An OSR-style dungeon crawl where resources are scarce and death is always one bad roll away. A cursed crypt disgorges undead into the countryside, and someone needs to descend into the dark and end it — if they can survive.
Story Arcs
Into the Crypt
The dead are walking. A frontier village is under siege by undead rising from an ancient crypt, and the adventurers must descend into its depths, manage dwindling supplies, survive deadly traps, and destroy the source of the necromantic curse before the village is overrun.
Session Outlines
These outlines are for planning reference only. Actual sessions are not created by the template.
The Dead Walk
The party arrives at Gravesford to find the village in crisis. Undead shamble out of the old cemetery every night. Mayor Hollis offers everything the village can scrape together for anyone willing to enter the crypt. Gravekeeper Moira provides what she knows about the crypt's layout.
Crypt Level One
The party descends into the crypt. The first level is a burial complex with trapped corridors, locked sarcophagi, and roaming skeletons. Torches are essential — the darkness is oppressive and the dead are drawn to light. The trapped explorer, Fennwick, is found barricaded in a side chamber.
The Deep Crypt
Below the burial complex lies the original crypt — older, darker, and far more dangerous. Ghouls and ghasts lurk in flooded chambers. A wight commands the lesser undead from a throne of bones. Resource management becomes critical: torches, healing, ammunition.
The Source
The deepest level reveals the source of the curse: a necromantic artifact placed by an undead warlord who refused to stay dead. The warlord must be defeated and the artifact destroyed or contained. The crypt begins to collapse as the curse breaks — the party must escape.
NPCs
Mayor Hollis Reed
Human · Desperate Mayor
A farmer elected mayor who is completely out of his depth. He has sent three groups into the crypt already — none returned. He will promise anything to save his village but genuinely has very little to offer beyond gratitude and shelter.
Moira Ashwick
Human · Gravekeeper
Elderly gravekeeper who has tended the cemetery for forty years. She noticed the signs weeks before the dead rose — cold spots, disturbed graves, an unnatural silence. She has a partial map of the crypt's first level from old church records but has never been inside.
Fennwick Tallor
Halfling · Trapped Explorer
A treasure hunter who entered the crypt three days ago and got trapped when the dead cut off his escape route. He has barricaded himself in a side chamber with his last torch. Terrified but knowledgeable about the traps he encountered. Will join the party if rescued.
The Crypt Warlord
Undead · Undead Warlord
Once a powerful warrior-king, he was buried with a necromantic artifact that has slowly reanimated him over centuries. He commands the lesser undead with dark authority and fights with a cursed blade that drains life force. Destroying the artifact is the only way to end his reign permanently.
Locations
Gravesford
A small, terrified frontier village built near an ancient cemetery. Windows are boarded, doors are barred at night, and the villagers take turns on watch. The smell of burning torches and fear hangs in the air.
Cemetery Entrance
The old cemetery, its iron fence bent and broken by the dead pushing outward. Gravestones lean at drunken angles, and freshly disturbed earth marks where the undead clawed free. A mausoleum at the center holds the stairs down into the crypt.
Crypt Level One
A network of stone corridors and burial alcoves carved from bedrock. Dust and cobwebs cover everything, and the air is stale and cold. Pressure plates trigger blade traps, and skeletal guardians patrol in shuffling silence.
Crypt Level Two — The Deep
The original crypt, far older than the structure above. Partially flooded chambers reek of stagnant water and rot. The walls are carved with forgotten funeral rites, and a throne of bones dominates the central chamber where the warlord holds court.
Quests
Clear the Crypt
Mayor Hollis needs the crypt cleared and the source of the undead plague destroyed. Every night more dead rise, and the village cannot hold out much longer. Descend into the crypt and end the curse.
Rescue Fennwick
A halfling explorer named Fennwick entered the crypt three days ago and has not returned. Moira saw torchlight flickering in the depths. He may still be alive down there — if the party can reach him in time.
Destroy the Source
The undead keep rising because something in the deepest part of the crypt is generating necromantic energy. Find the source — whether artifact, ritual, or creature — and destroy it permanently.
Encounters
Cemetery Defenders
Skeletons patrol the cemetery in a mindless circuit, attacking anything living that enters their territory. They reform from scattered bones unless the skull is destroyed.
Crypt Trap Hall
A long corridor lined with blade traps and pressure plates. Zombies stumble through it mindlessly, triggering traps that slow but don't stop them. The party must navigate both the traps and the undead simultaneously.
The Flooded Chamber
Ghouls lurk in waist-deep water in a partially flooded burial chamber. They hide beneath the surface, erupting upward to drag victims under. The stench of ghast paralyzes the unwary.
The Warlord's Court
The undead warlord sits upon his throne of bones, a wight of terrible power surrounded by his skeletal honor guard. He speaks in a voice like grinding stone, demanding fealty or death.
Use This Template
Create a new campaign pre-populated with all the arcs, NPCs, locations, quests, encounters, and factions from this template.