THE CRYPT OF THE URN LORD
Intro
At night, the occupants of the Castle in the Wilderlands hear a droning music coming from the condemned crypt. Griselda, Keeper of the Keys, wants the PCs to investigate.
The Urn Lord
The Urn Lord is an undead castellan dwelling in the crypt, whose mind is split among the Living Urns, six animated canopic jars which contain his remains.
The Urn Lord wants the Hurdy-Gurdy Man (see area 7) out of his crypt. In the long term, he also wants to take back his lordship over the castle above.
If allowed out of the crypt, a Living Urn will try to poison the castle's food with its own flesh. The first person to eat this food will be possessed by the Urn Lord. To get rid of the possession, they must be forced to vomit their stomach's contents.
Living Urn
A canopic jar with a lid sculpted in the shape of a face; two arms and legs of putrefied flesh sprout from the sides. Each of them is a vessel of the Urn Lord and speaks in his voice.
SK +3, HD 4 (5 Armor), Shiv 3 dmg, ML 8
- Undead: immune to charm and sleep.
- Camouflage: when immobile, can hardly be distinguished from a regular funerary urn.
- Depleting an Urn's Armor causes it to break. If it survives, the putrefied contents will crawl to another urn to occupy it.
Each Urn contains a different organ of the Urn Lord, and has a special ability associated with it.
| d6 | Organ | Face on the lid | Special ability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brain | Stern Imp | Casts the spell Command. |
| 2 | Lungs | Puffy-cheeked Toad | Exhales a poisonous breath in a nearby radius: 1 Stress/round for a Turn. |
| 3 | Eyes | Big-eyed Owl | Casts Fear (as Turn Undead but on the living, WIL=4). |
| 4 | Testicles | Lustful Hare | Uses an action to spawn 2d3 flesh sprites (SK +1, HD 1, 2 dmg). |
| 5 | Stomach | Open-mouthed Cat | Vomits acid that causes weapons to be Worn & diminishes 1 Armor/round. |
| 6 | Heart | Peaceful Maiden | All nearby urns get +1HD. Always flees. If it is killed, the Urn Lord dies. |
The Crypt
| d3 | Random encounters |
|---|---|
| 1 | 2d3 Living Urns |
| 2 | A hurdy-gurdy plays in the distance. d6 skeletons (see their stats under area 7) pass through, blind and deaf, bumping into walls and waving their swords around. |
| 3 | A random PC is overcome with a great sense of loneliness. A yearning for human warmth beckons them towards area 4. |
General description of the crypt
Narrow and low-ceilinged, dirt floor, cold, dusty, damp, smell of mold, chalky darkness that flows with every air current and sticks to clothes.
In every room, lots of empty funerary urns line the walls and are piled in alcoves.
1: Entrance
- The iron door in the entrance to the crypt is chained shut from the castle's side. Griselda has the key.
2: Fountain of Amnesia
- Water trickles from a stone beak into a small stone basin. Drinking the water causes to forget the last minute or so.
- Whoever drinks from the fountain forgets they just drank, and keeps drinking until they're full (take a Stress) or until someone else stops them.
The water retains this property when harvested from the fountain.
3: Filled-in Chute
- A small room, closed by a rotting wooden door.
- In a corner, a section of the ground is slightly lower than the rest, and the dirt is a darker color. Digging on this spot using a pickaxe or similar tool (takes 3 Turns) opens a 20 feet long chute to area 10.
4: Lonely Ghost
- An ornate funerary chamber.
- On a catafalque at one end of the room, lies a corpse, on its back, arms stretched upwards. It is the body of the Lonely Ghost.
- In a whispery disembodied voice, the ghost asks whoever enters the room to lie on his body, skin-to-skin, and partake of their body warmth.
- In exchange for this service, he offers useful information (PC's choice):
- About the Urn Lord and the urn which contains his heart,
- About the Hurdy Gurdy Man and his instrument, or
- About the trap and secret passage in area 9.
- Lying on the body in undergarments for 2 Turns allows the ghost to pass on definitively. It doesn't hurt, but it feels weird and vulnerable.
