Death Knight Arthas (Warcraft) lands in Norsca (Warhammer)

Arthas' quest to become the Lich King has lead him to Norsca from the Warhammer universe. Assume that some Chaos champion is in possession of the means to make Arthas into the Lich King. He is being guided by the spirit of Kel'Thuzad who has been given info on where the means to complete his ascension is. What happens?

@wut@sirfizzwhizz@killerwasp

@paragonnate: Well, to better fit the lore, the item should be in the Chaos Waste, usually speaking, most Chaos Warriors and what not travel to the Chaos Waste in the far north when they are given some incredible item or ascend (happens in Heart/Claws of Chaos and the ... khorne daemon princess whose name I cannot recall which is weird because I love her novel.)

But, yeah, he completes it. He is very potent. Most of the big Champions aren't in Norsca, they are in the Chaos Waste. Single 'champions' and often not the large armored chaos warriors, tend to lead entire tribes because they are that 'rare' in Norsca. Norscans are also, usually, quite reasonable and some don't even worship Chaos, so it isn't like he cannot find allies or even followers who believe he is blessed by the gods.

After that? Not much. Super powerful necromancers aren't all that uncommon, not saying they are 'common', but beings capable of leading massive nation destroying undead armies isn't a one-off event. Not even talking about Nagash here, beings like Arkhan the Black, Drachenfels and Frederick van Hel (Whose hilarious solution to a skaven army was, 'You know what? I want dragons, lots of dragons, I think summoning 12 zombie dragons at once would be lawls worthy'. Van Hel's descendants all became Witch Hunters, amusingly enough. Nor are large ridiculously potent plagues. Lich King Arthas becomes yet another powerful force.

@wut: What about when he becomes the Lich King? Or even before that I can see him doing to Norsca what he did to Lordaeron, moving from village to village and graveyard to graveyard building his forces until he becomes the Lich King and gets a stat upgrade and begins making more Death Knights.

@wut: Valkia the Bloody? The totally not a Valkyrie?

@paragonnate: Doing that would be the worst thing he could do, tbh. When you start to burn down villages and raise them back as undead, the Norscans lash back. The Heart of Chaos trilogy was centered, well the second and third book was, because an Empire army went around murdering villages, so they gathered massive host of numerous villages and wiped them out. If he becomes really famous, he starts to attact the big boys in the north and that is notwhat Death Knight Arthas wants. Just going on his own, tbh, is the best way about it. Norscans aren't crazy, they have their own sense of honor and loyalties, and if you prove yourself a capable warrior, and they would believe Arthas to be blessed, they would willingly follow him into battle, and more to the point, doing it that way would not draw a lot of attention or force him to fight unneeded battles.

The last part is if he becomes the Lich King. He wouldn't be the first 'Necromancer who can raise an entire nation of undead at once!' Even Vlad did it when he raised all the dead in Sylvania (after a disease he started wiped out most of the people), granted he did it with a page of one of Nagash's tomes, (Vlad isn't a great necromancer, btw) but people like Van Hel did it on his own during the plague of the Skaven Wars. While he becomes important, he isn't something that hasn't been seen before. "Oh, a super powerful necromancer/lich who can raise legions of undead and spread diseases... never.. seen that before.. <.<.." Or "Oh, a super powerful wizard warrior in massive armor leading hordes down from the north... >.> Never seen that before..."

@paragonnate: Yes, there we go. Cormac (Or was it Kormac? Need to look it up again) is my favorite. Her little buddy she raised back from the dead because, out of all her followers, he was the only one to not betray her despite being a crippled boy who even fought off the daemonettes that tried to stop her with his dying breath.

Honestly Lich King Arthas should be comparable to Nagash during his Cripple Peak days

@wut: Can't tell anyone what happened if no one lives through it. But yeah ok. LK Arthas ruling Norsca like he does the Vrykul? New god of death/chosen of some death god. I can see how that would work. Would he be able to unify Norsca beneath him like Vlad did Sylvania?

@decaf_wizard: That would be on you to prove. A match for Sigmar-era Nagash, sure. Nagash Pre-Alcadizaar slaying? I doubt that very much. If he is that strong, you lied to me as that would make him beyond Tier X and not usable in the tournament.

If anything, Arthas would do something similar to the Norscans to what he did with the Vrykul. He would make them worship him and then occasionally "bless" them with his gifts.

Its worth noting that in terms of power, Kil'Jaden didnt directly want to face the Lich King in battle, and he destroyed both Tirion Fordragon and the players with but a wave of his hand when he got sick of their shit. That freaking says something. Powerful mages like Jaina Proudmore were only able to DELAY him for seconds with their most powerful spells.

