Path of the Elements Barbarian

 The most controversial choice in the WoW D&D book is that they recommend using the Barbarian to represent WoW's Shaman class. Shamans in WoW, though, are spellcasters, with only one of its three specializations built around melee, and even then acting a bit more like a battlemage/spellsword, weaving spells between melee attacks.

On a thematic level, WoW Shamans do have some overlap with D&D Barbarians, though, in that they are both tied to the primal forces of the world. Still, I would say that playing a Druid would likely give you a more direct analogue to the experience of playing a Shaman in WoW, except perhaps with the Enhancement spec (the aforementioned melee shaman).

But I truly think that the better way to approach the subclasses in this book is to see how they feel in a vacuum, beyond the Warcraft setting. With the possible exceptions of Death Knights and Demon Hunters, nothing I've seen here feels like it needs to be setting-specific, and there's sufficient overlap between WoW and D&D's style of fantasy that even the spells should fit quite easily into the Forgotten Realms or any other D&D setting.

Barbarians did already have an elemental-themed subclass before in the Storm Herald Barbarian, but that subclass, unfortunately, sucked. By going back to the drawing board will we see a glow-up akin to the Elements Monk? Let's find out.

Oh, and credit here goes to the Dungeon Dudes, who have released a two-hour video giving their own thoughts on all the subclasses, which is how I'm getting the features here.

Level 3:

Raging Elements:

When you activate your Rage, and then as a bonus action while raging, you can unleash an elemental effect from the following options. You use your Constitution as the ability to set spell attack and save DCs for this.

Icefury: You make a melee or ranged spell attack against a target within 30 feet. On a hit, this deals cold damage to them equal to a number of d8s equal to your Rage bonus. The next time this creature takes Fire damage before the end of your next turn, that damage is increased by 1d10.

    So, on a hit, this is going to be 2d8, then eventually scale up to 3d8 and finally 4d8. This will take your bonus action, so you're actually somewhat disincentivized to go the dual-wielder route. Note that we don't have to be the source of the fire damage to get the bonus d10.

Lava Burst: You target a creature within 30 feet, who must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking d4s equal to your Rage bonus in fire damage on a failure, or half as much on a success. The next time that the target takes lightning damage, the damage is increased by 1d8.

    Here we start to see the idea: you use Icefury on turn one, then Lava Burst on turn 2. The damage here is lower, of course, using only d4s instead of d8s, as is the bonus lightning damage, but the one saving grace here is that it's a save-for-half, so there's some guaranteed damage. Great against a Troll (not the playable species, but the standard D&D monster).

Lightning Bolt: You target a creature within 30 feet. The target makes a Dex save, taking d6s equal to your rage bonus on a failure or half damage on a success. The next time it takes cold damage before the end of your next turn, it takes an additional 1d6.

    And there we go - higher up-front damage than Lava Burst but lower bonus damage. Now, in a vacuum, you can of course just rotate through these three options to get the bonus damage each time. But if you have an ally who uses one of these damage types, you're actually pretty well-off just using the same feature over and over and buffing them (it doesn't matter much if the bonus damage triggers off of their thing - it's still ultimately coming from you).

    Damage-wise, if we're talking all hits and failed saves, the net damage if we can always get that bonus damage that Icefury does on average is 14.5 at first, then climbs to 19, and then 23.5. Lava Burst will do 9.5, then 12, and then 14.5. Lightning Bolt will do on average 10.5, then 14, and then 17.5. However, because you get half damage on Lava Burst and Lightning Bolt, this compensates a little for their lower damage. (If we had a 60% hit chance on Icefury, at level 10 this will be 12.35, while Lava Burst with a 50% chance to fail is 9 damage on average and Lightning Bolt is 10.5. Actually, that's not quite true - I think the bonus damage happens regardless, so it skews a little further to Icefury's favor).

    Now, how does this compare with the extra damage from Berserkers and Zealots? This takes our bonus action, while they will get their damage as part of their action. So while a Berserker is adding 2d6, then 3d6, then 4d6 on the first attack with reckless attack per turn, or 7/10.5/14, they could also be dual-wielding and get significantly more damage that way (though I do think even for Barbarians, Great Weapon Master remains the ideal option - which is at least more compatible with this). Zealots will get 1d6 + half their Barbarian level, so I think 1d6+1 to begin with (4.5 average) but eventually 1d6+10 (13.5). So that is less, though again, it's part of their action, allowing them weaponize their bonus action after turn one in some way.

    Conceptually I really like this, and I think it's decent, though it would be way better if we could use Strength for the spell attacks and to set the save DC. Still, Barbarians like a high Con, so we're probably not that far behind (I'd guess most Barbarians start with a +3 to Con). It is also, notably, a bunch of ranged options, but you also don't get punished for being in melee.

Level 6:

Echo of the Elements:

You learn the Elementalism cantrip, and you can expend a Rage to cast Daylight, Water Walk, or Wind Wall, using Wisdom as your spellcasting ability.

    As the only 6th level feature, this is a real bummer. The spells are cool, but you also can't really use them in combat, as Rage not only doesn't allow you to cast spells, but also prevents you from maintaining concentration on spells. Wind Wall in particular I don't really see being useful outside of combat.

Level 10:

Primordial Bond:

While raging, you gain resistance to Cold, Fire, and Lightning damage.

    Ok, this is decent, but a bit bland. These are all very common magic damage types (though very encounter-dependent).

Level 14:

Elemental Overload:

Your raging elements gain additional effects:

Icefury: Hit or miss, the target subtracts half the damage dice total from its next damage roll equal to half the damage dice total (rounded down) you deal with Icefury.

    Ok, so you can kind of dampen a foe's damage this way. We're looking at an average damage at this level of 13.5, so about 6 damage off of what they roll. It's not enormous, but not insignificant.

Lava Burst: The target and any enemies within 10 feet, regardless of how the target did on its saving throw, begin Burning.

    This is actually a hazard (not a condition, technically) that causes a creature to take 1d4 fire damage at the start of its turns until an action is used to put them out. This is very tiny damage by level 14, but it is technically AoE damage and will trigger concentration saves and also shut down regeneration in some monsters.

Lightning Bolt: The lightning jumps to a second target within 30 feet, triggering the same save and damage.

    Ok, well, that is effectively doubling the power of this option if we have a second target. Here, I will have to say that the video I'm using as a source does kind of abbreviate these descriptions rather than giving us the direct text, so I'm not clear on whether the bonus damage from each Raging Elements option happens regardless of successful saving throws or missed attacks. I'd hope it would, in which case this would debuff two targets to take bonus cold damage.

Overall Thoughts:

    I think this is fine. It's not great. The core mechanic is actually very cool, and in a vacuum might even be pretty well-balanced. It's rare that a fight goes for a lot more than 3 rounds, but especially given you can do this on the first turn when you rage, there's actually a decent chance you can get through one full rotation if that's what you want to do.

    But I also think playing to your allies' strengths is a great option as well. If you have a Wizard who uses Fire Bolt as their main cantrip, and maybe uses Fireball as a bread-and-butter leveled spell, you can just keep doing Icefury. Actually, if you get a Flametongue weapon of some sort, just do Icefury before your attack action every turn.

    The only problem I have with this is that they seem like they kind of gave up after coming up with Raging Elements. I feel like there's a world where you get special dispensation to cast Fireball, Lightning Bolt (or Chain Lightning, an iconic Shaman spell), and Cone of Cold while raging.

    There's very little here defensively - just the damage resistances. And that's not nothing. But it does feel like this wanted some extra oomph. I'd have loved, for example, to recycle some of the Giant Barbarian's ability to be kind of a ranged Barbarian (especially given that this is presented as the subclass to play WoW's Elemental Shaman, which is a ranged spellcaster).

    Like: here's how I think of this: as a DM, I would not warn a player away from taking this subclass. I think it'll be fine and flavorful. I just think they could have gone harder with it.

Warrior of Mystic Brews Monk

 My first character in Adventurer's League was a Way of the Drunken Master Monk. I loved playing him, but when you lay out the subclass's features, it's clearly not the kind of "optimized" character you find in AL usually. For a class that, especially in 5.0, needed a fair boost from its subclass, you weren't getting a ton. Particularly bad, in my opinion, was Drunkard's Luck, the level 11 feature, which allowed you to expend two Ki points to cancel disadvantage on a d20 test (not that that term was used yet). Not just get advantage, but only cancel disadvantage, and the cost of two ki points.

The thing is, flavor-wise, I love the Drunken Master. It's a really fun idea, going for the tradition of Drunken Boxing, popularized and made famous by Jackie Chan (the degree to which this was ever used practically as an actual combat form is... unclear. But martial arts have often been a meditative and performative practice as well).

Now, World of Warcraft has, actually since before even WoW, had the idea of the Pandaren tradition of the Brewmaster (Chen Stormstout was one of the allies you could get for Rexxar in the "Founding of Durotar" campaign in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne). Brewmasters combined martial arts with literal brewing of beer-like tonics and elixirs that could be used both to enhance themselves in combat and also as a weapon, spewing flammable brews on foes to burn them.

I had always thought that, given the heightened fantasy of D&D, it would make sense for Drunken Master monks to have some kind of brewing mechanic. Well. Guess what? The WoW crossover book is going to do exactly that in order to better embody the Brewmaster Monk from WoW. Let's look at the features. (Again, credit to Insight Check's video as my source.)

Level 3:

Bonus Proficiency:

Starting with the most minor feature, we get proficiency with Performance and Brewer's Supplies if we don't already have it.

    I would have liked to give them Alchemist's Supplies as well, but this is pretty minor. Performance is rare to use even on a Charisma character, but I'd also encourage DMs to let you make Dexterity Performance checks if it's a display of your martial arts techniques.

Drunken Technique:

When you expend a focus point using Patient Defense, your speed increases by 10 feet until the end of the current turn and you can make one Unarmed Strike immediately after the bonus action.

    So, this used to go off of Flurry of Blows, and would give you the speed increase and prevent you from taking opportunity attacks. A FP-spending Patient Defense now gives you both dodge and disengage, so this kind of makes up for the loss of your unarmed strike by giving you an unarmed strike.

    The only reason this isn't strictly a nerf is that you will get the benefits of dodging, though if we were using this to get away from foes, that might not be that helpful. That being said, you will be able to use this offensively - if you need an extra 10 feet to get to your target. Still, I think this could have been redesigned more radically, and right now it seems pretty bad, honestly - like, I'd prefer the Xanathar's version.

Level 6:

Tipsy Sway:

You get two benefits:

Leap to Your Feet: When you are Prone, you can stand using just 5 feet of movement.

    Unchanged, and certainly situational, but nice to have. Given Monk speeds, that 5 feet is nearly nothing.

Redirect Attack: When an enemy misses you with an attack roll, you can take a Reaction and spend 1 FP to cause that attack to hit one creature of your choice other than the attack that you can see within 5 feet of yourself.

    This is also unchanged. This situation might not come up as often as you like, given that you probably don't want to be in melee with two enemies at a time. But you sometimes are, and you can also use this on a ranged attack. But if you can turn one of the monsters' really hard-hitting attacks on one of its allies, this is great - when you can pull it off.

