Living Graveyard

Armor Class: -1 [20] (m)
Hit Dice: 40
Attacks: Gravestone shot (1d6+2)
Special: magic weapons to hit, gravestone shots, skeleton/zombie release, healing slumber, heart destruction
Move: N/A
HDE/XP: 42/11,000

Description

A Living Graveyard resembles a giant mountain filled with tombstones, with a chapel-like building at its top. Whenever disturbed by robbers or any hostile force, the living graveyard will awaken and grow a face and arms, ready to attack. It attacks by shooting its gravestones; by doing this, the living graveyard will lose 1 HP per tombstone shot, and can shoot up to a quarter of its HP. Each gravestone is a grenade-like attack, dealing 2d6 points of damage; in case of a miss, the intended victim must make a saving throw or suffer half-damage due to the tombstone's explosion on impact.

A living graveyard can release the remnants of those buried in it by also losing HP as above (and is also limited to a quarter of this HP). The remnants will be skeletons (1-4 on 1d6) or zombies (5-6 on 1d6) and will attack anyone nearby.

At 0 HP the living graveyard will collapse and enter a regenerative slumber, regaining 1 HP per week or 1d6 HP per body buried in it. It can only be destroyed by entering its chapel during its slumber (via a 15th-level magically-held door) and destroying its "heart", a glowing and disgusting glowing protuberance with 2d4 HP and located at the very center of the chapel. There is a percent chance, equal to half the living graveyard's full HP, that the heart is protected by (full HP/10) skeleton guardians (each with 2 HD+2 and +2 to attack and damage).

Source note: This creature is converted from The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign – Omnibus Edition, 1st Edition Release 4, © 2010–2025 Chris Gonnerman, R. Kevin Smoot, James Lemon, Matt Sluis, and Contributors. The Basic Fantasy Field Guide textual material is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International; this page adapts that creature to White Box.