@paragonnate: Someone always escapes, including raiders who come back to find their burned down village. Norsca would be hard to rule because, unlike Slyvania, Norscans are very violent and, by their very nature, cannot really unify easily. The people of Slyvania were so down trodden and their counts were so cruel and mean that Vlad, a psychotic vampire, was an improvement to the status quo. Probably could cut out a large section though and rule it (would be fun to watch the Chaos Gods react to him as well as how pissed Nagash is when he comes back during the End Times, dubbing himself the God of Death [after eating the God of Death] to find someone else calling himself that).

@decaf_wizard: And Teclis was said to be Nagash's equal, mind you, that was likely Nagash when he entered the Empire and not during his time before Alcadizaar. Mannfred, who had planned on using Nagash, upon seeing him (and a weakened Nagash since this was before he ate a god and he was summoned weakened because of the Curse of Aenarion) did this:

And flipped the table in rage because he realized just how large the gap between them was and that he was an 'ant' compared to him, and considering how egotistical he is, that is saying something.

So 'standing up or being measured against powerful mages' doesn't mean anything.

Well

I mean. Sigmar Era might be more accurate, now that I have the Rise of Nagash book open infront of me. If I am being honest Arthas is difficult to place due to the fact he doesn't have impressive combat feats outside his DK days and only implications of his true power at the upper end

Another good feat is that Alextrazia didn't want to fight him because she didn't want to put herself in a position where she could be resurrected

@wut: Death Knight Norscan raiders! Coming to a shoreline near you!

@decaf_wizard:Yeah, I would whole heartily agree with Sigmar-Era, Nagash was silly in those novels.

@paragonnate: The best part? I don't think the Empire would notice the difference. XD Large, powerful warriors in black plate raiding their shores.

@wut: Im 95% sure that Nagash just flat up went "nah, not dying now" a good two or three times in that novel

Now that I think about it actually, Im not even sure I know how you would go about killing Arthas without destroying frostmourne. I mean the guy just breathed the Forsaken New Plague and more or less was fine. He carved out his own heart and was OK. Hell, he even somehow survived being exposed to enormous amounts of Saronite for god knows how long

@wut: "My lord A black armored monstrosity just landed near one of your villages and wiped out dozens of peasants!"

"So?"

"My lord, this one was.....blue!"

@decaf_wizard: Yeah, he really did. They even changed his death from, 'Weakened enough for Al to beat' to 'was busy with his spell and it took everything Al did just to get close enough to shank him'. They massively bumped his power up.. for reasons. I did like the power 'debuff' to Sigmar in his novels, made him more.. human.

I kinda assume 'killing' his body would make him into a 'cursed' sword, be like a daemon sword in that it 'corrupts' and 'takes over' the mind of whomever picks it up. Would be rather neat concept.

Edit: @paragonnate Lol not even that would help:

Tzeentch chaps tend to be very blue.

@wut: Well the Lich King originally never had a body. At least not before merging with Arthas. He was just the helmet/armor and sword

Fun Fact. Its been confirmed by Devs trying to use Frostmourne or wear the Helm of Domination while there is an active Lich King would instantly die due to overflowing power unless they were some kind of immortal

@decaf_wizard: Mmm, that is rather neat. I meant more like.. his body was 'killed' in that it is rendered useless, so whomever then puts it on would become 'corrupted (as frostmourne noms souls), or the helm would just 'overpower' the person and take their body. I assume the Lich King would rather have an active body then be .. you know.. XD Back immobile. IIRC, making him so immobile was what Kil did to ensure he couldn't get too powerful to control.

@wut: *awkward stare down between a Death Knight and a Tzeentch champion*

"Well.....one of us is going to have to change."

@wut: Well the Lich King is virtually useless without something to contain his powers. Even when he was just the Armor/Helm/Sword he needed to be in an iceberg to actually have power. When Illidan put a big ol crack in the Frozen Throne, his power started leaking out and he lost control of a massive amount of his undead, the smarter of those becoming the Forsaken. Thats why he needed to merge with Arthas.

Thats why they couldn't leave him as a freaking helmet. The scourge wouldve had no control and rampaged across Azeroth

@paragonnate:

@decaf_wizard: Which is something I always liked about WoW undead. They weren't 'tied' to the summoner. Once they had that 'spark' they were always going.

The OG undead were like that. The Orc Dark Shamans used undead in the first war, but they were stupid and tied to the summoner. The Dreadlords refined the technique by binding part of the soul to the body. Arthas took this one step further by merging souls within one extremely powerful body and empowering/mutating bodies with Dark Magic

Just like how most people dont know there were three generations of Deathknights

@decaf_wizard: I was aware of the first one, the Orcs, did not know there was a second one. (I played both WC1 and 2 and didn't know there were three generations. XD)

Glad they did as the Forsaken were always my goto race when I played.

