Death Knight
When a paladin that falls from grace dies without seeking atonement, dark powers can transform the once-mortal knight into a hateful undead creature. A death knight is a skeletal warrior clad in fearsome plate armor. Beneath its helmet, one can see the knight's skull with malevolent pinpoints of light burning in its eye sockets.
Eldritch Power
The death knight retains the ability to cast divine spells. However, no death knight can use its magic to heal. A death knight also attracts and commands lesser undead, although death knights that serve powerful fiends might have fiendish followers instead. Death knights often use warhorse skeletons and nightmares as mounts.
Immortal Until Redeemed
A death knight can arise anew even after it has been destroyed. Only when it atones for a life of wickedness or finds redemption can it finally escape its undead purgatory and truly perish.
Undead Nature
A death knight doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep.
Lord Soth
Lord Soth began his fall from grace with an act of heroism, saving an elf named Isolde from an ogre. Soth and Isolde fell in love, but Soth was already married. He had a servant dispose of his wife and was charged with murder, but fled with Isolde. When his castle fell under siege, he prayed for guidance and was told that he must atone for his misdeeds by completing a quest, but growing fears about Isolde's fidelity caused him to abandon his quest. Because his mission was not accomplished, a great cataclysm swept the land. When Isolde gave birth to a son, Soth refused to believe that the child was his and slew them both. All were incinerated in a fire that swept through the castle, yet Soth would find no rest in death, becoming a death knight.
Statblock
Monster Manual (5e)
Death Knight CR: 17
STR
20 +5
DEX
11 +0
CON
20 +5
INT
12 +1
WIS
16 +3
CHA
18 +4
Spellcasting. The death knight is a 19th-level spellcaster. Its spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 18, +10 to hit with spell attacks). It has the following paladin spells prepared:
- 1st level (4 slots): command, compelled duel, searing smite
- 2nd level (3 slots): hold person, magic weapon
- 3rd level (3 slots): dispel magic, elemental weapon
- 4th level (3 slots): banishment, staggering smite
- 5th level (2 slots): destructive wave (necrotic)
Magic Resistance. The death knight has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Marshal Undead. Unless the death knight is incapacitated, it and undead creatures of its choice within 60 feet of it have advantage on saving throws against features that turn undead.
Actions
Multiattack. The death knight makes three longsword attacks.
Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d8 + 5) slashing damage, or 10 (1d10 + 5) slashing damage if used with two hands, plus 18 (4d8) necrotic damage.
Hellfire Orb (1/Day). The death knight hurls a magical ball of fire that explodes at a point it can see within 120 feet of it. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw. The sphere spreads around corners. A creature takes 35 (10d6) fire damage and 35 (10d6) necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Reactions
Parry. The death knight adds 6 to its AC against one melee attack that would hit it. To do so, the death knight must see the attacker and be wielding a melee weapon.
Dread Domains
Cavitius & Tovag. Both of these domains are ruled by legends of evil, the lesser god of necromancy Vecna & the vampire warlord Kas the Bloody-Handed respectively. Both darklords muster massive armies of the undead in vain attempts to subjugate the other. Many times their armies are led by death knights & similar minions.
Kalakeri. The civil war that tears apart this realm is partially due to the stuborness of its darklord, Ramya Vasavadan. The chosen successor to the throne, she was betrayed by her siblings but returned from the dead to exact her revenge. She now commands legions of undead in an eternal war against the traitors to her rule.
Sithicus. The darklord of this domain, Lord Soth, is a powerful death knight that struggles to maintain control over his chaotic realm. He often slips into solipsism, reliving the events of his past rather than govern his current affairs.
Dark Powers
Bloodied Pair (VI). Death knights are often distinguished by their deeds on the battlefield, but even moreso by those committed outside of combat. Reprisal executions, mass genocide, & torturing captives are common tactics used to keep a death knight's foes wary of open opposition.
Crushing Wheel (X). Often a consequence of total war is the famine, pestilence, & plague spread in the wake of a prolonged campaign. Rarely does a death knight concern itself or its undead legion with the affairs of civilians struggling to survive.
Final Breath (XIII). As undead soldiers & warlords often bent on conquest, death knights can serve as metaphors for the eventual victory of death over all things.
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