Death Knight Background: Plausible? Yea, or nay?

[Deleted]

Hey everyone. I’m generally too nervous to actually post anything on forums, however, I was hoping to get some feedback on an aspect of my character's story which seems to be a really polarising issue. I've done all my lore homework - I've been playing the Warcraft games since they began - and it seems to fit quite acceptably, but it still seems to engender colossal rage from some quarters. Was wondering what you guys might think about how it's laid out, and whether it's plausible.

So the issue is not so much that she's a Death Knight, but that she's not a dead one.

When I was looking to make this character I wanted her to have various traits which might make her interesting to roleplay and that might add new layers to her interaction with other people. When I made her, it was back during the closed Beta, and the Acherus questline area had not been made. What I had to go on was the existing lore on death knights, and the tidbits which Blizzard posted on their Wrath of the Lich King site. This quote is one of the interesting ones:

"Unlike Gul'dan's death knights, modern death knights consist mainly of paladins who lost their faith and pledged their souls to the Lich King in exchange for the promise of immortality. Death knights who fall in battle are soon raised again to continue in their master's service."

(http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath...night/lore.xml)

Blizzard then went ahead and provided Death Knights with a choice of the traditional racial skins, and then a set of three “undead” ones to go with it, again, emphasizing choice. Then of course, we had Acherus added, and ever since people have pointed to it as the golden source of background for everyone who wishes to play the class.

I felt that the "You have to be undead" aspect was a rather unfair step back from the previous incarnation of "You have the choice" and that through the quest lines we were given to teach us to play the class, a too-heavy hand was interfering with the freedom we have to design our characters, a freedom which every other class enjoys to a greater extent. That said, the lore is the lore, and so I set about ensuring that I would have a sensible, reasonable explanation for why she is the way she is. Here then is a summary of the key features of her backstory.

She is a Lordaeron citizen, the younger sister of a now Kirin-Tor mage, whom she always felt in the shadow of. She was training to become a Paladin at the time that the events of Warcraft III began. She was enlisted into the First Legion before completing training, to replace losses encountered early in the campaign. She therefore journeyed with Arthas during the events at Stratholme. She stayed with him after many soldiers left with Uther and Jaina, having seen what they were up against during the Culling. She went to Northrend. After the victory against Mal’Ganis, she was one of the survivors of Arthas’ betrayal of his army and fled with many others back to the coast. She was intercepted by him, where he offered her the chance to serve him as a death knight, which she refused. She was then possessed by a Scourge banshee to enforce her obedience, and inducted into the Death Knight ranks.

The reasons that Arthas has for doing this are fleshed out much later on in the story, but what the reader can assume is that it's done because it will be useful to the Scourge in some way. For example, a still living death knight would be better able to work forward of the main Scourge army, alongside Cult of the Damned infiltrators. As a spy of sorts, she would be better able to evade detection by Silver Hand paladins. As a former member of the Lordaeron army, being kept in a fresher state would allow her to serve as a living repository of information about the Alliance forces the Scourge would have to fight, whereas an undead servant might have had those memories damaged. These are all the sorts of motivations I had in mind when deciding that this would be the manner in which she was Scourged.

The reason I found this idea compelling was that it adds a new aspect to what might otherwise be “the same old story”. Being undead and generally a pariah among Alliance races is very limiting when it comes to roleplay, in some aspects. I ended up thinking about what kind of effect being forcibly possessed and made to slaughter your friends and family would have on someone. The banshee was literally a parasitic presence in her mind, feeding off her memories and emotions, while using her in every possible way, for years, a torture which did not end until Light’s Hope, where the presence was burnt out of her and destroyed. This left her in an interesting position. A human with little memory of what it was to be a human. No knowledge of how to function in society. Possessed of nothing except the things which had been useful to the banshee, the knowledge of how to fight, and hate. I felt that this kind of character had more scope to develop in interesting ways when hurled into the wide world. She is emotionally crippled, lusting for revenge against the most unlikely targets (she actually tried to kill her own sister, blaming her for the whole thing), and generally a roiling sea of emotion and hormones and untamed by any cultural or societal conditioning.

This then was the framework from which Seja was born, and I was wondering what you think of it. Is it plausible?

[Black Mage]

Lore-Wise, this goes against the common view of things, but is not completly out of the realm of possibility.

I personally think this would work, as, after all, Arthas was not an un-intelligent man. He would have seen the advantage of having a sect of the Death knights still living; it would have been a great tactical advantage. I do like the idea of the Parasitic banshee, but I must ask, is it explicitly said in lore that banshees may inhabit a host or is all this from inferring implicitly?

If the banshee-possesion things works out, then yes, I think this would be a plausible story.

[Deleted]

I do like the idea of the Parasitic banshee, but I must ask, is it explicitly said in lore that banshees may inhabit a host or is all this from inferring implicitly?

If the banshee-possesion things works out, then yes, I think this would be a plausible story.

