The Vesper Gravebook
A wandering funeral singer uses forbidden melodies to comfort the dead, expose the secrets they kept, and keep their hungers on a careful leash.
Spellbook · Bard · Level 5
The Vesper Gravebook
A wandering funeral singer uses forbidden melodies to comfort the dead, expose the secrets they kept, and keep their hungers on a careful leash.
Ex librisMara VellBardic necromancy
At a glance
Level
5
Bard
Spells
9
3 cantrips, 3 signature
At the table
A margin note
Plot hook
Spells
9 spellsCantrips
3- Touch a corpse that died within the past day and ask one simple question. Its lingering voice answers with no more than a few words, based only on what it knew in life.
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Target
- One corpse
- Components
- Voice and a musical focus
- Save or attack
- Unwilling creature makes a Wisdom save; on a success, it is unaffected.
- Higher levels
- At higher tiers, the caster may ask one additional brief question per tier above 0.
- Source
- Original Creation
- A mournful phrase chills one creature with the certainty of its own ending, frightening it briefly.
- Duration
- Until the end of your next turn
- Target
- One creature that can hear you
- Components
- Voice
- Save or attack
- One creature that can hear you makes a Wisdom save; success negates the effect.
- Higher levels
- At higher tiers, affect one additional creature per tier above 0.
- Conditions
- Frightened
- Source
- Original Creation
- You sing a steady funeral rhythm. Willing creatures in the area move softly, and ordinary undead hear the song as distant mourning rather than an obvious intrusion.
- Duration
- Concentration, up to 1 minute
- Target
- You and willing creatures nearby
- Components
- Voice and a musical focus
- Save or attack
- No save; creatures must be able to hear the song.
- Higher levels
- At higher tiers, the radius increases by 5 feet per tier above 0.
- Source
- Original Creation
1st level
2- You listen for nearby undead or the lingering presence of a recently deceased creature. A faint chime sounds when such a presence is close.
- Duration
- Concentration, up to 10 minutes
- Target
- Self
- Components
- Voice and a small bell
- Save or attack
- No save; the spell reveals only a vague direction.
- Higher levels
- At higher tiers, the duration increases by 10 minutes per tier above 1.
- Source
- Original Creation
- You draw a thread of warmth from a living creature with a whispered note. On a hit, it takes necrotic damage and you regain vitality equal to half the damage dealt, rounded down.
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Target
- One living creature
- Components
- Voice and a pinch of grave soil
- Save or attack
- Ranged spell attack
- Damage
- necrotic
- Higher levels
- Damage increases by per tier above 1.
- Source
- Original Creation
2nd level
2- You invite the echo of a deceased creature to appear and speak with you. The echo is not compelled to obey and knows only what it knew in life.
- Duration
- Concentration, up to 1 minute
- Target
- One willing or willing-to-answer spirit
- Components
- Voice and a silver tuning fork
- Save or attack
- A willing spirit needs no save; a hostile spirit makes a Wisdom save to resist.
- Higher levels
- At higher tiers, the duration increases by 1 minute per tier above 2.
- Conditions
- Charmed
- Source
- Original Creation
- You fill a small area with overlapping whispers of the dead. Creatures that fail their save are frightened of the sound's source while they remain in the area.
- Duration
- Concentration, up to 1 minute
- Target
- Creatures of your choice within a 15-foot-radius area
- Components
- Voice and a drop of the caster's blood
- Save or attack
- Creatures of your choice in the area make a Wisdom save; success negates the fear.
- Higher levels
- At higher tiers, the radius increases by 5 feet per tier above 2.
- Conditions
- Frightened
- Source
- Original Creation
3rd level
2- A low, measured dirge stiffens a creature's limbs. On a failed save, it is restrained by spectral hands and can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns.
- Duration
- Concentration, up to 1 minute
- Target
- One creature
- Components
- Voice and a bone chime
- Save or attack
- One creature makes a Strength save; success negates the effect.
- Higher levels
- At higher tiers, affect one additional target per tier above 3.
- Conditions
- Restrained
- Source
- Original Creation
- You call up to two nearby corpses to rise as fragile, shambling dead for a brief service. They understand simple spoken instructions, cannot speak, and collapse when the spell ends.
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Target
- Up to two Small or Medium corpses
- Components
- Voice, a musical focus, and a silver coin placed on the corpse
- Save or attack
- No save for corpses; a spirit may refuse the call.
- Higher levels
- At higher tiers, call one additional corpse per tier above 3.
- Source
- Original Creation
In the margins
4 notes
WarningA name is not a leash. Ask the dead what they want before you call them.
FormulaThree notes below the staff; hold the last until the candle gutters. The whisper came from beneath the chapel floor.
DiaryMother's voice was almost right tonight. I will not try again until I can bear the answer.
DiagramThe circle is not a cage. Leave one gap facing the grave, or the spirit mistakes the boundary for a threat.
The book itself
The book's pages hum faintly when opened near a grave.
Its silver-threaded binding grows cold when an undead creature is within thirty paces.
The caster
Bardic necromancyMara Vell
Studies: Necromantic music and spirit communionManner: Courteous, patient, and quietly wry; she treats spirits as people, not tools.Focus: A silver tuning fork wrapped in black ribbon, struck against a small bone chime.Quirk: She hums a soft descending scale before asking anyone, living or dead, a difficult question.Wants: Find the source of a recurring melody that appears in the dreams of the recently deceased.Mara Vell was a village funeral singer who learned to hear the dead after performing one last song for her drowned sister. She now records the stories of restless spirits and helps settle unfinished business.
The book
A narrow, black-leather codex with bone-white page edges, silver thread sewn into its spine, and musical staves that shift into tiny graveyard maps. A dried violet marks the page containing its owner's first song for the dead.
Its wards · GM only
About the book
FormatHand-bound necromantic songbook
ThemeNecromancy
Written by aBard
Caster level5
SystemGeneric Fantasy
Plot hooks
1A voice trapped in the book's binding identifies a murderer's grave, but refuses to reveal the victim's name until the party finds an unburied ring.
2The book's former owner has returned as an intelligent undead and claims one of its melodies was stolen from their final lullaby.
3Each time the book is opened near the ruined chapel, a sealed crypt answers with the same four-note refrain.
Media
0 imagesNo images yet.
Visual sheet
Turn The Vesper Gravebook into a sheet
A high-res, share-ready sheet you can post or print.