Feral Revenant
Every once in a while, we like to provide some new content for the vampire rules we created in Liber Vampyr: Secrets of the Blood, a book devoted to playable vampire characters, which is available for free on our downloads page. Today, I have a new vampire base class, the feral revenant, for vampires driven so strongly by their hunger that they abandon all shreds of humanity and become wild, frenzied creatures consumed by an unstoppable bloodlust.
New Base Class
Feral Revenant
While most revenants attempt to maintain at least a thin veneer of civility and humanity, even if it is little more than a disguise to cover their predatory nature, some give themselves over entirely to the raging bloodlust that fills their every waking moment. Living more like wild animals than the humans they once were, their maddening hunger drives them into a crazed state, where all they know is the hunt. These revenants, more bestial than human, are known as feral revenants.
Role: Maddened berserkers, feral revenants are monsters on the battlefield, and pose only marginally greater threat to their enemies than their allies. They serve best on the front lines of combat, where they can do the most damage to their foes.
Alignment: Any non-lawful. While the vast majority of feral revenants are evil, good characters can be feral revenants. However, the animalistic and uncivilized life of a feral revenant ensures that lawful revenants take levels in other revenant classes more suited to their sensibilities.
Hit Die: d10.
Starting Wealth: 5d6 x 10 (average 175 gp).
Class Skills
A feral revenant’s class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Perception (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skill Ranks per Level: 4 + Int modifier.
Class Features
The following are the class features of the feral revenant.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Feral revenants are proficient with all simple weapons, as well as with light armor.
Cruomancy (Su): At 1st level, a feral revenant gains the revenant template. If the feral revenant was already a revenant, this has no effect. Characters that cannot gain the revenant template cannot gain levels in feral revenant.
For each level of feral revenant that a character gains, its cruomancer level increases by 1. Additionally, as it gains additional levels of feral revenant, the maximum number of blood points that it can have in its blood point pool increases, as indicated on Table: The Feral Revenant.
Dormancy (Ex): When a feral revenant is reduced to 0 hit points, it is not destroyed, but enters a state of dormancy, as any other revenant. In addition to the normal means of restoring a feral revenant from this state of dormancy, it can also be revived if it is fed blood. Each blood point’s worth of blood that the feral revenant consumes while its current hit point total is 0 or less causes it to regain 5 hit points. The feral revenant’s hit point total cannot be increased beyond 1 hit point in this way. If this healing increases the feral revenant’s hit point total to 1 or higher, it immediately awakens from its torpor.
Additionally, after 2d4 days, the feral revenant’s hunger is able to potentially rouse it from dormancy even without healing or blood. After this time, if any living creature from which the feral revenant could potentially gain blood points comes within 60 feet of the dormant feral revenant, the feral revenant may make a DC 20 Wisdom check to awaken from its dormancy. It can continue to make such Wisdom checks once per hour as long as a potential source of blood points remains within 60 feet. If awakened in this way, the feral revenant’s hit point total does not change, and it is staggered until its hit point total is restored to 1 or higher. While staggered in this way, the feral revenant is not disabled, and does not suffer damage for taking actions. It still regains hit points from consuming blood points, as outlined above. For each hour the feral revenant remains conscious at 0 or fewer hit points in this way, it must succeed on a DC 20 Wisdom check or fall into dormancy again.
Feral Rage (Ex): Feral revenants can enter a terrible frenzy in which their predatory instincts take over, giving them greater power at the cost of self-control. At 1st level, a feral revenant can rage for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + its Constitution modifier. At each level after 1st, it can rage for 2 additional rounds per day. Temporary increases to Constitution (such as those gained from raging or spells like bear’s endurance) don’t increase the total number of rounds that a feral revenant can rage per day. The total number of rounds of rage per day is renewed after resting for 8 hours, although these hours need not be consecutive.
A feral revenant can enter a rage as a free action. While in a rage, a feral revenant gains a +4 morale bonus to its Strength and Constitution, as well as a +2 morale bonus on Will saves. In addition, it takes a −2 penalty to Armor Class. The increase to Constitution grants the feral revenant 2 hit points per Hit Die, but these disappear when the rage ends and are not lost first like temporary hit points. Further, while in a feral rage, a feral revenant gains two primary claw natural attacks which deal 1d4 points of slashing damage if it is Medium (1d3 if it is Small), and it is unable to wield manufactured weapons.
While raging, a feral revenant is not completely in control of its actions. Each round, it must roll a d% and consult the table below to determine how it acts.
