Graven-Tosk

"An immense cemetery, older and greater than memory, Graven-Tosk sits in Sarkash like a festering scab." A truly ancient burial-ground filled with mausoleums, blank-eyed cherubs, stagnant fountains, plague pits, and ordinary graves — found always where one least expects it, in a halo of dying trees deep in the forest's gloom.

To the east, the Shadow King's manse looms always, impossibly equidistant — no matter how long or which way one walks, the palace remains the same distance off. "Although abandoned since the palace's ruination, bodies somehow keep finding their way inside." The graveyard is canonically forsaken; corpses still arrive.

Misery 3:1 reads: "At Graven-Tosk the soil shall grow warm and those who rest be made to walk." The soil has already begun. The air is stale, warm and hard to breathe. A frantic scratching is occasionally heard from beneath the earth.

The Walking of the Trails

Walking purposefully is hard in the fog. "Winding paths seem bent on leading fools astray." Travel between any two named locations takes 15 minutes, and the path one ends up on is rolled randomly — the fog rearranges things. Once a party has visited four named locations, the next path delivers them to the Undertaker's Hut whether they intended that destination or not. The Roach Herder is the only known guide who can navigate the graveyard reliably.

Named Sub-Locations

The booklet Graves Left Wanting names nine distinct sites within Graven-Tosk:

1. The Strangly Tree — a huge leafless tree groaning under a dozen hanging bodies, nooses swaying in the wind. A wooden door at the top of a rickety plank ladder opens into the hollow trunk. A long rope inside leads down to the Shadow King's Sewer. Climbing the rope tugs the nooses outside, working the corpses like a macabre marionette show.
2. The Plague Pit — repugnant smell, illuminated by moonlight the color of sour milk. Encircled by soupy fog whose tendrils occasionally creep down. Stale, warm air. Corpses at differing stages of decay. The standard place the PCs awaken — in coffins under suffocating earth, or wherever the GM finds appropriate.
3. Erhard's Tomb — small sealed chamber flanked by two unlit torches around a standing sarcophagus. Inside the sarcophagus is Erhard, the waxy-skinned silk-clad man with an iron skeleton and a fist-sized ruby in the ribcage. The body is very flammable. (See Erhard.)
4. The Catacomb Corridor — dark and deadly quiet, balmy and unventilated. Stretches north–south. Toothless skeletons rest in dusty niches; three large urns sit on the floor; an oil lamp lies thrown on the ground. North goes to the Roach Herder's Lair; east through broken niche-wall is a crawlspace to Erhard's Tomb; south is a staircase to The Origin Fountain.
5. The Colander Room — circular stone chamber half-lit by moonbeams piercing thousands of tiny holes in stone and dirt. Long worms of mist droop and drip from the ceiling. The sound of chattering teeth. Three Fogbound Skeletons argue around a stone table over a locked metal strongbox. One holds The Skeleton Unkey — an elaborate key-like dagger (d4) that opens any lock, but the door it opens leads somewhere unexpected, rarely convenient.
6. Maus' Vomatorium — ornate stone-walled chamber. Flagstone floor eroded by pools of yellow and green gall. Two rows of columns hold up a buckling ceiling. At the dais, a marble coffin leaks yellow gall from a bubbling lid. Inside: the bones of Fela Maus, the legendary bard-made-noble, and the Roseate Baritona — her heresy-inscribed cursed organ, desecrated by a bog hag.
7. The Origin Fountain — grand rectangular fountain, decorated and ancient. The smell of stagnant water. Whispers of laughing children. Cherubs vomit mist. Two statues at the fountain's crest hold a stone jar containing Nostalgia Gruel (restores two people to their prime, +1 to all abilities). A bridge of protruding pillars crosses the mist to a stone door — slip and the cherubs laugh; the PC wakes in the Catacomb Corridor toothless and aged, all abilities –1.
8. The Roach Herder's Lair — hot and humid. Rancid sweat. Sound of rushing water from the north. Covered in debris and grave-loot. An occupied throne of trash. Meaty and otherwise roaches sit and scurry on the shit-stained floor. North goes to the Shadow King's Sewer; west to the Catacomb Corridor. See The Roach Herder.
9. The Undertaker's Hut — stone hut with thatched roof, walls covered in creeping vines. Outside: piles of logs, a dozen barrels, half as many freshly made coffins. A robed woman's body in an open grave, a worn shovel beside her. Behind: a small overgrown garden. Inside live The Deadn't — three would-be escapees who killed the Undertaker. The climax of any visit to Graven-Tosk happens here: the air grows suddenly chill and the ever-present flies' buzzing seems strangely distant — and The Übertaker rises.

Additionally, the Shadow King's Sewer runs beneath — a stone tunnel amputated by a river of frothing pitch-black water rushing north and west. Anyone touching the water tests Strength DR14 or is swept away, drowning before long. A hatch above leads up the rope inside the Strangly Tree.

Sensory Strangeness (d8)

The fog plays tricks. Between encounters, a random PC may experience one of the following:

1. The muffled sound of scratching.
2. Is everyone walking backwards?
3. A wind chills the spine yet makes you sweat.
4. An invisible breathing behind your left/right ear (50%).
5. That cherub just looked at you.
6. The sudden smell of wet dog.
7. Did something grab your hand just now?
8. You could swear there were more of you. Where's Skruggs?

Native Fauna

Beyond the human and undead population, MBC Eat-Prey-Kill p.6 names six creatures native to Graven-Tosk: the Giant Skull Moth, the Twice-grown Corpse Fly, Unbred Mutts (d6), the Grim-toothed Squirrel, the Meatroach (the Roach Herder breeds these), and the Half-billed Raven (d4). The Eat-Prey-Kill entry notes: "It is said UNBRED MUTTS (D6) are the descendants of pedigreed dogs waiting by the graves of their late masters. Some say they're the same dogs, still waiting."

The graveyard's standard random encounter table (d10) supplements these with d4 Rotted Skeletons skulking, a ghastly Widow-wraith, and d4 Hungry Zombies eating.

What You Know About Graven-Tosk (d6 per PC)

1. A magical barrier stops the dead from leaving. (false)
2. The place is growing warmer. (true)
3. The graveyard is full; no one uses it anymore. (maybe)
4. The dead sleep well to a magical instrument's music. (false)
5. It's inescapable. (maybe)
6. The mist plays tricks on the mind. (true)

Beneath It

Rising over Graven-Tosk like rage rising over pain is the Palace of the Shadow King. Deep beneath stretches the Devil's Tomb — a former hellhole now infested by Drowned and the Plant of Life (a giant pulsing cactus growing toward the Pit to Hell).

The Pale One may have been accidentally summoned here by cultists (origin 2). The Heretical Priest (origin 5) may come from one of Graven-Tosk's many thief-tunnels. Adventure seed 12 places risk "In a forgotten part of Graven-Tosk."