Revenant's Disease

Ever since the Nephalitim storm devastated much of Beldam, the occasional uprising of the dead has been seen or rumored throughout Beldam. Unlike vampires, mummies, or even werewolves, revenants are not subject to a "curse." Their affliction, or Revenant's Disease, appears to be a reanimating of the flesh, the body, but not of the mind. The individual who walks the earth as an undead revenant, does so in body alone. It is widely acknowledged both by the clergy and the scientific community that the "soul" of such an individual has already moved on from its body. The seminal work The Body Brought Forward from The Grave, by Dante Boddinger, states "the condition of the revenant (as first seen during the Nephalitim storm) finds an empty host, which is reanimated by a biological virus that has infected the brain to the point of resuming activity throughout the body. This animation continues, fed and strengthened by the introduction of fresh, living blood or brain, until such time that the virus-ridden, infected brain of the revenant is rendered destroyed, unable to resume such activity as before."
The scientific community (as well as clergy scientists and cleric mages) has struggled for decades to develop a form of vaccine that would render the living "unpalatable or even repugnant to the wandering revenant." A renowned scientist, Pallas Hardscrapple of the Byronne College School of Biology, developed a vaccine that utilized the Emiritum gas along with antibodies found in revenant corpses. The vaccine was called "Pallas-Bowie 138," and was tested on prisoners on the island asylum of "Isla Dementia," following a revenant outbreak following the "Aberforth Riot." The results were encouraging, with revenants refusing to feed on the vaccinated, allowing prison guards to systematically destroy the undead plaguing the facility.
The production of the vaccine has begun using laboratories under the auspices of the Stevenson-Hyde Company, headquartered in Boddingtown.