This is all from the lore. I think the best examples of parasitic banshee possession are when Sylvanas used her banshees to possess the leaders of a gang of bandits and a clan of forest trolls to manipulate their forces into serving her, and more recently where Lady Nightswood, an Ebon Blade banshee, possesses and inhabits the Vrykul Bone Witch in Icecrown. During that questline, it's shown that the inhabiting banshee is able to leave the host to possess another at will, later returning to the original host, which has presumably been left incapacitated somewhere in "storage". It is also suggested during the Bone Witch's interaction with the player that the original host is very much still present, and attempting to resist the invader's control, although we never see a successful example of such resistance.

[Deleted]

So the million dollar question, do Death Knights have to be dead? I'm fairly certain that, before merging with Ner'zhul, Arthas was still alive in the biological sense and there's nothing explicitly in lore (to my knowledge) to say he ever actually became undead... other than cutting out his heart... which is fairly damning to that theory, but there is some precedent in that I suppose.

As an aside, I've always been wary, myself, of insinuating any character I've cared to role-play too closely with main plot characters.

[Khorianas]

Hi Seja,
first of all, I really like how you integrated your character into the Frozen Throne setting, and i will try to provide some aspects of the situation of the setting how i would see it, that would make this origin difficult to achieve.

So, the value of living spies to the Lichking is unquestionable, however at that time (shortly before Arthas as his Champion conquered Lordaeron iirc) the Cult of the Damned, was deeply entwined within the human society, consisting of huge sleeper cells, so it would be difficult to integrate her into the Cults cells.

And here comes my major concern about your story:

As far as i know Deathknight Lore, the soul of the Deathknight host must have some kind of pact/connection to the Lich King, which is either established freely like for example by Baron Rivendare, or by a forceful "twisting/defiling" of the soul of a candidate. I don't know if you have to be undead/dead for this to work, but as a result your soul and body are defiled and that is felt by Paladins and Priests I would assume. So a real Deathknight could always be perceived by those, even if his body was still alive. I think the body could keep its alive looks if the knight choses to but there is no clear indication about this. So the deathknight may be living in a biological sense but he should be vulnerable to holy powers as a regular undead.

That in mind let us take a look at your banshee possession idea:

As far as I remember the act of possessing someone needs the banshees full strenght and willpower, but she gets control of the whole of the being with all its skills strength and weaknesses. The Banshees in Warcraft III died if her host was slain if i recall correctly, Lady Nightswood however was even able to survive her host beeing slain by the Lichking himself.

So where i am getting to is the following:

When the banshee possessed your character who learned the Death Knights arts? The Banshee or your Character? if your Characters soul was twisted she would be a regular deathknight imho, just as Baron Rivendare or perhaps the so dreaded (lorewise) Sir Zelliek. If the Banshee somehow mastered the Death knights arts and used the Body as a fleshly funnel (like practiced in the fist deathknight Generation founded by Ner'zhul, see Teron Gorefiend) after her vanishing at Lights Hope your character would no longer hold the majority of the banshees/deathknights power.

So i really don't know what to make of the idea, i really like its basics but the details get iffy. If you flesh out the details and give further details which powers she obtained and contained it could very well work out.
I could see a "living" Death Knight with the powers of Blood and maybe Frost but very limited unholy mastery.

So is your story plausible? Yes it is if you find your way to explain what happend and personalize your characters powers away form a standard deathknight.

[Deleted]

I'd spent a fair bit of time wondering about this exact same issue, actually! It did definately need some thought about how exactly Seja stayed a death knight when the banshee was destroyed. As for the type she is, it's funny you mention that. She's Frost, in its entirity. All she uses is frost magic, and a sword. Doesn't use death coils, raising undead minions, boiling blood, or any of that. In fact she doesn't even use frost magic that much at all. Re-reading her story in this light, I hadn't noticed how little she uses any form of death knight signature abilities compared to the more traditional knights. I guess I must have subconsciously thought of her as more of the soldier who might be considered a death knight due to the circumstances...

But I digress. As far as the banshee goes, I saw it as depending on the nature of the permamence of the host. Seja was not intended to be a brief visit, or a tool to be used and then discarded. She was very much going to be a new, permanent body for this banshee and as such, I saw her having no qualms in "settling in" totally. The very nature of this invasive parasitic relationship was shown after the banshee was gone, Seja's own memories and personality had been hugely fragmented if not destroyed as the invader replaced them with her own. All that survived was the fragment of her own soul which had been pushed into the "back seat" of her mind as the banshee took control and used her body as her own. What this meant was that after Light's Hope, the controlling influence was destroyed, and Seja found herself with a very much unwanted and mysterious areas of expertise. Her body, her mind, her memories had been shaped and trained by the banshee as if they were her own, since she never foresaw leaving the host. When she -was- destroyed, in effect, the roles were reversed. "Seja" was now basically the banshee, except -she- was now in control of a body she didn't really recognise at all, and there was very little left of her to even fill it up. All she had were shattered shards of her own memories, still images disjointed in her mind with no relevance or chronological order.

I'm not sure if this makes sense. :P

It does in my brain!

[Khorianas]

That makes perfect sense to me, with that reasoning, the limit to Frost powers and the more detailed explanation of the Banshees intention the character is working. Perhaps she could be tutored by some experienced Ebon Blade knights to get to know her new powers, or you make it more instinct driven, i definitely like her.