Revenant
Revenant
Superiors: none!
Difficulty: Medium
Guides: This is the guide.
Access: Anywhere you can float to
Duties: Soul-snatching, scaring crew, annoying medical staff
Subordinates: also none...
Radio:Not defined
The revenant is a mid-round minor solo-antagonist ghost role, which spawns via the GhostRevenant event with sufficient players. They are intent on siphoning the souls of those unlucky enough to have passed out, without anyone nearby to help. They are without allegiances, which can potentially be helpful, but it is most often a hindrance.
Revenants share some intrinsic properties of ghosts: they move quickly, are able to phase through all objects and entities, cannot be damaged and cannot be seen by non ghosts. Unlike ghosts, they cannot examine objects from far away distances or through walls, have a much smaller light source, and cannot see ghost players that aren't revenants themselves.
This only applies while incorporeal however, as otherwise they become much slower, stop being able to phase through any objects, are able to be damaged and most importantly become visible. The revenant must become corporeal to harvest souls from incapacitated humanoids. If successful this converts the player's soul into essence, the revenant's HP and main currency for using powers.
Essence
Essence is a very limited resource, functioning as both the HP (1 essence soaks up 1 point of damage) as well as currency for unlocking and using powers that allow spooking, hurting, and potentially even killing still living players.
A revenant spawns in with 75 essence, which when taken as HP is 25 less than it takes to reach critical condition for living players. However, on the flip side, they can only be harmed while visible, which is only for a limited duration when, and after, using a power or attempting to harness essence.
Keep in mind however that the revenant's visibility is a cumulative debuff called "corporeal". This means attempting to harvest a soul and overloading lights, or attempting to harvest multiple souls at once, will make you visible for a single long cumulative duration.
A small note, which may sometimes be useful to those going against revenants, is that the air around them is colder, directly equivalent to the amount of essence the revenant has.<ref>https://github.com/space-wizards/space-station-14/commit/fadacc6c348a89d530b7366bd2d1d23683e3d276</ref> This can be useful in pinpointing if a revenant has finally given up terrorizing a room or is just waiting around for the perfect moment to strike again.
Soul quality
Different bodies have different soul qualities; soul quality is directly linked to how much essence a revenant will receive upon successfully siphoning it. The body's soul quality must be identified before it can be siphoned, which can be done by a revenant interacting with a suitable body while remaining invisible.
Notably, unidentified bodies without a job which were generated with the map, found on salvaging expeditions, or otherwise did not come from a player, tend to have lower soul quality.
Gaining essence
Any humanoid player who is dead, in critical condition or sleeping can be harvested for their soul. Brains and man-machine interfaces cannot be harvested for essence, paradoxically making gibbed players safe from revenants.
Harvesting can be done by interacting with any body which has had it's soul identified. During this 2-3 second process a text will appear above the player stating "[character name] suddenly rises slightly into the air, their skin turning ashy gray." The accompanying text is long, physically large and easily noticeable, especially as the revenant becomes visible during this interaction, this makes essence acquisition a prospect best left to lonely or hectic situations.
Powers
The revenant has 3 powers, all of which are capable of spooking or harming the crew to various extents, though all are dependent on the environment for any kind of damage.
Despite this not being stated in the manual, there is difference between the essence the revenant spawns with and essence it harvests. Only the latter can be spent for acquiring abilities, both however can be used for casting abilities and surviving damage.
Defile
Defiles the surrounding area, ripping up floors, damaging windows, opening containers, and throwing items. Using it leaves you vulnerable to attacks for a short period of time.
- Costs 10 stolen essence to purchase - 30 of regular essence to cast.
Pries off tiles from the ground and throws them with force against the surroundings, damaging all windows. Despite being the cheapest ability, without a direct way to harm crew, it can still be utilized for structural sabotage, destroying windows and spacing important areas. Get creative!
Despite the flavourful description, very sadly, does not open containers.
Overload Lights
Overloads all nearby lights, causing lights to pulse and sending out dangerous lightning. Using it leaves you vulnerable to attacks for a long period of time.
- Costs 25 stolen essence to purchase - 40 of regular essence to cast.
Flickers a light for a few seconds before discharging it for 5 shock damage, briefly stunning and pinning to the ground a person in range.
Malfunction
Makes nearby electronics stop working properly. Using it leaves you vulnerable to attacks for a long period of time.
- Costs 125 stolen essence to purchase - 60 of regular essence to cast.
Immediately opens and bolts open all doors in a moderate radius around the revenant.
Thwarting a revenant
Unlike most other antagonist roles, there is few direct methods of seeking out and killing a revenant. If a revenant knows you are trying to kill them, they will simply move away from your part of the station, faster than you can possibly keep up, all while being fully invisible and intangible. What you can do is inform medical, or potentially even security. The main place where revenants excel are hectic brawls and medical arenas with not enough doctors, as they can easily fly under the radar and steal away souls without anyone even noticing.
One of the few things you can use to combat revenants is carrying a gas analyzer. A sudden inexplicable drop in temperature can be sometimes explained by a revenant hanging around - if a particularly clever revenant has began terrorizing the station, this may be one of the only things that betrays their presence before they strike.
Knowing a revenant is around makes them much less impactful, as they can always be stopped in their tracks with a single attack, especially because they do not have any real direct means of defending themselves once they have been noticed.Template:Role Navbox