Revenants are the ghostly versions of creatures slain in the God Wars, and used to be amongst the most dangerous type of monsters in RuneScape. The word revenant comes from a French and Latin word meaning "returned." They were introduced in an update on 10 December 2007, and were designed to replace player killers in the Wilderness; as such, revenants are generally much stronger than their combat levels suggest. Before 1 February 2011, Revenants could be found patrolling freely around various parts of the Wilderness, but are now found only in the Forinthry Dungeon, which is a PvP zone. These creatures are mainly killed for their valuable special drops (such as Ancient Warriors' equipment). Higher level revenants are more likely to drop these specific items, although drop rates are still quite low.
Overview
The revenants' locations in the Forinthry Dungeon.
Revenants can be found in the Forinthry Dungeon, for players brave enough to kill them and get rewarding drops. Most players choose to avoid the Forinthry Dungeon by virtue of the fact that it is still a PvP area. To minimise the risk of being killed by other players, find a world filled with friendly revenant hunters, join friend chats/clans dedicated to killing Revenants, or use different servers.
Revenants are known to use all three types of the Combat Triangle. Therefore, it is near impossible to take no damage from them, unless the Forinthry Brace is used.
When attacking, Revenants try to exploit the weakness of your player. For example, if a player uses a Rune full helm, Magic shieldbow, Blue d'hide body, Blue d'hide chaps and Blue d'hide vambraces, it makes the player weak to melee attacks. Therefore, Revenants will attempt to use melee attacks if they are able to reach the player, otherwise they will use the same attack they used to attack the player.
Revenants will also focus on your Prayers. For example, if a player who uses melee gear uses magic protection prayers (to avoid being hit by the magic attack), the Revenant will avoid using that attack, and will focus on using their ranged or melee attack on the player instead.
All the revenants are killed, regardless of their combat level, as most powerful PK weapons can usually kill them faster than a whip or scimitar. Their popularity has decreased now since the Wilderness is much more dangerous (the Wilderness makes you drop every item apart from the one you protected if the protection prayer/curse is on), and a slightly deeper location, due to Evolution of Combat changes, although a patch allowed players to be able to teleport in the revenant area now.
Original release
The areas that Revenants patrolled before being banished into the Forinthry Dungeon.
Revenants were introduced along with a large update on 10 December 2007, in which player killing in the Wilderness was removed (to be replaced by Bounty Hunter, Clan Wars, and eventually PvP worlds). Player killers had long been a significant danger in the Wilderness, so revenants were created to provide a similar threat. Many aspects of revenants were introduced to mimic player killers more effectively, such as the ability to "eat" and heal damage, as well as identifying a target's weakness based on their armour and switching attacks accordingly. However, there are a number of differences between revenants and player killers, some of which have been sources of controversy on the RuneScape forums.
For example, revenants have the ability to deal damage with all three forms of combat. A skilled player killer would only use two styles, or hybrid, and they do this exceptionally well while revenants fall short in actual tactics. Revenants on the other hand, are easy to predict and counter. Their drops are also inconsistent with their power; although revenants can drop powerful items, such as rune and dragon equipment, they do so rarely, often giving a small number of coins or nothing at all. Revenants do not fight each other, as player killers could, nor do they fight with other creatures in the Wilderness. Furthermore, whereas a player killer possesses human intelligence and can be reasoned with or otherwise placated, revenants are relentlessly aggressive and will not stop attacking until they are killed or fled from, or until they spot or are attacked by a different target.
To balance this out, revenants are limited in a number of ways. Contrary to popular belief, prayer WILL defend against the attacks done by a revenant. The effects of the attacks, such as teleblock or freeze will NOT be defended against, but the damage itself will be fully negated by the prayer of choice. Keep in mind that the range attack resembles icy darts and the magic attack is a giant skull. Revenants also do not have access to special attacks, cannot summon familiars, and cannot drain stats. As revenants are controlled by AI, it is possible to "trick" them by trapping them behind a wall or another obstruction. Additionally, revenants cannot run as players can, so it is arguably easier to escape from a revenant, despite the longer range of their attacks.
The range of combat levels of players that a given revenant could attack were dependent on the level of the Wilderness. In Wilderness level 1, a player must have had a combat level of one level greater than, one level less than, or equal to the combat level of the revenant in order to attack it. As the Wilderness level increased, up to level 56 Wilderness, the deepest level, lower-levelled players could be attacked by increasingly strong revenants, and vice-versa. For example, a revenant ork, with a combat level of 105, could not attack players with a combat level of 70 or lower until level 35 Wilderness.
There were a number of mechanics regarding their movement:
- Unlike players, revenants could not run. They could only move at normal walking speed, meaning they can be outrun.
- A revenant's teleblock spell would prevent you from teleporting for five minutes. Wearing a Forinthry bracelet allows you to teleport would bypass this up to five times.
