Halven Barrow
The dead were not left to rest, and the webs still remember who fed them.
This crypt complex was built over a noble burial vault and later expanded into a hidden stronghold by a death cult. What began as a place of honored rest has become a web-choked maze of sealed chambers, defiled shrines, and restless dead guarding the lowest tomb. The deeper rooms show the cult's desperate attempt to bind something ancient beneath the graves.
Cold air crawls through the crypt like breath from an open grave. The halls stink of damp stone, old incense, and spider silk, while distant chittering mingles with the clatter of bones and the occasional low chant from deeper chambers. Pale fungus and guttering corpse-candles provide weak light, leaving every shadow suspect.
☠Threat
A death priest and its spider-warped retinue keep the lower crypt sealed around an ancient bound spirit. The undead have grown feral and territorial, and the webs that lace the halls are not just nests but channels for living surveillance, letting the cult sense intruders before they reach the boss chamber.
History
The Barrow of Saint Halven was originally a family crypt for a minor noble house that funded a monastery of tomb-keepers. Generations later, a grave cult infiltrated the caretakers, slaughtered the monks, and widened the tomb into a subterranean sanctum to house forbidden rites. The cult's masters vanished long ago, but their undead servants and spider-bonded guardians still obey the last surviving commands.
Encounter Table
CRA loose cluster of skulls animated by burial curses, skittering ahead of louder threats.
A pale giant spider with scraps of funerary cloth caught in its fangs.
An armored dead patrol carrying lantern chains and grave hooks.
A stitched corpse servant pulling a cart of bones and ritual supplies.
Rumours & Whispers
The dead in Halven Barrow do not stay buried, and their shadows crawl before midnight.
A spider cult took over the old crypt years ago and now pays tolls in teeth and silver.
A missing priest was last seen entering the cemetery with a lantern that burned blue.
There is said to be a room of clean candles below the rot, where the dead still judge the living.
Tomb robbers who came back from the barrow said the deepest hall was singing their names.
Quest Hooks
Quest giver: Sister Elowen, village curate
A village curate begs the party to recover stolen funerary tablets before the dead grow more restless.
200 gp and a blessed token that grants advantage on one death save
Quest giver: Tomas Vale, foreman of the gravehill quarry
Miners report spider-sized bones and singing from beneath a collapsed chapel near the cemetery.
250 gp and access to a cache of healing draughts
Quest giver: Mira Wren, panicked scavenger
A frightened tomb robber claims the crypt hides a sealed saint's reliquary that can cure a noble's wasting curse.
300 gp and a promised favor from the noble house
Quest giver: Steward Halric, baronial agent
The local baron wants the cult rooted out before a festival of the dead draws the restless into town.
400 gp and a writ of safe passage
Corridor Notes
Thin web curtains bridge the corridor corners, trembling whenever something moves nearby.
Black candles in wall niches burn with a blue flame that never warms the air.
Collapsed burial slabs have been stacked into a crude barricade, forcing travelers to squeeze through.
Scratched warning sigils, half-erased by age, mark a stretch where the floor has caved slightly.
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