Revenants
REVENANTS
Revenants are a unique being created by scholars in the city of Din’Lux. Their metal shells, crafted from expensive and rare materials, are magically imbued with a spirit through the use of Kinfire. These spirits, departed souls who were once living, are called forth from beyond the veil and contained within a revenant shell.
CREATION
During the Great War, Dar Fell's dwindling stores of kinfire ember were reserved exclusively for use in military armaments. One scholar, however, an inventor named Talos Daluk, convinced the leaders to allow him to use kinfire for a revolutionary idea: metal warriors.
Unfortunately, Daluk’s attempts failed. The rare materials he needed to complete his invention were only found in a region controlled by Dwar Fell’s enemy, the Luminated Alliance. He begged the city leaders to send a secret contingent of soldiers to collect these materials, but they refused. The war was nearly won and they didn’t need Daluk’s magic metal warriors.
When Daluk passed away, his journals and research fell into the hands of his apprentice, Kyon. Kyon was determined to see her master’s dream come to reality. She entered the military as a soldier and volunteered to fight on the front lines, knowing that this would get her closer to the rare materials she needed.
On the night the Starless Nights returned, Kyon planned to abandon her unit as they attacked the city of Din’Lux. But when the Darkness fell, her carefully crafted plans fell with it. She was swept up in the sea of refugees entering the gates of the city, which would soon become her new home.
Many months later, Kyon found herself among a group of scholars seeking ways to battle their newfound foe, the Darkness. Kinfire, they quickly realized, was the only force able to keep it bay. Kyon pulled out the journals she’d brought all the way from Daluk’s labs in Dwar Fell. It was time to resume her work.
With the rare materials now available, Kyon was able to use Daluk’s designs to successfully craft the very first revenant.
THE FIRST REVENANT
When the first revenant awoke, it was with no memories of their former life. They were not even able to recall a name. Kyon, as a tribute to her old master, named this very first revenant Talos.
The scholars submitted Talos to a number of tests, assessing their intelligence, knowledge, and memory. It became evident that Talos had a distinct personality with certain skills and predilections. But still, the memories of their former life refused to surface.
“It was a strange sensation at first, being alive, but also familiar. Words came unbidden from my mouth without needing to be taught. My legs and arms and fingers already knew how to flex and bend.
“The scholars informed me that I was a new being, something crafted out of metal and kinfire. Why then, I wondered, did I not feel like something new? As if this first day were merely one of thousands I had already lived?”- From the journals of Talos, the first revenant
For more, see Talos.
PHYSIOLOGY
Revenants are beings of metal and spirit, bound together with magical energy. They require no sleep and do not need to eat or drink. Their source of energy is a core of magical kinfire burning within them.
CONSTRUCTION
As a being constructed by others, the appearance of a revenant’s shell is determined by their creator. Every design is unique. Some revenants resemble other people, with similar body construction and proportions between head, torso, arms, and legs. Others have been given more imaginative designs, built to resemble a spider, an ox, or a winged creature.
Revenants are crafted with a blend of rare and expensive metals. Without these materials, the soul cannot be bound to the shell. Within the shell are runes engraved into the metal itself that will allow the spirit to remain housed inside. As the shell is being constructed, spoken spells are also used to fix the body together with its kinfire core.
Once the shell is complete, a soul must be called forth from beyond the veil. A complicated incantation is spoken just as the kinfire core is lit in order to fully bind the spirit to its shell. This magically-enhanced construction grants revenants with a great amount of strength, stamina, and durability.
KINFIRE CORE
A revenant’s kinfire core is a magical and inexhaustible energy source that is necessary for the soul to remain bound to the shell, but it has other positive side-effects as well.
The constant burning of kinfire within a revenant makes them well-suited to traveling through the Darkness. More than once, a revenant has been able to save an individual from a Starless Night by going out after them. Their kinfire glow pushes back the Darkness and prevents it from having any effect on them.
