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Memory Revenant of the Burned Waystation

What the Waystation Could Not Forgive

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Tier 3 Solo Difficulty 15

One of the six waystations Captain Vohn has burned along Vessa's route in the last three weeks. When the survivors fled and the resonance-saturated wood of the building cooled, the grief did not. A Memory Revenant has formed in the ashes — a humanoid silhouette of layered ash, charred wood, and crystallized grief, walking the foundations of the waystation that no longer exists. It is what the place was, refusing to be done.

Memory Revenant of the Burned Waystation

Tier 3 Solo

*"Come in. The fire is laid. There is bread."* — the Revenant, standing in a foundation outline thirty feet across with no fire and no bread.

Motives & Tactics:

Description

The Revenant stands roughly nine feet tall, the silhouette of a hooded figure in a long traveler's cloak, the figure made entirely of layered grey ash held in shape by a lattice of charred timber and threads of violet-black crystallized grief. Where the face would be, there is the cross-section of a doorway. When it moves, the ash drifts; the lattice creaks. When it stands still, the place where the waystation used to be smells faintly of bread.

Motives

The Revenant has no agenda except the waystation's restoration, which is impossible. It does not understand it is impossible. It will continue to act as the waystation acted: receive travelers, feed them, shelter them, maintain the road. It will resist anything that interferes with this. The Excisors set the fire. The Revenant has not yet decided whether the party is more Excisor or more traveler.

Tactics

The Revenant tries first to greet the party. It offers them a place by a fire that is not there. It produces ashen bread on an ashen plate. If the party accepts the offering with respect, the Revenant becomes a powerful (if uncanny) host — and a powerful witness, because it remembers exactly what Vohn's people said while they worked. If the party rejects, refuses, or attacks, the Revenant escalates: protective host first, then defensive resident, then — only at last — the grief itself made shape.

Difficulty: 15 | Thresholds: 11/22 | HP: 9 | Stress: 6

ATK: 4 | Lattice of Charred Timber: Close | 2d10+3 mag

Features

The Offering - Action: On the Revenant's first turn (or first interaction), it offers the party hospitality — ashen bread, ashen tea, a place by a fire that does not exist. A PC who accepts with sincerity (a Presence roll, DC 13, made in good faith) opens a non-combat track for the encounter: the Revenant becomes a host rather than an enemy. The encounter may still end in violence, but the violence is now optional rather than guaranteed.

What the Walls Heard - Action: If the Revenant has been treated as a host, it may, on its action, share one memory of the burning: what was said, who said it, what was taken, what was burned. The information is reliable. Vohn's name is one such memory. This action is only available in the non-combat track.

Defensive Resident - Action: Combat track only. The Revenant lashes out with a sweep of the charred-timber lattice, attacking up to two targets within Close range. On a hit, the target takes 2d10+3 magic damage and is pushed back to Close range as the lattice insists on the waystation's old foundations.

Grief in the Shape of a Door - Action: Combat track only. Mark 2 Stress. The Revenant opens the doorway-shape where its face would be. All creatures within Close range must succeed on a Presence roll (DC 15) or be overwhelmed by the grief of every traveler the waystation ever sheltered. On a failed roll, the target takes 2d8 magic damage and is Stunned until the start of their next turn.

Bound to the Foundation - Passive: The Revenant cannot leave the original footprint of the waystation. PCs may retreat across the foundation line; the Revenant will not pursue beyond it. This makes the Revenant a positional threat rather than a hunting one — and means a PC who breaks the foundation's outline (Strength roll, DC 17, or a focused destructive effort) can dispel the Revenant entirely.

What Remembers - Reaction: When the Revenant is reduced to 0 HP — whether through combat or through respectful dispelling — it leaves behind one item the waystation considered precious: the keeper's ledger, a sealed letter from a previous traveler, a small carved spiral the keeper's child made before the fire. GM chooses; should be plot-relevant.