5: Cursed Wall
- In the middle of this T-intersection, there is a walled-in passage. The bricks can very easily come undone. On the centermost brick's hidden face, a message is written: "If you read this, may you be cursed with the curse of dishonor".
- Whoever destroys the wall is cursed.
- Curse of Dishonor: everyone assumes you are selfish, cowardly, weak and dishonorable, even when they know you.
- To clear the curse, either leave the room's contents and put the wall back in place, or do an entirely selfless deed.
If you do it just to clear the curse, is it truly selfless?
- In the room beyond the wall, there is a stash of pristine copper pots and pans (3 slots, 500 GP), and a set of medium armor.
6: Catacombs
- The corridors here are lined with empty horizontal niches supposed to house corpses.
- In a remote coffin (marked * on the map) one may find the Mask of the Graverobber.
Mask of the Graverobber: a mask made from a corpse’s face, grey-brown, leathery, lips pulled back on yellow teeth, eyeless sockets half-covered with paper-thin lids.
The wearer looks like a convincing corpse.
7: Hurdy-Gurdy Man
- A small chapel off to the side, full of broken urns and gathered corpses on the ground.
- The Hurdy-Gurdy Man sits on the altar on the other side from the entrance.
- SK +1, HD 2, Dagger 3 dmg, ML 6
- He is a frail and pale man, dressed in patchy clothing. In conversation, he is mostly rude and distrusting.
- He covets the Ring of the Snatcher that is kept in area 10, but is too cowardly to fetch it himself. He's ready to give the Dead Man's Hurdy-Gurdy in exchange for the ring.
The Dead Man's Hurdy-Gurdy: a cumbersome string instrument operated by crank. Playing it requires to sit down and use two hands. When its droning music resonates, nearby corpses animate and can be controlled by the player like puppets. They fall back to death as soon as the instrument stops playing.
- If threatened, he'll play his instrument, and raise 10 skeletons to protect him.
- SK +3, HD — (3 Armor), Rusted sword 4 dmg, ML —
- When they take a Wound, they fall down for a round, and come back up the next, as long as the music is playing.
8: Storage
- A mess of miscellaneous items stuffed inside small chambers.
- Every Turn spent searching the mess, 3-in-6 chance of finding a Supply item.
- In one of the chambers, a pile of scrolls relates that the Urn Lord's viscera were separated into canopic jars to prevent him from returning to life. It seems this plan backfired.
9: Postern
- A long corridor ending in an apparent dead-end.
- Just before the end is a 20 feet stretch of quicksand.
- A character will sink completely in 5 rounds, 3 rounds if they're wearing heavy armor.
- They may attempt a DEX saving throw to swim out. If they fail, they'll sink faster: take 1 extra round off the countdown.
- The end of the corridor is actually a secret door.
- One may only pass through it involuntarily, e.g. by falling, being pushed or carried through it.
- The door leads to the outside, at the foot of the castle wall. This passage is a useful asset for the castle's defense.
10: Urn Lord's Tomb
- A large ornate funerary chamber.
- The iron door to the room is barred from the inside. A small catdoor, barely a foot wide, allows Living Urns to come in and out.
- In an open sarcophagus is a mummy with a gold crown (1 slot, 1000 GP) on its head — the Urn Lord's hollow corpse. Around its neck is the Ring of the Snatcher.
Ring of the Snatcher: A simple brass ring. The wearer becomes invisible to all but children.
Legend has it that it was a puppy’s barks that gave away the Snatcher’s trickery, putting an end to his heinous crimes. - If not yet encountered, the Living Urn with a Peaceful Maiden on its lid is here, hiding behind the sarcophagus.
Credits
Map & text by Octave Immarigeon, a.k.a. Pulpee.
©Octave Immarigeon 2025, All rights reserved.
Title art: Anonymous (1564), The Tomb of the Prostitute [woodcut], Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp, URL
The Crypt of the Urn Lord was designed for use with the tabletop role-playing game DURF, by Emiel Boven.
