Death Knights are required to sing showtunes every Full Moon

Also apparently fucking an elf is bad enough to get you turned into a Death Knight, who knew?

Getting Deer-derived STDs should have been enough of a punishment, but the gods are sometimes persistant in their underlining of rules they consider important.

>you will never be a part of a campaign that has your party up against a terrifying barbershop quartet of singing Death Knights

>be wizard
>spend a century studying arcane tomes and ancient manuscripts for forbidden and forgotten lore
>finally stumble upon a few hints that allow you to make a guess at how to achieve lichdom
>invest a fortune in reagents and magical equipment, seek out dark powers to strike sinister deals with
>the ritual is too painful and horrifying to describe and more likely than not to end in failure
>but at the end, you emerge as an immortal
>your hard work and arduous struggle has paid off

Meanwhile

>chad shags a noblewoman and marries her
>chad then shags an elf
>wife finds out
>the nagging is unbearable, so he kills her
>same result

Even worse, you're required by the rules of AD&D to be Deathchad's aide and help him work on his acapella harmonization

Given that you had to pour decades of hard and lonely studying into your immortality, it's also more likely than not that Deathchad is just the kid of the guy that originally bullied you

Now, to be fair, I think
>Skeleton Warriors, Liches, (and other undead who serve as aides)
>(Skeleton Warriors, Liches, and other undead) who serve as aides
Are both valid readings. Chad Deathknights is funnier though

Why can't I get Boyz II Men's 'Motownphilly' out of my head now

>600 years later
>deathchad is STILL a tonedeaf bastard

Accidentally interrupting a song in the night and having to fight a ridiculously powerful undead as a result sounds straight out of some folk tale, I love it.

Serious question, as far as D&D is concerned; why are there a thousand ways to become an immortal asshole compared to a couple ways to become a Heroic immortal? Are the forces of good so whipped they can't even bless their mortal champions with longevity?

>Be Good aligned mortal
>Die
>Go to awesome heaven

vs

>Be evil mortal
>Die
>Get your ass kicked forever by demons or devils as a mane or similar
>Orcus won't STFU about the "Abyssal Dream" and how everyone can make it to overlord-dom

Because life is supposed to be ephemeral, or it loses its value. Immortality in any form is a perversion of the gift of life.

When you reach that point as a Good character, you're pretty much set and nothing can touch you ever again.

With evil, you're essentially going to be hunted down for the rest of eternity, and can still be killed outright.

>hevenly

So what are (effectively immortal) elves, then? Perverted from birth? Abominations unto natural order?

Villains don't get manly tears for heroic sacrifices because they don't make them.

Elves only live like a thousand years max in D&D

>Be Warlock
>Die
>Go to Baator
>Your memory is wiped out and you are supposed live forever in debt to some dude called "Amadeus" or something.
>Try to commit suicide
>Your soul energy will be reborn as a new fiend.
Shit sucks.

In most D&D settings elves only live a few hundred years with the extreme ones going to 1,000.

They tried making a path for characters to become gods for being awesome heroes but it got bundled into a bunch of mystara stuff that pissed off the mystara community at the time so it was mostly abandoned.

because immortal evil characters are villains for the heroes to cut down to size while immortal good characters are annoying NPCs who make you feel insignificant

...or, you know, continue smiting for the good of mankind. Good folks don't do it for the reward, user. Or is that how it works in D&D?

Really? Because more often than not, and it might just be my shit taste in fiction, 'immortal' heroes get whacked.

Yeah, it's mis-spelled. Not sure how it matters since it's not my work.

So it's a narrative conceit? Because I understand the neccesity of a meta-plot, but only if it's gracefully integrated.

I have no clue what that is.

Of course you don't do it for the reward.

Which is why there's a reward.

Well, they do put a lot of attention on the "murdered wifey to fuck elfmaid" bit, but... it's a bit more involved. Y'see, there was this priest guy, the priestiest of all priests, elected kingpriest, and while being ostensibly a pretty good priest at first, he got corrupted along the way into dropping into the bottom floor of alignmentsville, without noticing - he still thought he was fightin' evil and all, and felt all these stupid rules obstructed his hard work, you know. So he went and made a grand declaration to the gods - make me a god too so I can smite them evil fellas better. And the gods were like "bitch, if you gonna ask that of us, we're gonna cast nuclear holocaust on your kingdom". But he was still gonna, because he was kinda wearing an artifact hat of absolute evil and not-listening.

So they told Soth they'd let him keep his paladinhood despite being a douchemaster if he went and shivved this priestking for his heresies. Lord Chad thought he would too, and swore oaths 'n all, but just happened that on the same day, he met some elf bitches and well one thing led to another and eh, he kinda let the nuclear apocalypse happen, and following it, the gods closing the phone lines to the material plane. Knowingly. Because elf poon.

