Background/Hook
The dead have been rising in the small village of Dunbeck, walking North to the nearby Barrow Mound. To prevent further re-animations, church officials have taken to locking coffins shut with iron chains, or burning the bodies in the case of poorer families. The local priest, a portly alcoholic fellow by the name of Father Matthews, has gathered a small sum of money with which to pay the party to investigate. He lets the adventurers know that the Almighty will surely overlook any missing items from the barrow.
Monster Encounters
A small group of animate corpses guard the entrance to the mound. They are equipped with rusted spears, torn chain mail, and dented shields. One of the corpses wears a golden drinking horn on its hip, dented but still worth a decent amount of coin.
An undead knight stands guard on a bridge which crosses an underground stream. It is encased from head to toe in rusted armor, and the clatter of bones can be heard when it moves. Its sword is remarkably free of oxidization, and is engraved with mystic runes. Anyone struck by the sword is hit with an intense electric shock, not enough to kill on its own but enough to potentially stun its victims.
Lurking above a deep chasm is a great black spider with the distorted face of an aged woman. This witch-widow is the being which has been raising Dunbeck's dead. Numerous undead warriors guard her, suspended from the ceiling on fine threads. Slaying the witch-widow undoes her magic, causing the undead to return to corpses. Attached to a wall is the witch-widow's egg sac, the unhatched spiderlings within being worth a fortune to alchemists, wizards, and proprietors of curiosity cabinets.
Traps/Hazards
The ground has recently been disturbed, with numerous small holes in the floor like those of gophers or rabbits. Against the far wall is a wooden chest containing various pieces of jewelry and gold. Stepping on the disturbed ground causes skeletal hands to reach out from the holes, attempting to drag the unsuspecting trespasser into the earth to become yet another pair of skeletal hands.
The ceiling groans under the weight of ancient earth, rotted wooden support struts barely keeping tons of dirt at bay. Those traversing this room must be exceptionally quiet and careful, lest the ceiling collapse and bury them.
"Empty" Rooms
There are grave niches carved into the walls, empty now save for disturbed cobwebs and scraps of rotted flesh.
This room was once a shrine to some saint or perhaps an obscure pagan deity; its difficult to tell. The centuries have not been kind, and the altar has been destroyed by age and a partially collapsed ceiling.
Some funerary urns containing ashes and shards of burnt bone. A couple have been broken, spilling their contents on to the floor to mix with earthen floor. One of the unbroken urns contains a number of gold coins, hidden within the ashes and bone shards.
Special
This room is colder than the rest, with a single skull lying in the center. The skull appears to have a hole drilled through the center of its forehead, and is in remarkably good condition for its age. Touching the skull causes one to see flashes of a great spider with a humanoid face, and an army of the dead arising from the barrow to bring the living back to its horrible web deep beneath the earth. A voice reaches into the holder's mind, whispering "Free us".
Non-Player Character
A pale, emaciated figure scuttles about in the dark, gibbering to himself. This is Bartholomew, the ghoul "caretaker" of the Dunbeck Mound. He is largely friendly, but years of isolation and cannibalism make him a bit strange. He is likely to make comments on how long he estimates party members have time before their death, the succulent taste of mummified meat, etc.
