What could prevent a revenant monster's Vengeful Tracker feature from working?

Question

As I continue my campaign with revenants (as I mention in this question), I'm having some trouble:

The BBEG of my campaign is being tracked by a group of revenants as well as the party, but knows only about the revenant's group. He is searching for a method to prevent those revenants from knowing where he is (via the Vengeful Tracker feature).

My guess is that all the things that can prevent a revenant's Vengeful Tracker feature (e.g. use a wish spell) from working could also be used to kill the revenant permanently, but I want to be sure, so I'm asking you all whether I am right.

Answer 1

No magic can prevent it from working

The revenant's statblock (MM, p. 259) describes the Vengeful Tracker trait as follows:

The revenant knows the distance to and direction of any creature against which it seeks revenge, even if the creature and the revenant are on different planes of existence. If the creature being tracked by the revenant dies, the revenant knows.

It's not described as explicitly magical. Even if it was, though, the Monster Manual mentions outside the revenant's statblock:

Divine Justice. No magic can hide a creature pursued by a revenant, which always knows the direction and distance between it and the target of its vengeance. In cases where the revenant seeks revenge against more than one adversary, it pursues them one at a time, starting with the creature that dealt it the killing blow. If the revenant’s body is destroyed, its soul flies forth to seek out a new corpse in which to resume its hunt.

The fact that "No magic can hide a creature pursued by a revenant" means that there is no spell that can prevent the revenant from knowing the distance to and direction of its target.

...and neither does "killing" it (unless you wish it to pass on within the next 24 hours)

In addition, as the last line states, even if you destroy its original body, it'll simply seek out a new one and keep coming, as explained in the Rejuvenation trait in its statblock:

When the revenant’s body is destroyed, its soul lingers. After 24 hours, the soul inhabits and animates another humanoid corpse on the same plane of existence and regains all its hit points. While the soul is bodiless, a wish spell can be used to force the soul to go to the afterlife and not return.

As stated, the wish spell can explicitly be used to force the soul to pass on between its body being destroyed and it being able to inhabit another one. (Of course, wish can do anything at the DM's discretion, but this line makes it explicitly within the purview of the spell.)

Your best bet is to outrun it or trap it without killing it - for a whole year

As another part of the description outside the statblock states:

Hunger for Revenge. A revenant has only one year to exact revenge. When its adversary dies, or if the revenant fails to kill its adversary before its time runs out, it crumbles to dust and its soul fades into the afterlife. If its foe is too powerful for the revenant to destroy on its own, it seeks worthy allies to help it fulfill its quest.

The revenant has a strict time limit within which it can accomplish its goal: 1 year. If it doesn't get its revenge by then, its body crumbles and its soul passes on.

Thus, your best bet at avoiding the revenant's vengeance is to either trap its body (in a way that it can not kill itself, if the DM deems it intelligent enough to do so) for a year, or simply continue to outrun it for a year. You might be able to do the former with a spell like imprisonment, though it's a 9th-level spell with a material component that would need to be worth 8000 gp (it must be worth 500 gp per Hit Die of the spell's target, and revenants have 16 Hit Dice).

This question discusses what magic items can be used to trap/ensnare/capture enemies. In addition, this particular question about how to permanently kill/stop revenants has been discussed in a few places around the internet:

• this Giant in the Playground forum thread
• this RPG.net forum thread
• this /r/DnD thread on Reddit

I haven't gone through their suggested solutions in detail; in short, they generally suggest specific ways to outrun or trap the revenant.

Answer 2

There's no way to stop the tracking short of destroying the revenants somehow.

Your guess is right; the wording of the Vengeful Tracker and Divine Justice sections in the Revenant's description do preclude any ability to effectively hide from a revenant's tracking, as it's explicitly stated that no magical means can prevent it, and there's obviously no mundane method you can use to stop this supernatural tracking while the target and the revenant both exist:

No magic can hide a creature pursued by a revenant, which always knows the direction and distance between it and the target of its vengeance.

[...]

The revenant knows the distance to and direction of any creature against which it seeks revenge, even if the creature and the revenant are on different planes of existence.

But while we're on the subject of ways to escape from a Revenant that don't involve defeating or overpowering it directly:

Kill yourself

A revenant's quest comes to an end when the creature it is hunting dies:

Hunger for Revenge. ... When its adversary dies, or if the revenant fails to kill its adversary before its time runs out, it crumbles to dust and its soul fades into the afterlife.

It doesn't specify that the Revenant, or its allies, have to be the ones that kill the target; just that once the target of the revenant's quest for vengeance is dead, the revenant passes on.

The Revenant's stat block does also specify that:

If the creature being tracked by the revenant dies, the revenant knows.

But this is only meaningful in cases where the revenant is tracking more than one target - it's meant to prevent them wasting time hunting someone who's already dead, so they know to move on to their next quarry. If the BBEG is the only target being tracked by the revenants, their job is done and their time is up!

Of course, D&D being D&D, it's difficult to keep a powerful person dead for long. As written, all your BBEG needs is one trusted ally capable of casting Revivify and 300gp of diamonds. They commit suicide, the Revenants automatically self-Thanos, and less than a minute later the BBEG is revived, heals up and carries on, free of undead interference, with only minimal disruption to their activities.

Answer 3

As @BBeast pointed out, the Vengeful Tracker feature is not considered magical.

In addition, MM. 259 (outside the statblock) also says: "Divine Justice. No magic can hide a creature pursued by a revenant, which always knows the direction and distance between it and the target of its vengeance." This makes it pretty clear cut, there is no RAW solution, so I've decided to provide options that might work with varying degrees of homebrew required, all of them ignoring this statement.

These are mostly non-trivial options, i.e. options other than "kill the trackers", in order of their RAW-ness.

RAW: nothing

The wording of Vengeful Tracker is pretty absolute, and the bit about "no magic being able to hide you" doesn't make it easier either: The Revenant knows where you are. There might be an enchantment spell that might convince the Revenant to "be ignorant of where you are", but Revenants are immune to being charmed.

Vengeful Tracker is "tracking": Pass without Trace

Pass without Trace says you "can't be tracked except by magical means". Seeing as VT is explicitly not magical, and has "tracking" in the name, this might work

Vengeful Tracker IS magical: Wish, Mind Blank, Antimagic Field

If VT is considered to be "magical", which it isn't according to RAW, these spells would work. They all function pretty straightforward.

Vengeful Tracker is divination magic: Nondetection

This depends on VT being "divination magic", an even greater stretch from the previous assumption, but seeing as you are asking as the DM, you're free to make it so.

Homebrew

You can always homebrew a spell or a magic item that does exactly what you want. Keep in mind that a good plot device is defined by it's weaknesses. I can imagine a side quest to find the creator of said item or spell, and question them on the way it operates.