I took the text from WoWWiki, after noticing it in game last night. Never really bothered to read the spell description. Given the language used above, is it possible that Kaldorei, Sin'dorei, Tauren, Orc, Human, Gnome,Trolls and Dwarven Death Knights are in fact alive and not in a state of undeath?

Or could it perhaps be a state of undeath that is on par with anyone else in game who has ever been resurrected?

Note- Forsaken Death Knights also have the spell, obviously. But could the player created Death Knights been returned to their former state of health yet under the mind control of the Lich King post 'rebirth' as the cinematic describes it?

I touched on that in another topic a few months ago. We're never given any conclusive evidence either way; all we really know is that all death knights died, then were given a "dark rebirth". Whether that dark rebirth was a reanimation or a twisted form of resurrection is hard to say, however. I thought up some "undead soul in a living body" or "living soul in an undead body" scenarios as well, but those are just half-hearted compromises, really.

Whichever the case, the death knights are very much changed from their living selves; they even refer to themselves as monsters and say that they have no place in the world of the living. And as for the spell itself, that was actually what made me speculate about this topic in the first place, too... but I've found that the wording of spells nearly always have more to do with game mechanics than actual lore. It's still an interesting question though.

My personal belief is that they're dead (willingly or otherwise) and found themselves under Arthas' control. Although Arthas has his own host of living worshipers, wouldn't he have sent them to the Cult of the Damned instead of making them Death Knights? Using that idea, it would seem logical to conclude that death is a prerequisite for becoming one.

I don't think the tooltip really gives us good lore. The explainations there are pretty much just game mechanics. In this case the term "undead" refers to a creatures classification. Are they humanoid, beast, dragonkin, undead etc?

From a game mechanic standpoint all player characters are humanoid, including forsaken (who are clearly undead from a story standpoint). Druids become beasts in animal form. That means that crowd control and other combat abilities apply accordingly. An interesting experiment would be to test if DKs under the effect of Lichborne can be shackled.

On the lore question, DKs certainly are different from the undead who were born from the plague. It's a different process and a different result. Some poor buggers went though both.

I think it's fair to say that DKs are undead in the sense that they once died and are now alive again.

Yes, they can.

OK, I know this is mostly me being a smartass, but I get resurrected almost every day by a shaman, druid, priest, paladin, or whatever healer might be there with me. Does that make Ilarion undead? If so, he's got some s'plainin to do...

I don't know about other people's death knights, I think it's left open ended so that we can take it however we wish to. But Halyd Blacksun, my death knight, is alive. He is overwhelmingly changed, both bodily and somewhat mentally, but I chose to play him as having been corrupted/driven temporarily out of his mind by the Lich King and thus death knightified (as in, he never dropped over dead). He's back to his senses now that the Lich King has let go, but the physical changes old Arthy' wrought on his servants cannot be undone, so he's what he is...a horde-aligned DK. And not dead yet. Getting better. Just pining for the fjords.

Honestly, though, it's open to interpretation. I often cite the Lichborne thing when people ask me to justify why Halyd's alive, but when it comes down to it it's your choice. The game doesn't flat out tell us. 'purchasing a better world with your life' implies, but doesn't mean, that you died, just that you gave everything up (one can sacrifice a life without dying), and a 'dark rebirth' could be anything when you get right down to it. Play what works for you and your character.

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