Pirate Corpses Reanimated by Reveners

Order: Vessel of Iniquity Infernal Might: 20 (Corpus)

Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre +3, Com 0, Str +2, Sta 0, Dex +2, Qik +1

Size: 0

Confidence Score: 3 (3)

Personality Traits: Hateful +6, Depraved +6

Reputations: Hunters of the Living 3 (Infernal)

Hierarchy: 3

Combat:

The attacks of reveners are considered supernatural, and are opposed by Magic Resistance.

Axe: Init +2, Attack +12, Defense +7, Damage +8 or

Axe: Init +2, Attack +10, Defense +5, Damage +8

Bow: Init 0, Attack +8*, Defense +3*, Damage +8

* +1 shipboard

Soak: +5: Leathery skin and thick clothes Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–50), Incapacitated (16–20), Dead (21+)

Abilities: Depend on reanimated person. If they reanimate the pirates, Single Weapon 5 (axe) or Single Weapon 3 (axe) and Bow 3 (shipboard)

Powers:

Contagious Obsession: 1 point per victim, Init 0, Mentem: Reveners have this power, but prefer not to use it, using their horrible host bodies instead.

Envisioning; 1 point, Init +0, Mentem:

Form of Wickedness, 2 points, Init –1, Men-

tem: Reveners rarely use this power, but might trigger it if all of their physical forms are destroyed, to provide confusion in which to escape powerful adversaries. This form radiates the sin the demon represents, which in this case is fear (which is sinful, because it denies the protective role of God). The characters flee in terror until they faint from exhaustion. Every hour the character may make a Stamina roll of 6+ to break the hold of the power, but unconsciousness also breaks it, and characters fleeing at speed are likely to collapse before the first hour is up. A botch on this roll causes temporary insanity, a Minor Personality Flaw suited to the situation in which the demon was encountered.

Obsession, 1 to 3 points, Init –5, Vim: Fearful

The Dead That Walk Again, 3 points, Init –4, Corpus: Allows the revener to posses many corpses simultaneously, at the cost of 3 Might per body. The bodies cannot have had a proper burial. The attacks of animated bodies are supernatural and are opposed by Magic Resistance.

All of the bodies controlled by a single revener work in perfect concert in combat. If using the group combat rules the Attack and Defense bonus provided by additional members of the group is not limited by the revener's Leadership score. This means that a revener controlling 6 corpses has the following group combat statistics

Axe specialists: Init +2, Attack +72,

Defense +42, Damage +8

Axe and bow armed

Axe: Init +2, Attack +60, Defense +30, Damage +8

Bow : Init 0, Attack +48*, Defense +18*, Damage +8

* +6 shipboard

Powerful demons can command reveners in group combat, but since they lack the revener ability to perfectly co-ordinate many bodies, there's usually no benefit to this.

Weakness: Abhorrent material (garlic): These demons must flee the presence of garlic, or spend a Confidence point every two minutes. They cannot regenerate spent Might while garlic is present.

Vis: None

Appearance: Pirate corpses pickled in brine, dressed in rags and carrying corroded weapons.

Reveners are demons that reanimate the dead, for example the pirates described earlier. They usually work in groups of three or more. Reveners lack the power to take physical shape, instead spreading horror by making the dead rise and attack the living.

Order: Tempters

Infernal Might: 20 (Corpus)

Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com +3, Str +3, Sta +3, Dex +3, Qik +1

Size: 0

Confidence Score: 3 (3) Virtues and Flaws: Weak-willed

Personality Traits: Selfish +5 Combat:

Birch rod (club): Init +2, Attack +12, Defense +19, Damage +6

Soak: +3

Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5,

Unconscious*

*Never suffers fatigue while chanting

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapacitated (16–20),

Dead (21+)

Abilities: Athletics 5 (muscular labor), Awareness 3 (shirkers), Craft (shipboard work) 5 (new fashions), French 5 (pirates), Folk Ken 5 (pirates), Guile 5 (shirkers), Infernal Lore 2 (piracy), Music 7 (song), Single weapons 6 (birch rod).

Powers:

Coagulation, 1 point, Init –1, Corpus. Envisioning; 1 point, Init +0, Mentem.

Obsession, 1 to 3 points, Init –5, Vim: Laziness.

Endless Droning, 0 points, Init 0, Corpus: So long as the demon is singing, it cannot lose Fatigue.

Black Shanties: 6 points, Init –11, Corpus: The demon's song grants a minor False Blessing to anyone who joins the song. Each demon knows several songs, but can only use one, and offer one Blessing, at time. Using Infernal blessings, even for good purposes, is still a sin, so characters joining the song while fighting pirates, or to attack the shantyman itself, are still morally culpable. Simple blessings include a +2 bonus on Soak, the Longwinded Virtue, +3 on a particular Ability, or the ability to create a single minor spell. A popular spell causes a gust of wind that knocks an enemy down, and, with luck, overboard.

The shantyman can always continue leading his songs while engaged in combat, but other characters must make Intelligence + Concentration rolls against an Ease Factor of 6 to sing in a round in which they are fighting.

Equipment: Weathered clothes, birch rod.

Weakness: Protected group (those singing his song)

Vis: 4 pawn Imaginem vis sordia in loathsome, huge tongue

Appearance: A tall, gaunt man, flecked in salt and bird dung, dressed in ragged sailor's clothes, with a lower jaw that gapes open in a long oval, to his solar plexus. He carries a birch rod which he uses as a whip.

Shantymen are demons whose songs provide nearby humans with False Powers. Each shantyman knows several songs, but can sing only one at a time. Eustace has one of these creatures on each of his ships.

Eustace needs supplies to keep his fleet seaworthy and he gains these, in part, by raiding shipping and port facilities. Many covenants have excellent port facilities or links to merchant houses. Eustace is proud, and chronically underestimates his opponents, so the excellent timber, spars, cordage, and provisions stored in the covenant's warehouses are not safe from him.

This hook begins the story with a raid, in which lesser characters, like grogs and companions, defend against a ship of Eustace's men, perhaps aided by a demon. The hook works best if Eustace's forces do serious damage or, when driven off, promise to return with greater force.

In this hook, Eustace's forces capture a ship allied with the player characters. This is similar to the previous hook, but involves a different mix of characters. One interesting framing device is for the storyguide to inform the players that word has reached the characters of the loss of this ship. The storyguide then gives the players pregenerated characters, telling them they shouldn't get too attached to them. The battle is played as a flashback, narrated by a witness who is not initially identified. The better the temporary characters do, the more information they can pass to the usual player characters.

This is a survival story. These disposable player characters almost certainly won't defeat Eustace, and only one of them needs to survive. The first scene's function is to pre-warn the characters about Eustace's powers and resources, and provide a horrific warning of what happens to their regular characters if they fail to prepare. If the characters have strong divinatory magic, that can read the history of objects or speak with ghosts, then none of the temporary characters need to survive to keep this framing element complete.

If the temporary characters do kill Eustace, say that the battle occurred two years ago, and then segue into a version of the story with an alternate but similar pirate lord. Options for alternatives are given in the Changing the Story section, earlier.

This is a much-used hook, but an easy one to fit into most sagas. Eustace captured, tortured, and killed a Redcap.