Revenant

[Paladin]

So, I've been working on this fantasy realm worldbuilding project. It's a diverse world which is going to be inhabited with six primary races. Basically, when I create these races, I look for creativity and idealism in each of them. This means no "Do what Warcraft did! Lololololol..." I require suggestions that may invoke new concepts or twist existing ones to some degree. The race should either be attractive, or it can just be cool. I look from a game developer's standpoint: Who's going to want to be an ugly, unadmirable race?
So far, I have 3 races: humans (surprise), elves (how typical!), and sahydon (an aquatic race, undescribed as I don't know whether it's been done before).
For my fourth race, I turn to necromancy. Yay! The undead!
In this setting, minions are mindless creatures. Rather literally in fact. The skeletons and zombies you so commonly see are actually not the deceased! They are minor synthetic souls encased in a weak synthetic body (and thus the undead appearance.) The power is dark, but is accepted as legal magic.
The race I've created delves deeper still. At the heart of necromancy are the dark arts: true reanimation. This magic tampers with the laws of the earth to ressurrect the fallen. The dead reanimate are granted a new life but at the cost of their body and a chance at turning feral. These creatures, capable of independent thought and life, are the revenants, and the world isn't so welcoming of them.
Now, I'm looking for descriptions and perhaps pictures to draw inspiration from. The race will definitely be an interesting one to write. Keep in mind that they must be an equivalent capability wise to the other races. The humans have knowledge, the elves agility, the sahydon endurance... What do they bring to the table? Humanoids are by far preferred (as armour should hopefully be cross race).
So far amongst a day's brainstorming, we came up with two not very original and not very cool concepts: one as a golem like cyborg, the other a faceless shadow creature, both not up to par with the other races. Amongst others, a zombie looking thing and an all too sci fi mechanical puppet.
I'm looking foreward to your suggestions! Thank you for your help!

[EmanGr]

Why don't you make this dark race, ghost-like...? Zombies are really common nowadays. Ghosts that with dark magic, are able to stay on earth, and as creatures that live for many many years, they have to be the most knowledgeable race in terms of history, past events and such... They can also communicate with the dead, and summon spirits (being ghosts themselves, they have a natural affinity), they can possess and of course cast black magic. They are somewhat transparent (and have kinda better evasion), but they can take physical damage and get wounded... And they can look like other races, but a more ghostly, twisted and demonic form of them (like pale skin, reddish eyes, long nails, white hair. Oh! Also they could have white eyes in peace mode, but red in combat). Ghosts could be either gentle and etheric or demonic, filled with black magic (or you can make a proffession where they change and become more angelic using light magic and another one that makes them demonic, using the dark arts).

The aquatic race could be gorgon-like with fish characteristics like gills, but still beautiful.
That's what I'd like in a game, or a magical world, I always wanted undead that don't look like gross zombies and skeletons...

[naive_subseed]

Your list so far:
Necromancer: dead
Elf: fancy humanoid
Sahydon: water inhabitani
Minions: faceless
Human: regular

The first thing i'd suggest is that you somehow put all of these creatures in juxtaposition with each other, a fancy way of saying show how they interact.
-Maybe the elves are like an evolution of humans and were hunted down before they built their own society. Maybe they just are arrogant assholes who were adored by humans for their crafts and therefore feel above them.
-Necromancer could work, but i feel zombie is a shallow way of putting it. if they are dead, maybe they can only be killed with violence so that they are cursed to a bloody death. in the end, they are people who are free from the constraints of society. Will they begin their own world anew or try to reclaim their own lives back? i don't know.
-The water creature first make me think of environmentalists yelling at the human world for being so materialistic, but i realized Sahydon sounds like satin when i say it in my head. SO maybe they are moralistic in their view, but cause destruction and chaos to get their way.
-With Minions mass production is the key. i know myths where people are made of mud and dirt, and it is easy to make them and depending on the quality of production, easy to break them. think either a natural process of creation being corrupted, like a virus. Or think of workers creating these monsters, like a sweatshop.
-Humans are always humans. war is always war.

[axysses]

Nice thing you have going there with the revenants. However, what I was thinking of was something more along the lines of those souls having no particular shape (like djinns) in their normal state but choose a "body" to face the other races just for the physicality of it, and that body could be called forth from elements found around them (i.e. having the power to deconstruct say a pile of leaves into its particulate atoms to form a frail outer shell of a human, perhaps with some leaves sticing out of their hair or eyes or stuff). I don't know... I'm throwing random ideas around here. It's like how golems can assemble themselves from piles of rock lying around, but rather the souls have the power the deconstruct and reconstruct.

Knowledge (INT)
Agility (AGI)
Endurance (END)

You're missing out on STR (strength) if you're looking at classical traits. But perhaps instead of being the classically physically strong beings, the Revenants could be strong in spirit? Since their desire to keep on living is something that contributes to their existence, it would be hard to tear away their presence from the world, and as such they can "physically" manipulate and tear out souls, though it seems very much more like an INT (intelligence) thing... or alternatively, basing on their ability to reconstitute matter, they can be indestructable as souls, thus they create very weak synthetic bodies (since there is no point if they cannot be slain physically, unless they come to love their form so much) but are able to reconstitue matter like magic... but then again it's a very magic thing ARGH /flails about.

The reason why I'm reminded about strength is that I've been playing Dragon Age 2 and the monsters called Revenants are also the undead who are immensely strong warriors and beat the crap out of your health :P