Death Kittens...or Knights. Whichever you want to call them.

[Vrahn]

The first Death Knights created by Arthas occured somewhat in the middle of the original Wc3 Storyline, after Mal'ganis is defeated in Icecrown and Arthas proceeds to slaughter a large portion of his soldiers, raising them as undead and Death Knights. This was approximately the year 20, according to the official timeline. The events of Light's Hope would have been near the start of the year 27, and current time is like... 28 or 29ish.

[Grakor456]

Question here, would it be possible to run away durring the Brain Washing part of your Death Knights training? I read somewhere that renegades were hunted down by the Scourge, but is this something actually in lore or isn't it?

Apparently it is by Nostra's quote, but keep a few things in mind about this...

First of all, there's some things you just can't run away from. The Lich King can speak directly into the minds of his Death Knights, presumably over great distance...there's no running from that. It's also quite likely he can easily locate such Death Knights as well, for the same reason. Beyond all of that, it would be *very* rare and difficult to even try...DKs have been warped and their will bent to the LK's will, it would take someone with a *lot* of willpower to even try to rebel and flee, let alone actually succeed. I don't know of anyone in lore that actually succeeded in breaking off before the Ebon Blade.

[Kaghuros]

And the ones that did are put through... How did he put it? Yeah uhh... "...a fate far worse than death. Their suffering shall see no end."

[garrett]

The first Death Knights created by Arthas occured somewhat in the middle of the original Wc3 Storyline, after Mal'ganis is defeated in Icecrown and Arthas proceeds to slaughter a large portion of his soldiers, raising them as undead and Death Knights. This was approximately the year 20, according to the official timeline. The events of Light's Hope would have been near the start of the year 27, and current time is like... 28 or 29ish.

See, this is what is getting to me mainly.

That's the official timeline.

However, looking at the timeline laid down in the server, everything occurs five years after Blizzard's established time.

That's the main information I have been after. While I can't deny that a ton of Death Knights were probably rapidly produced to bolster the ranks, I'm pretty sure that a number of those that fought in the battle were ones that had been raised before that came about.

Between 20 and 27, Arthas would have been asleep. I can't agree that he's slept for a full seven years. The lore says "several years". To me, that rounds out to about three years, more than enough time.

Then he had to deal with the task of the frost wyrms, building up his citadels and such. Sort of building up the home front if you will.

So going by that, I would think that he really woke up around the time of Burning Crusade's start. Then he spent most of that time building up the citadels, and taming the dragon.

I dunno, it just seems more likely that he had been awake for at least two or three years planning the assault on the Eastern Kingdoms. It seemed a better bit than him waking up a few months before, and then all of those plans and such coming to a head in a very short manner of time.

I guess it mainly comes down to the question of the differences between 2nd gen and 3rd gen death knights. To me, I just don't see any overall difference, other than the manner in which they were raised.

2nd's gave themselves to the Frozen Throne. Obviously there weren't going to be tons of them, because there aren't that many who are willing to do this.

3rd's were only created to bolster the ranks of Acherus, and they were slaughtered people who were risen as Death Knights. There would be a lot more of these, because corpses are more readily available than willing volunteers.

The third generation of Death Knights were part of a collaborated effort on the part of the Lich King to bolster Acherus: The Ebon Hold's legions before marching on New Avalon. However, these Death Knights only constituted a portion of the Death Knights under the Lich King's command. Knights of the Ebon Blade had the unique opportunity to assist in the culling of the Scarlet Crusade from the Plaguelands.

That rather clearly states that many 2nd gens were present at the battle of Light's Hope chapel. It's not really an absurd notion that some of them broke away with the Ebon Blade. Given that the leader of the Ebon Blade himself was a 2nd gen and he did, why not others?

Of course, Blizzard has not moved itself to declare the differences between the two, if they even exist. So this, like a lot of other things, exists only with a grain of salt.

[Vrahn]

I'm not really sure I understand what the point of what you're saying is though. Obviously there were some second generation death knights present, but players are only allowed to play third generation anyway. And yes Arthas was awake for some time, considering it took him four years to build Icecrown Citadel.

