Revenant

Version 0.33: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Revenant (monster).

Revenants are skeletal undead, created when an individual dies to violent magic without being mourned or remembered. They rise with fragmentary recollections of their former life and an all-consuming hunger to claw back that existence which the world forgot. So powerful is this drive which animates them that they can they can actually rip the very existence from others, tearing fragments of souls and memories and even the fundamental essence of inanimate objects and turning them into fuel for the unholy fire that forever flickers upon their form. Their nature makes them uniquely skilled at wielding destructive magic; while their reserves of magical energy are poor and their aptitudes unremarkable (aside from an affinity for ice, earth, and necromantic magic), they can channel damage-dealing spells through their claws, allowing them to perform melee attacks at the same time as they cast spells. They can even burn away the memories they have collected to briefly empower their magic and allow them to cast unhindered by armour. Beyond this, they are sturdy and skilled at using their claws in unarmed combat, and possess the same immunity to poison, negative energy, and torment that all undead share, as well as a resistance to cold.

Innate Abilities

• Revenants are undead and have the following innate traits:
  • Cold Resistance 1: Revenants are resistant to cold.
  • Life Protection 3: Revenants are resistant to negative energy.
  • Poison Immunity: Revenants are immune to poison.
  • Torment Immunity: Revenants cannot be tormented.
  • Revenants cannot gain mutations, use talismans, or be polymorphed. When mutated, they temporarily lose max HP instead.
  • Revenants are unbreathing, cannot be put to sleep, cannot go berserk, and do not have blood.
  • Revenants are vulnerable to Dispel Undead, holy damage, and holy wrath-branded weapons. They may not worship the good gods (The Shining One, Zin, or Elyvilon). The holy wrath brand will not function on weapons they wield.
  • Revenants cannot use the spells Borgnjor's Revivification, Death's Door, or Sublimation of Blood.
• Revenants are vulnerable to Lee's Rapid Deconstruction and Shatter.
• Claws 1: Revenants have claws on their hands. They receive a +2 damage bonus to Unarmed Combat, if they are not wearing gloves.
• Low MP 2: Revenants have 20% less MP than other species.
• Spellclaws: Revenants perform an instant melee attack against the highest-health enemy in range whenever they cast a damage-dealing spell.
• Revenants gain memories from monsters they kill, and can use these memories to boost their spellcasting through their active Enkindle ability upon reaching XL 3 (see below).

Revenants have a base Strength of 11, Intelligence of 7, and Dexterity of 4 (before Background modifiers). They have +1 base magic points, however this is affected by their Low Magic mutation.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Gladiator, Monk
• Mages: Necromancer, Ice Elementalist, Earth Elementalist

Revenants are prohibited from becoming Shapeshifters.

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength or intelligence every 5th level.
• 10% more HP than average.
• +3 willpower per level.
• Upon reaching XL 3, they gain the Enkindle ability: for several turns, any damage-dealing spells the player casts will have increased power and success chance, cost 0 MP, be unaffected by armour encumbrance, and heal the player for a portion of any damage dealt. Each empowered spell costs a memory, and all memories are lost when the status ends regardless of whether they have been used. The ability has an experience-based cooldown.(Granted by the Mnemophage mutation.)
  • They also gain one random damage-dealing level 1 spell as well as a memory upon reaching XL 3 for use with this ability.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Revenants start with the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

Revenants are a durable species with undead resistances. In particular, poison immunity helps early, while torment immunity is great in extended. With Claws and a high Unarmed Combat aptitude, they make good unarmed fighters, even without access to talismans. They can also be played as casters, despite the low MP, with good aptitudes in a few schools and passible (-1) aptitudes in most others.

However, Revenants really shine when combining melee with direct-damage spells, as their Spellclaws allow them to do both at the same time. Enkindle is a really strong ability, as it allows a Revenant to cast spells that are otherwise offline without paying MP.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	1	Armour	-1	Spellcasting	-1
		Dodging	-1
Maces & Flails	-1	Shields	-1	Conjurations	-1
Axes	-1	Stealth	2	Hexes	-2
Polearms	-1			Summonings	-1
Staves	-1	Invocations	1	Necromancy	0
Unarmed Combat	1	Evocations	-1	Forgecraft	-2
Throwing	-1	Shapeshifting	N/A	Translocations	-1
				Alchemy	-1
Short Blades	-1			Fire Magic	-2
Long Blades	-1			Ice Magic	1
Ranged Weapons	-3			Air Magic	-2
		Experience	-1	Earth Magic	1

Strategy

Even if the character is primarily focused into melee/magic, it can be worth it to invest into the other side. For heavy melee characters, damage spells can be treated like evocables that can be activated with Enkindled. For magic characters, Spellclaws is just a free attack against adjacent enemies, especially if you're already using range-1 spells like Irradiate; putting a few levels into melee doesn't cost much XP.

Tips & Tricks

• Since the melee attack from Spellclaws doesn't take any time, the heavy brand is especially strong for them. You can also wield large weapons like executioner's axes at 0 skill.

History

• Revenants were added in 0.33 to replace Ghouls.