Battlemap
Ktarek's Ledger Crypt
Blue flames tremble over seventeen empty niches while something below the floor counts softly.
The crypt lies beneath a ruined mortuary, built around the sealed burial vault of a magistrate who believed death could be made orderly. Its chambers combine prison cells, memorial shrines, funerary archives, and treasure vaults, all watched by the restless dead. The deeper halls have begun to shift as the crypt's master searches for a missing name.
Cold, mineral air carries the smell of wet limestone, old incense, and opened graves. Blue witchflame burns in shallow wall bowls, while distant stone knocks suggest that something below is still counting the dead.
☠ Threat
The crypt is ruled by Magistrate Ktarek, now a chain-bound wight whose body was never buried and whose authority survives in the engraved ledgers. He commands the named dead and attempts to erase every unrecorded soul, feeding on memories as readily as blood. Each opened vault gives him more names, more servants, and greater control over the doors.
History
Magistrate Ktarek built the crypt after a fever killed half the district and left its dead without proper burial. He ordered a drained cistern cleared, then raised stone chambers over the exposed mass grave, using prisoners to carve names and priests to bind the restless corpses. Years later, Ktarek vanished during the sealing rite, and outsiders began calling the place his tomb, though he was never laid there.
Encounter Table
CRA corpse porter dragging a cracked stone tablet toward room-11.
A cluster of skeletal bailiffs carrying hooked lanterns and bronze masks.
Pale hands and drowned faces emerge from puddles, drains, and damp wall seams.
Rumours & Whispers
A magistrate still holds court beneath the ruined mortuary, and every corpse that hears the verdict rises.
The crypt's treasure belonged to prisoners who were never allowed to claim it.
Seventeen candles burn below ground, though no living priest tends them.
The eastern vault floods only when thieves carry away gold.
The dead do not hate intruders. They hate being called by the wrong names.
Quest Hooks
Quest giver: Bram Kesh, a blunt undertaker with ink-stained hands
A village undertaker asks the party to recover a burial ledger before several recently dead villagers are declared criminals and rise as undead.
A silver funerary seal worth 120 gold pieces and free burial rites for the party
Quest giver: Tzara Pell, a sharp-tongued estate factor
A noble family hires the party to retrieve an heirloom from room-12, but the item is also the key to opening the mass grave beneath room-11.
300 gold pieces and a signed favor from the Pell household
Quest giver: Oko, a frightened street child who saw the ghost first
A ghostly child has appeared outside the ruined mortuary, pointing toward room-15 and silently counting to seventeen.
The child spirit's blessing, granting advantage on one death saving throw per character
Quest giver: Kefta Dros, a wounded robber who escaped before the others changed
Grave robbers opened room-9 and now stalk the roads as obedient corpses, carrying a sealed message intended for someone inside the crypt.
The recovered message contains a map to a hidden cache worth 500 gold pieces
Corridor Notes
Thin strips of copper are set into the floor, each stamped with a dead prisoner's name. Several have been torn up, leaving sharp gaps that can cut boots or bare feet.
A line of thumb-sized skulls hangs from iron hooks, their jaws wired shut except when the crypt's guardian is near.
Black salt has been scattered across the passage, but wet footprints cross it from the direction of Room 10.
The walls are covered with shallow tally marks. The newest marks are fresh enough to shed pale stone dust.
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