Battlemap
The Pilgrim Crypts
The dead were meant to rest here, but the cult has taught the tombs to breathe again.
This outer funerary level is still structurally sound, but every chamber feels violated and watched. The old burial complex has been turned into a pressure valve for cult activity below, with recent rites layered over ancient tomb customs and narrow passages that funnel the unwary toward the inner sanctum.
Cold incense hangs in the air and never quite clears, even in open chambers. The stone is dry but clammy to the touch, lit by guttering candles, corpse-lantern sconces, and the occasional green witchlight leaking from cracked seals. Footsteps echo too long, and every corridor seems shaped to guide trespassers inward while the walls softly creak with settling masonry and distant bone-chimes.
☠ Threat
A necromantic cult called the Pale Choir has occupied the outer tombs and is feeding the floor's death-energy into a sealed ritual chamber deeper in the necropolis. Their lesser dead patrol the halls, their living acolytes maintain the candles and wards, and something half-awake in the depths is responding to every fresh corpse dragged past the sarcophagi.
History
The necropolis was first built as a civic barrow for oathbound wardens, priest-librarians, and soldiers who swore to guard the city after death. Centuries later, a death cult broke into the outer funerary level and reworked the tombs into a staging ground, using the old ancestor halls to hide summoning preparations and funnel offerings deeper below toward a forbidden rite.
Encounter Table
CRA single corpse in funeral wrappings, drawn by candlelight and motion.
A pair of pale cult sentries carrying hooked blades and incense braziers.
A malformed skeleton assembled from multiple burial remains and bound with black thread.
A drifting cloud of grave moths that extinguish candles and reveal fresh blood scent.
Rumours & Whispers
The old tombs have started burning candles by themselves every night.
People say the dead are being carried into the necropolis, but no one sees them carried back out.
A masked priest in black ash bought every funeral charm in town, then vanished.
There is a hidden passage in the crypts that lets cultists move beneath the city walls.
A warden's ghost was heard begging someone to seal the lower chamber before the singing began.
Quest Hooks
Quest giver: Mara Vell, guild embalmer
A local funerary guild hires the party to recover stolen relics and determine why burial processions have gone missing near the necropolis.
250 gp and access to the guild's healing supplies
Quest giver: Brother Halden, trembling temple acolyte
A haunted priest claims the outer crypts are leaking souls into the streets at night and begs the party to break the cult's hold.
Blessed weapons or a cleric's favor
Quest giver: Ilyra Quen, tomb historian
An antiquarian offers payment for proof of the original tomb wardens' fate and any intact burial inscriptions from the first level.
300 gp and a rare necropolis map fragment
Corridor Notes
Narrow hallways slope inward with waist-high ancestor niches on both sides, many stuffed with fresh candles burned down over ancient bones.
Chalk summoning circles and hurried ward-scratches overlap old funerary prayers, suggesting the cult mapped its rites on top of burial law.
Broken funerary masks are nailed to the walls as crude markers, some facing outward like warnings and others inward like guides.
A hidden crawlspace behind a collapsed offering shelf is lined with dust and drag marks, just wide enough for a determined intruder or a fleeing cultist.
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