Black Ossuary
- Rooms
- 8
- Foes
- 22, CR 1/2 to 5
- Traps
- 6
- Treasure
- 1,285 gp
At a glance
The threat
The cult has awakened a bound necromantic engine at the center of the sanctum, but its master ritual is fraying.
Wandering monsters (1d4)
- 1
1d4× Roving Corpse ServitorsCR 1/2
When: Any loud noise or open flame in the corridors beyond Loose corpses animated by scraps of residual ritual force, often carrying broken tools or candle stubs. - 2
Mortuary SentinelCR 2
When: When intruders linger near or A masked cult guard tasked with patrolling between the gallery and the engine room, still chanting under its breath. - 3
Risen Grave WraithCR 3
When: When a trap is triggered in or A spirit swollen with stolen funerary magic, its body flickering between bones and smoke. - 4
1d3× Bonehand SwarmCR 1
When: After the summoning engine in room-8 is damagedA cluster of small skeletal hands crawling through cracks and drains to tug at exposed gear and ankles.
Rooms
8Stair of the Unnamed Dead
What they see
Read aloud
A stair of cracked funerary stone descends from the outer crypt into a narrow antechamber marked by old royal sigils and newer blood-chalk circles. The air is colder here, and the first undead sentries can hear intruders long before they can be seen.
Features
- Broken burial plaques from the old necropolis
- A sealed bone-lift hatch in the ceiling
- A chalked warning in three languages, recently overwritten by cult signs
What the GM knows
Monsters
2× Cult ZombiesCR 1/2
Shambling servants stripped of identity, used to test intruders and raise the alarm.Tactics. They block the stairs and grapple targets against the narrow walls while one tries to flee deeper to warn the guard room.Treasure
Noble Ossuary Token25 gp
A funerary token stamped with a minor noble crest, still accepted by local undertakers and collectors.Notes
This is the entrance point and should feel like a hard threshold from mundane tomb to active ritual site.
5 doors: N (normal), E (normal), W (locked), S (secret), W (locked)
The place
What it is
The Black Ossuary is the cult's inner sanctum, a deeper necropolis floor where mortuary halls were hacked open and turned into a machine for summoning the dead.
Atmosphere
Cold air drifts up through cracked stone like a graveyard breath.
The threat
The cult has awakened a bound necromantic engine at the center of the sanctum, but its master ritual is fraying.
History
This level began as a royal ossuary built to honor a line of plague dead and seal their remains beneath blessed stone.
Rumors
1d5- 1The old crypt below the cemetery is said to breathe at night, and the gravediggers refuse to work near the sealed stair.
- 2A merchant swears he saw black water running uphill out of the hill tombs after the last new moon.
- 3People say the cult was trying to command something so ancient that even the dead were afraid of it.
- 4A chapel acolyte vanished after hearing chanting from beneath a grave marker that had not moved in a century.
- 5The cemetery's iron bells ring by themselves whenever lightning strikes the hill.
Plot hooks
4Corridors
4Between and
Bone channels run under grated stone, carrying black water and drifting fragments of skull and finger bones toward the sanctum.
Between and
Ritual alcoves carved into older tomb walls have been repurposed as ash bins and blood basins, their drains stained dark red.
Near and
A hidden bone-lift shaft with rusted counterweights rattles whenever heavy footsteps cross the corridor above.
Approach to room-8
Faint ward-sigils are scratched into the floor in chalk, salt, and grave dust, marking places where the dead once could not cross.
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