Charnel of the Sated
The floor here is bones, ankle-deep and shifting, and they are not arranged — they were dropped. In the middle of it, a mound of dark amber has settled over the newest carcass, and the mound is working — slow waves crossing its surface, which has gone tight and shining. The rustling under the bones is not the bones.
One ripple crosses it in your direction, with no particular interest, the way a dog looks up from a bowl. Then it goes back to eating.
DM summary. A short, nasty, honest fight against something that does not want to chase you — the deck's demonstration that a Medium encounter can be run in ten minutes and still leave a mark. The trick to this room is distance, and the party will work it out about one round after they should have.
Terrain & Features
Battle map: The Open Sand — page 53, 55 × 75 ft (one half of The Buried Stair)
The open sand reads as the pale bone drift: the whole 45 × 45 ft floor is loose bone (difficult terrain — deep drifts where the dunes swell). Draw the walls, the two doorways, and the chute mouth 8 ft up the north wall, and chalk the 30-ft kill-radius around the carcass.
- Dimensions. 45 ft × 45 ft, ceiling 15 ft. Two doorways at floor level, one chute in the wall 8 ft up.
- Light. None. Whatever the party brought. The bones are pale enough that a single lamp lights the whole floor badly.
- The bone drift. The entire floor is loose bone to a depth of 12–18 inches. It is difficult terrain for anyone moving more than half speed, and any creature that Dashes across it makes a Dexterity save DC 12 or falls prone. Moving at half speed is silent and safe. The room punishes hurry and rewards patience, which is the opposite of what the players' instincts will say.
- The kill-radius. The Grave-Honey Flow will not move more than 30 ft from the carcass it keeps. Chalk that circle mentally at the start. Everything about this fight is inside or outside that circle.
- The chute. A bone-chute, 3 ft square, mouths in the north wall 8 ft up. This is how the bodies got here. It is also exit C.
- Standing cover. Three stone feeding-troughs, waist high, in a rough triangle around the middle of the room. Half cover, and stable footing for anyone who climbs onto one.
Encounter
One engorged grave-flow and the vermin cleaning up after it.
| Count | Creature | XP each |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grave-Honey Flow | 2,300 |
| 2 | Gnawing Swarm | 450 |
Base 3,200 XP; ×2 for three bodies = 6,400 adjusted, against the APL 9 Medium budget of 6,600. This is a true Medium and it should resolve in three to four rounds. Its whole character is the 30-ft leash.
Round 1. The flow does not initiate. The two Gnawing Swarms do — they pour out of the bone drift at the nearest pair of ankles the moment anyone steps more than 10 ft into the room. The flow keeps feeding through round 1 and only rises when something comes inside its circle or something hurts it at range.
Tactics. The flow is slow, engorged, and jealous of its meal. It fights in a 30-ft circle centred on the carcass and it will not leave that circle for anything — not a fleeing PC, not a caster plinking at it from the doorway, not its own swarms dying. If the party stands at 40 ft and shoots, it draws itself over the carcass like a lid, and takes what it is given. That is a legitimate way to win this room slowly and you should let them, once.
The swarms have no such restraint and they are the actual threat to a party standing still. Fire, smoke, and area damage clear them; weapons barely dent them. A torch swung as an improvised weapon is worth allowing at 1d4 fire for the flavour of it.
Traps / Puzzles / Checks
Reading the room before entering is the whole skill test here.
| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| The leash | Perception DC 12 — the bone drift is scraped bare in a ring, and untouched beyond it |
| What is under the bones | Passive Perception 14, or Perception DC 13, catches the rustle before it reaches anyone |
| The carcass | Investigation DC 13 — it is a bull-brute, three days dead, and something else killed it |
| Disease | Anyone who ends the fight with a swarm's bite makes a Constitution save DC 12 or takes 1 level of exhaustion that a short rest does not clear. State this before they wade in, not after |
Exits
None. Everything that came down that chute has already been searched by the things that eat here, and what they missed is under a foot of bone and not worth the hour. If a player insists on digging, let them find a boot.
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | One Gnawing Swarm instead of two, and the flow's leash is 20 ft. DCs −2 |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | Add a Plague-Thing riding the swarms; the flow's leash is 40 ft. DCs +1 |
| 15 | Two Grave-Honey Flows pulling the carcass apart between them — which is worth a round of free positioning — plus a Plague-Thing and four Gnawing Swarms. Disease save DC +3 |
- Pacing. Eight to twelve minutes. This is one of the deck's designated quick rooms; use it when you are behind and want a fight anyway. Behind schedule: cut the swarms entirely and run the flow alone. Six minutes, and it still reads as a horrible place.
- If your party is strong, do not add bodies — move the second exit. Put both usable doors inside the circle and the leash stops being a gift.
- The lesson this room teaches is that some monsters have rules and the rules are visible if you look at the floor. Several of the deck's Deadly rooms are survivable only to a party in that habit, so it is worth ten minutes here.
- Clue drip. Two objects here take a clue well: a sealed wax-stoppered jar among the bones, unbroken because nothing here wanted it, which suits X17 (The Wings of Icarus); and a surveyor's chain, half of it, with the links counted and filed, which suits X14 (A Thread of Your Own Making).
- Table safety. Open feeding, a body being eaten on-screen. If that lands badly, the flow is digesting armour rather than a corpse and the smell is spoiled grain — nothing mechanical changes.
- Warband callback. Keres & Plague never chase. Every room they hold is about a line on the floor you can stay behind, and a party that has met them before should be looking for that line before they draw a weapon.
Creature Cards
Both belong to Keres & Plague (W20) and both recur, so the numbers live in the bestiary. The flow is this room's centrepiece, and R042 and R064 field it again when scaled up. The tactics above are this room's and stay here.
Shared across rooms, so the full cards live in the bestiary: Grave-Honey Flow, Gnawing Swarm. Every mention above opens the numbers here on this page.