Necromantic Nightmares Part IV: Body Snatchers, Ghouljamming, Rotted Roots

Last time: A Third Corpse-Wagon Full of Necromantic Novelties: Railroads, Sharks, and Skeleton-Style Severance

Faction: Grave Robbers and Body Snatchers

Grave robbing and body snatching was a big thing in real history and real history didn’t even have necromancy. It should be orders of magnitude more popular in a magical fantasy world. There’s a lot to work with when looking at historical examples. Evocative slang (“resurrectionists”). Science and progress versus respect for religion and tradition. Educated elites versus the working class. Racism, if you’re playing in a game that wants to unpack heavy issues.

This subject is a good hook for all kinds of adventures, whether the PCs are working as grave robbers, being paid to stop them, or just tossed back and forth by the ceaseless whims of the funereal world. Consider just a few.

Random table: What are the competing interests creating conflict in and around the world of the grave robbers?

1. The thieves’ guild is hiring skilled rogues to crack mortsafes. Adventurers could work for them, or help the city watch catch these criminals.
2. The vengeful ghost of a prominent politician has sworn to destroy the town if body snatchers take the remains of any member of its family. A volunteer watch group is forming to guard against this eventuality. The complication is that no one is completely certain how many illegitimate children this politician had, and whether or not the ghost would count any such deceased persons as family. Better figure out who they are, and protect their graves to be sure.
3. The ghast who rules over the local cemetery is spreading rumors that great wealth is buried with various recently buried bodies, hoping to let the grave robbers do the hard work of digging, then grab the bodies (of both the dead and the foolish robbers) for itself.
4. A serial killer (perhaps a deceptive monster like a wererat, perhaps just a normal human) is using already-robbed graves as a place to hide his victims. The local resurrectionists are understandably concerned this will lead to a mob blaming them and seeking them out. One group of criminals is thus incentivized to stop the actions of another, even more grim criminal.
5. A marriage between two ghosts has created a complication in the execution of the will of the local potentate. With the help of a wisecracking skull that can cast Speak With Dead at will, adventurers must untangle the legal intricacies of these conflicting life-or-death bonds. 
6. Thieves are following body snatchers and plundering the graves of valuables after the bodies are removed (the body snatchers scrupulously do not take any valuable items from a grave, besides the body itself). The two factions are on the brink of a gang war, each accusing the other of immoral acts.

Location: The Hunger Ship

Before the spelljamming ark departed on its extraplanar journey, the shipwright-priests blessed it, entreating the stellar gods to ensure that no one would ever go hungry aboard the vessel. The blessing worked, but in a perverse way. When the ship strayed from its course and supplies ran out, the passengers found that they would not die of starvation. But their hunger was as strong as ever, and that hunger drove them to survive as ghouls. The ark continues to drift between the stars, full of ghouls fighting amongst themselves and waiting for unwary travelers to stumble on their ship.

Random table: Grim and ghoulish scenes from the cursed corridors of the Hunger Ship.

1. Ghoul-priests have welded iron cages over the mouths of fanatical flagellant ghouls. Prevented from feeding, these monsters are kept in a constant state of frenzy. (visual reference: the garrador from Resident Evil 4)
2. Gunnery ghouls lovingly tend to massive spiked hooks on long cables, ready to fire at passing ships to haul in a fresh meal. (visual reference: the reavers from Firefly)
3. Even as the hooks pull the targeted vessel toward the Hunger Ship, ghoul boarders will clamber up the chains, vying to be the first to taste new flesh. (visual reference: a hectic boarding scene from any pirate or naval movie) 
4. A dining hall filled with exotic "food" that is the refinement of hundreds of years of cannibalistic closed-loop "recycling." Ghoul aesthetes will (temporarily...) hold off on devouring anyone who can give them thoughtful critical input on their quality of the offerings; the ghouls are concerned they have been removed from the culinary world too long and may be out of step with current trends. (visual reference: some combination of the dining room from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the forbidden food from Pan’s Labyrinth, and the bar in From Dusk Til Dawn)
5. The ghoul chirurgeon is relatively diplomatic by ghoul standards, offering to trade a prosthetic replacement for a PC’s tastiest-looking limb. The prosthetics are genuine, not a trick, and each one can do something that a normal limb cannot. (visual reference: Bruce Campbell in Escape from LA or Dr. Steinman in BioShock)
6. The ghoul ascetic abstains from eating living things, consuming only dead matter. They seek to lead the ghouls on the ships to a graveyard planet where they could feast on ethically sourced bones for eternity. A bit of a bore compared to the other ghouls, but basically a good fellow. (visual reference: peaceful Dreamland ghouls in Lovecraftian works)

Monster: Rootrot Treant 

Blood drips from a crude mouth of cracks and splinters. Corrupted by necromancy, this once-mighty  forest guardian now spreads decay. Deceptively slow-moving, when he scents living things he can flip over and walk on hundreds of surprisingly sturdy branches, like a wooden spider with far too many limbs, slamming his body down on his prey.

Necromancers in conflict with vampires for control of the local undead will sometimes use Rootrot Treants as guardians. Bristling with wooden “stakes,” few vampires will engage them in direct combat.

Modern statblock:

Rootrot Treant (huge undead plant) AC 16 (natural armor) HP138 Speed 30’ or 60’ (charge ending in a slam attack that leaves it prone)

RES Poison damage

IMM Poisoned, exhausted

Challenge 9 XP 5000

False Appearance (indistinguishable from dead tree when motionless, mainly works in fall/winter) 

Siege Monster (double damage to objects and structures)

Actions: Bite or Slam

Bite (melee): +10 / 3d6+6 piercing damage

Slam (melee) +10 / 4d10+6 bludgeoning damage and the Rootrot Treant falls prone and cannot move further that turn. Save STR DC 16 or restrained under the treant's bulk; ATH DC 16 to escape.

1/day when the Rootrot Treant rises from prone to standing, as a bonus action, it may spawn a field of rotted thorny vines harming all living things in the affected area (as Spirit Guardians, necrotic damage) 

Old-school statblock: 

Rootrot Treant AC 17 HD 8 HP 36 Att +7 bite (4d6) ML 12 MV normal or x2 normal, then if bite hits, treant falls on top of target and pins to the ground. Surprise on 1-3 at short range in environments with ample dead trees.