In the Graveyard

At some point in a necromancer's life, he will probably go rooting around in the local graveyard, looking for material components or a supply of corpses. While it's easy enough with Hermetic magic to create corpses, it costs vis to make them permanent. Most magi find it easier to send a group of grogs out on a rainy night to retrieve various charnel bric-a-brac from a nearby graveyard. In medieval parlance, a "graveyard" or "boneyard" is an enclosed space lying adjacent to a church. It is not interchangeable with "cemetery," which refers to a subterranean burial crypt like the catacombs found beneath Rome.

In many parts of Mythic Europe, the graveyard is surrounded by a stone wall to discourage vagrants and body snatchers, who retrieved corpses for natural philosophers and other more nefarious clients. A graveyard has an obvious opening, primarily to allow easy access to religious processions for feasts and ceremonies. Several graveyards in England have a "lych-gate," a roofed entrance where the priest and mourners gather before a body's internment. A notable feature of French graveyards is a lanterne des morts, a 20- to 30-foot-high stone monument resembling a lighthouse with a lantern at its top, which is lit for important vigils and feasts. Like most of medieval society, a graveyard is segregated according to status. Ranked nobility and clergymen are buried near or even in the church, with elaborately carved stone headstones and funerary arrangements. Cheaper headstones exist for those who can afford them, and blacksmiths will fashion iron crosses for those who can't afford stone. Even the destitute are buried with a wooden cross to mark their grave.

Built on consecrated ground, most graveyards have a Divine aura. While not as strong as the aura in the church itself, the graveyard's aura likely stays positive day and night. Because of this holy atmosphere, many Infernal, Magic, and Faerie denizens avoid a graveyard. If the Divine aura is low, however, powerful creatures will not shy from the graveyard. In society, graveyards are often a place for the local population to gather, and though it is frowned upon by the upper echelons of the church, weekly markets and holiday festivals are sometimes held in graveyards.

The best supernatural protection a graveyard offers is to the soul of the departed, for if he was buried with the proper Christian rites, his soul and spirit are immune to magical tampering. However, his body is not, and his parts and remains may prove useful to necromancers. A skull taken from consecrated soil provides the same Shape and Material bonuses as one found on a battlefield or conjured in the laboratory.

An Extraordinary Coincidence

On the night that a band of grogs is dispatched to retrieve something from the graveyard, another group of shadowy figures is exhuming a body when the grogs arrive. None of the figures are recognizable, especially the leader, who stands apart, hidden under the folds of a black cloak. Is he an infernalist, stealing corpses for his foul masters? Is he another magus, directing his turb of grogs in the same mission as the watching grogs? Maybe he is a priest and has decided that the body does not deserve religious burial, and is thus directing its removal

are the Hand Mirror of Circe and the Staff of the Witch of Endor.

The Hand Mirror of Circe is a small, silver mirror with a shaped skull handle and decorative amber and turquoise stones set around the mirror's face. This collection of materials provides several Shape and Material bonus for the talisman's enchantments. A mirror provides a Shape and Material bonus of +3 for both summoning and controlling ghosts. Instead of shaping a human skull into a book cover, it is shaped into a handle, which provides a +3 bonus for corpses. A turquoise gem grants a +4 bonus for necromancy, and an amber stone provides a +3 bonus for corpses. A magus might also want to invent effects that make the item more durable. Circe was the most powerful necromancer in the Classical Greek myths, having taught