Battlemap
Catacombs of Calathis
The dead of Calathis are awake, and the way out is deeper in the dark.
Beneath the ruined city of Calathis lies a sprawling necropolis-catacomb, half royal burial complex and half cult-built maze. A failed necromantic summoning shattered its center, waking the dead and leaving the survivors trapped in a maze of sealed crypts, prisons, shrines, and forgotten vaults.
Cold burial air clings to everything, carrying the reek of old incense, mold, and wet stone. Faint green corpse-light seeps from cracked runes and eye sockets in the walls, while distant chanting and dragging chains echo through the catacombs. The deeper chambers feel pressurized by death magic, making every breath taste metallic and wrong.
☠Threat
The failed summoning has left a death-charged presence at the heart of the catacombs: a half-formed necromantic champion bound to the cult's command sigils. It is not fully awakened, but its pulses animate corpses, harden nearby undead, and draw them toward any living intruders, while scattered cult survivors and roaming dead make the catacombs increasingly lethal the longer the party lingers.
History
Calathis was once a proud burial city whose kings built the catacombs to honor their dead and hide sacred relics from grave robbers. After the crown and clergy outlawed necromancy, a surviving cult quietly returned to the depths, using old sepulchers, prison cells, and chapel vaults as a ritual engine to forge an undead champion. Their summoning cracked the ward-stones, slew many cultists, and raised the dead throughout the tunnels.
Encounter Table
CRA loose cluster of bones dragged by a residual death field, clattering toward warm bodies.
A cloaked corpse in cult remnants that searches for survivors and unfinished rites.
A ghostly mourner that flickers through walls, wailing when it senses stolen relics.
A pair of skeletal tomb guards carrying rusted spears and the habit of patrol.
Rumours & Whispers
The catacombs of Calathis were built over a plague pit, and the dead there never learned to stay buried.
The necromantic cult tried to summon a warrior made from royal bones, but the ritual went wrong and woke everything below.
A hidden shrine in the lower crypts still keeps a safe passage to the surface, if the saints there are appeased.
Some say the clergy banned necromancy after the king found a tomb that was still speaking with the voices of its dead.
The old prison cells hold prisoners who were never executed, only chained until the city fell.
Quest Hooks
Quest giver: Mira Vane, gravedigger of the lower ward
A local gravedigger begs for help after hearing that the old Calathis catacombs have begun coughing out corpses at night.
25 gp and a bundle of burial salts
Quest giver: Canon Therys, ash-robed inquisitor
The clergy offers pardons and sanctuary to anyone who destroys the necromantic cult's work and retrieves proof of their crimes.
Blessing of the grave and 50 gp
Quest giver: Joren Pell, nervous antiquary
A hidden letter from a vanished scholar says the catacombs contain a royal seal-key needed to open a sealed archive above ground.
Ancient map and 40 gp
Quest giver: Old Bran, ruin hunter
A frightened hunter saw pale lights moving under the ruins and swears something from the catacombs is stalking livestock near the city edge.
A fine bow or 30 gp
Corridor Notes
Narrow passages lined with stacked ossuary niches, many cracked open from within.
Dead candles that reignite when living creatures pass, casting sickly violet light.
Bone wind chimes made from finger bones that rattle before undead approach.
Smeared ritual chalk and dragged body marks from the failed summoning, leading back toward the center.
Collapsed sections where the old city stone gives way to natural caverns filled with coffin-pits.
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