Revenant (Template)

A Revenant

Revenants are undead avengers who have returned from the grave to track down and kill their murderers. They exist only for revenge against their killers and any who aided them.

A revenant looks like a decaying and ravaged version of the murdered person at the time of his or her death. Its skin is drawn tightly against the bones, and its clammy flesh may sport open wounds. Its eyes seem lifeless until it faces its killer, then they blaze with unnatural light. Revenants sometimes spontaneously form even from victims whose bodies were completely destroyed, indicating that the magic that brings revenants to life can also reform their bodies. Such a revenant lacks any magic items that were left with its original body.

A revenant possesses most of the abilities it had in life, including weapon use and magical abilities. Its alignment changes to neutral, which can prevent the use of class abilities for certain character classes. Revenants who were formerly arcane spellcasters do not keep their familiars after becoming revenants. Clerics and paladins who had positive energy powers instead become users of negative energy. Instead of turning undead, such a character can rebuke undead, and instead of spontaneously casting cure spells, he or she can spontaneously cast inflict spells. A cleric can still pray for spells from his or her deity, though all such prayer must now occur at midnight. Revenant wizards may have difficulty accessing their spellbooks, but revenant sorcerers have no such problems. Revenants can speak all their original languages, though they seldom converse.

A revenant ordinarily ignores anyone who was not involved in its death, unless such a creature is guarding the guilty party. Though a revenant may desire revenge against accomplices to the deed, it tends to make that goal secondary to its primary mission.

A revenant that has completed its mission of revenge crumbles on the spot, and its spirit moves on to its next destination. A revenant that cannot accomplish its mission decays slowly. About six months after its creation, it can no longer hold itself together, so it crumbles into dust. The spirit departs, having failed in its quest. The minor artifact known as the claw of the revenancer (detailed in the next section) allows its wearer to create revenants to serve him or her. These revenants’ desire to hunt down their killers is overwhelmed by their requirement to serve the wearer of the claw. They rarely have the opportunity to use their special attacks or their ability to find the guilty, but they still make powerful undead servants — particularly when they are created from the bodies of powerful characters

## Creating a Revenant

Revenant is a template that can be added to any humanoid creature type (referred to hereafter as the base creature). The creature’s type changes to undead. It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

**Hit Dice:** All the base creature’s Hit Dice become d12s.

**Special Attacks:** A revenant retains all the special attacks of the base creature and also gains the abilities described below.

* ***Vengeful Strike (Ex):*** Any melee attack the revenant makes against its killer inflicts an additional +1d10 points of damage.
* ***Paralyzing Glare (Ex):*** The first time a revenant confronts its killer, the latter must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the revenant’s Hit Dice and/or levels + the revenant’s Charisma modifier) or be paralyzed for 2d4 rounds.

**Special Qualities:** A revenant retains all the special qualities of the base creature and also gains undead traits and those listed below.

* ***Damage Reduction (Su):*** A revenant has DR 5/+1.
* ***Turning Immunity (Ex):*** A revenant cannot be turned or rebuked by clerics or paladins.
* ***Fast Healing (Ex):*** A revenant regains lost hit points at the rate of 3 per round, as long as it has at least 1 hit point. Fast healing does not restore hit points lost from starvation, thirst, or suffocation, and it does not allow the revenant to regrow or reattach lost body parts, except for damage dealt by fire.
* ***Immunities (Ex):*** Revenants are immune to acid, gas, cold, electricity, and polymorph.
* ***Find the Guilty (Ex):*** So long as a revenant and its killer are on the same plane of existence, the revenant knows in which direction its killer can be found and how far away he or she is. Depending on the magical abilities of the base creature, this extraordinary sense may even be made to work across planar boundaries.
* ***Undead Traits:*** A revenant is immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromantic effects, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save unless it also works on objects. It is not subject to critical hits, subdual damage, ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, or death from massive damage. A revenant cannot be raised, and resurrection works only if it is willing. The creature has darkvision (60-foot range).

**Abilities:** A revenant gains +4 to its Strength and +2 to its Charisma, but it has no Constitution score since it is undead.

 **Advancement** | —