Question: How to RP a Night Elf DK

[Malfurion]

How do you role play a night elf death knight? How can I do this and still be taken seriously by other players?
I realize Blizzard stretched the lore with this but I am still curious.

I hope I'm in the right forum.

[Sora Dawnblade]

Simple, when risen as a death knight, a large portion of your formal loyalties, not least of which your reverence of life and nature, are gone. Replaced by a burning desire to rape the souls of the living. If you are one of those released from the Lich Kings grasp, you still bear a disdain for the living, just not so strongly. You might RP him as a conflicted soul, drawn to death and destruction, yet sometimes feeling glimpses of his past abhorence for such behavior.

[Syrra Coventry]

Night Elf Death Knights are less of a stretch of the lore than Worgen will be. For Night Elves, I think to keep them within lore for solid role-play some of the key things are as follows:

• Not all Death Knights were created during the Scourge War. A solidly high number were created after Naxxramas was moved to Northrend (remember, Acherus was moved into the region as the most powerful Necropolis to end the the last stronghold of humans in the kingdom of Lordaeron).
• By the time Acherus was moved to Lordaeron, night elves had been well-traveled in the Eastern Kingdoms and some were members of the Argent Crusade.
• Many night elves traveled to Northrend in the quest to aid the Alliance to end Arthas.
• You can gloss over the events of the the Death Knight starter area (I did for mine) as a function of the Ebon Blade continuing to raise those taken by Arthas as a way of stopping him from using them against the collected peoples of Azeroth.
• For issues of magic, they are not employing arcane magic, which is what the night elves abhor. Arcane Magicks are what attracted the Burning Legion and why it was outlawed in night elf society. They are not drawing on, and corrupting, the sort of energies of concern to the night elves.
• Night Elf death knights are, for all intents and purposes, corrupted already, though now redeemed. As such they now have the inherent powers of a death knight. It's not the same power base as magic users (mages) or even warlocks.

Drawing from this, take the example I have done, listed in my bio, for Lyssi Nightsong. I've yet to have anyone not take this character seriously when role-playing her within the confines of the game. I did enough research and back study, as well as history development, for her to be taken as a serious example of a night elf death knight within the lore.

The way I went about it is far from the only way, but I was tired of seeing all the emo, self-mutilating, self-loathing, hate for what they are and power-mad death knights. So I went with a viable alternative route where she suffers none of the guilt of many of their brethren.

[Deleted]

also, its useful to know that many of the pre-ebon blade death knights dont have to be dead, many are just corrupted by their runeblades. like the cult of the damned necromancers.

[Syrra Coventry]

While this is true, it's far less common. In-game lore (before the Battle for Light's Hope Chapel) specifically refers to Acherus being filled with piles of corpses waiting to be raised as Death Knights.

But it is, nevertheless, true.

For timeline purposes, most in-game night elf death knights (specifically night elves) would have been raised from just before Naxxramas' move to after that point. It's going to be far more common for Death Knights, as far as lore and rp-wise, of other races aside from Tauren and Night Elves, to be raised without death as, from what I gather, those merely being corrupted would have been done so by Arthas himself with Frostmourne rather than just any ol' death knight doing it.

Feel free to correct me if I missed something there.

[Tylanir]

also, its useful to know that many of the pre-ebon blade death knights dont have to be dead, many are just corrupted by their runeblades. like the cult of the damned necromancers.

I think this was only in the case of Arthas, as he was the very first Deathknight after the Orc ones, who were souls in the bodies of corpses and were more like liches.

[Deleted]

im meaning the second generation, after the orcs, there were apparently quite a few death knights made my nur'zhul, Arthas was the (first?) and greatest. then he became the lich king and cut out his heart...

[Syrra Coventry]

Second generation death knights are a tougher proposition to pull off, unless you're playing one strictly from a role-play aspect, as all of the player character death knights are third generation in one manner or another. A large portion of the second generation death knights became so by choice, offering themselves to the Lich King (Ner'zhul himself at this point) for the promise of more power than they could dream of. A solid portion of these would have been wicked in their lives, hungry for power, and willing to destroy anyone to get it.

These, as a player character race and ignoring the death knight starter stuff as a mechanism to get into the game, are going to necessarily be of a narrow band of races due to timeline issues. They will largely be human or high elf with few, if any, exception. Remember, at the time of Ner'zhul as the sole lich king, contact with night elves, trolls, and tauren had not been established. The first known tauren death knight was converted by Arthas himself, if memory serves.

Baron Rivendare is a solid example of such death knights. Lady Blaumeux is another who likely was converted in such a manner. Sir Zeliek was a fallen Paladin, so is most likely a third generation Death Knight, though a very powerful one.

[Malfurion]

thanks everybody this helped me make more sense of things

Syrra, I read your Lyssi biography and it was pretty interesting. I am more used to death knights being angry at the act of them being risen again, Lyssi seemed to go with the flow after a short resistance. It was an innovative story nonetheless.

thanks again.

[Syrra Coventry]

Thank you! Yes...it took me awhile to think of a different tack...I didn't want her to be just another emo death knight. lol