I decided to write this guide because, and I'm sure the rest of you can too, I can just feel the huge amounts of lorelol coming our way with Death Knights being released as a playable class in Wrath of the Lich King. With this guide which is written entirely from an objective point of view based on official lore and facts, I hope I can help some players avoid that.. Do feel free to critize and add information or correct some, and correct typos for me, my main language is not english and I don't know the ENTIRE lore out of my head. I hope you find this guide useful. I kept it as short as possible.
Why do I want to Role-Play a Death Knight?
You should ask this yourself before rolling a Death Knight for Role-Playing purposes, or before actively taking part in Role-Play. Why do you want to role-play a Death Knight? There are several options. Firstly, your Death Knight -will- have to be a so-called "special" character. Sometimes we roll a random character to role-play something simple and casually, like a fisherman or a bread vendor, but obviously if you roll this class you've started quite an unique character, someone who will never ever fit in the crowd. Your skin looks rotten, your eyes glow, you look corrupt. You most likely always carry your runeblade around, which you are somewhat attached to (Note: not as bad as "real" Death Knights. You have not given up your soul for your powers thus you do not carry your soul around in your runeblade like the "real" Death Knights.) People will call you names, throw things at you, see you as a cold-blooded murderer. Take all these things into account before deciding how your Death Knight will be. So do -not- roll a Death Knight with the intention for casual RP in taverns or other public places. Perhaps you want to Role-play a complete outcast who joins a mercenary force? Perhaps someone who holds a huge grudge for the Scourge and the Lich King, who did this to your character, and the only purpose in his or her life being to get revenge? Perhaps you always wanted to Role-play a Scourge-alligned character but didn't find other classes suitable at all?
My Death Knight's personality.
So now you know why you want to role-play a Death Knight, it's onto his personality. The questline tells you how you once were an hero who fought the Scourge, but fell and then was ressurected later as a mindless Death Knight; part of the "third generation." So you can imagine your character will be quite much upset about this. You also slay someone you knew when you were still alive, perhaps a lover, perhaps family, you are not further explained, during the Death Knight questchain in the starterzone. You can use this very good to your advantage, you may sooner or later find out you slayed that person afterall. It would make quite an impact on your character's mental stability and personality if it was your own wife you slayed, for example. Your character may lose his faith entirely in whatever he believed before, for example he or she may have been a Night Elf worshipping Elune, but he or she would start doubting in Elune if she would "allow" such a terrible thing happen to him or her. Your character would rather start worshipping his/her own powers, darkness in general, necromancy, but outside the Scourge. Perhaps seek out other faiths. Your character could fall completely to insanity after all what happened and become a total psychopath.
You may want to role-play an agent of the Scourge, a Death Knight still serving the army of the dead. In this case your Death Knight will probably be arrogant, completely emotionless and remorseless, and bloodthirsty. Eager to kill. If you choose to role-play a Scourge-alligned Death Knight, be sure to be in contact with other Scourge RPers as the Scourge is like one big family. I won't go too much into this one; I think there are plenty of examples of personalities for Death Knights of the Scourge. There are many options in how to personalise your Death Knight; be creative but stay within the boundraries of the lore!
My Death Knight's history.
Since the Death Knight introduction only describes your character as a "fallen hero", you have pretty much options for your characters history. There is however the bottleneck that your character HAS to go trough to avoid being a lorelol: he must have been killed and ressurected in Ebon Hold, and then broken free during the event in Light's Hope Chapel. Either that, or be Scourge-alligned. There are NO other options for Role-playing a Death Knight. Now, if your character has been redeemed in the Light's Hope Chapel event, then he is one of the fallen heroes. Depending on your race that can be a lot. You might have been the hero of the humans who defeated the Defias Brotherhood. Or the hero of the Orcs who defeated the Shadow Council in ragefire chasm. You get the idea. But if you really want a history for your Death Knight that does not involve being a real "hero", that's acceptable too. Just make sure you pass trough that "bottleneck" event for all free Death Knights. As for Scourge-alligned Death Knights, your character would have to be a fallen paladin. Quote from wowwiki:
(http://www.wowwiki.com/Death_Knight)
Q u o t e:
Years after the destruction of Draenor, the immensely powerful Lich King created a new breed of death knights: malevolent, rune-wielding warriors of the Scourge. The first and greatest of these was Prince Arthas Menethil, once a mighty paladin of the Silver Hand, who sacrificed his soul to claim the runeblade Frostmourne in a desperate bid to save his people.