Mystic Brew:

When you finish a long rest while holding Brewer's Supplies, you can use that tool to magically produce a magical beverage with one of the following properties. A pint of the beverage appears in a bottle of flask you are carrying. If any beverage remains when you finish another short or long rest, it vanishes.

Only you can benefit from drinking the beverage. You must drink the full pint to gain its benefit, which takes 1 minute to drink. You then gain the benefits for 1 hour or until you drink another beverage.

    We will see how to extend this, but long story short: you get a buff potion that you can create every rest.

These are the beverage options:

Cinnamon Dragon: You can take a Magic Action to exhale toxic flames in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in the cone makes a Dex save (based on your Focus DC). On a failed save, the creature takes Fire damage equal to four rolls of your Martial Artts die and has the poisoned condition until the end of its next turn. On a success, they take half damage only.

    Now this is where we get cooking. At this level, this will be 4d8 damage, or about 19 on average, which replaces two attacks that are probably doing 1d8+4 each, or 8.5 each, meaning that even against a single target, this is going to probably out-damage your attacks (obviously AC versus Dex save bonuses for the monster can change this, though its save-for-half nature gives us almost a Graze-like benefit here). While getting magic items like Wraps of Unarmed Prowess might skew this a bit, if we can hit more than one target, this is going to basically always out-damage are regular attacks. Then, there's the poison aspect, which is also great. The only times I wouldn't use this is if we're fighting creatures that are immune to fire damage or if we really need to be careful not to hit friends or civilians. Remember that you no longer need to take the Attack action to use your bonus action unarmed strike or Flurry of Blows (and can even do those before your action,) so this can really be used liberally.

Heavenly Spirit: You gain resistance to two of the following damage types: Cold, Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant.

    This one's more situational: do you know what kind of damage you're expecting to encounter?

Refreshing Dip: You have a pool of dice the same type as your Martial Arts die. The maximum you can have is equal to your Wisdom modifier plus half your Monk level rounded down. Whenever you regain HP, you can expend and roll one die from this pool to regain additional HP equal to the number rolled.

    So, this can be a decent healing boost, though the size of the pool is pretty big: with a +3 to Wisdom, at this level you'll have six dice. Are you likely to be healed six times over a day? It does pair really well with an ally's Lay on Hands - just have them hit you with a single point and then roll the die. But yeah, my default Brew will certainly be Cinnamon Dragon.

Finally for this feature, when you create a magical beverage, you can expend 1 FP to extend its benefits to 8 hours.

    I would recommend you do this every time. 1 hour is decent, but 8 hours means having this up effectively all day. Even if you do have a 16-hour adventuring day, you'll probably have a Short Rest somewhere in there to refresh this. Now, because you make the brew at the end of the rest, I assume you'll need to always have that one point "invested" in the brew, and don't just immediately get it back (otherwise, why would we even have this cost?) But I think that's super worth it. Again, unless you really need the benefits of the other two, I think Cinnamon Dragon should be your default choice any day you're expecting combat and aren't in, like, the elemental plane of fire.

Level 11:

Wizened Brewer:

You gain three new options for your Mystic Brews feature.

Blue Lightning: Whenever you take a reaction that isn't making an opportunity attack or casting a spell, you can make one Unarmed Strike as part of that reaction.

    Monks use reactions all the time for Deflect Attacks, so you can punish a foe for striking you. I don't know that this is going to necessarily be an extra attack every round, but it's going to probably be a lot of extra attacks. Funnily enough, this lets you punish a foe for landing a hit on you with this and punish them for missing you with Tipsy Sway.

Drunkard's Luck: You gain Heroic Inspiration if you don't already have it. In addition, you can give yourself Heroic Inspiration when you make an ability check or saving throw without it.

    So, we need to parse this: I think there are two readings. One is that you effectively can just have advantage on all ability checks and saving throws, which would be insane. A more conservative reading is that you get it on every other one, as the check or save you make without it can't use that Heroic Inspriation, but the next one can. Even with this more conservative reading (and one that I actually think is less likely,) this is quite good. (Infinitely better than the original version of Drunkard's Luck). Notably, this is also going to be far better in non-combat situations, where you're mainly making ability checks, so a great choice for a day of cloak-and-dagger intrigue or the like (but which is still useful in combat if it breaks out).

Stumbling Monk: When you take a bonus action other than Patient Defense, you can also use Patient Defense immediately after that Bonus Action.

    This one's a bit wonky, but the simplest upshot is that you'll basically always be Disengaging with this, as Monks basically never don't use their bonus actions. However, in a bizarre way, you can kind of turn this into a means of pumping out more attacks: You use Flurry of Blows (at this level adding three attacks) and then spend a second FP to get the dodge part of Patient Defense, which, with Drunken Technique, gives you an additional unarmed strike, letting you make 4 attacks with one bonus action.

    I still think that Cinnamon Dragon gives these a run for their money, but while the other two options at level 6 were probably more situational and not as good, these three all look like they have a lot of potential, and I'm not sure which of these really is the best "default" option. That's a good thing, though, because I think all of these are good and well worth the 1 FP to get them for 8 hours. (And if Drunkard's Luck lets you use the Heroic Inspiration the moment you get it, that's kind of insane.)

Level 17:

Master Brewer:

When you create a magical beverage using your Mystic Brew feature, you can choose two different options and produce one magical beverage. Drinking it will provide the benefits of both options.

    This is great. This lets you have a bit more flexibility, and potentially work in something that is going to be more situational with something else that is more broadly useful, or just in general have two really great benefits working at the same time. The fact that these buffs will both be maintained for just a single FP (which at level 17 isn't that expensive) is very nice.

Intoxicated Frenzy:

Immediately after you use Patient Defense, you can move up to your Speed. During this movement, whenever you enter a space within 5 feet of a creature, you can make an unarmed strike targeting the creature. In addition, when you hit a creature with an unarmed strike granted by this feature, they make a Dex save or are knocked prone. We can only target a creature with these unarmed strikes once per turn.

    An update to the original subclass capstone, this is better. First off, if we have Stumbling Monk going, this means that we will always be able to effectively dash whatever bonus action we take. If we use Step of the Wind, we'll be able to move twice our speed as a bonus action if we have that brew up, meaning we'll be blindingly fast. We will also, thanks to Drunken Technique, potentially get one additional unarmed strike (if we spend an FP). What we essentially get here is a Monk AoE, as at this level we're talking about something like 110 or 120 feet of movement, and then like 165 or 170 (can't remember when we get a 60-foot movement speed) if we do that aforementioned combo. At that speed, we can probably pass by every foe on the battlefield.

    Now, a single attack against all those enemies isn't going to be that much damage, but we could also knock a lot of them prone.

    The real benefit here, though, is that this is free. In fact, we'll never actually need to use our normal free bonus action Unarmed Strike again, because we can just Patient Defense instead and will get at the very least our attack against the target we would have been attacking anyway. Ok, technically if we can't move for some reason, we'll need the normal attack, because we do need to "enter" a space within 5 feet of the target to use this. But if we have any wiggle room at all (and with the disengage from Patient Defense, we don't need to worry too much about where foes are positioned) we should always use this in its place, because of the ability to knock a foe prone.

Overall Thoughts:

    Look, some theorycrafter might find out that this isn't actually that powerful of a subclass, and is still weighed down by endemic problems with the Monk (despite its 5.5 buffs). The Mystic Arts Monk is probably better simply by virtue of being a spellcaster.

    But this is so damn fun. The subclass won't really take off until tier 2, admittedly, though Monks in general are pretty good in tier 1 thanks to their built-in pseudo extra attack. But once you start belching fire, I really feel like this is going to be just super fun to play.

    Man, I really wanted my next character to be darker in theme, but I'm feeling the pull of the whimsical here. I think I actually already did a "vs Wyvern" post on the UA version of this, but I might want to get into the weeds and especially see how the new Monk-targeted feats in the WoW book will affect it. At the very least, I can imagine this becoming one of the top Monk subclasses.

    (This is also the problem with friends who do only years-long campaigns. I really wanted to play the new Elements Monk and have not had a chance, and now this one's pushing it out as the subclass I most want to play.)

Demon Hunter "Ranger"

 Like the Death Knight, the Demon Hunter is one of WoW's hero classes, which is a bit ironic, as both the Death Knight and Demon Hunter are probably more accurately "antihero" classes.

While Death Knights are a pretty ubiquitous fantasy trope that dates back at least to the Ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings, WoW's take on Demon Hunters is very different from what you might find in other IPs. At the most basic level, the thing that makes WoW Demon Hunters distinct is the answer to the following question: "Do you mean you're a demon who hunts or someone who hunts demons?" which these guys would answer "Yes."

So, the background is that ten thousand years ago, the Night Elf Illidan Stormrage more or less acted as a double agent, ostensibly working alongside the Highborne collaborators who had sworn themselves to the demonic Burning Legion while actually working actively to subvert the Legion's plans. Put into a position to commune with the Dark Titan himself, Sargeras flooded Illidan with fel energy, burning out his eyes while giving him nightmarish visions of the Legion's apocalyptic goals. Blinded but now imbued with second sight, Illidan used the demonic powers he had been granted to help bring the invasion to an end. However, because of his perceived betrayals and his use of forbidden Fel magic, he was imprisoned by the Night Elves' Wardens, where he remained in a dark vault for ten thousand years.

When the Scourge invaded Kalimdor during the Third War, a desperate Tyrande Whisperwind broke into the vault and released Illidan, hoping that his expertise in demonology would help them deal with the Scourge's then-masters in the Legion, the Dreadlords. Aided, ironically, by Arthas Menethil (who, as champion of the Scourge, sought to help the Lich King free the Scourge from its Legion masters,) Illidan consumed the profound fel magic of the Skull of Gul'dan, transforming him into a half-demon and giving him the power to strike down the Dreadlords' leader Tichondrius.

Having once again helped to secure victory by becoming even more monstrous, Illidan fled into exile following the Third War, but this time, he brought with him a contingent of sympathetic Night Elves, whom he began to train in his arts. Later, when the Blood Elves came to him seeking a way to sate their magic addiction, he took in a number of them as well. These Illidari now became an entire army of Demon Hunters, whom Illidan led in guerrilla attacks against the Burning Legion across many worlds.

So yeah, these aren't just simple monster hunters, but people who have transformed themselves into half-demons like Illidan. Each holds within them a demonic soul, and they also ritually gouge out their own eyes, letting the demonic power within them grant them second sight. Traditionally, they fight with warglaives, large bow-shaped double-headed swords that they dual-wield, essentially turning themselves into living buzzsaws.

Only elves have ever become Demon Hunters, and only recently were Void Elves able to join their ranks, though it's not clear if this is a physiological requirement or just a cultural history.

Like the Death Knight, the Demon Hunter uses the framework of an existing class, in this case the Ranger, while going a bit beyond a normal subclass by changing some of the existing base class features. Let's take a look:

Level 1:

Spellcasting:

You can use an Arcane Focus instead of a Druidic focus for your spellcasting.

    This is 99% just flavor. Indeed, Staves count as both arcane and druidic foci, and are the only ones I believe that are automatically also a standard weapon type (the Quarterstaff.)

Level 2:

Deft Explorer:

When you pick languages for your Deft Explorer feature, you can choose Eredun and Nathrezim as options.