In the end he was not only cursed to be a death knight, but was also cursed with the choir of undead elf bitches to follow him for all eternity, screeching about his marital inadequacies every step of the way.

>mfw some chad skeleton thinks he's worth shit

Wow... talk about bad life choices.

>tfw too intellectual for a body

As silly as it sounds, it would be pretty fucking creepy if you were some poor merchant, trotting along on your wagon in the dead of night through some forest, and then you just hear this deep, scratchy, rattling voice carried on the wind, singing about the heinous crimes he's committed, and you can hear the clank of old steel as it marches closer

Yea. He's like... I don't know, a lot of old proverbs and those "don't do this" story kinda things can be pretty elaborate, but this Shot guy? Well, you know that no step snake flag yankees use? And the various meme derivations? He's kinda the latter. Not only does he blunder through life and paladinhood crudely with great big "pls no" signs shadowing his every move, he conducts his undeath largely the same way. He continues being absolutely fucking obstinately dumb and counter-productive, all the way to being condemned to Ravenloft for being too unfeasibly stupid for the multiverse, wherein he was bamboozled into the same circumstances, and where he repeated his stupid bumblery step-by-step again. He did it fucking TWICE. So long story short, don't take life advice from a death knight with a fucking popcorn bucket on his head.

Same reason cybernetics, genetic engineering, ancient artifacts, powerful magic, etc tends to be evil, dangerous, come at great cost, etc. If it's awesome, it needs a limiter of some kind, a reason why it's not the standard. "There's only a little of it" is a pretty shit reason that requires fairly specific conditions to make sense. "It comes at a terrible cost" is both intuitively satisfying and really easy to pull off.

Easy example: Something makes you irresistably sexy. Why? At what cost? "It just makes you really hot" is boring and raises all kinds of questions. "It subtly possesses you with a demon which slowly increases its manifestation and nudges you towards siring a lot of demonspawn" is interesting and explains why it exists, why not everybody would want it, and why some people would have it regardless.

Same deal if you come at it from the other end. Need a threat? "Some kind of horribly cursed asshole" is an obvious solution. "Some kind of incredibly heroic chad" is maybe not your first thought.

>The heroes have been ran ragged, weeks of forced march through the haunted lands.
>A castle rises from the mists ahead. Their spirits rise, succour from the endless night.
>But as they approach, they hear the terrifying chant begin to rise...
youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5fqunQ_4I

>tfw too intelligent to care about one's body and eventually let it rot away so become nothing but a skull

Seriously though, death knights are fuckin cool.

>"Some kind of incredibly heroic chad" is maybe not your first thought.

Reading Homer's epics should be a mandatory requirement before anyone takes up playing RPGs. The Epic of Gilgamesh for extra credit.

Archliches, although they are neutral rather than good.

>he was kinda wearing an artifact hat of absolute evil and not-listening.
I...don't remember this. Can you go into a little bit more detail? I thought Beldinas was just that arrogant.

Never saw this video. That guy's voice just changing like that really threw me off.

With this kind of atmosphere
youtube.com/watch?v=I95GiFeSEdg

Yeah I can imagine if you don't know it's a different singer it would be confusing.

At least if you're incorporeal you can finally be taller than chad, if you so desire.

>same result
Well, except chad Deathknight is doomed to haunt the place where he lived as a mortal, or so I get from the text. A lich at least can go around as it pleases.
This would be a pretty cool high-level encounter, though; party has heard rumors of a castle haunted by singing and arguing voices, and someone's is paying them some pretty coin to go take a look at the place. Then they find the Undead Duo.

>Rolling_random_encounter_in_urban_fantasy_setting

I thought Canonically Death Knights were made by Demogorgan .

Maybe still true but no mention of it here? Maybe I'm crazy.

Wait wait. Mention of "Krynn's Lord Soth" and mentions of a "Domain"... This is fucking Ravenloft?! The spookiest scariest D&D setting is also writing show tunes?

Dragonlance. Later he crossed over to Ravenloft.

A Demilich can probably drink Death Knight souls like a fine wine.

That was the original twelve Death Knights in the fiend folio. They kind of ignored that for later ones.

Smooth, yet musky.

>"Mnn, a robust body, with a delectable hint of suffering"

Yes I know. But the Dragonlance monster manual wouldn't mention KRYNN'S Lord Soth would it?
I'd assume you'd mention in another setting's MM to explain where he's from.

I don't have the Lance or Loft MMs so I can't compare pages.

