*clattering sounds*

If anyone is interested in my NADDPod ramblings that are more of a DMs/analytical look at the podcast , I’m maybe going to make some posts about it - I don’t know how much of this will be useful, cause maybe a lot of this was revealed on Patreon or is already available at NADDPod wiki, but I’m gonna do it anyway! probably this just will be a singular post, but who knows?

I don’t know if this is interesting for anyone as maybe they’ve released Akarots stats on Patreon, so don’t @ me 😛 if this is pointless, cause i don’t have access to Monster Of The Month thingy :)

I’m sure that Murph used flavoured death knight from The Monster Manual to represent Akarot, probably with some changes.

But otherwise I’m pretty sure about it, cause he said “death knight” to describe him, his actions* in Mage Madness fit and Murph had stated in Short Rest that Akarot challenge rating was 17 and that fits death knight’s CR.

*Parry, Hellfire Orb, banishment, staggering smite, destructive wave, searing smite, he is resistant to necrotic damage;

Murph has likely made some changes, like

giving Akarot legendary actions

making him able to make hollow bodies (although it’s not so much of a change, cause MM says that “death knight (...) attracts and commands lesser undead”)

making him more devil/infernal(?), as he is a prince of hell; although Death Knight also fits Akarots backstory, cause Ilsed was and is a necromancer (so Death Knight being undead fits) and some death knights might “serve powerful fiends”

he either made Akarot more powerful than aregular death knight, or made the other knights that fought with him during the wizard tournament weaker; I don’t even know if BoB and the royal Gladeholm team would be able to take on three CR 17 monsters after three other encounters and a fight with the goat fiend, so I suppose Murph made the other knights weaker HP-wise or he took away some of the more powerful spells from them

theoretically, death knights are chaotic evil, but I’d say that Akarot was either lawful evil or maybe neutral evil; although, I think that set alignments are more of a suggestion, so I’m not surprised that this was changed; after all, it was death knight that was changed to be Akarot, not the other way around

Akarot was resistant to necrotic damage, meaning that probably really was undead (like a regular death knight); and if that isn’t just flavour or just a statistic thing, it makes it quite interesting, seeing as he was Ilseds son.

Ilsed was a high elf and now we know he doesn’t have a divine heart and spend a lot of time in hell, so he had probably transformed into a fiend, but still in a way bound to mortality. Akarot is at least part elf, even if hell and arcane experimentation took toll on him, making him a devil or fiend, just as it may have changed his father.

Ilsed was a necromancer and that fits into the undead-Akarot thing, but this poses interesting questions: was Akarot born undead? Is Ilsed undead then? Or is Akarot some kind of fiend undead? Was his mother undead or a fiend or both? Or is him being undead a result of being a son of a powerful necromancer that is also a fiend? Or was Alarot killed and brought back in the past?

I think that by giving Akarot legendary actions his CR increased, making him even tougher than 17 CR;

[ I also don’t know if Murph gives his monsters short rests and hit dice - if not, Akarot had already been very hurt by the time they began the final encounter with him. It also might be likely that Murph has given Akarot more hit points to make him stronger. ]

And obviously, the death knight lore is not important here, as Akarot probably wasn’t a real paladin at any moment in his life.

[ image used in this post is provided as a commentary; i do not own it, it is a property of Wizards Of The Coast