Death Knight

Doomed to devastate the world they once cherished and sought to protect, death knights are the result of damning curses visited upon once noble paladins who fell from grace at the moment of death.  A life time of duty and loyalty becomes forfeit as the undead creature, rising from its grave within days of being laid to rest, is driven by an intense desire to annihilate all life and bring as much harm as they can muster to any within reach.  It is the tragedy of the death knight that most remain conscious and aware of their actions within unlife, forever grieving for their actions, past and present, yet unable to withstand the compulsion to destroy.

Death knights appear as skeletal humanoids encased in their original suits of armour, dried skin and flesh stretched tight across bone.  They retain all the fighting skills they learnt in their former life and, melded with the powers of the undead, a death knight can prove to be a fearsome foe as it swings its weapon with consummate ease, ignoring the puny strikes of its enemies whilst staring into their eyes with orbs of dull crimson that betray nothing but pure evil.

Death knights speak any languages they knew in life.

Creating a Death Knight

The death knight is a template that may be applied to any humanoid or monstrous humanoid paladin.  The creature’s type immediately changes to undead.  It uses all the creature’s original statistics and special abilities except as noted below.

Hit Dice:  Increase to d12.

Speed:  Same as the original creature.

AC:  The original creature’s natural armour improves by +3.

Special Attacks:  A death knight retains all the original creature’s special attacks and also gains those listed below.

Fear Aura (Su):  Death knights are shrouded in an aura of fear.  Creatures of less than 5 HD that come within 5 feet of the death knight must succeed at a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 death knight’s HD + death knight’s Charisma modifier) or be affected as though by fear as cast by a sorcerer of the death knight’s level.

Spell-Like Abilities:  At will—darkness, desecrate, detect good, detect magic, and see invisibility; 2/day—protection from good; 1/day—animate dead, any one power word spell, and symbol (pain or fear effect only).  These abilities are as the spells cast by a 20th-level sorcerer (save DC 10 + death knight’s Charisma modifier + spell level).

Summon Undead (Sp):  Once per day, the death knight can summon undead whose total HD do not exceed his own.  The summoned undead creatures are under control of the death knight and remain for 1 round per HD of the death knight.  All summoned undead have +2 turn resistance, in addition to any turn resistance they already possess, for the duration of their stay.

Special Qualities:  A death knight retains all the original character’s special qualities and gains those listed below.  It also gains the undead type.

Darkvision (Ex):  Range 60 feet.

Turn Resistance (Ex):  A death knight has +4 turn resistance.

Spell Resistance (Ex):  A death knight has SR 16 +1 per Hit Die.

Summon Grave Mount (Sp):  Once per year, a death knight may summon a grave mount to serve it.

Empathic Link (Su):  A death knight who has summoned a grave mount to serve him has a link to the undead animal.  The death knight can converse with the grave mount telepathically so long as they remain within 100 feet of each other.

Saves:  Same as the original creature.

Abilities:  A death knight gains +4 Strength, +2 Wisdom, and +2 Charisma but, being undead, has no Constitution score.

Skills:  Death knights gain a +8 racial bonus to Intimidate, Sense Motive, and Spot checks.  All other skills are the same as for the original creature.

Feats:  As original creature.

Climate/Terrain:  Any land and underground

Organisation:  Solitary

Challenge Rating:  As original creature +3

Treasure:  Double standard

Alignment:  Always lawful evil

Advancement:  By character class