    Another very minor thing. Both Eredun and Nathrezim are languages of different types of demon, with Eredun as the kind of "lingua franca" of the Legion, based on the language of the Man'ari Eredar (and thus probably very similar to the Draenei language) while Nathrezim is the language of the Dreadlords, whose real name is... Nathrezim. The Dreadlords are a bit unusual among demonkind, though their origins in the Shadowlands are... something I bet a lot of DMs will want to ignore given how convoluted that makes the story (mind you, the Natrhezim are at least from by far the coolest part of the Shadowlands, it's just that this plot reveal was... a wild choice).

Fighting Style:

You gain a new fighting style option: Void Warrior.

Void Warrior: You learn two cantrips from the Warlock spell list, which count as Ranger spells for you and use Wisdom as their spellcasting ability.

    So, the recently-added Devourer specialization in WoW for Demon Hunters is actually a ranged spellcaster. If you want to play in this style, picking up some ranged cantrips to be your bread-and-butter action makes sense. While Eldritch Blast won't get the benefits of all those eldritch invocations, it's still a great option and works well with Hunter's Mark (more or less just like Hex). But you can also potentially pick up some spells like Booming Blade (though we don't get Bladesinger-style extra attack). I'd really only pick this if I wanted to commit to that spell-focused Devourer playstyle and go full Wisdom-focused.

Demon Hunter Spells:

You will get additional spells prepared, with one at each spell level granted to all Demon Hunters and one for your specialization, which is Devourer, Havoc, or Vengeance.

All:

1st: Throw Glaive

2nd: Sigil of Flame

3rd: Metamorphosis

4th: Chaos Nova

5th: Destructive Wave

    All but the last of these is a new spell. Throw Glaive is a surprisingly good ranged attack that works a bit like Chromatic Orb, bouncing to additional targets. I don't remember the details on the other spells quite as well. Sigil of Flame I believe will deal damage to a foe and other nearby foes. Metamorphosis transforms you into a demon with various benefits. Chaos Nova is (if it's like the WoW version) an AoE stun that also deals some damage, likely in an emanation. Metamorphosis in particular is really iconic to the class.

Devourer:

1st: Consume Soul

2nd: Misty Step

3rd: Soul Reap

4th: Collapsing Star

5th: Steel Wind Strike

    Again, several new spells, and these I don't recall so well. Hilariously, I remember that Collapsing Star is either really good or terrible. We'll see when I get the spell in front of me.

Havoc:

1st: Fel Rush

2nd: Eye Beam

3rd: Blink

4th: Fire Shield

5th: Conjure Volley

    Fel Rush is a buff that lets you move faster without provoking opportunity attacks and damage foes you pass by. Eye Beam is a spell that lets you shoot out lines of damage each turn as an action. I actually think Fel Rush will wind up being pretty good for both mobility and some AoE damage

Vengeance:

1st: Infernal Strike

2nd: Fiery Brand

3rd: Demon Spikes

4th: Banishment

5th: Sigil of Chains

    Again, lots of new spells. Infernal Strike sends you flying to a targeted area and then damages foes you land nearby. Fiery Brand I believe is placed on a target and deals some fire damage and (if it's like the WoW version) reduces the damage they deal. Demon Spikes boosts your AC while also punishing foes for attacking you. Sigil of Chains will create an area that pulls foes to the center of it.

    Broadly, of course, we're still half-casters who will rely more on our weapon attacks (in most cases) but there's way more area-effect spells here than Rangers tend to get, so that could be interesting. Half-casters can start leaning a bit more on their caster side especially at higher levels.

Soul Fragments:

Whenever you finish a long rest, you gain a number of soul fragments equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). These are tiny objects that are like a crystal. They last until you finish a long rest, at which point they disintegrate. If you ever move more than 30 feet from a fragment, it teleports onto you person.

    (So basically just treat it as a resource rather than something in your inventory.)

The number of Soul Fragments you gain on a long rest goes up at levels 13 and 17 by 1 (so Wisdom +1 at 13 and Wisdom +2 at 17).

    Practically, this means we'll have 2 or 3 at early levels, and then possibly by 13 we might have 3-5, and then by 17 probably 6-7.

You can use Soul Fragments in the following ways:

Double Jump: You can expend a soul fragment to cast Feather Fall or Jump without expending a spell slot.

    These are both useful spells, but not hugely impactful. Mainly if this means conserving spell slots, that's good.

Soul Cleave: Once on each of your turns, when you take the attack action, you can expend a fragment and replace one of your attacks with a whirlwind of soul energy. Each creature in a 10-foot emanation from you must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 1d12 + Wis psychic damage on a failed save, and you regain HP equal to your Wisdom modifier.

    This is a save for none, but I also think no one has to fail a save for you to get the admittedly minor heal. Still, this is sustainable AoE damage, which is pretty good (we'll see how it's sustainable in a moment).

When an enemy dies within 30 feet of you, you can use your reaction to regain an expended Soul Fragment.

    While it'll suck if we've used our reaction already, this is a reasonably generous range and also does not require us to get the killing blow. Realistically, in combat, you should probably be getting a lot of these back, and there's a kind of beneficial feedback loop here, where Soul Cleave might help you take down lots of minor foes and give you back a soul fragment.

    Note that there is a "bag of rats" problem here, so DMs will probably want to define "enemies" as something other than just "that squirrel you decided you don't like."

Spectral Sight:

You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet.

    This is great - a free fighting style, and one that will help in lots of situations, including when you have party members who like to use Darkness (so, Shadow Monks, Shadow Sorcerers, and Warlocks of all stripes). Simple but great.

Level 7:

Torment:

A creature marked with Hunter's Mark has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you.

    It's funny: Rangers have one of the highest hit dice, but unlike Fighters and Paladins, they're not typically put in a "tanking" role. That said, if you're kind of playing against type and fighting with a ranged weapon from afar, this can also be more or less a blanket disadvantage on some major foe as long as you stay away from them.

Additionally, once per turn when you hit a creature targeted by Hunter's Mark, you can impose one of the following effects:

Aura of Pain: The target subtracts 1d4 from the next saving throw it makes before the end of your next turn.

    That's not too bad, and can help set up your allies.

Chaos Strike: The target takes an extra 1d8 fire damage.

    So this means that the spell is ultimately adding 1d6+1d8 to your attacks, though remember that this is once per turn.

    I'm not terribly impressed with this, in part because I'm one of the people who really wish that Rangers weren't forced into using Hunter's Mark all the time. If it was meant to be a core feature of the Ranger class, it shouldn't have been a spell. Or, alternatively, it shouldn't have been a concentration spell. I really liked how the Hollow Warden kind of extricated itself from the 5.5 focus on Hunter's Mark, and it's frustrating to see this subclass, which is meant to even further distinguish itself from the general Ranger, falling back on this design choice.

Level 11:

Illidari Knowledge:

You have new uses for your soul fragments:

Disrupt: You can expend two soul fragments to cast Counterspell.

    So... it doesn't technically say "without a spell slot," though I have to assume that's what is meant here. But it's also not on the Ranger spell list nor any of the subclass spell lists, so is this just to give us access to a spell we normally wouldn't have? If it also takes a spell slot, this is godawful. Counterspell is not nearly as good as it was in 5.0 (which I am happy about). Could be clutch, but probably won't come up much.

Warglaive Mastery: As a bonus action, you can expend a soul fragment to cast Throw Glaive without expending a spell slot.

    Now this is great. Throw Glaive doesn't do a ton of damage (especially for a level 11 character), and we obviously cannot upcast it with this feature, but if we have a spare bonus action, this is a great way to get a bit of extra damage out there. Note that it is a ranged spell attack, so we might have disadvantage on the attack if we're already in melee.

Level 15:

Soul Shatter:

Soul Cleave damage increases by 1d12 (to 2d12+Wis). Also, if you roll initiative and don't have any soul fragments, you regain one.

    Setting aside the light scaling, we have a really frustrating reappearance of the "refill but only on an empty tank" feature that I thought had been consigned to the ash heap of class design history. This should just be "regain an expended soul fragment when you roll initiative."

Level 18:

Improve Spectral Sight:

This replaces Rangers' Feral Senses.

You have Truesight with a range of 30 feet.

    While Truesight isn't strictly better than Blindisght (you can still lose it if blinded,) this feels like a very reasonable progression for the Demon Hunters' ability to see beyond the veil that would be a bit overpowered at low levels. Hold on... is Blindsight actually better than Truesight? I guess Truesight lets you see through physical transformations as well like polymorph, so neither is really strictly better. And Demon Hunters are always looking out for demons disguised as humanoid people.

    Note that Feral Senses would give us Blindsight to 30 feet, and while we do have 10 feet of Blindsight, there's technically a scenario where we could be blinded and then have an enemy 15-30 feet away from us that is now harming us in a way that a normal Ranger wouldn't be.

Overall Thoughts:

    I think that this design is far more conservative than the Death Knight, and that's a shame because while the Death Knight benefits a lot from being on the overall chassis of the Paladin, the Ranger is not as inherently powerful a class (arguably the weakest of the inherent spellcasting classes). I do think that the Ranger makes the best sense to build the Demon Hunter on, but I'd have liked a more radical reimagining of what the class could look like.

    Furthermore, after the Hollow Warden introduced new "tech" to break the Ranger from its 5.5-imposed reliance on Hunter's Mark, the Demon Hunter doubles down on it in a really annoying way.

    All this being said, I do think that the new spells here might be the saving grace - I don't know that these spells are necessarily that powerful, but they do a lot of things Rangers can't typically do, so I'll want to see one of these in play before I resign myself to underwhelmed disappointment.

Newcomer's Guide to Dwarves (And Earthen) in Azeroth

 Dwarves are, of course, another staple fantasy species that have been part of D&D since, if not its inception (as that weird "Elves and Dwarves as classes because we don't have a concept of races" I believe, of Basic D&D) then since the very early days. And of course, they are are also part of the Tolkien tetrad, which is probably why the 5E basic rules provided for Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings.

Funnily enough, the TvTropes page for Dwarves is "Our Dwarves are All the Same," because there are some assumptions made about Dwarves that are often more rigid than other classic fantasy species. WoW, largely by virtue of a shared origin with Humans, Gnomes, and some other non-playable species (and kind of Orcs, though there's a more tenuous connection to their origin) does make them a bit distinct, but they're not going as far as, say, Draw Steel's dwarves.

Like humans, Dwarves in WoW are descendants of the Titanforged, sentient constructs built by the Titans to transform and safeguard Azeroth (and also kind of shape it to their liking - look, I'm still a "Titans were mostly good" believer, though there's certainly some elements we might call problematic about their approach to Azeroth). The Dwarves were descendants of the Earthen before they were changed by the so-called Curse of Flesh, whose role was to excavate the deep places of Azeroth and construct the extensive, massive machinery there.

Like your classic Dwarves, Azerothian Dwarves have a long tradition of mining, due to their original purpose as excavators. What's interesting is that this prediliction for digging also translated to a grand and proud tradition, at least among the Bronzehammer Clan, of archaeology. It was thanks to Dwarven archaeologists that we players at least first learned of the Titans and their role in creating, well, at least the Dwarves.

