Death knight
A Death knights is a very powerful undead skeleton created through evil and powerful rituals. During the ritual a spirit whom most likely were a skilled warrior in life possesses a offered skeleton and becomes bound to it. The death knight have a will of its own and only a powerful magician can cast the spells needed to control it. A controlled death knight often become a powerful leader of troops or bodyguard for the necromancer. The spirit who were summoned will keep all the skills he or she knew in life as well as the personality he or she had. All known death knights have been deliberatly created and there are no known spontanious or natural created death knights. A death knight who are not controlled by a master have their own goal based on the spirits personality. It might be vengence, power or curiosity which can drive them to travel the world. It is not unknown for death knights to be employed by evil individuals or oganisations or co working with them as their goals are the same.
As a death knights lacks a functional biological body, they do not have the chemicals which creates feelings in the living. This means that a death knight do not have any feelings, but they remember having them and how they should feel, and many death knights tries to mimic or recreate their feelings. A futile endeavour which often drives them further away from the world and morals of the living while slowly turning them into uncaring killing machines. This path towards evil are supported by the dark and evil magic imbuded into them at their creation.
Although they do not need it a Death knight always uses armour, and the magic forces surrounding them fill it up to make the death knight look more powerful than if the armor just hung on their bones. Death knight are often skilled warriors and usually wields the same kind of weapon they used in life. As many were great tacticians in life they are well versed in using ambushes and seldom fight fair.
All death knights have the ability to create a Bane from the bodies of their fallen enemies. The death knight summons a ball of darkness through his fingertop which he applies to a open hole in the corpse. Usually the mouth, but it could also be a wound. From the insertion points the darkness spreads throughout the the corpse and the skin of the body starts to pale and crack. When the darkness reaches the hands the fingernails turns dark. The last place the darkness spreads too is the eyes, which slowly turn to black. When they are done the corpse animates. This takes anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes. Death knight only seems to be able to turn sentinent creatures from the same race as themselves into banes, but there have been human deathknights whom have had half-orcs or even orcs as banes. The Banes have wills o their own, but are dominated by the death knights who give the order what to do. As most death knights do not know spells this is done through speaking, which in turns makes it necessary for them to communicate in the same language.
They also have the ability to paralyze their enemies summoning a freezing unetheral winds from another dimension. All within 10 meters from the death knight are affected. The paralyzation costs the Death knight 2 PSY to use. All affected of it must succed with a roll on "motståndstabellen" with their own PSY against the Death knights PSY. If they fail they will become paralyzed for 1T6+10 SR. Death knights do not regain spent PSY through sleep, but must find other ways.
Paralyse FV: 20; Terrify FV 1/5;
| STY | STO | FYS | SMI | INT | PSY | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *2,5 | *1 | 0 | *1 | *2 | *3 |
Additional Information
Facial characteristics
The eyes weakly glows red or blue, it is unclear why a death knight gets either colour or even if it can change.
Average Intelligence
A Death knights intelligence is based on the soul or spirit conjured by the necromancer, and then greatly enhanced by the magical ritual.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Death knight percive the world surrounding them through magic and detects life force rather than actual seeing. The world they percieve are made up of different shades of grey where the life force stands out as yellow to red sparkling bodies, forever reminding them of what they have lost. A Death knight hearing or vision do not diminish through range, if it is within their range they either hear it or not.
Death knight have no sense of touch and have been known to crush things as they use to much force. After a few years most new Death knights have learned how much force to apply when doing things.
Death knights can not smell or taste anything, they have lost those sensory inputs.
Civilization and Culture
History
The rituals to create a Death knight are supposed to have come from the ancient civilizations of Akrogal. In Ereb they are first mentioned in the annuals of the Empire of Jorpagna, but it is insinuated that the knowledge is from older times.
Historical Figures
There is an old Jorpagnian legend about an animist named Secundus Caser Dimitries. He was a good and powerful man who exposed and destroyed many evil persons and beings in his life time. He was killed in an ambush and turned into a Death knight by his enemies. They ordered him into never working against or harm a necromancer or undead again or in anyway destroy himself, neither try to remove the curse. Then they let him loose in the world. It is said that he went mad as he had lost everything he held dear, and that he still roams the world. A fate worse than death to a follower of life.
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Beneath the armour there is an ordinary skeleton tainted blood red or black by the ritual casted.