Kinfire also gives the revenant easy access to magical energy. Each core, however, seems to be slightly different. Some give their revenant a proclivity for earth magic, summoning, or fire magic. Others allow the revenant to easily heal others or move great distances quickly.
MEMORY LOSS
When the scholars replicated the process to craft new revenants, they found that they all, like Talos, awoke with no memories. Despite many efforts to reverse this memory loss, no solution has ever been found.
Some scholars, including Talos themself, theorize that since a revenant retains a personality and a language, they must also still possess memories. Talos, who went on to become leader of the Scholars' Circle in Din’Lux, has dedicated a large part of their work to this idea, searching for a method to unlock these memories.
MYTHS & STEREOTYPES
When revenants awaken, they are in some ways new to this world. Despite having full vocabularies and basic knowledge, they appear as childlike and naive at first, though this often passes as they orient themselves. For this reason, revenants are sometimes treated as simple machines with no intelligence. Some have been verbally abused, pushed in the street, and even stoned.
Others see revenants as an abomination, an abuse of magic for selfish reasons. They believe that the souls of revenants are being trapped against their will and should be freed so that they may return to the beyond.
Some followers of the Temple of Ziva view revenants as a desecration of kinfire, which is meant to be kept holy and unspoiled. Protests have occurred outside the Scholars’ Circle in an attempt to halt revenant creation. Although revenants are closely monitored by the Circle, some have disappeared in mysterious circumstances. It is believed that some of these missing revenants have been kidnapped and dismantled by rogue Flame Keepers in an attempt to reclaim the kinfire core within.
WORDS OF POWER
When they were first told to venture out into the Darkness, some revenants were afraid and refused. Others were stubborn and didn’t appreciate being told to risk their lives without any sort of reward. One particular revenant responded to these requests with a violent outburst that resulted in the death of a young scholar apprentice.
After this occurrence, revenant creation was banned for a short time by the City Council. The scholars scrambled to develop a kill switch, a way to break the spirit’s bond with the shell at a moment’s notice.
The answer was a word of power, a unique word magically tied to each revenant upon their creation. This word was like a fuse. If spoken three times in that revenant’s presence, their kinfire core would rupture, immediately releasing the spirit.
The use of a word of power is rarely witnessed, but it is known that other revenants in close proximity of the event suffer excruciating pain. Scholars have been unable to explain this phenomenon apart from a proposed theory that all kinfire taken from the same original source is somehow connected. Supporters of this theory believe that if the Holy Flame in the Great Lighthouse were to be extinguished, every kinfire lantern in Din'Lux would be snuffed out, along with every revenant's core.
Early versions of the word of power resulted in the revenant’s kinfire core rupturing in a rather flashy bang, capable of damaging nearby property and injuring bystanders. The scholars quickly altered the design, recognizing the folly of having explosives wandering around Din’Lux. Additional runes were put in place to contain the blast of energy, though it still affects nearby revenants.
The word of power for each revenant is kept in a vault in the Scholars’ Circle guildhouse. Once a revenant had proven themself trustworthy, this word of power is removed from the vault and gifted to the revenant, engraved upon a clay tablet. The revenant may then choose to either keep the tablet or destroy it completely.
REVENANT POPULATIONS
Due to the high price and rarity of the materials needed to create a revenant, there are relatively few of them in existence. At first, the Scholars’ Circle was able to justify the price and the effort by claiming that the revenants would aid them against the Darkness. But once they came to be, the scholars saw that the revenants were people and not just machines that one could order about. Not only that, but they were extremely powerful.
Eventually, the City Council of Din’Lux ruled that revenants should have the freedom to choose what to do with their lives. Since they were still considered property of the city, however, they were given limited options. In exchange for this second chance at life, they were required to, in some way, serve the city. Qualified positions included: the Seekers’ Guild, the Scholars’ Circle, the City Guard, and a variety of government panels and other city-run organizations.
having read the webcomic, i was very confused at how the inventor of the revenants is one himself. this article helped clear up that confusion.