Know Your Rogue Lore: The Deathstalkers

No rogue faction has been more impacted by the lore of Wrath of the Lich King than the one we are going to discuss today. (Yes, I would say that the impact on them is even greater than the impact on SI:7 and the Stormwind Assassins with the return of their king.)

The Deathstalkers (also known as the Darkstalkers) are the assassin's guild for the Forsaken. However their primary function until after the Battle for the Undercity was to serve as elite guards for Varimathras, as well as performing a role similar to that of the Shattered Hand or SI:7 but with Varimathras directing their steps.

These Rogues are some of the most highly trained and dangerous in all of Azeroth. I truly believe that one of the reasons you see SO MANY of the fan based videos about rogues featuring the Forsaken is because of the very thing that makes this group rightfully considered the most deadly of ALL rogue assassin organizations. Not only are their skills unparalleled due to two lifetimes of experience, but because they are undead they have no need for such mundane considerations as eating, drinking, resting, or even to breath air. This allows them to pursue their goals without interruption. As former scourge who have won their freedom their individual willpower is almost unmatched.

Unlike the Shattered Hand, which is fairly unknown to all but rogues, the average Horde player WILL hear about the Deathstalkers. Like the Alliance with SI:7 non rogue players are able to obtain some quests which deal with this particular group at several different levels. Most notably the one that sends players into Shadowfang keep. However as the majority of these quests deal with entering dungeons or facing elites it is easy for others to miss them if they are not working on their Loremaster achievement.

A number of the quests dealing with this particular group are Forsaken Rogue ONLY as they deal specifically with JOINING the Deathstalkers and this is a undead only organization. If some how you missed doing this chain while leveling and decided to go back later (say to work on your Loremaster) there was one glaring issue. After the events of the Battle for the Undercity Varimathras is no longer there. So with the introduction of patch 3.3 Blizzard will be introducing a fix that will allow individuals to turn all of the old Varimathras quests into Bragor Bloodfist.

With Varimathras proven to be a traitor to the Forsaken and out of the picture, the fate of the Deathstalkers is left hanging. Many question where their ultimate loyalty lay as well. Do they support Sylvanas, the Horde or are they just biding their time with some other goal in mind? This line of thinking comes purely from speculation on the origination of the Deathstalkers themselves.

Some feel that the ORIGINAL Deathstalkers are the remnants of the thieves and assassins once lead by Blackthorn. If this is the case then they certainly would have no love for Sylvanas herself and their dedication to Varimathras would take on a whole new level of meaning. Again this is all purely speculation as no one knows for certain what became of Blackthorn after WarCraft 3 and he and his troops are not mentioned anywhere in the current game.

For now once players leave the old world they fall into the realm of legend. How they will be effected with the changes in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion will be very interesting to see.