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Dungeon Dressing: 20 Things to find in a Crypt in your Dungeons & Dragons Game
Dungeon Master. Do you find yourself overwhelmed with prepping your Dungeons & Dragons game? Do you struggle to make every room or corridor different in your dungeons? Or are you just looking to speed up the process? Well then, Dungeon Dressing is here to help do all of those things. This simple 20 part list includes rooms and objects you can drop right into your tombs, dungeons, and crypts. Ready-to-go ideas to enhance your players’ experience and make you out to be the most prepared Dungeon Master out there!
Get 20 things to find in a crypt that you can use in your Dungeons & Dragons games. You can treat it as a d20 chart and randomly roll or select those of interest to you. While some include hazards and monsters already. You can easily swap them out for level-appropriate options.
An alcove contains an intricately carved gargoyle with a broken horn. A character who succeeds on a DC 14 Arcana/Religion check recalls reading a scroll on temples of elemental chaos. Elder elementals often build temples to breed and train gargoyles. Their simple-mindedness and aggression makes them perfect guard dogs to hunt humanoids.
The stone floor is slick with moisture and is coated in golden mildew growth. A character who succeeds a DC 16 Nature/Survival check identifies the strange material as yellow mold, a dangerous vegetation that ejects a cloud of poisonous spores. Fire and sunlight can easily destroy the mold.
A dusty and shattered urn lays upon the finely crafted stone, alongside the skeletal remains of a humanoid. The urn has glyphs haphazardly written in dried blood upon its surface. A character who succeeds on a DC 16 Investigation check can make out the elvish script, if they can read elvish they read a vague warning of a deadly hidden trap ahead.
A 10-foot tall statue of a four-armed warrior wielding a different weapon in each hand. One of its arms has been broken off, and it rests on the floor at its feet smashed to rubble. A character who succeeds on a DC 18 History/Religion check has heard tales of a legendary samurai named Gilgamesh. He traveled the land collecting the rarest of weapons. While they don’t recall him actually having four arms. The legends say that his fighting style of changing weapons mid-stroke was like fighting a man with four arms.
A large well-worn mosaic coats the walls. It appears to be showing a progressive battle between multiple factions. A character who succeeds on a DC 18 Religion check is able to interpret the mosaic as a long battle between the crypt keeper's army and an invading force.
A half dozen sets of pews fill the chamber. The wood rotted and decomposed. Religious texts rest in pockets on the back of the pews. Toward the front lies a massive dias with a sarcophagus at its center. A character that succeeds a DC 13 Religion check knows this type of chamber is common among crypts. When someone is to be added to the crypt, a gathering of remembrance takes place here before it is entombed. The ritual often includes burning of incense, worship, and prayer.
A large archway with lays at the end of the hall. A skeleton sprawled across the floor points toward the archway. The area right in front of the archway is trapped. It has a permanent hallucinatory terrain spell cast upon it. While it looks like a seemingly normal hallway. Part of the floor is an illusion covering a spiked pit with spears coated in oil of taggit. A character who succeeds on a DC 18 Insight/Investigation check is able to interpret the skeletons pointing as a warning of the archway.
The long dusty corridor is filled with quality oil paintings (worth 25gp each) of all who have been entombed in the crypt. A character who succeeds on a DC 17 History check has heard the tale of the noble house that has made this crypt their resting place. Many were taken under mysterious circumstances. If a character succeeds on a DC 19 Investigation/Perception check, they notice that all the eyes in the painting are looking in the same direction. Toward a spot on the wall where a painting likely should be.
A faint haze clings to skeletal bones of a variety of sizes that litter the floor. A character who succeeds on a DC 16 Medicine check can identify the bones of duergar. If the character fails the check by 5 or more they misidentify the remains.
Four large damaged pillars hold up the room. The pillars have been severely damaged, and one is completely toppled over. The area is strewn with rubble making it difficult terrain. Scorch marks on the pillars suggest an explosion of some sort. Each pillar has complex arcane runes carved on all sides. A character who succeeds on a DC 21 Arcana check identifies the pillars as conduits for an inverted magic circle spell. Judging from the directions of the scorch marks, whatever was summoned, must have gotten free.
