Beware the Revenant
Uncle Heehk has provided the party with the following document, copied down from a scroll he found during his travels, which he thought would be relevant to their adventuring.
BEWARE THE REVENANT
In all the secret writings of the darkest texts regarding necromancy and the unholy magic of undeath, the most terrifying type of creature is the Revenant. The Revenant forms from the soul of a mortal who met a cruel and undeserved fate. If, at the point of death, this individual petitions a powerful being, such as a god, for the strength to gain revenge against the entity who wronged it, the aggrieved soul will claw its way back into its body, inhabiting its own corpse. Although this new body will superficially resemble a much weaker undead, the Zombie, the Revenant’s eyes will burn with resolve. The Revenant will then stalk the land on a ceaseless mission to take revenge on the target of its hatred. It will have only this purpose. It cannot be bargained with. It cannot be reasoned with. It does not feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely cannot stop... ever... until its target is destroyed. The revenant's body, although much tougher than it was in mortal life, can be “killed,” but even this cannot defeat it. After 24 hours have elapsed, the Revenant will either return to its old body, or, if that is not possible, will inhabit the nearest corpse and rise again, continuing on its path to revenge. A Revenant cannot be stopped until its soul knows rest and departs for the afterlife, and its soul cannot know rest, until its target is utterly and forever wiped from the face of the world.
There is only one other way, besides revenge, to stop a Revenant. After the terrible creature's body has been "killed," and before the awful soul reinhabits its corpse (or the corpse of another), if a magical Wish is made that the Revenant's soul would know peace, the soul will be sent on to the afterlife, and the cycle of revenge will be broken. Because Revenants are created by great and powerful beings, only a Wish of similar power will suffice. For example, if a god created the Revenant, then only a Wish granted by a god would enable its soul to rest.
Thankfully, there are no known eyewitness accounts of a Revenant actually being created upon the world. If such a creature ever were to come into existence, the results would be terrible.
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