Hellknight (Basic Lore)

Hellknight (CR 30)
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 Hellknight is one of the Darkling Lords of Undeath, but they are not commonly of the high nobility. Lesser skeletons are often mindless, regardless of how mighty they are, and stronger skeletons are ridden by their murderous spirits, but have no memory of their fleshly existence. Deathknights are haunted by the memory of their former lives, but the fiend inhabiting them is in full control, leading to delicious levels of suffering, when a good soul is bound to the torment of their evil urges. A Hellknight is far mightier than even a Deathknight, because they are of the Lords of Death. Like Liches, Hellknights are almost always willingly drawn into the Embrace of the Empty, and they fully recall their former lives, but instead of being bound to Evil, like the hapless ranks of the Deathknights, Hellknights REVEL in their new-found evil. Of course, since they are emptied this revelry is muted and dminished, but make no mistake, no matter how somber a Hellknight appears, the fiendish thing CHOSE this state of existence, either explicitly, or by their actions in life. As a result, Hellknights completely embrace the powers of Unlife, and express the powers of their murderous spirit in full. Facing a Hellknight, or heavens forbid a troop of the dark things, is a trial of terrible difficulty. Only the greatest heroes should answer this call, and be ready to face a gauntlet of darkness and horror doing so. Hellknights leave only silence in their wake.