But let's talk about the various dwarf clans, and then about the surviving, still-rock-and-metal Earthen, who are also playable. Note that Bronzebeard and Wildhammer Dwarves will likely be represented simply by the standard D&D Dwarf species, while Dark Irons and Earthen will have their own (I think).

Most modern Azerothian Dwarves are denizens of Khaz'modan, an extensive kingdom spanning the middle of the Eastern Kingdoms. Once united under the Anvilmar Kings, who ruled from the mountain city of Ironforge, the death of the last king of this line led to a three-way civil war between the Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and Dark Iron clans.

Bronzebeard Dwarves:

The Bronzebeards are the largest Dwarf clan, and have held Ironforge since the War of the Three Hammers, though currently they share it with the other major Clans, even if it is their "home territory."

The Bronzebeards have been staunch members of the Alliance since the Second War, and are a highly industrial people, making use of the city's eponymous massive forge and likewise taking advantage of ancient allies, the technologically-advanced Gnomes of Gnomeregan, in their city that sits just across the valley of Dun Morogh from Ironforge, to produce sophisticated machinery at an industrial scale, including airships, tanks, and flying machines.

The Bronzebeards were historically ruled by a hereditary monarchy. King Magni Bronzebeard was the sovereign, and his younger brothers, Brann and Muradin, were also prominent members of the Clan. Brann is probably the most famous and respected adventurous archaeologist on Azeroth, while Muradin was a great warrior who had the unfortunate fate of accompanying Arthas to Northrend. Left for dead after Arthas claimed Frostmourne, Muradin was later discovered to have survived with amnesia and returned to Ironforge years later.

When the dragon Deathwing shattered the world, Magni sought out ancient wisdom to help save the planet, but was transformed into a diamond statue. He eventually regained the ability to move and speak, but his status led to the creation of the Council of Three Hammers, which became the ruling council of Khaz'modan, with representatives of each of the three major clans on it. Muradin currently serves as the Bronzebeard representative.

Wildhammer Dwarves:

Unlike the Bronzebeard and Dark Iron Dwarves, the Wildhammer are drawn to open spaces and fresh air, and have a deep and close bond with their gryphons, whom they ride in the sky as flying warriors, and have long been central to the Alliance's air superiority strategies.

After their exile from Ironforge, the Wildhammer relocated to a similar "interior of a mountain built around a giant forge" city of Grim Batol, to the northeast. However, while they made peace and even allied with the Bronzebeards, the Dark Irons remained hostile to them. The Dark Iron Sorcerer-Queen Modgud brought with her Xal'atath, Blade of the Black Empire, an ancient ritual knife containing the soul of a profoundly powerful void-aligned creature. (Notably, no longer in the dagger, Xal'atath has been the main villain of the current and previous expansion, and when she was still in the dagger, she was the Shadow Priest weapon in the Legion expansion.) While the Dark Irons were turned back, Modgud's dying curse, using the Blade, left Grim Batol tainted with evil and uninhabitable.

While the Wildhammer still have settlements outside of Grim Batol, their de facto capital is Aerie Peak, off to the north in the subcontinent of Lordaeron, not far from the Plaguelands.

The Wildhammer are somewhat more spiritual and tied to the elements and the natural world, and are the main proponents of shamanism among the Dwarves. They are represented on the Council by Falstad Wildhammer, High Thane of the clan.

Dark Iron Dwarves:

The Dark Iron remained hostile to the other dwarf clans long after the War of the Three Hammers. Following the death of his Queen Consort Modgud at Grim Batol, the Dark Iron Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan sought a power that could turn the tide of the war, seeking out a power he had learned of beneath the Redridge Mountains (the mountains between Khaz'Modan and the human kingdom of Stormwind). The power he found was the Firelord Ragnaros, elemental lord of Fire, and upon summoning him, a massive swath of the Redridge Mountains became a fiery, charred wasteland, and the Dark Iron Dwarves were suffused with elemental fire, leaving them with grey, ashen skin and a core of elemental fire, visible in their eyes and hair.

The Dark Irons built an extensive city throughout Blackrock Mountain, the largest peak in the Redridge Mountains, eventually calling this Shadowforge City, where a cult to Ragnaros became the state religion, and the totalitarian state engaged in slavery and all other manner of terrible acts.

However, the Dark Irons were not all evil. The story, though, gets complicated when we introduce a new element: Moira Bronzebeard.

Moira, the only child of King Magni Bronzebeard, was thought to have been kidnapped by Emperor Dagran Thaurissan, and brave heroes of Azeroth descended through the Blackrock Depths (the lower parts of Shadowforge still firmly in the Dark Irons' control - it's a bit of a distraction, but the Horde actually took Blackrock Mountain as its main stronghold during the First and Second Wars, but the upper parts of the city are still held by a hard-line extremist faction that doesn't recognize the authority of the modern Horde, known as the Dark Horde). Coming to "rescue" Moira, they discovered, after killing the Emperor, that Moira had come of her own free will, and was genuinely in love with the Emperor and also pregnant with his child.

After her father was transformed during the Cataclysm, Moira came to Ironforge to present her infant son as the rightful heir to both the Bronzebeard and Dark Iron clans (guess it's still male primogeniture? Come on, if England can update this, surely the Bronzebeards can). This obviously caused a lot of confusion and panic, but while things looked headed toward some sort of renewed war between the dwarves, the Alliance ultimately intervened and mandated the creation of the Council of Three Hammers, with Moira serving as the representative for the Dark Irons as a kind of Queen-Regent before her son, Dagran, named for his father, would come of age.

Millennia (I think) of strife and conflict have largely resolved, with the Dark Irons now fully integrated into the Alliance (it didn't hurt that Ragnaros was slain, and actually permanently after he was killed within the Firelands) and the three major dwarf clans working together.

Earthen:

The Earthen are the original ancestors of the Dwarves, a Titanforged people created, as mentioned above, to excavate underground and to build and maintain Titan machinery. The Earthen are, true to their name, made of stone and metal, with hair like copper wire and gemstones emerging from their stone skin. They are, though, otherwise largely similar in shape and appearance to Dwarves.

While most Earthen were affected by the Curse of Flesh and became modern dwarves, there are pockets of Earthen to be found in various regions, including the Titan sort of "central command" facility of Ulduar, far up in Northrend, as well as the mostly-underground realm of Khaz'Algar, which houses the Coreway, a passage that leads down toward the Worldcore, the Titan facility that houses the Worldsoul of Azeroth.

The Earthen are sentient, but they are much more construct-like, with a culture built on ironclad laws and responsibilities. That said, over the eons that the Earthen have worked and maintained the facilities, they have deviated somewhat from the programming, developing behaviors that sometimes go against the Titan's "edicts."

Among the traditions of the Earthen is the existence of the Thraegar - Earthen who take on gem-like forms and have immense power. Magni, when he appeared to the Earthen of Khaz'Algar, was mistakenly, or maybe not mistakenly, identified as such. The Thraegar seem to be directly empowered by the Worldsoul, which is what Magni had been attempting to commune with when was transformed.

As constructs, Earthen society is very different - bodies and souls are sort of recycled through Titan machinery, with memories of individual Earthen archived in some kind of magical digital record. As alien as this existence seems, they also have proud cultural traditions, including theater (though their theater also might actually be Titan propaganda, a method of indoctrination that has evolved into an art form).

While they naturally have kinship with the Dwarves, the Earthen are not inherently tied to loyalty with the Alliance, and so there are Earthen who have joined both Alliance and Horde.

    The other ones:

So, the following aren't playable, but are worth taking a look at:

Troggs:

It's not clear if this was the result of the Curse of Flesh or some further mutation, but some Earthen transformed into aggressive cave-man like beings known as Troggs. Not to be confused with the reptilian Troggs of D&D, these are actually far more like Grimlocks.

Frost Dwarves:

Apparently some kind of independent offshoot of Dwarves from Northrend, the Frost Dwarves rescued Muradin after the incident with Arthas and nursed him back to health, later elevating him to a position of leadership thanks to his martial skills. That's... like all I got for these guys.

Grummles:

The Grummles are native to Pandaria. The Mogu, themselves a Titanforged species that reverse-engineered the Curse of Flesh to transform themselves back into stone, and generally ruled as brutal tyrants before the other Pandarian peoples rose up against them, peformed a lot of weird experiments on the other peoples of the continent.

When the Mogu got their hands on the Troggs, they performed flesh-shaping magic on them, transforming them into the Grummles. With humanoid intelligence restored to them, they look nothing like the Earthen or Dwarves they once were, and are more rodent-like. Peerless mountaineers, they live on the great mountain of Kun Lai in the northern part of Pandaria, and act as guides and traders, and engage in Yak husbandry.

Newcomer's Guide to Humans (in the Broadest Sense) in Azeroth

 Humans, am I right? The most boring species to play, one might argue, given that as far as I'm aware, the only people ever to play D&D are, in fact, humans in real life.

And yet... there's something I find compelling about playing a human in a fantasy world, perhaps because it's easiest to picture them in just about any genre tropes (or genre-bending tropes). You sort of know the gist of what it's like to be human, so you can move on to other questions of identity and the place in the world from a familiar kind of bedrock.

Humans are the founders of the Alliance faction, and among the most populous humanoid species on Azeroth. But there's been a lot of crazy stuff that has happened to humans, and some of WoW's playable races, and by extension, the new playable species in the D&D book, are humans who have undergone a transformation.

Let's talk the broad origins of humanity in Azeroth, because they're a bit unusual compared to other fantasy settings:

Ages and ages ago, the Titans came to Azeroth, finding it overwhelmed by the eldritch horrors of the Old Gods and their Black Empire. Seeking to protect the embryonic Worldsoul within the core of the planet, the Titans tried to excise the Old Gods, with the leader of the Pantheon, Aman'thul, physically tearing the Old God Y'shaarj from the surface of the world. This... didn't go well. While Y'shaarj died, he (it?) unleashed a curse with it essence called the Sha, and the physical trauma of this extraction tore a hole in the surface of the world, with the magical blood of the planet pouring out like a wound.

The Titans changed tack.

First off, they decided to imprison, rather than destroy the remaining three Old Gods. They would also build a complex set of world-spanning machinery known as the Manifold to protect (and also kind of control) the Worldsoul and keep it safe from the Old Gods' corruption. To do this, the Titans created the Titanforged, myriad species of sentient constructs who would serve as technicians and guardians.

Among the Titanforged were the Vrykul, hulking half-giant warriors who were the primary soldiers of the Titanforge armies, tasked with fighting back against the armies of the Black Empire.

The Old Gods defeated and sealed away, and the Old Gods' creations driven to hide underground and out of the way, things seemed pretty good.

But gradually, the Titan Keeper Loken was driven to madness by the Old God Yogg-Saron. Amongst his treacheries, Loken installed a glitch into the creation forges that built new Titanforged - something almost like a computer virus, which came to be known as the Curse of Flesh.

This hit several of the Titanforged, including the Earthen, Mechagnomes, Mogu, and Vrykul. No longer constructs of stone and metal, they were now beings of flesh and blood (in theory more easily corrupted and mutated by the Old Gods).

Society continued onward, and without the Pantheon to intervene, and Loken's treachery sending the Keepers into total disarray, the Curse of Flesh spread and took hold of most of the Titanforged.

