Deathknight

Since the earliest days of the Undead and the Age of Treachery, the Deathknight, it is said, was there. From the oldest fables and sagas of the heroes who battled the Undead menace, the Deathknight has lurked ever in the shadows. Perhaps he was the very first Undead ever to be touched by Siroth’s dark curse. Maybe he is nothing more than some anonymous, well-meaning person, seeking honor and dignity but finding death and horrid rebirth, and an eternity of servitude. But thanks to that very plainness, Deathknight is literally an icon. In him is reflected the faceless, universal threat of Undeath to all living things. His burning skeletal gaze and arrow-punctured armor is known across Teleria as a shorthand stand-in for all the manifold horrors of the Undead Hordes. Oaths and proverbs invoke him, sometimes seriously and sometimes with great irreverence. In many depictions he is given a humorous aspect, bits of black comedy added by artists and documentarians to cope with the terror. Commonly depicted alongside Deathknight is a pet rat called Nibbles, his only friend among the living or the dead. Spotting the duo in a mosaic or tapestry is a common pastime. In every tale and tragedy, the Deathknight is the instrument of terror but never its mastermind. Tapestries and histories recording battle after battle against the Undead show Deathknight again and again, always amid the thronging skeletal legions of some vile prince of death but never at the vanguard. In this role as the everyman of doom, Deathknight is a figure of fear but also a humanization of the dead and a projection of sympathy for the cursed, and represents a complex psychological conflux for living minds. He is feared as they fear Death itself, for whether in Death or Undeath, all mortals must face their end. Yet they also know him as a constant companion, always sardonically looking over their shoulders. If Death is like a humble, overburdened workman, constantly visiting battles and cemeteries to carry out his labors, the Deathknight is his slightly less well-paid counterpart among the Undead. As the Deathknight lore evolved over the centuries, the sympathetic bent in his depictions increased, as did the gallows humor. Slowly, as Telerians learned to cope with the ongoing presence of the Undead in the world, he became a sort of stand-in for the morbid curiosity of those who pondered – ‘what if I were an Undead? Could I keep my personality, my hopes and dreams? Could I be different from all the rest, and be something more than a mindless slave or a twisted schemer? Could there be an Undead out there who, like me, simply wants to do a good job, make friends, gain influence, hone his skills, and be respected?’ Even famed heroes such as Turvold and Galek were known to have this sort of ‘sympathy for the Deathknight.’ Perhaps it is only wishful thinking. Or perhaps a rare few Undead still have a vestige of free will, or even the capacity for good deeds. But could the common, ubiquitous Deathknight ever truly match the mythic status of the lords of Undeath? What would happen if an icon of lowliness was raised high? That is an altogether different question.