Death knights were mighty Undead warriors created by powerful beings of death, most often raised from formidable Warriors who had been cruel or Paladins fallen in life. They appeared much as they had before death, but their bodies were decayed, their flesh rotting and their eyes reduced to cold pinpoints of light. They favored fine armor and cloaks as marks of rank and authority, and their presence alone inspired dread in weaker creatures. Their existence was bound to past transgressions, and the curse that animated them was a direct consequence of grievous deeds committed in life.
In temperament, death knights were haunted by the knowledge of what they had been and what they had done. Some retained a dim desire for atonement, but most were selfish and rigid, unable or unwilling to truly repent. On the battlefield they were feared commanders as much as individual combatants. Their weapons were steeped in necrotic power, and they could dominate nearby undead, strengthening and directing them as extensions of their will. They rode phantom steeds or nightmares, unleashed waves of destructive magic, and called down hellfire upon their foes. When destroyed, a death knight did not pass on, but reformed within days at a place tied to its past, unless it had genuinely atoned, in which case the cycle finally ended.
Death knights rarely stood alone. They ruled over retinues of undead servants such as Skeletons, Zombies, and Wights, growing more numerous and powerful with the knight’s own strength. The most devoted of these followers were known as aspirants, mortal soldiers who willingly pledged themselves to the knight and accepted undeath in exchange for power and loyalty. Through these forces, a death knight could establish itself as a grim lord of war, bound eternally to command and destruction unless released by true redemption.