It's not explicitly clear that this was the further effect of the Curse of Flesh, but at some point in the distant past, the Vrykul began to give birth to stunted children. Vrykul kids were historically born capable of walking, and would grow to be, like, twelve feet tall by adulthood, but these tiny children were born weak and crying, and even by adulthood would only sometimes even grow beyond six feet.

In other words, they were humans.

When the Vrykul King Ymiron declared that the "malformed" children should be put to death, lest their weakness spread through their people, many Vrykul took their human children and fled. The Keeper Tyr, tireless champion of justice and good, took many of them with him when he fled monsters sent after him by Loken.

Tyr, who had lost his original hand to the mutated dragon Galakrond and replaced it with a fist of pure silver, would remain a powerful figure of myth and legend in human culture. Taking them south to the lands that would be known as Lordaeron, Tyr ultimately fell in battle with one of the C'thraaxi monsers Loken sent after him, but the humans settled in those lands, their disparate tribes eventually forming into a unified empire known as Arathor, or the Arathi Empire.

For centuries (at least - the timeline is not explicit) the Arathi Empire grew, clashing with the nearby Amani Trolls. Finding the High Elves of Quel'thalas, and intrigued by the elves' command of magic, the humans made a deal to aid in the defense of the elven kingdom in exchange for one hundred humans being taught arcane magic.

These mages became known as the Kirn Tor, and founded their own magic city of Dalaran.

Eventually, the Arathi Empire splintered into seven different kingdoms. The nobility of the empire went northwest, to found the Kingdom of Lordaeron, centered in Tirisfal Glades (where Tyr fell). The royal line of Emperors, though, traveled far to the south, past the Dwarven and Gnomish lands of Khaz'Modan, to build the kingdom of Stormwind.

Dalaran remained something of an independent city-state, while the kingdom of Alterac was created in the mountains in the center of the subcontinent. On a peninsula to the southwest was the kingdom of Gilneas. Then, on islands to the southwest of the subcontinent, Gilnean sailors settled and founded the kingdom of Kul Tiras. Those who remained behind in the old imperial heartlands created the Kingdom of Stromgarde.

Seven kingdoms. Ok?

Stormwind Humans:

The standard "human" in WoW is from Stormwind. While Stormwind historically found itself with hostile neighbors from the Gurubashi Troll Emprie to the south and the Dark Iron Dwarves to the north, for the most part Stormwind thrived and prospered until the coming of the Horde.

The Guardian was a position created by the Kirin Tor in which a single mage was empowered with immense magical energy to serve as Azeroth's greatest protector. Unfortunately, Aegwynn, a woman who had remained Guardian for centuries, extending her life magically, had allowed an insidious bit of corruption to enter her when she was fighting an avatar of the Dark Titan Sargeras.

While Aegwynn herself was not really affected, her son, Medivh, was. Aegwynn saw to it that when she finally gave up the mantle of Guardian, Medivh would take over. But Medivh carried with him a fragment of Sargeras, and when he reached adulthood, this fragment utterly took over him, possessing him. Sargeras, ever eager to claim Azeroth for himself, used Medivh to open The Dark Portal, which connected Azeroth to the planet Draenor. There, Sargeras' lieutenant Kil'jaeden had manipulated Draenor's native Orcs into forming the Horde, which was then a force of pure brutal conquest and genocide.

The Horde invaded without warning, attacking Stormwind as the nearest major civilization. Such an enormous force ultimately proved too much for Stormwind, and the First War ended with Stormwind overrun and conquered, its young king, Varian (after his father King Llane was assassinated) had to flee to the north as a refugee.

Unsatisfied with their conquest of Stormwind, the Horde pushed north across the continent, up through Khaz'Modan and into the subcontinent of Lordaeron (where the other kingdoms other than Kul Tiras were). However, this proved an overextension (there were also a lot of moving parts, including a whole thing with Deathwing, the mad Black Dragon aspect) but the ultimate upshot of the Second War was that the Horde was defeated, with some of it fleeing back through the Dark Portal and a large number of Orcs (including lots of civilians who had followed the armies) being put in internment camps indefinitely.

Varian, now an adult, was able to lead his people back to rebuild the kingdom, with the newly-formed Alliance at its back. Since then, and especially after the devastation of Lordaeron in the Third War by the Scourge, Stormwind has been the most stable bastion of humanity.

Lordaeron and the Forsaken:

Lordaeron, after Stormwind's conquest, was the largest and most powerful of the human kingdoms. This is probably the reason that it was targeted at the outset of the Third War by the Legion using its new weapon, the Scourge.

As Stormwind rebuilt, Lordaeron was struck with a devastating plague. Horrifically, this plague began to turn those it killed into mindless zombies and ghouls. The crown prince of Lordaeron, Arthas, was apprenticing as a paladin under the first human paladin, Uther the Lightbringer. But as the Scourge spread across Lordaeron, Arthas' methods grew more and more extreme. Desperate to find any weapon that could defeat Mal'ganis, the Legion demon who was overseeing the spread of the Scourge, Arthas gave his soul over to the runeblade Frostmourne - actually a tool of the Scourge's Lich King. Arthas returned home victorious over Mal'ganis, but he had become a Death Knight, murdering his father, the king, and unleashing undeath upon the kingdom that he had technically just become sovereign over.

For a time, the vast majority of Lordaeron's population had been converted into mindless undead, slaughtering their living friends and family.

However, after the Third War, the Lich King had broken the Scourge free of the Burning Legion's control. Illidan Stormrage, having led a coalition of allies to Outland, was confronted by one of the Legion's masters, Kil'jaeden. Kil'jaeden extorted Illidan into trying to destroy the Lich King, and back on Azeroth, Illidan began a powerful magical ritual to sunder the Frozen Throne and thereby cut off the Lich King's power.

While he was interrupted, the damage done to the Lich King loosened his grasp over the undead, and fully half of Lordaeron's undead suddenly regained their free will. Confronted with the horror of their condition and the knowledge of what they had done as part of the Scourge, the Plaguelands (that which had once been the kingdom of Lordaeron) fell into undead civil war.

Rising to lead the free-willed undead was Sylvanas Windrunner, the former Ranger-General of Quel'thalas whom Arthas had raised as a banshee. Under Scourge domination, she had been one of his top lieutenants, but now she plotted to assassinate him.

Sylvanas would unite the free-willed undead and push against both the living humans trying to reclaim the Plaguelands as well as the Scourge forces that a group of Dreadlords trying to reclaim the Scourge for the Legion had taken control of. (During this time, actually, Arthas fled back to Northrend to defend the Lich King from Illidan's forces, so while there were some "mainline Scourge" loyal to the Lich King here at the time, the main battle was between the Forsaken and those controlled by the Dreadlords.) The Forsaken, as they came to be known, emerged victorious.

Still, fighting against a persistent Scourge threat, as well as fundamentalist religious extremists in the Scarlet Crusade (who never recognized the Forsaken's humanity) and also mysterious assassinations of ambassadors to the kingdoms of the south (sent in an idealistic hope that the Forsaken could re-join the Alliance) led the Forsaken to a culture of extreme isolation, and something of an embrace of the "wicked and evil" way that they were perceived by others. They would go on to manufacture plagues that might be used to combat both the living and the Scourge, and used many of the Scourge's own tactics.

However, the Tauren, having heard of their plight, reached out, hoping to use their understanding of nature and life magic to restore the Forsaken to true life. Through the Tauren, the Forsaken were brought into the Horde, and have generally served as the faction within the Horde most willing to use... morally dubious methods.

Notably, Sylvanas Windrunner ascended to the mantle of Warchief following the death of Vol'jin, but betrayed the Horde in a complex plan that she thought would have removed Death itself from the world, but actually would have lead to the domination of all life on Azeroth. So, she's currently in the Maw (basically Hell) searching out all the souls that are there unjustly to send them on to the afterlife they deserve.

Meanwhile, the Forsaken are governed by the Desolate Council, a group of prominent members, including Calia Menethil, sister to Arthas, though she has emphatically refused to take the crown of the fallen kingdom.

Worgen of Gilneas:

The kingdom of Gilneas was a major industrial power of the Alliance during the Second War. When the Horde was defeated, the Orcs were captured as war prisoners, and the Alliance was left with a conundrum: a huge population of people who had just tried to wipe out humanity.

A very dark decision came before the leaders of the Alliance - either to keep the orcs imprisoned, or to kill them all. The vote between the seven kingdoms went 4-3 in favor of keeping the orcs alive (though a longterm plan to integrate them into society or, like, anything else, was left unresolved). Genn Greymane, the king of Gilneas, was among those in the "kill them all" camp.

Frustrated at the costs that his kingdom had incurred in defeating the Horde, Genn withdrew Gilneas from the Alliance, cutting off all diplomatic ties to the outside world and constructing a massive wall to cut off the Gilnean peninsula from the rest of the continent.

Now, this didn't prove to be universally popular. The Greymane Wall was built through the lands of a nobleman named Darius Crowley, cutting much of it off from the rest of the kingdom. Crowley organized a rebellion against the crown, sending Gilneas into a civil war. While Crowley was ultimately defeated and imprisoned, this left the kingdom weakened and divided.

But there was something else going on:

Thousands of years earlier, Night Elf Druids were exploring new animal forms to take. Their Druid forms were based on various Wild Gods - the Bear form an expression of Ursoc, and Cat form an expression of Ashamane. The Druids of the Scythe sought to create a form based on Goldrinn, the Wolf God (named for a powerful relic, the magical Scythe of Elune, built using one of Goldrinn's fangs). But it turned out that Goldrinn's ferocity was overwhelming, driving the Druids to feral madness. Malfurion had the Druids of the Scythe sealed away on a remote peninsula and locked into sleep within the Emerald Dream, a peninsula that would later be settled by humans and become Gilneas.

Ages later, the Gilnean Archmage, Arugal, sought out some new means to combat the rising threat of the Scourge. Finding obscure texts about wolf-like creatures that were immune to disease, he summoned some of these Druids of the Scythe from the Emerald Dream. But while they were effective against the Scourge, their ferocity was infectious, and as they bit humans, those humans became Worgen, basically werewolves.

The Worgen became a terrifying threat to humans and Forsaken alike. Eventually, a massive pack of Worgen broke through into Gilneas city, infecting a massive swath of the population with the Worgen curse.

Years later, Gilnean alchemists developed a concoction that could, at least for at time, restore the human mind to a Worgen. Around the same time, the Cataclysm struck, which, among other things, saw the Greymane Wall crack and partially collapse. The Forsaken, seeing this as an opportunity to expand their territory, invaded Gilneas with the help of a few traitors who were disgusted by Gilneas' embrace of the Worgen back into their citizenry.

In the face of a Horde-backed Forsaken invasion, the Gilneans were desperate, and mounted an effort to evacuate. They were aided in this by the Night Elves, taking responsibility for the Worgen given that it was in what would become Gilneas where the original Druids of the Scythe were sealed away, taught the Worgen techniques to manage their transformation further, and helped bring them back into the Alliance.

Genn Greymane is still king, but has learned a great deal of humility in his transformation into a Worgen. There are still plenty of fully human Gilneans, but it seems that for the most part, the population has gotten used to the fact that about half of them are werewolves.

