Hybrid Revenant

Large undead, neutral evil

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
Hit Points 209 (22d10 + 88)
Speed 40 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
21 (+5)	10 (+0)	19 (+4)	10 (+0)	3 (-4)	9 (-1)

Saving Throws Constitution +8, Intelligence +4
Damage Immunities necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, fright, poison, unconsciousness Resistances
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 6
Languages understands Common, but cannot speak
Challenge 12 (8,400 XP)

Special Traits

• Explosive Despair. The suffering of the hybrid revenant is so great that it explodes outward around itself from time to time, at random, as a palpable and deadly force. At the beginning of the hybrid revenant’s initiative, roll 1d6. On a one, the hybrid revenant doubles over in apparent pain, incapacitated for this round. At the same time, necrotic withering hurtles outward from the revenant in a 30-foot radius. Each creature in this area must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw, taking 71 (13d10) damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
• Taint on the Land. If the hybrid revenant is merely slain, the restless spirits that formed it will not be satisfied. Deprived of a body, they will remain in waiting for another like-minded soul to join them, and the process will begin again (and in the meantime, the location of its corpse will attract other undead to the area). The hybrid revenant may be forcibly laid to rest after its body is slain by casting hallow on any physical remains. However, a hybrid revenant may also be laid to rest through roleplay, for a party and GM so inclined, by learning the revenant’s tale and providing some form of solace, justice, epiphany, or catharsis.

Actions

• Multiattack. The hybrid revenant attacks once with its bite and twice with its claws.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (2d12 + 5) piercing damage.
• Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage.
• Wail of the Yawning Void (Recharge 4-6). When a hybrid revenant howls, those who hear its cry are consumed by the nameless, gaping loss within the revenant’s soul. All creatures within 60 feet of the revenant that can hear it must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or be stunned for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. If the saving throw is successful, or the effect ends on it, the creature is immune to the revenant’s Wail of the Yawning Void for 24 hours.

About

The thing stirs, revealing itself to be a rotting, skeletal humanoid but with several obviously animal bones in place of its normal skeleton, including the frightening visage of a great wolf’s skull.

When a humanoid soul dies in especial rage, torment, and injustice, it is known that such spirits sometimes return to seek vengeance. Such vengeance can take many forms, but one of the most wretched of these is the hybrid revenant. It is believed that hybrid revenants occur when two or more creatures, at least one of them humanoid, die on the same spot, in similar throes of torment, at any time within a decade or so of one another. While the first soul’s will to rise was not enough on its own, the addition of a second or third like-minded victim is enough in aggregate for a single, hybrid, undead body to rise.

However, such an unnatural merging, born always of mind-shattering torment, sears the mind of the newly risen undead, and it no longer remembers clearly what happened to it or how to achieve the justice it craves. In unending, hellish agony, the hybrid revenant wanders the land, howling out the horror of its unnatural existence and tainting all it passes with the corruption of its despair. A hybrid revenant attacks only in self defense, but it howls whenever it witnesses the meaningless suffering it has unwittingly caused, and it has no control over its explosive despair. If the humanoid portion of the entity is helped to find clarity and peace, the animal portion will naturally pass on as well.

A hybrid revenant usually resembles a semi-skeletal large humanoid, with some of its humanoid parts replaced by animal bones. For example, one revenant might be entirely humanoid save for a wolf skull in place of a human head, while another might be humanoid on top and elk on the bottom, like a hideous, skeletal centaur. Some may be clothed in rags, while others might be bare bones or still hung with strips of rotting flesh. The revenant’s large size usually stems from the combination of two or more corpses, but the unnatural forces holding the hybrid revenant together can sometimes resize and reshape various parts for a whole that appears strangely complete as if it might have been a hybrid being in life though it was not.