle for either the Horde or the Alliance. For reference, here's the quote from the Death Knight starting zone:

Thassarian says: In life we were hated enemies - this is true...
Thassarian says: But in death... We are the children of the damned. The bastard sons and daughters of the Scourge.
Thassarian says: In death we are brothers.

One of things I've always found interesting about the Death Knights was their position in Scourge Hierarchy – they had specially made armour and mounts and they were granted far more free will and power than the average mindless scourge ghoul. Actually, they command ghouls. Death Knights were like the generals of the Lich King's armies, whereas Forsaken were the mindless cannon fodder.

As a Forsaken Death Knight, you get to decide how much emphasis to place on that gap. Would your character play down their former rank within the Scourge in order to try and earn acceptance from their peers? Or would they lord it over the other Forsaken, wandering the halls of Undercity with their ghoul in tow, a reminder to all Forsaken of what they used to be?

All in all, I think the Forsaken definitely make an interesting choice for your one-Death-Kight-per-server limit, and you can have a lot of fun with their layered lives and how they perceive their second death. Like any lore-intensive class, they're not really for the faint of heart, but by observing the NPCs in Northrend and reading the quest dialogue you can quickly get a strong grasp of their story and nab some inspiration for your character to boot.