A Grave Matter

by Mark Kerruish
Self Published
BECMI
Level 1

Murder! There’s been a murder in the graveyard! And who is digging up graves in the Old Section? The vicar needs your help.

This 21 page adventure has the party fighting some bandits and then some skeletons. It’s got a hint of Miss Marple in it, which I enjoy, but the elemnts outside of that are pretty weak. 

Ok, so, hear me out. I like it when people actlike people in an adventure. When they are more than just generic cardboard cutouts and instead remeble something that you can relate to. I also like MURDER. Well, british murder mysteries, especially in the pre-70’s period. I used to watch one every sunday while reviewieng a new Chinese restaurants General Tso chicken on my insta. And, thusly, this thing has a c oupe of points that appeal to me. 

Aristo apprentice chick “The Lady” is sent to a village by her Necromancer master to get a book. It’s buried in a crypt that can only be opened by the hand of a loyal servant. Last servant is dead. She’s hired some bandits to dig up graves until she finds one their old servants, at which point she will animate him and get him to open the crypt, allowing her to snatch the book. I have no idea why but that appeals to me. Tropy, maybe. Convoluted, but in a way that makes sense to me, I guess. The graverobbers eventually get heard by the odl gravedigger and they murder him and leave a note saying something like “Paychback for looting ma’s body you old coot!” The village vicar has a matron lady who keeps house, cooks meals and the like. She’ll be familiar to anyone who watches english village murder mysteries. She is brining the gravedigger his breakfast, finds the body, and thus comes the vicar and constable and the party gets involved. The party tracks the graverobbers back, kills/captures them, and then sets upin the graveyard on night to in cse there are more. Casper gives them a warning and they go tothe vicerage only to find the door open, the vicar missing, and the old matrons throat cut! In to the church they go, to find the lady, some bodyugards, and some skeleton minions, trying to get the vicar to open a crypt. Final battle. 

The vicar and matron are pretty well done examples of those tropes and I think it helps give the adventure that air of realism that I like. The plot plot here is quite simple; two combats and a pit trap. And the DM is activly advised to keep the party in the graveyard and away from the vicarage so the murder and kidnapping can occur. Bleech! Anyway. Very simple adventure, but with some above average village parts.

There’s weirdness in the read-aloud. One section reads “Mrs Calmly explains that she took Everig the groundskeeper his breakfast at the cottage as usual. She found his body in the cottage and raced to tell the vicar. Both then went to get Constable Bier and the three of them returned to the groundskeeper’s cottage. They found a strange note – Mrs Calmly doesn’t reveal details of the note – and decided to walk together to do a further inspection of the Graveyard” That almost seems like it’s supposed to be DM notes instead of read-aloud. And there is a decent amount of read-aloud. A column and a half to kick things off, with more to come after that. Longish NPC descriptions full of stat blocks and possessions and backstory, although it does generally have a sentence in it to hang your hat on. That sentence is really the only important thing in any of the NPC descriptions and is all that was really needed.

As mentioned, there are some great realism moments here, like an acolyte putting a body in a bag/sack to sew them into, and pausing for the party to check it out. Sometimes the cart gets before the horse, with a description of something like that and then “Another acolyte (same stats) called Parsim waits outside with a coffin – he has vomited and looks queasy.” I note that you walked right by this dude before going in to the hut. It’s a great little vignette and detail, but it should have come BEFORE the inside of the hut was described. Just little things like that, over and over again, that shows a pretty basic lack of overly through editing. And, I’m not sure skill checks ever made it in to BECMI? Maybe in the Cyclopedia? That makes me think this WAS a conversion. I like a back and forth with the party instead of a “make an int check to find the blood trail going over the low wall.” Dice rolls to figure things out are a travesty in a game. The back and forth between the party and the DM is the should of the game.

This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview kind of gets you in to the swing of things, you can get the vibe and the “this is gonna be text heavy” nature of the thing.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/469218/a-grave-matter?1892600