In the Graveyard (cont'd)

from consecrated ground. As the grogs ponder their predicament, one of the diggers spies them and raises the alarm. What will they do?

An Unfortunate Witness

While prowling the graveyard for a corpse, the assigned grogs hear a commotion coming from the nearby mortuary chapel. The door opens and a woman departs, after giving the resident priest a lingering goodbye kiss. The woman is recognized as the wife of a prosperous local merchant. An hour later, when the grogs are truly engaged in grave robbing, a second woman arrives in the dead of the night and knocks at the priest's door. She is also a wealthy merchant's wife. What's going on? Necromancers are notorious for casting love spells. Is the priest really a necromancer who has put the village's affluent women under his control?

An Unearthly Surprise

The magus wants a human skull, and the grogs have selected a fresh grave. Bodies are not buried that deeply in the Middle Ages, and the grogs get suspicious when they keep digging and don't unearth the corpse. The soil is easily removed, as if it has been recently disturbed beneath the sod covering. Suddenly, the pit collapses and the grogs tumble into an underground tunnel. Has some horrible beast been tunneling under the graveyard, snatching corpses from below the earth's surface? The dark tunnel yawns in both directions, and recent rumors of a burrowing dragon frighteningly rise up in the grogs' heads. Their master has sent them to the graveyard because he does not want to be interrupted. Does this bear mentioning, or should the grogs investigate without his prior approval?

A Divine Interruption

Midway through their nocturnal excavations, a silver-gray wolf leaps the graveyard's wall and intrudes on the grogs' grave robbing. The grogs have inadvertently selected the grave of a hermit, whom the wolf, Lupersus, was charged to protect. Despite the hermit's demise, Lupersus still views itself as a protector, and spontaneously decides to protect all those buried in this consecrated ground. Will the grogs slay a Divine creature to continue their mission?

Mysterious Grave Goods

The practice of burying a corpse with personal goods is diminishing in the 13th century. The Church frowns on this because it is reminiscent of pagan practices, and secular rulers have found that burying people without possessions cuts down on grave robbing. Unearthing a corpse and finding personal artifacts is the exception, rather than the rule, and it should surprise even the most dull-witted grog when he finds a gold rod clasped in the hands of the corpse he has just exhumed. Later, laboratory investigation triggers a curse, and the magus realizes that he holds one of the rare enchanted items crafted by Himinis the Mad (Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults, page 122). Who was this man buried with such a device, and will clues to his identity lead to the hidden sepulcher of Himinis himself?

Ulysses enough necromantic lore to journey to Hades.

The Staff of the Witch of Endor is carved from a cypress tree. Cypress provides a Shape and Material bonus of +3 for necromancy, which would cover all the necessary instilled effects. It is not uncommon for a wizard to have a staff, and few would suspect that a living corpse's staff is actually keeping him whole. Whereas Circe is the most famous pagan necromancer, the witch of Endor is the most famous necromancer in the Christian tradition.