Revenants

With the worldship being a hybrid fantasy and technological setting undead seem out of place. But there is a rich history of technological zombies to draw on in the field of sci-fi and movies. Originally I was thinking of doing a later 'borg' techno virus infectious version, but went a much more physical form drawing on the earlier implant Borg and Stalkers from Mortal Engines. What I ended up with is this:

Revenant, lesser (medium construct)

% In Lair: Dungeon Enc: Wilderness Enc: Treasure Type / XP:	35% Stalk (1d6) / Hunt (2d6) Hunt (2d6) / Rampage (3d6) B / 19
Hit Dice: Armor Class: Save: Special Def.:	1*** 1 F1 Resistance to all damage (half), Immune (sleep, charm, hold and poison)
Movement: Attacks: Morale: Special Off.:	120’ (40’) 2 razor claws (10+, 1d4) N/A None

Revenants are much feared by the inhabitants of the world ship being reanimated corpses of the dead reinforced with metal and technology. The most common type uses the bodies of humans and visitors alike. Their desiccated flesh is reinforced with plates of alien bulkhead metals and their joints of bone are enhanced with tubing and nano-thread. Their eye sockets contain lamps that glow with a flickering orange light, making their approach noticeable yet disconcerting. All have razor sharp metal claws implanted on their fingers, hands or wrists.

They plague the borderlands of various kingdoms but are most prominent in the hives. Where they first came from none know for certain, be they a mechanist experiment gone wrong, a ravaging visitor weapon deployed to keep the human boarders at bay or a bog'an experiment that went awry. They tend to 'collect' things, be they live or dead people, metals and energy crystals. On moving into an area they raid all nearby settlements until satisfied with their hoard then simply disappear taking their spoils with them.

The mix of desiccated organic material and metal plating imbedded and reinforcing their bodies makes revenants highly resistant to damage, they take half damage from all damage sources. As reanimated constructs they are immune to poison as well as charm, hold, and sleep spells. They are not undead as such, being closer in nature to a flesh golem, and are not subject to turning

Killing their physical form is often not the end of a revenant as they have been known to recover from this state after several days. Their core reconstructs damaged joints with pieces of sinew, metal and bone. Roll 1d6, on a 1 or 2 they are damaged beyond repair, on a 3 to 6 they return in as many days as was rolled. As the lowest form of revenant they cannot degrade in form like more advanced revenants, re-roll their hit dice on resurrection.

A Hades Module

As a result of this resurrection process many a scout or infantryman has learned that they need to burn the corpses in a bonfire. But to those with technological training there is another way to deactivate these monsters. The device that animates these abominations is referred to as the Hades Module. Each Hades Module is an energy crystal, normally with little to no power remaining, with a small box like unit attacked that contains it's cogitator and nano-thread tentacles. This device is normally imbedded in the chest and even with low charge crystals they possess an almost unending operating life. A player may make an alien lore robots or general devices throw to determine if they know of the Hades Module, additionally mechanists may test for awareness using their build throw. If they are aware of the device they may remove it on a successful technological research throw or repair throw. Once removed the corpse will deteriorate naturally and it is a simple matter to scrape off the attachments to the Hades Module and recover the energy crystal, such crystals are often very low on charge and only worth 5gp.

Build notes:

Unlike zombies and some other constructs these creatures are not slow, these are fast killing machines. I like the mummy damage reduction, as a GM it's easy to do and makes monsters feel tough without going for better attacks given by higher hit dice. As they are not magic I also didn't want to give them non-magic weapon resistance.

In term of abilities:

• The construct immunities is worth a *
• The damage the resistance is about #### ### (all weapons and elemental)
• Doing average damage of 5 worth a *
• The resurrection is more a flavor ability, no points.

So technically it's a ***, so there goes my dungeon level 1 encounter, they are more a level 2. But they could safely spawn in on level 1 random tables when you roll a level 2 monster and be a reasonable fight. I used treasure B not C as the hoarder option seemed more fitting.