When the dead walk, even mercy wears a mask.

The Living, the Dead, and the Line Between

Morning sunlight slants through cracked glass, warming the dust that dances over half-finished tables. The air smells faintly of bacon, wood smoke, and the promise of repairs. It’s quiet—until a blur of feathers crashes through the tavern window, bounces off a chair, and lands squarely on the bar.

The pigeon clears its throat. “Adventurers of Trollskull Manor… your assistance is requested by the Emerald Enclave.”

It delivers its lines with the poise of an actor and the aim of a stone. “Corpses rising, then… leaving. Meet Ambrose Everdawn, City of the Dead. Bring light. And manners.” Then, as if it had earned a tip, the bird drinks from someone’s cider, flies into the window frame again, and leaves a single downy feather drifting through the air.

Before the laughter fades, the front door slams open. Jack and Mary Stoutfellow burst in—Jack tired and apologetic, Mary furious and unflinching. Another scarecrow has attacked their farm. The barrel of wine they’d given as thanks now feels like payment for half a job undone.

Kiril lays sixty gold on the bar with quiet dignity. “Then we’ll finish it properly.”

The tension softens, just barely. Mary’s glare lingers, but Jack’s voice carries gratitude as they promise lanterns and hot cider when the fields are safe again.

The rest of the morning belongs to peace and dust. Trollskull’s new family—the urchins Nat, Jenks, and Squiddly—appear bearing gifts: a crooked sign reading The Heart of Trollskull, a dented tip bowl, and a lopsided lantern that “still works sometimes if you kick it.” Their laughter fills the space the ghosts once claimed. When the trio leaves, a cold draft follows—a whisper of rain and stone from somewhere far below.

By evening, fog curls through the cobblestones as the party enters the City of the Dead. The city’s clamor fades behind wrought-iron gates. Mist wreathes the gravestones. Lanterns hang like pale stars among weeping willows. And there stands Ambrose Everdawn, silver hair and gleaming plate, his lantern burning white against the dark.

He tells them the story: graves disturbed once a week, always the forgotten, the godless, the poor. No wards triggered, no magic detected. Only emptiness where rest should be. “The dead rise and walk away,” he says. “No one sees, and no one remembers.”

At Gregor Grimmsby’s grave, the party kneels among clawed earth and splintered coffin wood. There are two sets of footprints, one human, one halfling-sized. The larger vanishes mid-step. The smaller leads away, trailed by faint rat burrows. Silver hair, bone dust, necromantic residue—all signs of deliberate magic.

As the fog thickens, the tracks lead to a lonely shopfront glowing blue in the rain:

Dandymop’s Fine Wigs & Powder.

A single candle sways behind the glass, and the party’s reflection wavers in it like ghosts.

The sign creaks once, the light flickers—

—and the scene fades to black.

DM Diary: Season of Shadows

If you’ve ever run a long campaign, you know how slippery your timeline can be. In the script, this chapter—Six Feet Under—wasn’t supposed to happen until Ches 8 or 9. But as Halloween approached in the real world, I could feel an opportunity stirring under the floorboards.

Sometimes, as Dungeon Masters, we forget that time in our story doesn’t have to match time at our table. The rhythm of a campaign is fluid. The calendar is a tool, not a chain. And when the real world gives you a moment like Halloween—a night already steeped in folklore and fear—it’s worth bending the in-world calendar to meet that energy.

So I moved the City of the Dead forward a few days. It didn’t break continuity; it made it sing.

The night outside my players’ window was black and windy. Candles flickered on my table, and every time I whispered Ambrose Everdawn’s dialogue—

“The dead simply… rise and walk away.”

—I could see the goosebumps in real time.

That’s the thing about seasonal play: you’re not just running an adventure, you’re conducting a shared emotion. Aligning tone between your world and theirs amplifies immersion.

Here’s what helped me make that shift work smoothly:

In the end, my goal wasn’t to frighten the players; it was to haunt them gently.

To let the City of the Dead feel like a mirror of the real world outside our game room—a place where the veil is thin and mercy wears a mask.

When we ended, one of them whispered, “It felt like Halloween in Waterdeep.”

And that’s exactly what I was after.