Lord Soth

Lord Soth, the Knight of the Black Rose (full name: Lord Loren Soth of Dargaard Keep), is a fictional character in the fantasy realms of Dragonlance and later Ravenloft. He is adeath knight and fallen Knight of Solamnia from the world of Krynn.

According to Tracy Hickman, he needed a powerful character for the Heroes of the Lance to fight at the High Clerist's Tower, and Lord Soth suddenly came into his mind with a complete history and personality. The popularity of Lord Soth as a character has defined what a Death Knight means to the writers of the Dungeons & Dragons game over the years.[1] Soth was also named as one of the greatest villains in D&D history in the final print issue of Dragon

Soth began his career as a Solamnic Knight as a squire in the service of Holger Windsound. He went on many adventures, battling creatures of evil and slaying them in the name of the Knights of Solamnia. Soth became a formidable fighter and rose throught he ranks as a Knight of the Sword. To prove himself in order to become a Knight of the Rose, Soth led a mission into the Empire of Ergoth to rescue two knights who had been captured by Ogres, escorted religious pilgrims to Istar, saved a small boy from a burning cottage and successfully defended the honor of Lady Wandra when a former suitor cast doubt on her chastity. These deeds earned Soth an elevated rank as a Knight of the Rose. The following year, Soth and his fellow loyal knights were travelling to Palanthas to join the annual meeting of the Knights of Solamnia, when they came upon a party of Silvanesti elves being attacked by ogres. Soth and his knights slaughtered the ogres and saved the elven party. Among them was an elfmaiden by the name os Isolde Denissa, and Soth was smitten with her as soon as he laid eyes on her. He took her back with him to Dargaard Keep so that her injures could be healed.

Soth had soon begun cheating on his wife with Isolde. Their affair continued, even when Soth's wife, Korinne, became pregnant through magical means. Matters become more complicated when Isolde herself became pregnant, just a month before Soth and Korinne's child was to be born. When the child was born, it was deformed by magic and Soth, blaming his wife for their son's appearance, murdered both his child and his wife, claiming that they had both died in childbirth. Six months later, he married Isolde.

The following year, Isolde gave birth to a baby boy, named after Soth's great-great-grandfather, Peradur Soth. One month later, Soth was summoned to Palanthas by the High Justice, where a panel of Knights charged and found him guilty of the murder of his first wife. Soth was sentenced to death, but was rescued from public beheading by a group of his loyal knights, and fled with them to Dargaard Keep. Not wishing to attack the fortress, the Knights banished Soth to Knightlund, where his keep was located.

Confined in his realm, lest the Knights kill him, Soth fell into a deep depression. Concerned about her husband, Isolde prayed to the goddess Mishakal to save her husband. The goddes charged Isolde to tell her husband about the coming cataclysm and to tell Soth to travel to Istar to prevent the Kingpriest from calling down the gods' wrath.

After contemplating Mishakal's message, Soth agreed to undertake the quest. With three of his most loyal knights, Soth set off for Istar to stop the Kingpriest. While on the road however, Soth encountered the same group of elves that had been traveling with Isolde when he first met her. The elven maidens told Soth that Isolde had been unfaithful and that their child wasn't his. Furious, Soth killed the elves and deserted his quest, riding back to Dargaard Keep with murder in his heart.

Upon returning to the keep, Soth found Isolde holding their newborn son, and confronted her with what the elven maidens had told him. While they argued in the great hall, the Cataclysm that Soth could have stoped struck Krynn, causing a chandelier to fall from the ceiling, crushing Isolde and Peradur. Trapped and dying underneath the chandelier, Isolde had managed to save their son and tried to give him to Soth. The proud Soth refused however, condemning them both to death. With her dying breath, Isolde called down a terrible curse on Soth, declaring that he would "live one life for every life lost" as a result of the Cataclysm.

Loren Soth died in the flames of the burning Dargaard Keep, but Isolde's curse was heard by the gods, and when Soth awoke he found that his flesh was burned and falling off with each step he moved, until all that remained was a skeleton covered in the charred, black armor of a Knight of the Rose, with burning orange eyes. His most loyal followers, Caradoc, Colm Farold, Darin Valcic, Derik Grimscribe, Kris Krejlgaard, Meyer Seril, Wersten Kern, and Zander Vingus also rose from their deaths, condemned to serve their lord in death as skeletal warriors. Furthermore, the elf maidens who had poisoned Soth's mind with their lies were sent back as banshees, condemned to sing the song of his terrible deeds every night, to remind him of the destruction he allowed to happen because of his jealousy and rage.

fter silently suffering for hundreds of years in his ruined caslte, Lord Soth was approached by the Dark Goddess QueenTakhisis. Seeing the great advantage that Soth and his skeletal horde would provide her in the coming war, she attempted to recruit him. Soth initially refused, but agreed to serve the Highlord who dared spend a night in his caslte. Takhisis began sending dreams to her Highlords, calling them to spend the night at Dargaard Keep. Only the Blue Highlord Kitiara Uth Matar answered the call, and after passing Soth's tests, Soth pledged his allegiance to her and allowed her to make Dargaard Keep one of her bases of operation.

After the fall of Kalaman to the Whitestone Forces, Soth assisted in the kidnapping of the General Laurana, whom Kitiara wanted to use as a pawn for the Dark Queen. In return for his part in the plot, he was promised Laurana's soul. Laurana was rescued from Neraka during the fall of the Dark Queens Temple by her lover, Tanis Half-Elven however, and Soth assisted Kitiara in murdering all the remaining Highlords, allowing her full control over the remaining Dragonarmies.

Still serving Kitiara, Soth convinced her to invade Palanthas. In order to thwart her half-brother Raistlin Majere's plans to enter the abyss and become a god, Kitara ordered Soth to murder the priestess Crysania. Although Soth used his powerful magic to kill her, Crysania was saved by her god, Paladine, and instead fell into a deep coma. Unbeknownst to Kitara, Soth had fallen in love with her, and wanted her to share eternity with him, planning to take her soul after she died. Kitiara and her army invaded Palanthas, an invasion which coincided with Raistlin's re-entry into Krynn from the

Abyss. Soth was part of the assault force, leading his skeletal warriros and elven banshees. They tore their way into the city, Soth destroying the gates with a single word, and slaughtered everything in their path until Soth arrived at the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas, there finding Kitiara dying from a lightning bolt cast by her former lover Dalamar the Dark. Soth arrived to claim Kitiara's soul, but Kitiara pleaded with her former lover, Tanis Half-Elven not to let him take her. Soth was initially unable to claim Kitiara, since her soul was protected by Tanis' love for her, but Tanis finally let go of his feelings for her, and Soth carried off the body of the only woman he considered his equal.

After the Chaos War, Takhisis stole the world and moved it to another place in the Universe, cloaking it from the eyes of the other gods. Soth found himself moved along, now alone without his skeletal warriors and banshees, and trapped in Nightlund. On behalf of the One God (who was infact, Takhisis herself), the warrior woman Mina approached Soth with an offer. In the name of Takhisis, Mina had amassed a vast army of both the living and the dead. Mina was to lead the living, and she offered Soth the command over the undead. Soth refused Mina's entreaties, having finally had time on his own to reflect on his terrible deeds and having accepted responsibility and regret for what he had done. Infuriated by his refusal, Takhisis attempted to coerce him by once again turning him into a human and igniting Dargaard Keep, threatning to kill him. Unbeknownst to the Queen, she had infact given Soth one last gift by giving him his human form again. Soth died in the flames and relished to once again feel pain, and vowed with his dying breath that he would find Isolde and Peradur in the afterlife and make up for what he had done to them.