[garrett]

It's mainly from a collection of posts others have made:

Nostra wrote:

Aye, but as we see he woke up not too long ago, so he haven't had all those years to prepare which might explain why he decided to mass-produce the Acherus knights in the first place.

Which just looks like the server lore says he'd been awake for only short time before Light's Hope Chapel.

and then this:

As far as I know they didn't start "making" death knights until a few months before WotLK, so unless your character would be one of the few paladins to have sworn themselves to the Lich King he'd not have been one for that long.

The main thing was that I don't really see a difference in the 2nd and 3rd generation of Death Knights. It just looks like statistically, they have the same abilities and training. It's just a matter of how they became Death Knights.

Anyways, given the server time being a year after Lich King came out, it would seem like I posted earlier, the 3rd generation of Death Knights could be anywhere from 1.3 years (as in they had been created roughly 3 months before the battle at Light's Hope plus the year of time since then) up to say 6 years, (which would be that they were created about the time Arthas woke up, till the present day).

That's what I was asking about earlier in the thread. I wanted to know a min-max number of years to work with, to show how long my character had actually been a Death Knight.

I don't wanna knock Nostra, maybe the server's lore has all been shifted around as the GM's see fit.

I just was looking at the timeline of how things came to pass, and I just couldn't make it fit that he had been asleep from after he battled Illidan up to a few months before Lich King. Then I learned that he spent a number of years building Icecrown, which further threw me askew.

[Nostra]

The second generation death knights has allways appeared to be more powerful in my eyes, they end up as bosses in raids (Rivendare, the four horsemen) and has also been around longer, giving them more experience with their abilities and the fact that they gave themselves willingly to the Lich King (or most of them did) makes me think they probably were given more impressive powers from the big man. They aren't many, but those that we see are generally leading the forces of the Scourge as commanders, while the Acherus knights can be seen as shock troops, some raise above their peers and are granted more power from the Lich King but most of them are just part of that elite regiment of troops.

For the timeline, Classic WoW started in the beginning of year 25, during this year all the events in that game is supposed to have occured, and then at year 26 the Burning Crusade starts, the Draenei approach the Alliance and the Blood Elves the Horde, though I think we can assume that the Exodar crashed down onto Azeroth a couple of months before this, giving the Draenei time to get their bearings. From the start of 26 to the beginning of 27 all the action of tBC would have gone down, Illidan's death, Kael'thas betrayal and all that, but also, I think it is implied, the creation of Acherus and the start up of the new death knight production. Sometime just before 27 the Acherus knights purged the Scarlet Enclave and attacked Light's Hope only to be freed from the Lich King's grasp, I think it it important to note that knights like Rivendare and other trainers that we saw around Acherus didn't break free. Then at 27 the Acherus knights hail the Horde and Alliance in hopes being accepted --which they are-- and the whole adventure of WotLK begins.

That would leave the Acherus knights to have been around for about a year or so, keep in mind that we are still in the year 27, we can't really set any exact date since time is rather fleeting in WoW but I'd say that we are at least half way through, probably close to maybe september on Live. Since on the server we've had the Wrathgate and the Battle for Undercity, but not yet reached the Argent Tournament we are some time behind Live.

[garrett]

First, I would suggest this thread got deleted.
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=6091

It's in the Lore section, so it looks like something that might be official here.

As you can see if you look near the bottom, every event since Warcraft III happens about five years after the real timeline.

It's just confusing to have that listed, and to have it special and set aside, when the real timeline is much different.

I'll concede that 2nd gen Death Knights are more powerful. Though I would like to think that it has something to do with a greater bond to their weapon and the fact that they've been DK's for well over 6 years. (1 for the server, 1 for WotLK, 1 for TBC, 1 for Classic, and 2+ from Frozen Throne to Classic)

I guess what I'm saying is that it should be ok to play a 3rd gen that's been around for between 1-4 years. You wouldn't be as old or powerful as the second gens, since they should be roughly twice as old.