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Block Initiative

Creatures working together can take their turn in any order before any opposing creature or the end of the round.

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Escalating Combat Rounds

• All attack rolls receive a positive modifier equal to the round of combat.
• All saving throws receive a negative modifier equal to the round of combat.
• Surprise rounds do not include this modifier (they are treated as round 0).

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Basic Combat Maneuvers

The Basic Combat Maneuvers can be used in this encounter.

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Minions
A minion is a weak foe. However, minions still make threatening foes. Killing a minion still requires penetrating their defenses, and characters can’t just shrug off damage from minion attacks.

Every minion has the Minion trait, which affects the creature in the following ways:

• If the minion takes any damage from an attack or as the result of a failed saving throw, their hit points are reduced to 0.
• If the minion takes damage from another effect, they die if the damage equals or exceeds their hit point maximum; otherwise, they take no damage.

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Overkill Attacks
Powerful weapon attacks can kill more than one minion in a single maneuver called an overkill attack.

When a weapon attack’s damage does exceed the target minion’s hit point maximum, the attack becomes an overkill attack and the damage dealt beyond the minion’s hit point maximum becomes overkill damage.

Overkill damage can be applied to a second minion who has the same stat block as the target and is in overkill range (see below). Damage against the second minion is counted as if you made a weapon attack against them; since it only takes 1 point of weapon damage to reduce a minion to 0 hit points, any amount of overkill damage immediately knocks them out. But wait, it gets better—if the initial attack’s overkill damage exceeds the second minion’s hit point maximum, the leftover overkill damage can roll over to a third minion, and so on! In other words, for each time the overkill damage exceeds the new target’s hit point maximum, the attacker can choose an additional minion to reduce to 0 hit points.

For example, when a weapon attack deals 18 damage to a minion with a hit point maximum of 5, the overkill damage is 13. If there are three additional minions of the same stat block in overkill range, they can all three be immediately reduced to 0 hit points, since the overkill damage exceeded the target’s hit point maximum more than twice over.

Overkill attacks can’t be made as part of an opportunity attack.

Overkill Range
Minions must be within a certain range to qualify for an overkill attack, determined by whether the attack is a melee or ranged attack.

Melee Overkill Attacks. When a creature hits a minion with a melee weapon attack, other minions within reach of the attack are in overkill range and can be chosen as additional targets for an overkill attack. The overkill attack can’t target minions outside the weapon attack’s reach.

Ranged Overkill Attacks. When a creature hits a minion with a ranged weapon attack, other minions in a line originating from the creature in the direction of the target, to a distance equal to the weapon’s short range, are in overkill range and can be chosen as additional targets for an overkill attack. The overkill attack can’t target minions outside the line or beyond the weapon’s short range.

Moat*: 5 feet from the surface to the top of the bank, ????? feet deep

Outer Keep Walls**: 15 feet high exterior, 10 feet high interior, three-quarters cover from the exterior wall, outlined in dashed white line

Inner Keep Walls**: 20 feet high exterior, 15 feet high interior, three-quarters cover from the exterior wall, outlined in dashed white line

Rubble: difficult terrain, indicated with a white triangle in the upper right corner

Boulders***: 5 feet high, outlined in dashed white line

Foliage: difficult terrain, indicated with a white triangle in the upper right corner, can be used to hide, outlined in a dashed green line

Tree Cover: from 10 feet to 20 feet up, provides three-quarters cover for opponents under and above, outlined in dashed orange line

Bones: not to scale (small and medium creature remains), NOT difficult terrain, and there to show that they are scattered in the general area

Fungal Growth: difficult terrain, yellow section outlined in dashed yellow line

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*Athletics (STR) DC 10 to climb onto the bank, or DC 15 if the bank is difficult terrain

**Athletics (STR) DC 20 to climb, or DC 15 from a section that has rubble at the base

***Athletics (STR) DC 10 to climb

Rightfully reviled for their desecrations, the Grayhaunt Order’s necromancers and gruesome creations seek power over the living by defiling the natural order of death. If left to perfect their insidious rituals and gather corpses, they will certainly amass a scourge of undeath and seize the world in an unliving grip.