Attack Strongest Enemy: The feral revenant is compelled to attack the enemy that appears to be the greatest physical threat from among those it can reach. This might be the enemy that is most heavily armored, the largest, or the one with the most impressive weapon.
Attack Nearest Enemy: The feral revenant is compelled to attack the enemy that is closest to it.
Attack Nearest Creature: The feral revenant is compelled to attack the creature that is closest to it.
Act Normally: The feral revenant is free to act as it chooses.
Attack Vulnerable Enemy: The feral revenant is compelled to attack the enemy that appears to be the easiest target. This might be the smallest enemy, the most lightly armored enemy, or the one that seems to be the sickliest.
Defend or Flee: The feral revenant is compelled to ensure its own survival, by either taking a total defense action or fleeing the combat.
If the feral revenant must move in order to attack the creature indicated by the result, it is required to do so, even if this results in an attack of opportunity or passing through a hazardous area, although it is free to choose the most opportune path. The GM may determine which creature is the most appropriate target based on the result of the roll, or may leave it to the feral revenant’s player to do so. If multiple enemies are tied for being the best target, the feral revenant may choose which of them to attack. For results indicating that the feral revenant must attack a creature, it must perform some action that is explicitly harmful to the creature, whether that be inflicting hit point damage, ability score damage, imposing penalties or negative conditions, or otherwise harming the creature. A feral revenant cannot deal nonlethal damage while in a rage.
Bonus Feats: At 2nd level, and every three levels thereafter, a feral revenant gains any one vampire feat of its choice. It must still meet the feat’s prerequisites.
Feral Stalker: Beginning at 2nd level, a feral revenant gains a competence bonus equal to 1/2 its class level on Survival skill checks made to follow tracks.
Fast Movement (Ex): At 3rd level, a feral revenant gains a 10-foot enhancement bonus to its land speed. At 9th level, and again at 15th level, this enhancement bonus increases by an additional 10 feet (to a maximum of 30 feet, at 15th level). A feral revenant in medium or heavy armor or carrying a medium or heavy load loses this extra speed.
Animal Influence (Ex): Beginning at 4th level, a feral revenant can temporarily impose its will on animals. This ability functions similarly to an Intimidate check to influence an opponent’s attitude. The feral revenant rolls 1d20 and adds its feral revenant level and its Charisma bonus to determine the animal influence check result. Success indicates that the feral revenant is able to force the animal to perform an action, which must be one that does not obviously present a great danger to the animal, and must be one that the animal is capable of comprehending (thus, the feral revenant could instruct a wolf to attack a person it can currently see, or one whose scent matches an item the feral revenant is holding, but it could not direct the wolf to attack “the mayor,” because the wolf has no way of identifying “the mayor”).
To use animal influence, the feral revenant and the animal must be within 30 feet of one another under normal visibility conditions. Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute, but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time. The feral revenant can also use this ability to influence vermin, but it takes a −4 penalty on the check.
Spellcasting: Beginning at 4th level, a feral revenant gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells, which are drawn from the ranger spell list. To learn or cast a spell, a feral revenant must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a feral revenant’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the feral revenant’s Wisdom modifier.
Like other spellcasters, a feral revenant can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Its base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Feral Revenant. In addition, it receives bonus spells per day if it has a high Wisdom score. The feral revenant does not need to prepare these spells in advance; it can cast any spell it knows at any time, assuming it hasn’t yet used up its allotment of spells per day for the spell’s level.
The feral revenant’s selection of spells is limited. At 4th level, a feral revenant knows two 1st-level spells of its choice. A feral revenant gains more spells as it increases in level, as indicated on Table: Feral Revenant Spells Known. Unlike spells per day, the number of spells a feral revenant knows is not affected by its Wisdom score. At 8th level and every 3 levels thereafter, a feral revenant can choose to learn a new spell in place of one it already knows. This swap follows all the same rules as for a sorcerer.
Woodland Stride (Ex): Starting at 4th level, a feral revenant may move through any sort of undergrowth (such as natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at its normal speed without taking damage or suffering any other impairment. Thorns, briars, and overgrown areas that are enchanted or magically manipulated to impede motion, however, still affect it.
Scent (Ex): At 6th level, a feral revenant gains the scent universal monster ability, allowing it to detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell. The feral revenant can detect opponents within 30 feet by sense of smell. If the opponent is upwind, the range increases to 60 feet; if downwind, it drops to 15 feet. Strong scents can be detected at twice these ranges, and overpowering scents can be detected at three times those ranges.
When the feral revenant detects a scent, the exact location of the source is not revealed, only its presence somewhere within range. The feral revenant can take a move action to note the direction of the scent. When the feral revenant is within 5 feet of the scent’s source, it pinpoints its location.