To quote an RP Guide (and add slightly)

• First Generation Death Knights were the spirits of Orc Warlocks - specifically the Shadow Council - placed within the corpses of fallen Stormwind Knights and made to use unholy magics during the First War by Gul'dan, and used in the Second War by Orgrim Doomhammer. Most of these have been destroyed. Their magic powers are entirely dependant on their weapons, however simply destroying their body does not kill them

• Second Generation Death Knights are primarily fallen and corrupted Paladins. Arthas himself was one of these before he became the Lich King. They are bound to their specific runeweapon and must feed on souls. Take away their runeweapon and they are next to powerless. Glorified Undead Warriors

• Third Generation Death Knights (and presumably all generations after) are the most versatile, able to pick up and use any weapon off the battlefield. They are, obviously, more proficient with the weapon if they runeforge it, which must be done personally at a Runeforge. They are required to feed off suffering and pain, or they will turn feral and possibly even die. Other than that, they are exactly the same as Second Generation Deathknights

@decaf_wizard: Ah, I see. Yeah, I only knew about the first two. That is neat.

@wut: So, say Arthas carves out his own kingdom in Norsca. How does that affect the powers that are already there? Would Throgg bother getting involved? Wulfrik? And once Arthas gets dug in, what do you think it would take to dislodge him?

@paragonnate: Wulfrik, before going all hunter, stuck to his own village and his 'wife'. After some stuff happened, he stopped caring about Norsca, he just wanders and fights whomever the gods pick. Throgg keeps to Kislev and Troll Country, he doesn't care about Norsca.

Empire wouldn't care about what happens in Norsca so long as it didn't negatively effected them, same as the Bretts. As long as Arthas doesn't anger the Chaos Gods too much, odds are they will find him hilarious (most chaos warriors come from the Chaos Waste, not Norsca, Norsca is very, very small compared to the other tribes) and throw champions at him to see what happens.

@wut: What if the Chaos Gods send Wulfrik after Arthas?

@paragonnate: Wulfrik dies. He lost to Valten. (Valten vs Death Knight Arthas would be fun though since Valten has the armor of heldenhammer which protected Sigmar against Sigmar-Era Nagash death magic).

@wut: Should be interesting if he bumps into vampires, or the vampires try to muck around with this new group of undead once they learn about something new going on.

@paragonnate: Lol tbh, Vampires aren't a unified faction. The most unified one are the Lahmians, and they aren't very warlike, they'd probably try to buddy up with the newest undead pal on the block. Most of them are just random vampires doing their own things. (Kislev even had a Vampire Ice Queen once.)

Arthas had the equivalent of Vampires. He would know the rough equivalent of what they are

They on the other hand have never dealt with something like Arthas besides Nagash, and their magic isn't anywhere near similar. And even then the Vamps have always been unable to deal with the weakest incarnations of the bugger

He does alright he becomes a regular chaos lord at best imo

@decaf_wizard: I wouldn't say so. Abhorash is far beyond any counterpart he has in Warcraft, and the Warcraft 'vampires' are rather laughably weak compared to their Warhammer siblings.

To be straight, Arthas is.. pretty much just Drachenfels. An 'unkillable' massively powerful necromancer.

@wut: I mean, Warcraft doesn't really have vampires. At least not 'undead people that drink blood'. It has things that drain life force and energy but that's not exactly the same as Warhammer vampires.

@paragonnate: Yeah, the weird blood elves guys. Tis why I said 'vampires'.

Meh. Sure there are no Manfreds or Abhorashes. But Blood Queen Lana'thel was implied to be very powerful though, and I am rather sure she bites people, but other than that your right. Also Abhorash is awesome

You know if anything, Abhorash would likely respect Arthas, who was said to have unparalleled skill with a blade. Even as a DK he stalemated Illidan Stormrage in such a competition and defeated Anastarian Sunstrider who was thousands and thousands of years old

Drachenfels hasn't been impressive sense the 90's, and has played second fiddle to Nagash for the longest time now. He wouldn't compare to Arthas power wise. Also Arthas isn't rotting looser who has to make himself look normal with magic

@decaf_wizard:

That's only because Abhorash is probably the greatest 'nice guy' to ever exist. XD A total bro. Respects anyone that is a good warrior, eh, I mean, 'unparalleled' with the people he fought, and his fight with Illidan, IIRC, from the novel, he was losing and it was only because Illidan got arrogant that he lost.

Drachenfels was pretty impressive in the End Times as the 'Nameless'.

That was the Northrend fight. In Kaldimor they stalemated before both of them got massive buffs

@decaf_wizard: Yeah, I thought we were speaking of their fight at their peaks.

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I think Wut basically summed it all up.

arthas clears pretty easily, with shadowlands he is pretty much an eternal entity that can send everyones souls directly to the afterlife in the maw, while they cannot do anything to him cause he is immaterial, but even as death knight he was already massively too powerful and every enemies he defeated turned into the undead for the scourge