World of Warcraft®

A curiosity. I was going to ask if there was such a thing as a "dark paladin"... then it occurred to me. A Death Knight is essentially a Dark Paladin.

Am I wrong in this assumption?

Could it be RP'd as such?

A normal human paladin that succoms to the shadow. Their inception after all is from the priests of Northshire, right? Perhaps a priests connection to shadow came later, but if a priest has a "shadow form" then it could stand to reason that a paladin could as well. Or no?

Discuss! :D

I play Valasca as a prior dark paladin that turned quickly from her faction, once she learned of its inner secrets. Valasca is Auchenai. You will find out that the Auchenai are filled with shadow priests and dark paladins. They get their energies from the void state of a perished naaru. I would say that they are quite different from a death knight, just my opinion and the circumstances of the dark paladin in this case is different.

Plus not all death knights used to be paladins, mind. Arthas did the pally-to-DK thing, and a few others have too, but not all who come back as DKs were pallies. Hell, when I first created the death knight (as Artimus Devaneaux), he had been a rogue before.

There is a ton of good info on DK's... in particular their creation and what Generation they would be from. (all playable DKs in WoW are Gen3 AKA Archerus Death Knights...killed heroes raised by the Lich King to be used as shock troops against the Argent Dawn / Tirion Fodring at Light's Hope Chapel.

Now your theory on the slipping to the shadow is more akin to the 2nd Gen DKs who were in some cases Palladins, but not necessarily...who willingly gave themselves to The Scourge. They slipped into death over time (Arthas & Baron Rivendare are 2 examples).

Just a note on 1st gen (since we have covered the other 2 lol)....they were the Souls of Shadow Council Warlocks placed in rotting / killed Human Soldiers bodies by The Warlock Gul'Dan..See Teron Gorefeind.

DK RP can be very fun / vast...instead of mindless rampaging killing machine (lol KM Procs)...Ive seen too many "I dont remember anything prior to becoming a DK" RPers out there...my favorite part is the need to sate the Killing Desire...its like a crack head needing a fix...they gotta Kill...which makes them great fron of the line troops against the Vile and Hated...HORDE.

My death knight is draenei (human to start), about a thousand years old...and he remembers everything, including the pain of his own death. I do sort of consider him a "dark paladin" in a way - the nickname I give him is "the Black Vindicator" (vindicator being the draenei term for paladin). He accepts that his current condition is the Light's twisted way of allowing him to continue to serve.

I haven't tried RPing as a dark pally, but I've made attempts at trying a secular one and it ended up just being not a pally. I can't imagine dark paladin going any better.