When some mortals die they are condemned to existence within the Underworld. There are some among these condemned dead, however, who somehow free themselves to walk the earth once more, but this time as Revenants... dead souls clothed in flesh.

Revenants are often mistaken for vampires, as they do resemble the blood drinkers, save for the revenants' lack of fangs. Revenants are in many ways vampiric themselves, in that they must prey upon the living in order to sustain their immortal vigor. They drain the lifeforce from living creatures, particularly humans, granting themselves renewed energy and causing their victimes to age rapidly.

Revenants are nocturnal beings, as they find the sun's rays uncomfortable and the strong light offensive. They preffer black clothing and dress in ever-so-sheik styles, so they can seduce mortals more easily and move among the living who revel in the nightlife.

Revenants have their own subculture, existing in the shadows of the night within the Secret World. Among the revenants there are three types of social divisions: the Abaddon, hunters of all oethr revenenant and servants of Death; the Renunciates, revenants who prefer independence and freedom over status; and the Salariati revenants (collectively called the Salariat), those who form the basis of revenant society and politics.

There are several ways for dead souls to find their way into the Living Lands. Some manage to rejoin with their old old corpses, reanimating them. Others take over the corpse of otehr people, particularly fresh corpses. A fair amount also manage to acquire living bodies by bartering for them from ghul traders, called Ghaddars, who bring living bodies to the Underworld. (These ghaddars abandon their captives' souls in the Underworld, taking out dead soulds in their former captives' bodies). Revenants with reanimated corpses are called the Sarkomenos, or cold-bloods, while those with living bodies are called the Ekimmu, or warm-bloods.

Revenants know many secrets of the Underworld, but seldom share their knowledge, even with their closest living companions, fearing the psychological damamge they could do to their loved ones.

Revenants retain a wide variety of supernatural powers, called Nekrosia, commonly associated with ghostly entities. They also possess many enhanced physical powers, like the other earthly Un-dead.

As dead souls "clothed in flesh", revenants are among the msot unusual of the everlasting. While they come into being in a variety of ways, they all share the same basic physical nature, possibly since they are all spiritual entities inhabiting earthly bodies.

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Revenants share many common features with vampires: aversion to sunlight, enhanced physical and sensory abilities, regenerative powers, pale skin, gauntness, and predatory instincts. Beyond these similarities, however, the two gentes are very different forms of Un-dead. Revenants are shots in earthly bodies while vampires are humans that went from life into unlife.

Revenatns possess metahuman strength, dexterity, resilience, and speed. They have the power to heal wounds rapidly by expending some of the stored lifeforce they have stolen. They move with an inhuman grace that belies their fleshy forms; in fact, they can almost entrance mortals with their ethereal movements. Revenants often use their grace and surprising speed to seduce and capture their prey before they can escape.

Revenants do not have fangs, though their teeth are strong and pearly-white. They get dark circles around their eyes whenever they hunger for lifeforce. Their facial features are slightly gaunt and more angular than when theiri bodies were alive, but the effects only improve their appearance, giving them an otherworldly beuty that is hard to define. All revenants have pale-colored skin; Caucasians have almost chalk-white skin, Blacks have almost golden skin, and Hispanics have pale-tan skin. Their skin takes on more color when they replenish their lifeforce.

Revenants lose a lot of body weight as their internal organs atrophy from disuse; they are sustained totally by lifeforce. Revenants become even more pale, gaunt, and eerie-looking when they have had very little lifeforce in them. If they fail to steal lifeforce before their animus reaches zero, they begin aging rapidly. Though revenants cannot die the true death by not taking in life-force, they become so weak by not feeding they can take no action on thier own. Most who fall into this terrible state called Inanition never recover and spend eternity trapped within thier unmoving corpse-like bodies.

Revenants develop good memories and, if possessing the bodies of other humans, can access the previous inhabitants' memories and knowledge contained within the brains of their possessed bodies. Revenants with stolen living bodies thus find it easy to step into the lives of the people whose bodies they have stolen.

revenants, unlike vampires, are not vunlerable to direct sunlight even though they greatly dislike it. They do, however, take debilitating damage from normally-debilitating attacks, as well as from silver.