Revenant
Born Out of Vengeance
Having met a cruel and undeserved end, your soul was ripped from your body before your spirit was willing. You have returned to the realm of the living, but as a vengeful shell of your former self. As a revenant, you thirst for revenge against those who wronged you in life, and seek to complete a final, critical task you left unfinished.
The revenant race can give some interesting color to an NPC, or even provide a player with a way to continue a beloved character that perhaps met an untimely end. Because of the undead nature of this race, it may be difficult for a player character to play a revenant on a long-term basis, but it can be done.
Risen for Revenge
When a revenant returns from death, it reclaims its mortal body and superficially resembles a zombie; while not as decayed as a true zombie, their skin and pallor is far from alive. Additionally, instead of lifeless eyes, a revenant's eyes burn with resolve and flare in the presence of its adversary. If the revenant's original body was destroyed or is otherwise unavailable, the spirit of the revenant enters another humanoid corpse. Regardless of the body the revenant uses as a vessel, its adversary always recognizes the revenant for what it truly is.
Revenant Traits
Most of your basic racial traits, such as Size, Speed, Alignment, and Languages, are the same as your race before you died. However, your undead nature grants you some additional traits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1, but your Charisma score decreases by 2.
Age. As a revenant, you no longer age. Your body will continue to decay over time, however, and if your vengeance is not satisfied, your appearance will become more and more like a zombie. After a year, your Charisma and Constitution scores will decrease by 2, and by an additional 1 point every six months after that, until reaching a minimum score of 3.
Appearance. Your undead nature is easily apparent to anyone looking at you, unless you are trying to disguise yourself. You have disadvantage on Deception (Wisdom) checks when trying to hide your physical appearance. When not trying to disguise your nature, you have advantage on Intimidation (Charisma) checks.
Relentless Nature. As a revenant, you now exist only for revenge. You are driven to fulfill your vengeful desires by any means necessary; you will destroy your adversary at all costs, and if too powerful to destroy on your own, you will seek worthy allies to help you fulfill your quest. Towards this end, you gain some additional benefits:
- If you are below half your hit point maximum at the start of your turn, you regain 1 hit point. As a result, you do not need to roll death saving throws. The only way you can die is by taking massive damage.
- If you die, you return to undeath 24 hours later. If your body is destroyed, you reform within 1 mile of the place of your death at a spot determined by the DM. If your equipment was also destroyed, you do not regain it.
- You have advantage on any ability checks related to your attempts at recruiting others to help you in your cause.
- When your goal is complete, your spirit can finally find rest. You die irrevocably and cannot be restored to life by anything less than a wish spell.
Remnants of Life. You have advantage against turning and other anti-undead effects. Additionally, if something affects both living and undead creatures, make a Wisdom or Charisma saving throw (your choice) against the effect's DC; if you succeed, you may choose whether it affects you as living or undead. (On a failure, it affects you as the caster intended.)
Sense of Vengeance. You know the distance and direction between you and any creature involved in your goal, such as an entity you seek vengeance against or someone you pledged to defend. This awareness fails if the creature is on another plane of existence.
Undead Nature. You do not need to eat, drink, or breathe, although you often do out of habit. When you sleep, you only need to sleep 4 hours for a full rest. You do not dream in this state; you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.
Undead Resistance and Vulnerability. You have resistance to poison, necrotic, cold and lightning damage, but you have vulnerability to fire
and radiant damage.
