Revenant

Revenants are warriors who have met death and chosen to return. When a warrior falls in battle, some refuse to let go - their will is too strong, their purpose unfinished. Through sheer defiance or dark circumstance, they claw their way back from the threshold, forever changed by what they experienced on the other side. They now exist in a state between the living and the dead. Their skin carries an unnatural pallor, their eyes sometimes glow with a faint, cold light, and the air around them feels heavy, as though the grave follows wherever they go.

Necrotic Power

Unlike necromancers who command the dead from a distance, Revenants channel death energy through their own bodies. They fight with conventional weapons - the longsword is traditional, a holdover from their former life as warriors - but their strikes carry the chill of the grave. This necrotic energy saps the life from their enemies, and some Revenants learn to drain that stolen vitality into themselves, healing wounds that should have killed them twice over. When wounded, they grow more dangerous rather than weaker, drawing power from their proximity to death. The closer a Revenant stands to the threshold, the brighter the dark fire burns.

Their abilities reflect this unnatural relationship with mortality. A Revenant can mark a target for death, refuse to fall when struck down, speak with the recently deceased, and sense the presence of undead and necromantic activity. Some develop an aura of dread so powerful that enemies falter in their presence, while others learn to seize an opponent in a grip that channels death energy directly through contact. These are not spells - they cost the Revenant nothing in arcana. Instead, each use draws on their remaining will, measured in Weakened points, as though the boundary between life and death demands a toll for every crossing.

Place in the World

Revenants are feared and mistrusted in most civilised lands. The Temple of the Eternal Flame considers them abominations - mockeries of the natural order that Taninsam's fire was meant to uphold. Even the more tolerant communities of Aedelore regard them with unease. They tend to gravitate toward the borderlands near Castle Black, the Void-touched wastes, and the company of other outcasts. Some find common cause with the Wardens, who care less about what a person is and more about whether they can hold the line.

Some Revenants fight against the Void with the very power it gave them, turning death against death. Others embrace the darkness fully, becoming the monsters that others fear. Their Worthiness begins at zero - they must earn their place in the world through deeds, for neither the light nor the dark claims them by default. Among the orcs and trolls, a Revenant is sometimes regarded with grudging respect rather than horror - a warrior too stubborn to stay dead is, after all, a warrior worth having at your side.