So here we are, the Wrath of the Lich King is now in Beta and players have received their invites. Seeing as how I managed to appease the gods of Azeroth enough to acquire one, I thought I would start off my examination of this new expansion by delving into the new class that everyone is talking about&hellipthe Deathknight.

So for those in the know and maybe not in the know, the Deathknight is a hero class, serving the twisted designs and plans of the Lich King from his massive fortress above the Eastern Plaguelands, the Ebon Hold. From here, this Lich King and his army of Death knights plots and schemes the destruction of the scarlet crusade.

To join the fight, I opted to play an undead, seemed fitting considering the nature of the area and the lore behind the Lich King. My new deathknight, Melenemesis, started on the platform where the Lich King stands, flanked by his two Valkyries. After talking to him, he then sent me to meet with Instructor Rasuvious and construct my signature weapon, the Runed Soulblade.

There are four teleporter circles around this platform that will take you down to the main floor of the hold. So I jumped in one, headed on down to meet with Rasuvious and went to craft my weapon. After looking about for a few minutes, I spied the weapon racks at four corners of this level, so I grabbed the quest item for it, a Battle-worn sword, then headed over to the Runic Forge close by and started the conversion.

To do this, you need to select the sword in your inventory and right click it while standing in front of the forge. When your channeling is complete, you receive a Rune bladed sword you take back to your instructor. When you turn it in, you are taught the profession Runemaking, you are given 6 starter recipes and receive the Runed Soulblade, a very nice blue two hander. You can then take the sword to a rune forge and add one of your new runes to it, increasing the damage or spell ability.

Runemaking is similar to enchanting, except that it is specific to the Deathknight class and does not require components, like enchanting does. It also requires the use of a runic forge, which so far only seems to be found in Ebon Hold.

After making my runed blade and giving it my new rune, I headed over to Master Siegesmith Corvus, who instructed me to make my way to Commander Thalanor. This guy was found on the other side of the same floor I am on. During my trip over to see him, I see all kinds of familiar faces, such as our favorite, Baron Riverdare from Strat and, from a distance far below me, Eastern Plaguelands in all of its diseased splendor. Yeah, that’s a long way down, you should be careful not to fall off running around up here. So after meeting with the Commander, he orders me back to the area I first started in and an audience with the Lich King himself.

When I teleport back up and meet up with the King, he sends me out on a recon mission to check out the Scarlet Crusade below. Yeah, the same ones from Scarlet Monastery and Strat live side. Apparently, they have been up to no good for some time, according to the big cahuna here. So in the center of his platform here was a huge glowing blue eyeball of sorts. I clicked it and took on the form of a smaller eyeball and was sent to the town of New Avalon, where the Scarlet Crusade has an outpost and is up to all kinds of mischief. As part of my service, I was required to scout out 4 areas here, the Scarlet Hold, the Church, the Smithy and the Town Hall. Once I scouted these places, I returned and gave my report, when I was immediately ordered to report to Death’s Breach, close by this outpost.

So at this point, I took some screenshots, sat down and logged off to prepare my editorial. These starter missions are mostly geared to get you through the "initial training" and introduce you to some of the lore behind the evil of the King and his minions and do not involve any serious questing or slaughter. That comes next time...