Grave Encounters

Creatures that Lurk from Beyond

The graveyard the name sends chills up the spine of any who consider visiting it, day or night. Many stories are told around a village or town about who or what is buried there, powerful heroes and treasure to fit them; however, the tales also contain stories of lights floating mysteriously around a certain grave or of ghastly figures prowling over the grounds. 

A graveyard is an area near cities, towns, and villages that lends itself to adventure. By definition, a graveyard is a burial place for the deceased, but this is very vague. For technical purposes, the term graveyard has been given two separate identities: 

First, typical burial grounds include the town cemetery, rundown ghost towns, ancient ruins, former battlefields, haunted forests, and other possibly haunted areas. The words possibly haunted are what distinguish these burial grounds from the other classification.

Second, evil-enchanted burial grounds are limited to known evil-enchanted cemeteries, tombs, and crypts. These areas are greatly known and feared for their evil presence. 

In either type of graveyard, there is a chance for a random encounter. In any graveyard, there will be two types of creatures found: undead, whose presence is expected, and living creatures, whose occupations involve traveling near or through graveyards, or whose habitats might include the graveyard and its surrounding area. Typical graveyards are commonly frequented by men, and are thus good hunting grounds for hungry creatures. Also, these graveyards make great homes for unpleasant scavengers since carrion abound here. As for the haunting of these places, that’s only a possibility. In evil-enchanted graveyards, the degree of evil is known and accepted as fact. The evil nature of these places provides an excellent shelter for their evil inhabitants. The nature of the graveyard’s surroundings tends to be evil; therefore, summoning evil creatures would be much easier from this base point. 

Both sets of tables are divided into three subtables: dusk, midnight, and dawn. These tables are used to reflect the hour of the day, and more importantly, the amount of sunlight present at a particular hour. 

The greatest factor involving light at night is the moon. The amount of light present during a full moon differs so greatly from that of a new or half-moon that included on each chart are the three representative phases of the moon: half, full, and new. The cycle used here is based on a 28-day rotation; consider three nights before and after the phase night to be included in that phase period. The use of the moon’s phases is logically justified by the fact that under a full moon certain light-fearing creatures (such as vampires, wights, and ghosts) would refrain from venturing under it, while some creatures (men, lycanthropes, demihumans) wouldn't travel without such a light source available. The differences between each moon phase represents the light’s effect on the creature's percentage of appearance. 

To use the tables in this article, distinguish what type of graveyard is applicable, find the table whose time is the closest to the actual game time, and cross-index the roll with the closest moon phase as explained previously.

Practical use of these tables can easily enhance any gaming campaign which includes outdoor adventures, since these tables specialize in areas not thoroughly covered in the DMG. Be prepared; don’t let your players catch you six feet under!