The outside of the room has small stone shelves embedded into the walls. Faded grey sacks, filled with offerings sit upon the shelves. A successful DC 17 Arcana/Religion check identifies the offerings as unique material components, often for necromancy. A character who uses a sack offering as an additional reagent when casting necromancy spells has the spell enhanced as if it was cast at one level higher than the slot spent, up to 5th-level.
A dimly lit stairwell coated in webs ascends into a wide stone chamber beyond. Along its wall are several sconces. Each sconce holds a flame that burns without fuel. A character who succeeds on a DC 12 Arcana check identifies the glowing fire as the never-ending fire of the continual flame spell.
The passageway is coated in a giant spider’s thick, sticky webs. These web-filled areas are difficult terrain. A character who succeeds on a DC 15 Nature/Survival check identifies the snaring substance. They are aware that the webs burn very easily and weapons such as mauls and rapiers do nothing to the webs.
The room has two large sarcophagi with humanoid carvings with heads like hyenas. The eye sockets have jewels worth 15 gp each. On their sides are primitive carvings of jackals, hyenas, and other canine-like creatures. Below the carvings has text written in gnoll. A character that succeeds on a DC 15 Investigation/Perception check and can read the text translates it to “Death is only the beginning.” If the characters disturb the sarcophagi in any way, they open and a mummy with a jackal's head emerges from each. In addition to the normal statblock, they also have the pact tactics feature.
The inside of the crypt room is filled with rotting and decayed furnishings. At its center, a large rectangular dinner table with twelve rotting seats. At its head sits a skeleton with an eye patch over its right eye and missing its left hand. A character who succeeds on a DC 13 History/Religion recalls the rights of last suppers. When a respected member of the family passes, they are placed at a table, and await the reunion with their family in the afterlife for another meal together.
Plaques above each squared burial tomb etched with names long faded and forgotten, fill columns and rows in the mausoleum. A character that succeeds on a DC 15 History check recalls details of the noble house to which the crypt belongs. Their lineage tying back to a great hero or villain of legend.
In the center of a cracked stone altar is a skull of an ancient humanoid from the days of thunder, with intricate runic patterns covering the bone. A character that succeeds on a DC History check reveals this as the skull of an ancient healer shaman, and it can be used as an additional regent in any healing spell up to 7th level. When used, the skull is consumed, but the spell is cast as if it was 2 levels higher.
This room is festooned with moldy skeletons that hang from rusty shackles against the walls. Small circular channels are carved into the stone around the skeletons. The channels then lead toward the center of the room and into a small stone reservoir. A character that succeeds on a DC 16 Religion check is able to deduce that the chamber is likely used for blood sacrifices. The victims are tortured, and the blood runs through the channels to be collected. A character that succeeds on a DC 19 Arcana check knows that casting of the necromancy spell animate dead would be extremely powerful on this ritual site. A character that casts the animate dead spell is cast at 2-levels higher than the duration of control over the creatures is doubled.
The room contains six stone coffins resting in recessed sections of the walls. Damaged, beaten and most have lost chunks that have broken off. A character that looks into the coffins and succeeds on a DC 22 Investigation/Perception discovers a false bottom. When a creature that weighs more than 75 lbs lays on the false bottom, a collection of pulleys and gears lowers it into a hidden treasure room.
Small humanoid tracks disturb the dusty floor through the narrow passageway. The adjacent walls have collapsed revealing the rooms adjacent to it. The tracks belong to a gnome graverobber (use spy statblock) named Loopmottin Miggledy. She is currently robbing the tomb when the characters arrive. She uses the minor illusion spell to hide until she has a chance to escape. A character with a successful DC 18 Survival check is able to follow the tracks to a dead-end wall. This wall is of course an illusion she is hiding behind. “I ain’t looking to cause any trouble. I am just looking for loot to help feed the family. That’s what graverob...err...treasure hunters do.
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