Images courtesy of Peter Dorsi

The initial idea for the death knight was that of an undead lich spellcaster character mounted on a horse, much like the same character that first appeared in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. This concept by Blizzard contrasted starkly than the other death knights that appeared in other fantasy-based games.

However, the design and the looks of the death knight hero were revamped when Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos was released. Way different than its predecessor, this second rendition of the death knight character was rigged with qualities that reflect that of a traditional death knight. A lot of differences mark the gap between the two different generations of death knights.

The second version was soon revised and integrated to become an elite hero class in the World of Warcraft (the first hero class in the said game) and made its first appearance in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

The Death Knight’s Talent Tree
The Death Knight’s abilities are stacked in three different categories. Each category has the capability to turn the Death Knight into an effective tanker or a DPS unit:

• The Blood Tree: This tree is more centered on the death knight’s melee capabilities, spells, and weaponry. Health regeneration is also given more emphasis in this bracket.

• The Frost Tree: This path is laden with control abilities and elements that enhance physical-damage diminution. Also adding to the pool is the heavy focus on critical-strike/bonus-damage.

• The Unholy Tree: This tree is more inclined towards massive minimization of spell damages, improvement of disease abilities and the like, and enhanced summoned units. The death knight’s movement and AOE are also given big attention in this category.

Lore
Though the Death Knight is just one hero class, the said unit is shared by two different groups of necromancers. In addition to the death knight, these organizations also share other attributes such as abilities and horses with horned-skulls.

Shadows of Justice
The first death knight came to be after the destruction of the Shadow Council led by Gul’dan. Annihilating the Shadow Council of the orc warlocks was the first item on Orgrim Doomhammer’s agenda as the Horde’s warchief. However, Doomhammer spared the council’s leader after the Gul’dan vowed to make a powerful army to fight for the Horde. A series of experimentation with the souls of the members of the destroyed council ensued. His first success in making a death knight occurred when he filled the corpse of the fallen knight known as Stormwind with the soul of the necrolyte Teron Gorefiend. Gul’dan shortly did the same to the other slain members of the council and thus created a massive array of undead warriors who fed on fear and brought destruction that spanned the whole of Azeroth in the Second War.

After the retreat and death of Gul’dan, legions of death knights along with a portion of the Horde fell back to Draenor through the Dark Portal. Following the destruction of Draenor, most of the remaining death knights vanished. A good number of them and other elite spellcasters of Ner’zhul, however, were caught by the Burning Legion and were morphed to become Liches by the Demon Lord, Kil’jaeden, who removed their free will in the process. The Demon Lord then assigned them under the command of his protégé, the Lich King, so as to aid him in completing the latter’s task. The very same Liches also appeared in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos as spell casting hero units for the Scourge.

Blizzard eventually disclosed the whereabouts of the walking abomination that is Teron Gorefiend, the first death knight. Gorefiend was able to escape the fate of his fellow death knights and now the powerful creature dwells within Outland’s Black Temple. In the game’s quest chain, Gorefiend tricks players into releasing him from his eternal bondage with a fictitious story. With a story line such as of Gorefiend’s, one can rationally reason out that there are still a significant number of the original death knights like Gorefiend, who were able to avoid capture of the Burning Legion and still walk with their forms unchanged.

Champions of the Lich King
The greatest champion and vessel of the Lich King is the undead form of Prince Arthas Menethil. Once a great knight of the Silver Hand, the former crown prince and heir to the throne of Lordaeron willingly gave his soul for the unholy runeblade Frostmourne in a desperate attempt to save his people. After acquiring Frostmourne, the Lich King went on to siphon out the last remaining remnants of sanity out of the young paladin and completely corrupt him.

Prince Arthas is the first of the new breed of rune-wielding death knights created by the Lich King after the destruction of Draenor.

Prince Arthas and other champions of the Lich King are stripped of their freewill, unlike the death knights of Gul’dan. Their actions are dominated and directed by the vast consciousness of the Lich King. However, even with the great absence of free will, some mortals are still enticed to pledge allegiance to the Lich King with the lure of immortality.

The Ebon Blade
A rogue group of death knights who were able to break free from the Lich King’s sway after the siege of Light’s Hope Chapel is known as the Knights of The Ebon Blade. These Highlord Darion Mograine-led death knights have aligned themselves with the Horde and the Alliance. With the aid of Tirion Fordring, Highlord of the Knights of the Silver Hand, the Knights of The Ebon Blade vowed to end the Lich King’s reign of terror. The death knights of Ebon Blade are headquartered in Acherus.

In the game, the Knights of The Ebon Blade are player-generated death knights.

Types of Death Knights
The First Generation Death Knights: Death Knights of the Old Horde

Also known as Gul’dan’s death knights, these unholy warriors were, in essence, the souls of fallen orc warlocks whose souls were encased in the corpses of Azeroth’s slain knights. With the corpses reanimated with the spirit of this magic-wielding race, the first generation death knights possessed magical abilities and able to cast spells effectively. However, they were not veterans of battle.

As all undead creatures, Gul’dan’s death knights were all preternaturally immortal. However, their looks depended heavily on the state of the corpses they were residing and many of them appeared in various state of decomposition. Unlike the second generation of death knights, these reanimated corpses retained their free will.

The Second Generation Death Knights: Death Knights of the Scourge

Hero Class Overview
In the game, a player can only create a death knight when he has a level 55 hero in his account for that specific realm. These player-generated death knights are based on those created by the Lich King such as those seen in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and not those with Orcish lineage as seen in Warcraft II.

The death knight has a list of skills that includes mastery in physical combat imbued with necromantic abilities.

Unlocking a Player’s Death Knight
After creating a death knight, a player will still have access to other existing characters. Once the death knight is created, its base level will start at 55 in Acherus: The Ebon Hold in the Eastern Plaguelands. A level 55 death knight is equipped with a set of uncommon gear and is fitted with various spells and abilities. When the player leaves Ebon Hold, the death knight will then have a set of rare gear to aid him for forays into the Outland.

Various quests designed for death knights will enable the character to master the death knight’s abilities and will take the character to several locations until the player reaches the Secret Enclave.

Every race has its version of dark knights, but creating a dark knight has a particular limitation; if a player has an Alliance character on the PvP server, he or she cannot create a death knight of the Horde on that specific server.

The Rune System
The Death Knight employs a distinctive rune-centric resource system to channel his spells and abilities. There are three types of runes designed for the death knight: blood, frost, and unholy. Each type of runes is differentiated by its colors and symbols and has its own set of attributes. For every ability used by the death knight, a rune will be depleted but refreshes after a period of 10 seconds. A rune can be also turned into a death rune after casting a series of rune spells. A death rune can be utilized as a Blood/Unholy/Frost rune.

A death knight can also increase his runic power every time the character uses a rune-based ability. This runic power is needed for several skills such as the Dancing Rune Blade and the Death Coil. The more runic power accumulated by the character, the more effective will the ability be.

The Death Knight’s Role
A death knight can shoulder tanking responsibilities as well as do significant damage to the opposition. Able to wield dual weapons or two-handed weapons, a death knight can easily tank spell casters. Even with the absence of shields like the Druids, a death knight’s high armor and great chances to parry make this class an excellent tanker.

Runeforging
Runeforging allows players to give their death knights’ weapons permanent attributes by fusing runes with the weapons. Any weapon’s attributes it got from Enchanting will be overwritten when it undergoes runeforging. A player’s character must be in close proximity to a runeforge in order to embed a rune onto their arsenal.