Revenant
Revenants are ghosts that have been infused with strange alien energies and brought partially back into the mortal plane in areas filled with death. They are invisible to the naked eye but can still be influenced by magical or holy means. In addition, machinery may recognize a revenant's presence. Revenants are typically immortal while invisible, but most of their spooky abilities will reveal them to the crew for brief amounts of time.
Becoming a Revenant
There are two ways to become a revenant. The first is for an admin to spawn in a revenant and quickly place you into the mob. The second way is for a random event to happen. You must have the Revenant preference toggled on (use the verb for special candidacy in the Preferences tab) and you may be selected. A sound will play to your client in case you were alt-tabbed or something and you will spawn in certain areas that are thick with death or the presence of the dead.
Delicious Life Force
So, you're a newly-spawned Revenant. How spooky! One of the first things you may notice is that you look badass you have a large display to the right with a number and an E next to it. That's Essence, and it is your most important resource.
Your maximum health is your Essence, and it will regenerate up to 75 by default. If your Essence hits zero, you die, leaving a pile of blue dust that you will revive from within a minute if not scattered.
Most of your spooky abilities are behind a point lock and you need to have some extra Essence to unlock them. To get Essence, you have one ability by default: Harvest. This can be used while clicking on an adjacent dead human to gain a small amount of Essence. This is a very small amount, though if the target is alive and unconscious it can be much higher, and even greater if the target is still alive and awake! You can't drain the same corpse twice, however, so you'll need to get creative with your powers or wander around for a bit.
You can only acquire new abilities with the Essence that you have harvested from living and dead creatures. This means that if you wanted to get an ability that costs 75 Essence, you would need to have a total of 150 Essence on hand to acquire it.
Note that while you're harvesting something or have recently used an ability, you can be seen and attacked by the living, and will be unable to move while channeling the ability.
Once you can move again, you will still be revealed for a short period of time with a series of weaknesses. This is your most vulnerable form, and you can be killed if not careful! While in this state, you cannot move through walls or most solid objects and are slow, though you can open doors, move across tables and plastic flaps, as well as go through living mobs.
Abilities
Below is a list of all the abilities a Revenant can use and unlock.
Name | Unlock Cost | Use Cost | Cooldown | Stun and Reveal Times | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Harvest | Unlocked at start | N/A | No Cooldown | Stuns and Reveals for 5 seconds. | Activated by clicking on a target, Harvest will cause you drain essence from an unconscious or dead human - the essence depends on their state; 15-20 essence for dead corpses, 35-50 for corpses with the soul still in or 45-70 for still-living humans with no soul, and 75-100 for a still-living human with a soul. If they're unconscious or stunned when you do this, the human will also die. If you drain a living human or a perfect soul, it is possible to gain a higher maximum essence. |
Toggle Nightvision | Unlocked at start | N/A | No Cooldown | N/A | Allows you to toggle your night vision, which is on by default. |
Transmit | Unlocked at start | N/A | No Cooldown | N/A | Allows you to send a spooky message to a single target. Can be cast in walls. |
Defile | 10E unlock cost | 30E use cost | 15 seconds | Stuns for 1 second, Reveals for 4. | Defiles the nearby area(9x9), removing holyness from nearby tiles, ripping up tiles, rusting walls, damaging windows, opening most containers, and causing lights to flicker. |
Overload Light | 25E unlock cost | 40E use cost | 20 seconds | Stuns for 3 seconds, Reveals for 8. | Causes nearby(13x13) light fixtures to, after a brief, spark-filled delay, shoot bolts of lightning at anyone still in the area, doing medium damage but stunning and releasing lots of sparks. |
Blight | 75E unlock cost | 50E use cost | 20 seconds | Stuns for 2 seconds, Reveals for 5. | Infects nearby(9x9) humans with a virus that causes a large amount of stamina and toxin damage over time if not cured. Nonhumans will take toxin damage. Also damages or kills plants. |
Malfunction | 125E unlock cost | 60E use cost | 20 seconds | Stuns for 2 seconds, Reveals for 8. | Causes nearby machines and objects to malfunction(9x9), with a chance of receiving their Cryptographic Sequencer effect instead. Also stuns and damages cyborgs, disables electronics on humans, and emags bots instantly. |
Fighting the Unholy Menace
So you're a crew member and you just saw a guy with purple lights flowing out of him leading into a spooky blue ghost. You've shouted over the radio and now the rest of the crew knows. Revenants can range from annoying to amazingly dangerous, and the more corpses they drain, the more powerful they get. However, there are a few things you can do to fight revenants.
First of all, get the chaplain. Their null rod is incredibly powerful against the Revenant and will drain large chunks of essence from them. Revenants are generally hard to fight, mainly because they're both invisible, can phase through walls, and can't take damage in this state, but there are a few ways around it. Generally, waiting for them to drain someone or reveal themselves is the best time to go ham on their ass.
They also can't pass through tiles with holy water or salt piles unless they Defile it, so go coat the ship's floors in it, or better yet, spray it over them when they cast something.
When you temporarily kill a revenant it will drop glimmering residue on the ground. If this is left untouched the revenant will respawn after 60 seconds.
To permanently kill the revenant, pick up the glimmering residue it leaves behind when killed, and throw it.