Deathknight Armsman (Basic Lore)

Deathknight Armsman (CR 17)
Lawful Evil - Medium - Undead (Skeleton)
Through dark necromantic power, a corpse can be transformed into a skeleton, shedding its flesh and becoming inhabited by the captured soul of a fallen warrior. Skeletons are nearly always mindless, but surprisingly, this is rarely much of a disadvantage for them. The warrior spirit inhabiting the body moves by reflex, demonstrating an ingrained martial prowess that makes skeletons notoriously effective combatants. Skeletons are motivated by an intense hatred and jealously towards living things. They yearn only to crush that spark of life from everything they can reach. A Deathknight is a truly potent skeleton, and is nearly always sentient, even if it is not a mental giant of the acuity of a Lich. That said, unlike lesser skeletons that are cored-out things driven only by the deadly murderous warrior spirit that animates it, a Deathknight always has some recollection of the person whose bony frame it now animates. Depending upon the Deathknight, this recollection may be dim or keen, and indeed, some Deathknights are basically the same person they once were, only animated with an unending, atrocious desire to destroy the living. If a Deathknight is formed from a person who had living family, the resulting monstrosity is a rare delicacy of suffering, as the new monster both loves their family...and exists only to murder them horribly. Such a rare and awful state is surely a delight to the worst sorts of Demons, Devils, and Gods. Deathknights who only dimly recall the person they once were are basically vastly powerful and dangerous Skeletons, as dangerous as all that breed with the additional unholy powers of the Deathknight, the Dark Breath, the Nighted Strike, and of course the Deathless Blade. Deathknights who are full copies of who they once were, only with the unholy desire for murder of all life grafted on? Such dark, woeful creatures are the source of many a shivering tale indeed...