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.
In the years since Arthas shattered the Frozen Throne and merged with the Lich King, the power and fury of the death knights has only grown. Now these unrelenting crusaders of the damned eagerly await the Lich King's command to unleash their fury on Azeroth once again.
My Death Knight's allignment.
"Gameplay"-wise, we are limited to the Horde and Alliance, naturally. However, while role-playing we can much more expand those borders of course. For example as I mentioned before; Role-playing a Death Knight still alligned to the Scourge is perfectly doable. I've been running a Scourge-cult for nearly a year on my realm. Aside from that, you could become part of many factions, if even the Alliance and Horde would accept you, despite your murderous past and despite all the citizens hating and insulting you, quite some other factions would probably be open too to Death Knights of the Ebon Blade. Ofcourse don't make a stupid choice like the Scarlet Crusade or the order of the Silver Hand. They would never ever accept Death Knights in any way.
My Death Knight's guild
Well, there is a very wide variety of guilds so I can't say that much on the subject of this. However, avoid "official" authority guilds like the plague. If one thing would break the immersion for me it's an evil Death Knight with rotten skin, glowing eyes and dark armor with a Stormwind tabard serving the law. That's just ridiculous and a huge lorelol. The most fitting guilds would be Scourge-alligned guilds or cults for your character if you choose to role-play him still serving the Scourge, or perhaps some guild dedicated to the Ebon Blade or some outcasts guild if you role-play one according to the Death Knight questline. But again; for the love of god even if they somehow get it in their head to accept you avoid Stormwind authority or army related guilds.
My Death Knight's goals
As I mentioned before, the most obvious goal for a Death Knight who broke lose in the Light's Hope Chapel event, would be to get revenge on the Scourge and the Lich King for having done this to him. But ofcourse you can go a lot further than that and add a lot more personality to your character. Depending on if your character went rather insane, or more emotional about the happenings, he can have goals varying from getting more power and starting to blame the mortals as well for allowing this to happen, to seeking some sort of cure to perhaps one day be able to naturally die and rest in peace. A Scourge-alligned Death Knight's goal, would ofcourse, be to aid the Scourge as good as possible and follow all commands. Also here try be creative outside the "Revenge on the Lich King" but keep it within boundraries!
And thus so far my guide. Thanks for reading, and I hope it helped you get an idea of how to RP your Death Knight.
Again, do critize and add more information and sources to help me improve. :)
Additions to the guide.
Why a Death Knight being accepted by society isn't realistic.
Basically, someone in this thread said he disagreed that Death Knights shouldn't just go to taverns and expect to be accepted, and that it would be normal for them to try pick their former lives up.
Original quote:
Q u o t e:
I disagree with some points to this guide. I think it would be acceptable for a Death Knight to go into an Inn for a drink or to apply to be a Stormwind guard. The DK could just want to go back to normal life or they were an ex guard. Perhaps they will try and enter the church to seek forgiveness and redemption
And this is my answer, a comparison to a psychopath who has been "cured" IRL:
Q u o t e:
A psychopathic serial killer killed about 75 victims spread across Europe. He also killed one of these people in your neighbourhood, a friend. Now, he is caught and put in a mental hospital, and eventually gets "cured" by lots of medicines and therapy, and this guy decides to come live somewhere near you. Will you just accept him like that? Be glad to see him in your local bar? etc.
Thanks for all the arguments and constructive feedback and critisizing so far, and thanks to Vaneras for taking note of my guide.
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