Acherus: The Ebon Hold is one of two new major cities in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. It is designed to be the Death Knight capital city. It was once the floating necropolis that the scourge was using to attack New Avalon (east of Tyr’s Hand) but was retaken by Darion Mograine and a handful of Death Knights. It is phased multiple times (the new phasing system in Wrath of the Lich King can instance main world areas) from when the Death Knight first starts (with Arthas on top), again after the final push on New Avalon and Light’s Hope Chapel (with everyone moving outside), and one last time to host a fight between a group of Death Knights and Patchwerk, an abomination. In its final form it serves as one of the major cities in World of Warcraft.

Ebon Hold is much like Moonglade in that it only provides services that are related to Death Knights. However, Ebon Hold does it one better by not allowing entrance to anyone who is not a Death Knight. The flight point doesn’t show up for non-Death Knights and the portal below Ebon Hold doesn’t work unless you’re a Death Knight as well.

Death Knights are given a spell called “Death Gate” with a 1 minute cooldown spell to return them there, can utilize a portal below it, and can even take a flight path that is connected directly to Light’s Hope Chapel. Once inside there is one portal that connects the upper floor (trainers) to the bottom floor (runeforges).

Another benefit Death Knights get is that during the previously phased copies of Ebon Hold there is a quest that will grant greatly increased movement speed through Ebon Hold.

Ebon Hold is a full out sanctuary. This is to allow Death Knights of both factions on PvP servers to easily utilize the Runeforges and trainers in order to train and change their weapon enchants.

There is a reagent vendor along with various food vendors inside. The reagent vendor sells Corpse Dust, one of the major reagents needed by Death Knights. The food vendor sells food and drink up to the level 80 slot. There are no other vendors of major interest.

The actual city is split into two levels connected by a portal. On the top floor sits three trainers that are connected to the Frost, Fire, and Unholy trees. They all train the same thing though. On the bottom floor sits the Runeforge for Runeforging and practice dummies that can’t die (but can be melee’d for fun).

That’s about it for the city. There is not a whole lot of interest for anyone except Death Knights and it plays more of an overall role in the quest lines that Death Knights go through in order to leave into the “real” world. The only thing that you’ll need to remember about the city is that trainers are on the top floor while the runeforges are on the lower floor. That’s about it.

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