>Question.
Are these specific twelve stated anywhere?

And in case you're curious as to what Soth sings.

There was also sheet music for this.

>rhyming wood with blood
this was his greatest crime

As in naming them? Nah

I doubt they're even referred to outside of the original write up (which was done by the same guy who did the Gith and the Slaad)

The first death knight identified by name in a Dungeons & Dragons product was Saint Kargoth, "King of the Death Knights," who first appeared in Scott Bennie's Dragon article, "Setting Saintly Standards" in 1983.

Thirteen of Kargoth's fellow and contemporary Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom join him in becoming death knights: Lord Monduiz Dephaar, Lady Lorana Kath of Naelex, Prince Myrhal of Rax, Sir Maeril of Naelax, Sir Farian of Lirtham (destroyed 209 CY, but soul now powers the deathblade Astrosus), Lord Andromansis of Garasteth, Sir Oslan Knarren, Sir Rezinar of Haxx, Lord Thyrian of Naelax, Sir Minar Syrric of Darmen, Duke Urkar Grasz of Torquann, Sir Luren the Boar of Torquann, and Lord Khayven of Rax. All are transformed by the power of the demon prince Demogorgon.

Turns out the dark powers of ravenloft just hate sloppy rhymes.

The Fiend Folio.

>walking through a long-forsaken battlefield covered in corpses still in rent armor, with all of their loot just lying around for the taking
>pick up a few old holy symbols to pawn off at a church, ignore anything too big to carry
>it gets dark when it's time to go
>rhythmic clanging of weapons against shields fills the air, feeling both distant and near
>In the distance you can see a veritable crowd of Death Knights, gathered in a big mob with two in the center, all around providing percussions with their weapons and shields
>youtu.be/ndYpovMpW4Q
Haha blackened skull funny

Imagine him singing this with the voice from the last guy in this video.
youtube.com/watch?v=OtSBXon6hko

Mystara was one of the biggest D&D settings before Dragonlance became a thing, and then Forgotten Realms killed it entirely.

Its setting was very much of its time, mixing what these days we refer to as sci-fi and fantasy into one setting, that only suffered when they started putting too much real world shit into it.

Within its setting there were immortals, and eventually they released an expansion based around allowing players to become immortals, while also changing a bit of the immortal fluff.
It was not well received, and the idea of super heroic humans becoming super heroic immortals was scrapped as a side-effect.

The Original Death Knights are Demogorgon's and it's stated in the 2 Greyhawk 3.5 articles that he made the first twelve, and lost the ritual rights to his enemies (Fat Fuck Orcus duh) Later on.

The Second batch are the Divine Cursed Death Knights of Krynn, which are the base Death Knights from the 3.5 Dragonlance splatbooks- Lord Soth had an extra ability also mentioned in his Villians of D&D rating article in the DMG, so that's another template.

Additionally, another feature of Death Knights is that their attacks ignore AC- God help you if one has a fucking Erinye's Razor from Book of Vile Darkness.

>Mystara was one of the biggest D&D settings
Inasmuch as all of the BECMI modules were nominally set there. Most people just replanted the modules in their own setting.

>mixing sci-fi and fantasy
I love it when old stuff 'breaks the rules' because the rules weren't in place yet.

>The whispering wind falls silent as the moon rises, the sounds of animals fading as they flee the cursed castle
>Suddenly, from the deep crypts, the eerie plucking of strings
>"So anyway, here's Wonderwall."

Soth really is the most cucked Death Knight ever.

Yeah, but he's also a creator's pet. So I figure it's swings and roundabouts.

>(Fat Fuck Orcus duh) Later on.
>Divine Cursed Death Knights of Krynn

Doesn't that mean Takhisis as the ritual then?... Doesn't that mean means Tiamat has the ritual

YOU!

You are the person to ask. I have been trying to read about Mystara for a very long time. Thus far I have found that Mystara has a very scatter gun approuch when explaining itself. (And shit about Hallow earth and some other setting all part of being Mystara world!? Is any of that correct!?)

Please tell me what books I should read to get into this setting?

And you now understand why we don't trust elves.

Because being about immortal asshole is upsetting the natural way of the world?

Even the few example of where good does it are only in instances to combat evil or guard scared XYZ (against evil).

The GAZ series, the Thyatis and Alphatia box, the Champions of Mystara box, and the Hollow Earth box. For a general overview there's a section in the Rules Cyclopedia (Appendix 1).

There's also some stuff for AD&D.

>There's also some stuff for AD&D.
I'm a-ok with reading older editions or cross editions or what have you.