The feral revenant can also follow tracks by smell, using Wisdom or Survival to find and follow tracks. The typical DC for a fresh trail is 10 (no matter what kind of surface holds the scent). This DC increases or decreases depending on how strong the quarry’s odor is, the number of creatures, and the age of the trail. For each hour since the trail was made, the DC increases by 2. While tracking by scent, the feral revenant can ignore the effects of surface conditions and poor visibility.
Shattered Mind (Ex): A feral revenant’s mind is inhuman and shattered from its uncivilized and animalistic lifestyle. Beginning at 6th level, the feral revenant gains a +4 bonus on Will saves made to resist charm and compulsion effects.
Trackless Step (Ex): Beginning at 7th level, a feral revenant leaves no trail in natural surroundings and cannot be tracked. It may choose to leave a trail if so desired.
Camouflage (Ex): At 9th level, a feral revenant learns to blend in with natural terrains. It can use the Stealth skill to hide in any natural environment, even if the terrain doesn’t grant cover or concealment.
Bloodscent (Ex): At 10th level, a feral revenant’s sense of smell becomes particularly adept at finding and tracking blood. It can detect the scent of spilled blood at a range of up to 1 mile (or two miles if the blood is upwind, or a half mile if the blood is downwind). Additionally, when using scent to follow tracks, if those tracks were made by a creature that was injured or otherwise bloody at the time the tracks were made, the feral revenant gains a +20 competence bonus on checks made to follow the tracks.
Greater Feral Rage (Ex): At 11th level, when a feral revenant enters a feral rage, the morale bonus to its Strength and Constitution scores increases to +6 and the morale bonus on its Will saves increases to +3. In addition, each round, after the feral revenant rolls a d% to determine how it will act that round, it may choose to expend one round of rage in order to reroll the result. The feral revenant uses whichever of the two rolls it prefers. The feral revenant can use this ability only once per round.
Greater feral rage counts as the barbarian’s greater rage ability for the purposes of feat prerequisites, feat abilities, magic item abilities, and spell effects.
Hide in Plain Sight (Ex): Beginning at 12th level, as long as the feral revenant is in a natural environment, it can use the Stealth skill to hide even while being observed.
Earthen Revival (Su): Beginning at 13th level, the feral revenant’s undead perversion of natural order allows it to return even from total destruction, provided that it is buried in the womb of the earth. If the feral revenant is buried directly in earth or soil (without a coffin or casket) while it is in its dormant state, it awakens 4d6 hours later, at full hit points, and with full uses of its daily spells and other class features, as though it had just rested. If the feral revenant’s remains are buried in this way after it is completely destroyed, it returns to life in a similar same fashion, but it takes 1d10 days for it to do so, and it gains 1d4 negative levels, which cannot be removed by any means, but which fade on their own at a rate of 1 per week. The feral revenant cannot be restored to life in this manner if it died while suffering from one or more negative levels inflicted by this ability.
Feral Stench (Ex): By 16th level, a feral revenant is capable of cultivating a horrific feral stench. To do so, it must bathe itself in gore, muck, or a similarly terrible substance, in a process that takes 1 hour. Afterwards, it gains the stench universal monster ability. All living creatures (except those with the stench special ability) within 30 feet must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 the feral revenant’s class level + the feral revenant’s Constitution modifier) or be sickened for 1 minute. Creatures that succeed on their saving throw are immune to the feral revenant’s stench for 24 hours. This is a poison effect.
The stench remains until the feral revenant removes it through thorough cleaning and bathing, a process which takes 1d4 hours and requires access to enough fresh water to immerse the feral revenant.
Spider Climb (Sp): At 18th level, a feral revenant is constantly affected as though by the spell spider climb. If this effect is dispelled, the feral revenant can resume it as a standard action.
Fast Revival (Su): At 19th level, a feral revenant’s profane revival in the womb of the earth takes notably less time. If buried while dormant, the feral revenant is restored to full health after only 2d6 hours, and if buried after being completely destroyed, it is restored to undeath after only 1d4 days. Further, the negative levels imposed by this ability fade at a rate of 1 per day, rather than 1 per week.
Mighty Feral Rage (Ex): At 20th level, when a feral revenant enters a feral rage, the morale bonus to its Strength and Constitution increases to +8, and the morale bonus on its Will saves increases to +4. Further, each round, when it rolls a d% to determine how it will act, it can roll twice and take whichever result it prefers. If it uses the ability to reroll one of these rolls gained from the superior feral rage class feature, the reroll is only a single die, but the feral revenant can choose from any of the three results.