Anti-Heroes (Revenant, Rogue, Witch)

[knightkrawler]

I think chaoticprime's problem - like mine - is that the term rogue is incredibly imprecise and vague.
A thief is a rogue, as is an adventuring barbarian, a scout spying for the Empire, a wizard outcast from his academy, a deserting warrior, an assassin, an amoral elven ranger, an adventuring concubine...

The list go on and on and on, everybody is a rogue.

[mikemacdee]

I don't know. Revenant means "He who has come back", so basically it's another word for Zombie

Actually they're completely different creatures apart from both being undead (I shoulda called this "the proper terminology discussion thread" i guess). Zombies are reanimated corpses with no free will: they do whatever their reanimator commanded them to do, like "scare people away from my lab" or "kill every living thing you see that isn't me". That's a "proper" zombie, though, from voodoo lore: the flesh-eating fiends we know as zombies today are technically ghouls, which are cannibalistic undead. Modern zombies are basically the creation of George A. Romero, a mix of the zombie and ghoul from folklore. In fact they're called ghouls in Night of the Living Dead, not zombies.

A revenant is a conscious, corporeal person who has returned from the grave, almost always for the purpose of either terrorizing the living in general, or seeking vengeance on those who caused his/her death (in essence, a ghost who still has a body). Still capable of communicating and reasoning, at least as much as their grief and rage allows. Eric Draven is a well-known pop culture example of a revenant.

[chaoticprime]

I don't know. Revenant means "He who has come back", so basically it's another word for Zombie, but there's no need to fiddle around with words here.
If you're gonna have an undead for a hero, a term which is different from monsters is needed. Revenant is perfect.

Here's another idea: After he suffers the loss of BP, he gets to roll 1 combat die. With a skull he immediately regains 1 BP.
That's kind of how I handle the regeneration power of trolls, though they don't need to roll a die; rather than that, troll regeneration is automatic, so heroes have to hit him with at least 2 BP to hurt him. But that would be much too powerful for a hero.

I would give him a crapload of Body Points (12), but he cannot drink potions of any sort, be affected by Mind Point loss, or receive healing from spells.

Also, "He who has come back" is not a zombie. Zombies are brought back. He who comes back does so of his own volition.

[knightkrawler]

My bad. You'r both right about Zombies being brought back. Didn't think it through.

[chaoticprime]

My bad. You'r both right about Zombies being brought back. Didn't think it through.

The word is actually derived from a Latin root, which is something like revenans, which actually could be the male or female form--I don't remember exactly and I don't feel like looking it up. It just means "to come back," but the form would indicate if it was masculine or feminine.

[knightkrawler]

Good thing I had Latin in school.

"venire" = to come
"revenire" = to come back
"revenans" = he who is coming back

If I remember correctly...

[Sjeng]

According to Mantic games and a pc game I once played called Revenant (awesome diablo clone!) a Revenant can also be brought back by a wizard or necromancer. I see revenants as an undead with the spirit of the deceased brought back into the corpse. Zombies are mindless living corpses, under a necromancer's command usually, doing their bidding. Undead skeletons are merely magically animated skeletons, also brought to life by a wizard or necromancer.
That's how I see them in the fantasy world anyway, and I think most do.

I do however also like the modern zombie, which is a dead person, still living on as a rotting corpse, with some basic instinct left in its decaying brain, lusting for flesh, as a result of some strange virus that spreads through blood and being bitten. Or sometimes even caused by some viral outbreak, spread by unknown manners. Totally different from the fantasy version though.

[knightkrawler]

I do however also like the modern zombie, which is a dead person, still living on as a rotting corpse, with some basic instinct left in its decaying brain, lusting for flesh, as a result of some strange virus that spreads through blood and being bitten. Or sometimes even caused by some viral outbreak, spread by unknown manners. Totally different from the fantasy version though.

... sounds like a ghoul to me.

[mikemacdee]

I'm talking mythology and folklore though, which pop culture tends to take a lot of liberties with (sparkling vampires anyone?). Granted it depends on the mythology's own consistency, and some are more so than others: there was a different version of the Egyptian mythos in every city of Ancient Egypt, with different roles for all the gods in each, so three nerds arguing about who the chief god was (Ra? Ptah? Amon?) are wasting their time because they're all probably right.

Still, I guess you could call someone a revenant if a wizard brought them back as an undead with their consciousness intact, even if they were bound to the summoner.

Updated the Revenant. I think the new version suits the class better, even if he still needs another tweak later.

[chaoticprime]

According to Mantic games and a pc game I once played called Revenant (awesome diablo clone!) a Revenant can also be brought back by a wizard or necromancer. I see revenants as an undead with the spirit of the deceased brought back into the corpse. Zombies are mindless living corpses, under a necromancer's command usually, doing their bidding. Undead skeletons are merely magically animated skeletons, also brought to life by a wizard or necromancer.
That's how I see them in the fantasy world anyway, and I think most do.

I do however also like the modern zombie, which is a dead person, still living on as a rotting corpse, with some basic instinct left in its decaying brain, lusting for flesh, as a result of some strange virus that spreads through blood and being bitten. Or sometimes even caused by some viral outbreak, spread by unknown manners. Totally different from the fantasy version though.

That's the thing, there really cannot ever be -a- fantasy version. Fantasy is not reality, that's its only quality. That's why we put real names to imagined things in order to reconcile and make them seem less impossible. I come up with new uses for old words all the time. Go through here http://www.godswatcher.com/dictionary.htm and you will probably find a dozen words you'll not be able to wait to use. Remember, Barbarians are called that because their language sounded like "bar, bar" to the Ancient Romans. You could call it a Trucider. Look that up on there.