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Oddities for a Graveyard

GraveShot.jpg

Whether gathering to lay an ally to rest or skulking about to beat the restless dead back into their yawning graves, adventurers have plenty of reason venture into graveyards, necropoleis, and cemeteries. But a garden of the dead should be more than a few crumbling tombstones on a field of turned earth. It is a place with its own atmosphere that - pardon the expression - lives and breaths, and you never know what you might find there. With that in mind, the necrotic madmen who brought you Oddities for a Thieves Guild and Oddities for a Creepy Old House present an ever growing, ever evolving list of oddities for a graveyard for GMs to use to bring a little unlife to their campaigns.

  1. A tombstone with the name of one of the adventurers engraved upon it. There is an equal chance the date of death is the current date, a date 100 years before the present time, or left blank.
  2. A shovel driven into the earth surrounded by the discarded clothes of a gravedigger.
  3. A monument topped by the statue of an angel, valkyrie, or other Good-aligned spirit being appropriate to the setting. No matter where the adventurers stand, the statue always appears to be facing away from them if they are of Evil alignment or facing toward them if they are of Good alignment.
  4. A deliriously happy dog running past with a humanoid femur in its mouth.
  5. The grave of a prominent spellcaster (equal chance of a bard, cleric, sorcerer, or wizard). The monument over the grave is a statue in the likeness of the deceased. If anyone talks about the deceased the head of the statue animates. The statue can answer any question about the deceased, and will often correct adventurers who speak ill of the dead or make slanderous statements.
  6. A crumbling stone birdbath. 1d8 eerily silent whippoorwills make use of the birdbath. If any intelligent creature dies within the bounds of the graveyard after the birdbath is discovered, the whippoorwills appear on the scene, giving their distinctive call as they attempt to chase down the fleeing soul of the departed.
  7. A cluster of 1d6+1 black muschrooms growing from the soul of a fresh grave. Tiny red fungal hairs grow from the top of each mushroom cap. If the mushrooms are observed for more than a moment, they can be seen to slowly pulse.
  8. A metal snorkel protruding from a grave.
  9. A family mausoleum. The structure appears perfectly normal at first, but examination reveals that there are no doors to allow entry . . . or exit.
  10. A defaced tombstone. The symbol of an evil, chaotic, or outlawed god is roughly carved into its surface.