- There were a few areas in the Wilderness that were not actually part of the Wilderness, and could be used as sanctuary. These included the Wilderness Volcano's banking area, the Clan Wars lobby, Stealing Creation, Fist of Guthix, Edgeville Dungeon resource dungeon, anywhere under the Lava Maze, the Spirit Realm, the Mage Arena bank (which teleblocked players could not enter), Ghorrock, and Daemonheim. There is also a small peninsula east of the Demonic ruins that revenants can reach but players can avoid attacks by going to the far side of the peninsula. Revenants rarely get onto the peninsula. Entering any of these areas will also lift any teleblocks that may be in effect. Revenants may enter these areas rarely, but are unable to attack or be attacked.
- The Protect from Missiles spell would help block their ranged attack that froze you, and, in most cases, was their strongest attack. Although Protect from Missiles does not block the freezing attacks, it does make the revenants less likely to use them.
- Although revenants could reach just about every location in the Wilderness, they often followed common routes in their patrols. Learning these routes may help to avoid revenants. A picture including revenant hotspots, spawns and patrols can be found above.
- Revenants made a distinctive sound when they attack with Magic, which can be easily heard if the sound effects are on.
- Revenants would be scared off by Howl, the special attack of a spirit wolf.
- Revenants did not appear in PvP worlds, although player killers may roam the Wilderness instead.
- Revenants were restricted as to who they can attack, depending on which level of the Wilderness you are in. For example, a Wilderness level of 1 means the player can be attacked by revenants within 1 combat level of their own; a danger level of 2 means they can fight revenants within 2 combat levels of their own; and so on.
- Revenants tried to target all players, even ones it can't attack. So if the revenant is on the other side of a wall targeting you, you can send out a player with a level too low for it to attack. It would then try to target the low level player, realise it can't and go away.
- Revenants could go through doors while wandering, but you could stop them from entering through the door (eg: Chaos Temple) by quickly attacking them and closing the door before they enter.
History
Two players battling against a Revenant demon.
During the Second Age, the Wilderness was the heart of the kingdom of the Empty Lord, Zaros. At the time, the land was prosperous and wooded, protected from his enemies by enormous military strength. However, when he was overthrown by Zamorak, the God Wars began.
The God Wars that raged across Gielinor for 4,000 years were the world's darkest hours. The races of countless civilisations were forced to extinction, and entire regions were left uninhabitable by battle. No area suffered so greatly as the Wilderness.
With Zaros removed from power, the world's other races and religious factions launched massive assaults not only on each other, but on the leaderless legions of Zaros. By the end of the God Wars, the Wilderness had suffered from so much conflict that it was permanently scarred, its former beauty forgotten.
Banishment of the revenants from the wilderness, led by player moderators[1]
Many of those that died in the Wars are trapped eternally in the Wilderness, their souls twisted by the evil magic and corruption that surrounds it. For a very long time, over 2,000 years later, these creatures, known now as the revenants, continued to hunt for those that enter their kingdom, doing whatever they can in their power to stop them.
Since then, the Wilderness has been recaptured and the Revenants, along with many other monsters native to the Wilderness, have been forced underground into the Forinthry Dungeon. They have been diminished and are no longer able to freeze or teleblock opponents, however they are still powerful enemies to fight.
List of revenants
The different types of revenants are listed below:
Trivia
- According to the Head Mystic, the revenants are the Holy Ones of whom the mystics spoke. It is said they sent the head mystic a message in his dreams and told him to build the camp for Stealing Creation, to make bodies for them out of Sacred Clay.
- Revenants are unique non-boss monsters, as non-boss monsters are usually found in abundant amount of numbers. They also beat every monster in terms of variety, as there are 14 different types of Revenants.
- Revenants are the only monsters that drop very few common items, and much more rarer items.
- For a very long time after the Evolution of Combat, Revenants maintained their old EoC healing effects. When a Revenant imp reached 50 hitpoints (100 pre-Eoc and 1500 EoC), it would heal itself by 100. This allowed Revenants to be easily killed like standard monsters, as the healing effect was too low to heal over the player's damage. After a hidden update, Revenants will heal when they reach below 50% of their maximum hitpoints, and will heal a certain percentage of hitpoints rather then the typical 100 hitpoints.
- The Revenant pyrefiend, icefiend and cyclops received new sounds after a hidden update was released.
- Prior to the Evolution of Combat, Revenants maintained a low agression range, only getting close when the player was not far from them, even behind a wall. After the update, the agression range was drastically increased. For example, if you are in the building with the pyrefiend, the demon will leave it's spawn area and try to attack you if it can.
- Although players are unable to eat while stunned, stunning a Revenant when their HP is drastically below 50%, they can still heal themselves, even though stunned monsters/players are unable to do any actions for a few seconds. This is most likely an oversight from Jagex.
- Revenants can move, even if they are stunned. This is most likely an oversight from Jagex.
- Although when fighting monsters in RuneScape, when fighting Revenants, sometimes they may "leave combat", essentially ignoring the player for a second even if they had just attacked the player earlier on. This is most likely an oversight from Jagex.
References
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