Kul Tirans:

Ostenisbly, the people of Kul Tiras are just humans, no different physiologically than those from Stormwind (or Stromgarde or Dalaran. Er... Alterac kind of got destroyed in the Second War after they betrayed the Alliance to the Horde, and of course Lordaeron and Gilneas we've covered already).

So, take the rest of this with a grain of salt, because this is my headcanon, though I think it's reasonably well-supported in the game.

The first Kul Tirans were Gilneans who sailed out to an archipelago off the coast of the Eastern Kingdoms. They settled down in a sound in the center of the archipelago, but after they had gotten established, they were attacked by a people known as the Drust.

The Drust are mysterious - there's only one known living Drust we know of, but they are a druid who remains in their shapeshifted form at all times (also, this druidic tradition seems totally different, as he doesn't even recognize the word). However, it seems they were half-giants, and I have always interpreted them as being a branch of the Vrykul.

Now, while there was warfare and bloodshed between the Kul Tirans and the Drust, this wasn't universal, and it's likely that the hostile Drust were those particularly led by a leader known as Gorak Tul, a master of death magic (different than classic necromancy, and more kind of witchcraft).

Given that there are a lot of very big and burly Kul Tirans (if you play one in WoW, you'll play one of these) that are, like 8 feet tall, my interpretation has always been that the Kul Tirans actually have a lot of Drust ancestors mixing around in their gene pool. (And given that humans are descended from vrykul, they'd be easily compatible genetically... though there are also half-elves on Azeroth, despite elves and humans having profoundly different origins.)

Anyway, Kul Tiran culture is centered around the sea. Religiously, they don't have much of a tradition of worshipping the Holy Light, and instead have a priesthood called Tidesages who bless their ships to be able to sail safely through any storm and revere a being called the Tidemother, who is probably, unbeknownst to them, actually Queen Azshara (see the post about elves for a brief explanation of who Azshara is).

While never isolationist like Gilneas, Kul Tiras is naturally, quite literally insulated because it is an island nation, and so its culture has odd nuances, like the aforementioned Tidesages, as well as a tradition of witch-hunting Inquisitors.

    Other Humans:

These four nations are represented via playable races in WoW, and I believe that Worgen and Forsaken will both be presented as D&D species. Humans from Stormwind, Kul Tiras, Dalaran (which isn't a huge population because it's just a city-state with very little land of its own) and Stromgarde are likely only to be represented with standard D&D humans.

While the kingdom was destroyed in the Second War, I don't think there's anything really stopping you from playing someone from Alterac, either someone who remained loyal to the Alliance or maybe hides their past treachery. Or maybe you were just a kid at the time. (Notably, the treachery was due in large part to the dragon Deathwing disguising himself as a human noble named Daval Prestor and manipulating his way to become the leader of Alterac, so while Draconic Sorcerers are most often going to be Dracthyr Evokers, if you're willing to go for archetypes that exist outside of WoW options, you could tie this into a backstory).

There are humans from elsewhere. On Kalimdor, there is a group known as the Wastewander Bandits, usually hostile, who wander the southern deserts. Where they actually come from has never been explained, though it stands to reason that other populations of Vrykul might have undergone the same process that created humans.

There's also a weird question of the Hallowfall Arathi, a group who live in the deep underground realm of Khaz'Algar. Humans with some elvish ancestry, the Hallowfall Arathi claim to come from The Arathi Empire, but seemingly one that still exists. This truth of these Arathi is unknown, though my current theory is that they're from an alternate universe.

Newcomer's Guide to Elves of Azeroth

 With the WOW D&D book, there's at least some portion of the D&D-playing population that has not ever played World of Warcraft, nor have they heard about the specifics of the setting.

Azeroth (the world on which most of WoW takes place - though we have been to other planets, like Outland, Argus, and K'aresh, as well as other planes of existence, like the Shadowlands) has some profoundly ancient cultures along with some profoundly ancient individuals.

Like many fantasy settings inspired by Tolkien, elves have some of the most ancient histories and civilizations, though I think it's important to note that they are not the oldest civilization on Azeroth. That honor belongs to the Trolls, who will warrant their own whole post, even though there are fewer playable Troll options in WoW. Likewise, the Eredar species, which includes the Draenei, likely has an older-still civilization, but they are from a different planet (the aforementioned Argus) and so don't count here.

But while the ancient (and still existent) Zandalari Troll Empire pre-dates any of the elvish civilizations, the ancient Kaldorei Empire was probably the largest and most wide-spread humanoid civilization in Azeroth's history (note that I say humanoid).

In WoW, there are four playable elf races, though through character customization options, you can at least make a character look like a member of the fifth branch of the species. Broadly, there are two branches to the elves of Azeroth, which manifest in physiological differences. The original, larger Night Elf half (which includes the Nightborne) and the more diminutive High Elf branch (which includes the Blood Elves and Void Elves). Notably, among the playable options, there's an even split between the Alliance and Horde, with Night Elves and Void Elves on the Alliance side and the Blood Elves and Nightborne on the Horde side (the people who still identify as High Elves are also Alliance-aligned, though they are a tiny fraction of the old High Elf population).

Furthermore, we should also talk about the origins of the elves:

Three broad species, the Elves, Trolls, and Haranir, are all descended from the same ancestors. It has never been stated what their origin is, but unless we get information to contradict this, I assume they naturally evolved.

Now, the lore here is a little hazy: initially it was thought that the "Dark Trolls" who lived in the caves of Mount Hyjal were transformed after they descended the mountain and settled on the banks of the Well of Eternity. The raw power of the World Soul's blood reshaped them into modern elves. Since that lore was first hinted at, we were introduced to the Haranir, who truly look like a cross between Trolls and Night Elves, and it's not clear if these are the so-called Dark Trolls or perhaps if they are the best-preserved descendants of their common ancestors.

But let's get into the specifics of the elven civilizations:

Night Elves, or Kal'dorei:

The Night Elves are known as the Kal'dorei, meaning "Children of the Stars" in their language. Kal'dorei society revolved around the worship of the Moon Goddess Elune (whose true nature remains somewhat mysterious, but seems to be a power associated with the primordial power of life). Settling on the banks of the Well of Eternity and upon Mount Hyjal, the Kal'dorei civilization flourished for ages, until the rise of an individual among them named Azshara.

The most powerful Mage Azeroth has ever seen, Azshara became Queen (it's not clear if this was a position she was born into or if she established herself as the queen). Azshara was (and is - she's still alive, though... different) beloved and glorious, and also utterly narcissistic. She restructured society, elevating an elite upper class around her known as the Highborne. To the Highborne, she taught the secrets of arcane magic, and this aristocratic upper class became something also of a magocratic regime. She renamed the capital city, once named for Elune, to Zin-Azshari, more or less elevating herself to godlike status in their society.

Azshara ruled for untold years, but never married, sure that no living mortal was a fitting match for her radiance. In her arcane practice, she made contact with Sargeras, the Dark Titan, who had turned against the Pantheon and created his demonic Burning Legion to destroy the universe. With promises of power, Azshara allied with Sargeras and agreed to help the Legion invade Azeroth if she could rule over the Legion and, presumably, the entire cosmos as his co-equal partner.

The result was the War of the Ancients, one of the most important events in Azeroth's history.

Ultimately, a resistance movement against the demonic invasion rose up, led primarily by Malufrion Stormrage and Tyrande Whisperwind, respectively Azeroth's first Druid and the high-priestess of Elune. Malfurion's brother, Illidan, worked behind the scenes amongst the ranks of Azshara's mages to subvert the Legion's plans, earning him (unfairly) the title of Betrayer, as very few if any knew that he was fighting for the good guys.

While the Legion was repelled, the only way to prevent Sargeras from fully entering Azeroth was to destroy the Well of Eternity, which led to the Sundering - a massive "great flood" that saw the single massive Pangea-like continent of Kalimdor split into pieces and drift apart, destroying most of the land and separating out the various peoples of Azeroth - at least those who survived.

A number of Highborne, during the war, defected from Azshara to join the rebel cause, led by Dath'remar Sunstrider. However, given how Azshara's arcane magic had led to this contact with the Burning Legion, the Night Elves banned its use, forbidding what had become the core of Highborne life and culture.

In protest of this, the Highborne unleashed an arcane storm over the forests of Kalimdor, and were banished for this outburst.

Following the war, a vial of water from the Well of Eternity that had been preserved was used at the top of Mount Hyjal to grow a World Tree, Nordrassil. The Night Elves' draconic allies blessed the tree, including a blessing from the bronze Aspect Nozdormu that gifted them immortality (they were fairly long-lived before, but this prevented any aging).

For the ten millennia following the War of the Ancients, the Night Elves lived in relative isolation in their forests, many of the men following Malfurion's Druidic tradition and sleeping for centuries on end to commune with the Emerald Dream, while a matriarchal warrior culture led by Tyrande guarded the forests. When the Legion invaded along with the Scourge in the Third War, the Night Elves were forced into the fight, and when the demon lord Archimonde attacked Mount Hyjal, seeking to use the World Tree to burn Azeroth, the Night Elves were forced to sacrifice it to destroy him, losing their precious immortality, and forcing them to engage with the world once again. While they had fought alongside allies from both the Alliance and Horde, the Horde's efforts to cut down their ancient forests for lumber pushed them toward the Alliance, and to this day they are one of the core members.

Nightborne, or Shal'dorei:

The Shal'dorei, or "Children of the Night," are from the city of Suramar. Suramar was one of the great cities of the ancient Kal'dorei empire, sitting across the Well of Eternity from Zin-Azshari (I'll note that there's a dungeon from the Cataclysm expansion that portrays the Well as being, like, 100 feet across tops, but I think it's meant to be understood more as a big in-land sea). It is actually from the outskirts of Suramar that Malfurion and Tyrande hail originally.

The leader of Suramar was a highborne mage named Elisande. After it became clear what the empress had aligned herself with, the people of the city used ancient Titan artifacts to seal their city away, living for ten thousand years with nothing but the shimmering shield above them and sustaining themselves through magically-conjured fruit and wine.

Thousands of years later, during the last major Legion invasion of Azeroth, the evil orc warlock Gul'dan appeared before Elisande, heralding a new invasion, and warning Elisande that they were capable of breaching the barrier over the city.

Elisande capitulated and became a collaborator, but a resistance led primarily by First Arcanist Thalyssra, aided by outside heroes, toppled Elisande and liberated the city.

Because of the close cultural ties with the descendants of the Highborne amongst the Blood Elves, the Nightborne joined the Horde.

High Elves, or Quel'dorei:

Quel'dorei seems to mean something like "Children of the High," or quite literally "Highborne." Dath'remar Sunstrider and the fellow highborne rebels left Kalimdor in exile. While some went off to different parts of the world, those following him sailed east to what is now called the Eastern Kingdoms, and claimed lands in the north that they called Quel'thalas.

So distant from Nordrassil, the Highborne started to change, physiologically, becoming smaller (though still only shrinking to, like, human size). Dath'remar had taken one of the other preserved vials of water from the Well of Eternity and, on the island of Quel'thalas to the north, they created a font of arcane magic known as the Sunwell, which fueled their arcane power as a kind of lesser replacement for the Well of Eternity.

