The Briar Revenant
The Immortal Thorn
Among the cursed legends of the Thornshroud Dominion, none are whispered with more awe and unease than the Briar Revenant—a once-mortal Thornguard now more folklore than flesh, a deathless sentinel of rot and rage. His name is not spoken; he has not spoken in centuries. He is known only by his deeds, and the crimson blossoms that grow where his victims fall.
Slain twelve times in twelve wars, the Revenant has returned each time, more twisted and overgrown than before. His armor has long since fused with his mutated form. He is not a man in armor, but a living grove of vengeance.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
- A Tower of Vines and Bone: Towering nearly seven feet tall, the Briar Revenant's silhouette is a tangle of bark-plated muscle, thorn-choked sinew, and bone-grown armor.
- No Face Remains: His face is a skull wrapped in root-veins, partially hidden beneath a veil of withered moss and ritual wrappings. His voice—if ever heard—is the sound of wood splitting and sap boiling.
- Blossoms of the Slain: Wherever he fights, blood-fed briar roses bloom, nourished by the corpses he fells.
Special abilities
- Deathless Root: Unless his buried root-heart is burned or severed, he cannot be truly slain—he always regrows.
- Blooming Regeneration: Injuries close rapidly as vines stitch flesh and thorns cauterize wounds.
- Aura of Hunger: Nearby undead and twisted flora become more aggressive and regenerative in his presence.
- Burial Surge: Can plunge into the earth in battle, vanishing into the root network, only to erupt elsewhere like a violent sprouting weed.
Specialized Equipment
Thorncleave
- A massive cleaver grown from an ossified tree limb, studded with iron thorns and scarred with runes of renewal and rage.
- Every wound it inflicts plants parasitic seeds in the victim’s flesh, which root and burst if not quickly removed.
- When buried in the soil, Thorncleave draws strength from death, healing the Revenant by draining nearby corpses.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Once a loyal warrior of Thornveil, the man who became the Revenant willingly underwent the Rite of Rootbinding in the Rotheart Grove. His soul was anchored not to his body, but to a massive, necrotic root system deep beneath Blackthorn Keep—the Dominion’s buried heart.
Now, should his physical form be destroyed, his spirit simply feeds the root, and a new version of him grows back—gnarled, thornier, and less human each time.
Social
Contacts & Relations
- The Dominion’s Blight-Warden: The Briar Revenant is deployed only in the most hopeless or sacrificial battles—where his endless resurgence can turn tides or stall enemies indefinitely.
- A Living Warning: His presence in a region is enough to cause enemy scouts to flee, fearing entrapment in his forested kill-zones.
- Feared by All: Even among the Hollow Council, few claim authority over him. It is said that only King Daerion and the Thorn-Speaker can guide his wrath, and even then, only through ritual command.
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