The AD&D stuff is newer than all the rest of it, Mystara is a Basic setting that didn't survive being ported to AD&D. The AD&D stuff is later in the timeline than the rest of it, after the events of Wrath of the Immortals, which caused a number of changes that a lot of the fans didn't like.

He said there's some AD&D stuff because most of the mystara stuff he listed was from before AD&D.

>tfw akalich master race

Thats a Demilich who lives for so long his whole body just turns to dust and he becomes some kind of near god-like magical entity right?

Everything but the soulgems, yes.

>but my bone puns

yes

it's from the 3rd party immortals handbook, home of the infamous neutronium golem, so the akalich is actually fairly weak compared to some of the other stuff in there.

Statblock wise-
Charles Stross made the first in Fiend Folio, then it was in 2nd edition (Op's Post) Then it got Ecology of the Death Knight (2e) Then we got the 3e.35 one in the Monster Manual, then the ones in Dragon magazine 290 and 291, (Death Knights of Demogorgon and Champions of Demogorgon) then Lord Soth for 3.5 (My post) which is the Death Knight of Krynn Template found the in the 3.5 Dragonlance Campaign setting page 213.

Then in Dragon Magazine 360 4e's Death Knight was announced, alongside it's changes which went a bit back to them being more lichlike, as 3.5 sort of did away with that.

Anyhow, the first lore-wise was St Kargoth of Greyhawk, a nasty dude who literally got tentacle face-fucked into becoming a Death Knight and then the rest of his peers to follow, and this was the generalized Demogrgon ritual, till lore-wise he lost it, then Orcus and others got their hands on the stuff.

Also, another interesting thing- You know the Black Cauldron from the movie, the Black Cauldron? It's been present in D&D TWICE, once in polyhedron as a questline, then in 2e Ravenloft's Van Richten's Guide to the Lich, and 3.5 has it completely statted including the Cauldron spawn

>Ecology of the Death Knight
What book was that in?

Dragon Magazine 222, it's a must read.

The lich right there? His name is Nimrod. THE Nimrod.

His robe? Gives him a bonus to all his stuff equal to the level of his opponent

>implying subduing leopards is impressive when any druid or ranger can do it with class features alone

One of the saddening parts about Death Knights is that they're pretty limited RP wise because of how they work, you see, unlike most undead, which run purely on negative energy and only experience that passive subtle personality degradation effect (Where everything said undead subject does over time becomes less and less human emotive if any, and purely mechanical/logical and more inline with what the plane of negative energy wants) Death Knights also are running on the will of the Abyss, which is a malevolent hierarchical system geared towards destroying the universe through means of the Tanari'ri it creates, so they're pretty much seething with hatred for the living, process two innate metaphysical connections to some of the worst places the planes have to offer. They're pretty much unfeeling killing machines. Additionally, they're never featured as class features for the like of Blackguard based classes also, despite being under mention as likely candidates from such cadavers. But that's probably down to Blackguards/Antipaladins/Warrior of Darkness's being incredibly powerful, next to the extra powers from being ex-paladins they can get, so Death Knighthood would just be overkill.

Krynn's Death Knights do differ, because 'Divine Curse,' and how Lord Soth works, and we have comparative reference to the like of Lichfiends Baelnorms and Master Liches as well to back why this sort of thing woks the way it did.

Thing is there are also Juju Zombies, Skull Knights and Thay's certain type of Undead that also work the bill for undead martial characters.

>Okay, so you can live several thousand years and become an almighty Akalich whose power is like that of a god
>Aw hell yea-
>But you'll have crumbled to dust, so no more bone puns

>But he was still gonna, because he was kinda wearing an artifact hat of absolute evil and not-listening.
If this was a helm of opposite alignment I'm gonna laugh.

>needing a physical body to make bone puns

>Not having spent so long as a skeleton that it has become integral to your being as an entity in the universe and thus your soul now presents itself in every way as a skeletal being made of pure magical energy

>A Lich has lived for so long that skeleton puns have become verbal tics that he doesn't even realize he's using anymore
>Gets angry when people laugh cause he doesn't understand why

You know, they don't really sing showtunes, so to speak. For Lord Soth, he had those banshees who would remind him of his sins, by perform mockeries of his past.

That's actually pretty horrible. You're constantly reminded of the shit you did, and it's done by people who fucking hate you.

Especially the one with the bassoon.

The funniest part is, the elf bitches told him "Your wife's cheating on you."

So he turned back to confront her, and that was the moment the nuclear bomb hit. That was pretty bad, but the worst part? She tried to hand him his newborn son (so he could save the kid) but he went "That's not my kid" and made to ride off.

That's when she really, really cursed him.

I love it, yet I've never played it.