The Highborne became known as the High Elves, and clashed with the local Amani Trolls, whose lands Quel'thalas originally was. (Yep, colonialism!) When they encountered humans to the south, they formed an alliance against their mutual Troll foes, and taught the humans arcane magic (the original hundred human mages becoming the Kirin Tor, but that's a story for another time). While the high elves were still somewhat insular and distant from their human allies, there was some cultural exchange.

In the Second War, when the human kingdoms formed the Alliance to combat the invading Horde, and particularly when the Amani allied with the Horde, the High Elves also became members of the Alliance.

However, in the Third War, when the kingdom of Lordaeron fell to the Scourge, the Death Knight Arthas Menethil (former crown prince of Lordaeron) invaded Quel'thalas in order to use the Sunwell to turn the dead necromancer Kel'thuzad into a Lich. While the invasion was sort of incidental to this goal, Arthas' campaign was one of utter brutality and atrocity, killing off 90% of the High Elf population, and the process of Kel'thuzad's dark resurrection tainted the Sunwell, cutting off its power from the elves.

In the aftermath, Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider (refusing to take the title of king after his father was slain by the Scourge) renamed his people the Sin'dorei, or "Children of Blood" in bitter memory of the genocidal trauma they had endured.

However, as Kael'thas' actions following this took the Blood Elves down a dark path, some High Elves refused to follow him, and kept their High Elf identity. Remaining loyal to the Alliance and acting as a small but persistent resistance to the Blood Elf regime, the tiny fraction of the elves who still call themselves High Elves are led primarily by Vereesa Windrunner, the youngest Windrunner sister (a very prominent Quel'thalas family).

Blood Elves, or Sin'dorei:

As stated above, the Blood Elves were initially just a kind of renaming of the High Elves, and honestly, they're the most physiologically similar branches of the elf tree.

However, a couple things troubled the Blood Elves. First of all, while the Third War ended, the Alliance's efforts to wrest control of the Lordaeron subcontinent from the Scourge were led by just about the worst person to do so, a general named Garithos. Garithos, for some reason, hated the elves with a passion, and always used Blood Elves as cannon fodder. When Kael'thas accepted aid from the Naga (remember how I said Azshara was different? She and her closest followers made a deal with an Old God called N'zoth to survive the flooding of Zin-Azshari and were transformed into monstrous underwater-serpent people) Garithos declared this a treasonous offense worthy of death.

Now, on top of this, with the Sunwell tainted by Arthas and Kel'thuzad, the font of magic that had sustained their society was unavailable, and it turned out that the High Elves had developed a physiological dependency on it. Without the Sunwell, the Blood Elves would gradually deteriorate and lose their minds, becoming husks known as the Wretched.

After forming this alliance with the Naga led by Lady Vashj, Vashj introduced them to her ally, Illidan Stormrage. Illidan had been cast out of Night Elf society for his use of demonic fel magic (which he used to fight the Legion, but it had made him into a half-demon himself,) and Illidan offered to help them secure a source of Fel, rather than Arcane magic to sate their magic addiction.

This, of course, further pushed them away from Alliance society, and ultimately led them to align themselves with some rather strange bedfellows. To ensure that the public would not protest this move toward demonic magic, Quel'thalas became somewhat more authoritarian. Kael'thas followed Illidan to Outland, but those who remained behind (led by Regent-Lord Lor'themar Theron) were sold a whitewashed narrative of eventually coming to some sort of utopian promised land on the shattered homeworld of the Orcs, even while the Kael'thas plotted behind Illidan's back to more or less join the Burning Legion and see the Blood Elves transformed into demons.

Now at odds with the Alliance, the Blood Elves found unlikely allies in the Forsaken. Not only were these sentient undead humans also now outcasts from the Alliance, but their leader was actually a former high elf, Sylvanas Windrunner (middle sister of the Windrunners, who had led the defense of Quel'thalas against Arthas, but had her soul ripped out of her body for her defiance to become a banshee. She later found her body and essentially possesses her own corpse). While their tenure within the Horde has been rocky (especially under the leadership of Garrosh Hellscream, the racist prick) it has allowed them to stabilize their wounded nation and even cleanse the Sunwell of its corruption (though that story is complicated and has more chapters as of the current expansion).

With the discovery of Kael'thas' treachery, the authoritarian tendencies of Blood Elf society have diminished, and Lor'themar Theron seems to be a far more admirable leader.

Void Elves, or Ren'dorei:

The Void Elves are a weird fluke: The High Elves, and later Blood Elves, have a proud tradition of magical research, with their Magisters (high-ranking mages) acting as leaders of government even as they pursue arcane research.

One of these Magisters, Umbric, led a large research expedition to study the power of the Void, and through some mishap, the void energy suffused their beings, reshaping them on a physiological level.

Given the dangers of this cosmic power that can often lead to madness, Umbric and his followers were cast out of Blood Elf society (not entirely unlike how the Highborne had been cast out of Night Elf society). While somewhat independent in her own exploration of the Void, Alleria Windrunner (oldest of the Windrunner sisters,) who was one of the greatest heroes of the Alliance, brought Umbric and his "Children of the Void" back into the Alliance fold.

Bonus Elves: Highborne Night Elves:

So, after ten thousand years and the Night Elves' exposure to Mages among the other Alliance races, Tyrande and Malfurion relaxed their ban on arcane magic. Not all the Highborne had followed Dath'remar, with some going south to Eldre'thalas (what is now known as Dire Maul, a dungeon you can find in the new book). With this relaxation of the ban, Highborne came and taught the Night Elves the secrets of the Arcane. These Highborne, never that far from Nordrassil, remain physiologically the same as the rest of the Night Elves, and have integrated back into their society somewhat (though with a more egalitarian balance of power).

    The Elves of Midnight:

So, that's the 5 or 6-ish kinds of elves of WoW.

I don't believe we're going to be getting new species for them in the book, though we might get a new "lineage" for Nightborne and Void Elves. I would say that Night Elves really pretty emphatically can just use Wood Elves as their equivalent, and both High Elves and Blood Elves are just D&D's High Elves.

Now, a bit more history:

The current expansion (as of my writing this) is Midnight, which takes place primarily in Quel'thalas and Zul'Aman (though we go to a couple other places beyond). In it, the evil void-being Xal'atath (which just so happens to be possessing the corpse of a dead blood elf, so she looks like an elf as well) invaded Azeroth using the Sunwell. While all the heroes of Azeroth, Alliance and Horde alike, have come to help stop the invasion (allowing the unprecedented move of letting Alliance forces stay in a Horde city,) this has also become an opportunity for a reconciliation between the various elves. While the Kal'dorei and Shal'dorei have their own homes elsewhere (and the Shal'dorei are already on good terms - hell, Thalyssra and Lor'themar are married) it has in particular been a hard-fought homecoming for the Ren'dorei and Quel'dorei.

There's bad blood on either side (especially with the Quel'dorei, as Vereesa's followers helped violently purge those Blood Elves who were in the city of Dalaran in one of the Alliance's less admirable moments) but there's a real sense of rapprochement.

While I suspect that the book will probably roll a lot of the ongoing story of the World of Warcraft toward one where the Alliance and Horde are more heatedly in conflict, there's certainly a place for reconciliation among the elves, even if reunification is never likely to happen.

Oath of the Ebon Blade "Paladin"/Death Knight

 I do not have the new WoW/D&D Book, but with the NDAs lifted on those people who got it early, I'm going to do the thing of watching through a video (that of Insight Check) going over the subclass and give my own commentary on it. Obviously, you can watch that video and get their thoughts on it as well, which I would highly encourage because hey, I wouldn't be able to write this post without it (well, not for another week at least).

World of Warcraft has three "hero classes," which, at least when they were first released, started at a higher level (I think they still start at level 10 now, but so does any character playing an "allied race") and broadly are flavored by being more than just a discipline, but the result of some fundamental physiological change that allows them to use the class's abilities. In the case of Death Knights, they were once heroes of Azeroth who were raised by the Lich King to serve the Scourge, and then broke away from the Lich King's domination to fight on behalf of the living.

Death Knights are, of course, a well-established trope in D&D and even fantasy in general (I've often cited the Ringwraiths and Darth Vader as the clearest examples) so I would encourage DMs to allow players to play one of these even in non-Azeroth campaigns. Admittedly, this subclass does incorporate some of the specific-to-WoW idiosyncrasies of the Death Knight, such as its thematic elements of Blood, Frost, and Unholy (which are WoW's three specializations for the class, but also a recurring theme in the expansion where they were introduced, including the three main wings of the final raid-dungeon of the expansion). But I don't think anything here is too obtrusively WoW-specific that you couldn't use this in another setting.

Now, Death Knights use the Paladin as a framework - ultimately, this is a Paladin subclass (fitting given that Death Knights are classically fallen paladins) but it goes a bit beyond that, altering some class features. Still, as I understand it, you'll still have full access to the Paladin spell list, and most of your features are going to be retained (Aura of Protection, arguably the best Paladin feature, is still there, thank the Light).

Notably, in WoW, Death Knights don't use shields (actually, only three classes in WoW can use them,) so while there's nothing mechanically preventing you from using one, most Death Knights will use big two-handed weapons, or potentially dual-wield (personally, I've never loved the look of a dual-wielding Death Knight. Even in WoW, the one spec that can dual-wield, Frost, can also use a two-hander, which can sometimes be suboptimal, but only a tiny amount).

So, let's get into the subclass.

Level 1:

Death Coil:

This replaces Lay on Hands.

Your creature type is Undead. Additionally, you have a pool of d8s equal to 1 plus your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). As a bonus action, you can force a creature you can see within 60 feet to make a Con save while you expend up to your Charisma modifier's worth of these dice. On a failure, the creature takes Necrotic damage equal to the amount you roll on the expended dice, or half on a success. If the target is Undead, it instead regains HP equal to the amount rolled. You refresh your pool of d8s when you finish a long rest.

    Straight up, this is not as good for healing as Lay on Hands. While early on you'll likely have 3-4 dice here, it'll at best go up to 6 (if you're pushing Charisma over Strength, which isn't necessarily the ideal). It's less precise, and of course,  you can't heal your non-undead allies with this. Now, it is a way to put out a bit of extra bonus damage, and at decent range. It's not terrible, honestly, but it's just not as reliable and versatile as Lay on Hands.

    Being Undead has its benefits, though you'll want to talk with your DM about what this means for resurrecting you, as some resurrection spells specifically prohibit someone from being revived if they are undead. I think the intent is that you're not supposed to restore someone to true life from undeath until you get something like True Resurrection, but maybe the exception can be made if you're still going to be undead.

Level 2:

Runic Smite:

This replaces Paladin's Smite

You always have Runic Strike prepared, and can cast it once per long rest without a spell slot.

Runic Strike works like Divine Smite, but it deals Necrotic instead of Radiant damage and gets its bonus d8 when striking Celestials.

    Look, this is flavorful, but it's also almost always worse than Divine Smite. Necrotic damage is a pretty reliable damage type, but not as reliable as radiant, and you're also (even as a Death Knight) far more likely to be fighting fiends and undead than celestials. Depending on your campaign, though, this might not make a difference, and also, I don't think there's anything here stopping you from preparing Divine Smite or any other Smite spell, so it's not that big of a problem.