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Background

The Grayhaunt Order serves no ambitions save their own. Each member was shunned for their unique blasphemies, but they otherwise escaped their crimes’ consequences. Though the Grayhaunt Order’s allies are few, they animate those they lack into a horde of undead minions.

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Goals

Though each necromancer in the Grayhaunt Order has a unique dark dream, together they are committed to conquest through undeath. Condemned for their forbidden pursuits, the order also harbors festering grudges against those who vilified them. All who obstruct the Grayhaunt Order’s aspirations will suffer a thousandfold in the glorious dead world to come.

Though these necromancers seek to animate an army, they’re unsatisfied with the husks of mere commoners. The Grayhaunt Order unearths the graves of great heroes and reanimates their bones, flesh, or spirits. With the power of legends at their command, the Grayhaunt Order will topple kingdoms and strike fear into the hearts of their sworn enemies.

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Methods

The Grayhaunt Order roams the world, learning folklore to track down the graves of renowned heroes. They camp near graveyards and burial grounds. Under the cover of night, they are remorseless graverobbers, picking burial plots clean. They have no respect for local traditions or beliefs, using corpses as fodder to reach their true prize.

If discovered, the Grayhaunt Order shows no mercy to opposition. Meddlers just provide additional corpses and all the better if those come from adventurers with dreams of glory and bleeding hearts.

Lethari Sangre

Treasured as a wizard prodigy in her youth, Lethari flourished under the protection and opportunities afforded her. As the half-elf grew into an insatiable arcane scholar, mentors assumed her academic interest in necromancy was mere morbid curiosity, but her fascination soon became experimentation with the forbidden. Lethari dreamed of cheating death and ruling forever - a privilege she believed the universe owed her brilliance - and her devoted bodyguard Haldrun only encouraged her ambitions.

Lethari's teachers finally saw the evil in her and forbade any further dalliances with necromancy. But the young mage had already tasted power, and she killed her ignorant teachers and took their spellbooks.

Determined to become a lich, Lethari founded the Grayhaunt Order, gathering other necromancers to work toward her grand vision. While she is skilled in all aspects of necromancy, Lethari specializes in the incorporeal: subjugating spirits, binding souls, and empowering her magic with such essences.

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Haldrun Yandris

Haldrun trained for battle from his youth. After proving his dedication to the art of war, the human was assigned as bodyguard to the brilliant young mage Lethari. When she showed Haldrun kindness and trust, he repaid it in kind, sharing his darkest secret with her.

Haldrun supported his charge's macabre passions from the start - in part due to his devotion to her, but also driven by the euphoria he feels when a life slips away under his hand. The warrior enjoys killing in Lethari's name, knowing his corpses help build the Grayhaunt Order.

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Jovan Palance

A human apostate cleric, Jovan, serves a being called Nerull who claims to be a trapped and forgotten god of death. Nerull promised Jovan unimaginable power in exchange for freedom. To free his lord, Jovan defiled the bones of entombed saints for a profane ritual, only to be caught before he could complete the spell. His imminent execution was interrupted by Lethari and Haldrun, who cut their way through the guards and executioner to recruit Jovan into the Grayhaunt Order.

Jovan's cold and callous demeanor belies a fervent faith in Nerull. He excels in magics that manipulate bones, and he uses corporeal undead to defend and bolster his allies.

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Myrel

A peculiar tiefling with a distracted air, Myrel's body is crisscrossed with yellow veins of a beautiful parasitic fungus. She has developed a symbiotic relationship with her fungus, which she adores and has named Golden Creep. Myrel dreams of cultivating a garden to cover the entire world—a dream that quickly put her at odds with the people of her home village, for this fungus grows best in the dying bodies of humanoids … and if those bodies are later reanimated, it continues to thrive in their undead husks.

After Myrel was caught slaughtering neighbors to serve as zombified hosts for her blossoms, the villagers captured the necromancer, planning to burn her and her creations. The Grayhaunt Order intervened by killing the villagers, saving Myrel, and bringing her into their fold. She specializes in cultivating Golden Creep in the cavities of undead and spreading it across the field of battle, hindering and enervating her foes.