Death knight (Dungeons & Dragons)

Death knight
Death knight, as shown in the original Fiend Folio.
Characteristics
Alignment	Evil
Type	Undead
Image	Wizards.com image

The death knight is a fictional monster in Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy roleplaying games. Also known as a doom knight, the death knight is a mighty warrior in knight armor that is animated as an undead creature by the gods of death, evil deities, demon lords, or other malevolent forces. In Dungeons & Dragons, the death knight eventually became a major feature in the Dragonlance and Ravenloft campaign settings.

Charles Stross created the Death Knight for the 1981 AD&D supplement Fiend Folio. In a review in White Dwarf magazine, Jamie Thomson referred to the Death Knight as one of the more interesting additions in the book, "a kind of evil paladin".

By the time 2nd edition AD&D was introduced, the death knight had become an important figure in the Dragonlance campaign setting, with Lord Soth being a major villain for the setting. The death knight first appeared in this edition in the Monstrous Compendium Dragonlance Appendix (1990), and is reprinted in the Monstrous Manual (1993). The Tales of the Lance boxed set (1992) for the Dragonlance setting details the death knights of Krynn further, in the "World Book of Ansalon" booklet.