Level 3:

Runeforging:

When you finish a long rest, you can inscribe a rune into a melee weapon ou are holding or transfer it to a different weapon. When you gain a level, you can replace this with a different rune.

    First off, an ambiguity here: it's unclear to me if you can simply swap runes on a long rest or if you need to level up to switch them. I would say a literal reading of the feature would let you change every long rest, and even inscribe runes on multiple weapons, though the latter part seems to imply you're locked in until you level up. So... it's weird. Generally, I tend to be generous to players who want to swap something if they have buyer's remorse, so I prefer the long-rest switch, though I feel the intent at the very least must say you can only have one active rune at a time. Let's look at the options.

Blood: When you inscribe this rune on your weapon and whenever you finish a long rest, you gain temp HP equal to your Charisma modifier plus your Paladin level. While wielding the weapon, you gain these temp HP whenever you reduce an enemy to 0 HP.

    That's a pretty hefty number of temp HP, and especially if you're going for a high-damage build using things like Great Weapon Master, this is going to give you a lot of Temp HP over the course of a day. Quite good.

Frost: While you are wielding your inscribed weapon, damage from your attacks, paladin spells, and paladin feature ignores resistance to Cold damage. When you make the extra attack of the light property and hit while wielding your inscribed weapon, you deal an extra 1d4 Cold damage.

    This is pretty terrible. I mean, 1d4 extra damage once per turn - that's all we're getting here (even if you take the dual-wielder feat, I don't think that counts as "the extra attack of the light property.") Ignoring Cold resistance can be good (and there are some fun new cold spells,) as this is a damage type that you will see resistance rather than immunity to, but certainly this doesn't seem nearly as good as the Blood one.

Unholy: While you are wielding your inscribed weapon, damage from your attack, paladin spells, and paladin features ignores resistance to Necrotic damage. If your inscribed weapon has the Heavy property, the first creature you hit with it each turn takes extra Necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).

    This is a bit better than Frost, but not by much - we're talking probably 3 damage and then maybe eventually 5 if we push Charisma hard (though likely only by level 16 or something). I don't believe Necrotic resistance is very common, as more creatures are just fully immune. Again, I have to think Blood is the big winner here.

Oath Spells:

Usually I do this before all the leveled features because it's really more of a subclass-spanning thing, but in this case because there are 1st and 2nd level features, we'll cover it here.

We get one spell of each of levels 1-5 universally, and hten a second spell depending on your runeforge choice.

All:

1st: Death Grip

2nd: Death and Decay

3rd: Summon Undead

4th: Freedom of Movement

5th: Circle of Power

    First off, Death Grip is a bonus action spell that forces a strength save against a target, and on a failure, they get pulled into melee range with you. An iconic WoW ability Death Knights have (I believe the very first forced-movement ability in WoW). Death and Decay is an AoE spell that has, I believe, pretty underwhelming damage. But Summon Undead is good (if a little less powerful on a half-caster) and Freedom of Movement is a great spell for late-game boss fights.

Blood:

1st: Vampiric Blood

2nd: Spiritual Weapon

3rd: Leeching Strike

4th: Evard's Black Tentacles

5th: Bonestorm

    Vampiric Blood is a self-buff that increases your max HP without increasing your current HP, but then increases your healing received, and winds up having some interesting synergies with tiny bits of healing. Leeching Strike is a smite-like spell that deals necrotic damage and heals you (presumably the equivalent of WoW's Death Strike). Bonestorm is an AoE emanation that I believe is undertuned for a 5th level spell. These are fine - Spiritual Weapon isn't what it used to be, though Paladins are more likely to have concentration free for it.

Frost:

1st: Chains of Ice

2nd: Frostscythe

3rd: Remorseless Winter

4th: Ice Storm

5th: Cone of Cold

    Chains of Ice is not great - slowing targets on a failed Con save and doing tiny Cold damage. Frostscythe is a cone that I believe deals equivalent damage to Shatter, though Cold, but is pretty decent. Remorseless Winter is an emanation that I believe slows and deals cold damage, and is kind of akin to Spirit Guardians (and might do better damage, actually). These are pretty decent, though of course the runeforge sucks.

Unholy:

1st: Scourge Strike

2nd: Ray of Enfeeblement

3rd: Bestow Curse

4th: Blight

5th: Contagion

    Man, it sucks that Blight sucks so much. Scourge Strike is a smite-like spell that I believe (I don't have the spells up here) deals necrotic damage and frightens a target. I think that Frost actually gets the best spells here, but for Death Knight-specific spells, you should be able to grab any of these regardless of your rune.

Runic Power:

Yes, still level 3.

Immediately after your cast Rune Strike, you can expend a Channel Divinity to gain one of the following benefits based on your rune.

Blood: You regain a number of HP equal to the Necrotic damage done with Rune Strike.

    So, for a first level against a non-celestial, this will be a little less than  Cure Wounds. But if we save this for a crit, we can get a nice burst of healing on top of our damage.

Frost: Frost covers your weapon and shatters on impact. The target of your Rune Strike and each enemy in a 10-foot emanation takes 2d6 cold damage.

    Notably, this doesn't have a save, so that's going to be a consistent 7 damage. At low levels, that'll be great, though at high levels it's not a ton.

Unholy: The target of your Rune Strike is cursed until the end of your next turn, and while cursed, the next time it makes a saving throw, it subtracts 1d6 and the curse ends.

    This is interesting: 1d6 off a saving throw can be pretty powerful. You'll just need to time this. I wouldn't worry about debuffing them for something like Death Coil, but if you have an ally with a nasty spell or ability, this could be helpful.

Level 5:

Faithful Steed:

You gain a new option when you cast Find Steed, allowing your Otherworldly Steed to be Undead. The undead steed deals Necrotic damage with its Otherworldly Slam and has the following Bonus Action:

Ghostly Stride (Undead Only, Recharges after a long rest): The steed and its rider can move through other creatures and objects this turn as if they were Difficult Terrain. Both the steed and rider take 1d10 force damage if they end their turn within an object.

    Note that this will only last for a turn, so don't feel you can hide inside a rock to avoid a foe's attacks, because you'll be stuck. Still, a brief burst of incorporeal movement will let you get past barriers or pass through a wall or some such thing to either pursue a foe or evade attacks. There's uses here, for sure.

    The necrotic damage on the attack is unlikely to be relevant given how controlled mounts work.

Level 7:

Aura of Deathly Endurance:

You and your allies have Resistance to Cold, Necrotic, and Psychic damage while in your Aura of Protection.

    That's three damage resistances, and all that monsters and spellcasters will inflict, so this is not bad at all.

Level 11:

Runic Strikes:

This replaces Radiant Strikes.

When you hit a target with an attack using a melee weapon or an unarmed strike, the target takes an extra 1d8 necrotic damage.

    Again, this is nearly identical to the feature it replaces, except that Necrotic is a less reliable damage type than Radiant. It's still a pretty good damage type, but I do think that where it does make a difference, this is going to be worse the vast majority of the time.

Level 14:

Improved Death Coil:

This replaces Restoring Touch.

When you use Death Coil to deal damage, the target takes extra Necrotic damage equal to your Charisma modifier whether or not it fails its saving throw. If the target is undead and you have it regain hit points, it regains HP equal to your Paladin level.

    The guaranteed damage here is going to be probably like 3 or 4, maybe eventually 5. But the healing is very good. As before, the targets for your healing are limited, but to just keep yourself up, this is going to be quite a hefty heal.

Level 15:

Runic Mastery:

You can invoke the power of your rune once per long rest. The effects are the following, based on the rune.

Blood: When a creature hits another creature you can see within 10 feet of you with an attack roll, you can take a reaction to reduce the damage the target takes by your Paladin level, and then you lose HP equal to your Paladin level.

    Weirdly this feels more like a specific paladin spell in WoW, but setting that aside: the only real problem here is the short range. But given how good at self-healing Blood will be, this is a great way to save a squishy party member. It's also damage reduction, which will significantly lower an ally's concentration saves. So I think this is good, if situational.

Frost: When you take the attack action, you can replace an attack by exhaling a 30-foot cone of frost magic. Creatures make a Dex save, taking 8d6 cold damage on a failure or half as much on a success.

    This is decent - while a Fireball-damage-level mini-Cone of Cold might not be enormous at this high level, I like that it only replaces an attack. Once a day isn't going to wind up being huge, but it's something.

Unholy: When you cast Summon Undead, you can modify it so that it does not require concentration. If you do, the spell lasts 1 minute, and the Undead Spirit has Temp HP equal to your Paladin level, plus it deals Necrotic damage equal to half your paladin level the first time it hits a creature on its turn (round up).

    While I'd mostly prefer to have a longer-lasting minion (especially given that we can heal them pretty easily with Death Coil) this will be nice in a boss fight (which is when we'd want to be using a single-target spell like a Summon). Certainly not something to use every day, but we are getting nearly a flat 8 and eventually 10 more damage per turn.

Level 20:

Aspect of the Horsemen:

As a bonus action, you gain the following benefits for 10 minutes or until you end them (for some reason). Once you do this, you can't do it again until you finish a long rest, or expend a 5th level spell slot to regain a use.

Generate Runic Power: You can restore a use of Runic Mastery by expending a 4th level spell slot.

    This feels like a weird benefit for something that is, itself, a limited resource. We don't have a ton of spell slots to use this with, and especially if we want the Unholy version, we're probably spending a 4th level anyway to get Summon Undead.

Runeforging: When you use Runic Power and Runic Mastery, you can choose any effect, regardless of your rune choice.

    Ok, so now we're more flexible for these 10 minutes.

    Here's the thing: I think this is the worst Paladin ult in 5E. The reason is that this ult doesn't actually let us do anything we couldn't already do. It gives us the privilege of expending 4th level spell slots to get Runic Mastery back, and then the only other thing it does is let us use the Runeforge powers we hadn't picked.

    Now, if you interpret (probably as intended) that by level 20, you will never be able to swap your rune again, this is the only way for you to ever get the other features.

    But as an Ult, again, this gives us purely lateral benefits, with no actual increase in power.

Overall Thoughts:

This is not going to suddenly become the best Paladin subclass. I think there are arguments to be made that it's on the weaker side. What it has, though, is flavor dripping from every pore. You're really not a Paladin in this case, but the fact that you retain the core of the Paladin class means that even if this isn't the strongest subclass, you're going to be a real asset to your team.

Lay on Hands was never the most powerful thing Paladins got, and again, even if Runic Strike is probably weaker than Divine Smite, in 90% of situations, it'll be just as good.

Here are some issues I have with it, and which I might just homebrew in:

First off, I'd let you change you rune on a long rest. Hell, even a short rest. Just make it something you can flip between rather than turning these runes into "sub-subclasses."

Second, and this might sound radical: Replace Generate Runic Power from the Aspect of the Horsemen to instead just let you use Runic Mastery once per turn for free. Paladin Ults should be amazing showstoppers, and the version as written sucks.

But yeah, the only reason to disparage this is if you're determined to play the absolute most powerful Paladin. There's such a profoundly distinct flavor here that your top consideration should be if you want to play as a Death Knight. And if you do, you'll still be one of the most powerful members of your party.