Iron Revenant

Veil-Born Elite · 3 XP The Ash Belt
HP
14
Defense
9
AR
2
Mettle
2

Attacks

Attack Pool WR Tempo Qualities Notes
Rail-Spike Fist 7 4 5 On Crit, impales target (Pinned — IRON TN 13 to free).
Boiler Scream 0 2 6 Cone (Near range): 2 damage + ECHO TN 11 or Suppressed (fear).
Magnetic Pull 0 0 4 All metal objects within Near range yanked 4m toward Revenant. Worn metal armor: IRON TN 11 or dragged along with it.

Traits

  • Spectral Machine: Immune to Bleeding, Poison, and mental Psionics. Takes normal damage from physical attacks (the iron body is solid enough to hit). Takes ×2 damage from Salt and Ghost-Rock.
  • Rail-Bound: Cannot move more than Far range from the nearest rail track. If the rails are torn up or removed, the Revenant's anchor weakens (−2 to all Pools, HP halved) until new iron is laid.
  • Heat Aura: The rails and metal within Close range of the Revenant are superheated. Contact with heated metal deals 1 damage per Tick. Metal weapons used against the Revenant become uncomfortably hot — after 3 attacks, the wielder takes 1 damage per subsequent attack (heat conducting through the grip).
  • Iron Affinity: The Revenant can sense and manipulate iron and steel within Near range. Doors lock. Chains rattle. Guns jam (SAVVY TN 11 to clear).

The ghost of the rails — a spectral figure fused with the wreckage of a derailed locomotive, haunting the stretches of abandoned track that scar the Frontier. Iron Revenants are born when a train crash kills dozens simultaneously in a place where the Veil is thin. The collective death-agony imprints on the iron and steel, creating an entity that is part ghost, part machine, and wholly furious.

An Iron Revenant manifests as a humanoid shape assembled from twisted rail-iron, rivet-heads, and locomotive parts — pistons for arms, a boiler plate for a chest, a headlamp for a single burning eye. It moves with the grinding shriek of metal on metal, and the temperature drops twenty degrees in its presence. The rails beneath it glow cherry-red.

Revenants are territorial. They patrol the stretch of track where they died, attacking anything that uses the rails. The Consortium has lost three repair crews to a single Revenant near the Kessick junction. They now route trains around the haunted stretch — a detour that adds two days and considerable cost.

Speed 6.

Tactics

The Revenant uses Magnetic Pull to drag metal-wielding enemies toward it, then Rail-Spike Fist to pin them. Boiler Scream is used against groups. It patrols a specific stretch of track and does not pursue beyond its Rail-Bound range — but it will destroy anything on those rails.

Encounter Design

Iron Revenants are obstacle encounters. The party needs to cross a haunted rail stretch — to catch a train, to reach a settlement, to deliver supplies. They can fight it (difficult), sneak past it (very difficult — it senses metal), or find a way to lay it to rest (discover who died in the crash, salt the wreckage, perform a Circle ritual). The best encounters offer all three options.