Death Knight

A death knight is a massive armored figure, usually over 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. Within its helm is a charred skull hung with scraps of rotting flesh, lit by two pinpricks of orange-red light. Its armor is blackened as though by fire. The sight of one is frightening enough to unnerve even wanderkin. Its voice is cold and hollow, like an echo from a bottomless pit, and it speaks its native tongue plus as many as six other languages.

Each began as a paladin or lawful good warrior who betrayed the code it once lived by, and the gods twisted it into this shape as punishment.

It keeps all its old martial skill, and with its utter disregard for its own safety and deep hatred of the living, it is a terrible foe. Pride from its former life still shapes its conduct. It will not strike from behind or attack someone who has not had the chance to draw a weapon. It never surrenders and parleys only if it believes the other side knows something vital, such as what became of a relative from its past.

It has 18/00 Strength and normally fights with a sword, which is magical 80% of the time; the DM rolls 1d6 to determine which. Whatever armor it wore in life, its AC is always 0, and its hit points are rolled on d10s.

A 5-foot aura of fear surrounds it constantly. At will it can detect invisibility or magic and raise a wall of ice, and it can cast dispel magic twice a day. Once per day each it may choose one power word (blind, kill or stun), one symbol (fear or pain) and a 20-dice fireball. All its spells work at 20th level.

Priests cannot turn it, though holy word can dispel it. Its authority over other undead equals that of an evil priest of 6th level. Spells face 75% magic resistance, rolled anew each time, and on a percentile roll of 11 or less the spell rebounds on its caster.

The gods condemn a good warrior to this fate for unforgivable crimes such as treason or murder. The most infamous example, a fallen lord of legend, killed his own wife to pursue an affair with an elf maiden. A death knight is bound to its old domain, usually a castle or keep, and on every night of the full moon it must sing of its crime. Few sounds are more chilling than that dirge drifting across moonlit fields. Anyone who trespasses on its land or interrupts the song invites attack.

A death knight has no bodily needs. Skeleton warriors, liches and other undead sometimes serve it as lieutenants.