Adventures Along the Corpse Road
Also known as the Lych Roads, these are the untrodden paths that only the dead are carried along. Corpses are transported by the living, brave individuals who stand up to the spirits and foul energies that lie along their path. They carry bodies, coffins, or lead wagons of the dead to their final burial place.
What is a Corpse Road?
There is no singular corpse road, but many throughout the world. They appear in ancient times, medieval times, and even in modern times as ceremonial. These roads are typically straight(ish) and link small hamlets and villages with larger settlements, taking a different route than the main road and crossing streams, labyrinths, or lychgates to block and confuse evil spirits from following the dead.
Corpse roads were used in medieval times, as only specific churches were given rights to bury the dead, meaning that if you died in a small hamlet, you would be taken down the corpse road to be buried at the larger church. This might be only a few miles away, or it could be a several-day journey. During this journey, whoever was carrying you, either family or locals, would make sure not to touch you and set you down at specific coffin rocks to ensure your soul was not disturbed and lost along the journey.
These burial roads eventually fell out of use as local churches were granted burial rights.
Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, 2021 Wizards of the Coast
Corpse Roads in Fantasy
While real life doesn’t have supernatural forces at play (unless we do), fantasy games do. Small villages might not have graveyards, as they have no way to dispel the negative energy that accumulates, turning their dead into the walking dead. Corpse Roads could play an important part for these small settlements that must travel to the larger churches and warded graveyards so that their dead never return to life.
In a fantastical world, the graveyards are dangerous places where powerful wards keep the necrotic and foul energy at bay so that it doesn’t cause a horde of zombies to rise up and destroy the settlement. This means that larger settlements with a proper graveyard are under a constant, unseen threat. Clerics and priests work hard to ensure that their settlement is safe from the forces of undeath, with few ever knowing their sacrifices.
Adventures Along the Corpse Road
Glistening Lights
Along the path of the dead, are small balls of light (often blue) that travel just above the ground. They harken death and tragedy, touching them unleashes the mischievous spirits of the dead.
Will-O’-Wisps are incorporeal undead creatures who delight in causing anguish and suffering in others. They feed on the life force of the living, growing stronger the longer they feed.
At night, will-o’-wisps haunt the corpse road, attempting to trick pallbearers into stepping off the path and bringing the corpse through new areas, all so that the will-o’-wisps and other undead spirits can travel further and cause harm. This might be how a horde of zombies shambles into nearby villages, led by a glowing light, or the spirits are bound to the path and seek freedom to explore the wider world fully.
Monster Manual, 2024 Wizards of the Coast / Vicki Pangestu
Pilgrimmage
Some small villages are so far from a church with burial rights that they only take the trip once or twice a year, carrying all of their dead at one time.
In the basements of tiny churches are temporary burial grounds for the dead. While a small settlement may only have one or two bodies resting on the cold stone, to keep the corpse as fresh as possible, when plague or a monster rips through the population, they may have dozens of corpses. This causes the necrotic energies to increase and spur many of the dead back to life as zombies, skeletons, evil spirits, and more.
This might lead the party to help the local priest put down a horde of zombies, stop a necromancer from stealing corpses from the unsecured basement, or put an end to a monster who is terrorizing the local populace. Once the main threat has been dealt with, the party must then help the hamlet carry the dead several days down the corpse road.
Wandering Dead
Spirits often travel these roads, searching for a way to escape and accomplish their goals. It was considered very bad luck if corpses weren’t taken down this path, leading to many souls unable to find their way to their resting place.
A wandering revenant is seeking the one who killed them and left their body unprotected in a shallow grave in the forest. The revenant can’t be put to rest until they gain their vengeance, or if the party can find their corpse, take it down the corpse road, and bury it in the graveyard. This wandering dead hasn’t killed anyone yet, but it is growing restless and angry, lashing out at anyone who tries to help. It is only a matter of time before it kills an innocent as it seeks its killer.
Ghosts and wraiths shoot down the corpse road, funneling out of unprotected graveyards and along the ground. They may be unable to leave the road, coming up with ways to trick the living to step onto the path so that the spirit could kill or possess them, releasing them from the path.
Monster Manual, 2014 Wizards of the Coast
Lich Lines
Grave roads couldn’t just be random paths that the dead go down, but rather, they are oriented along straight paths that work similarly to ley lines. These lines of power are weak points between the mortal world and the supernatural.
Lich Lines, or Lych Lines, are where the worlds of life and death connect. Along these frail lines, spirits can slip from one to the other. It is said that travelers who aren’t carrying a corpse might slip through the lich lines, stumbling into the plane of shadows, or Shadowfell.
These Lich Lines are also sources of necrotic energy. Dark wizards and necromancers build their towers at intersecting lines, funneling that evil energy into their experiments, to feed their unnatural hunger, and build their armies of the dead and damned.
Lychgates
Lychgates and coffin stones are built to temporarily hold the dead while on their journey down the corpse road. These are powerfully warded to keep the dead from escaping and provide some reprieve to the pallbearers.
These gates and stones are built to stop the spirits from freely traveling the corpse road. They stand at graveyards and in villages, holding back the forces of undead who seek to escape and terrorize the world of the living. Adventurers might be called on to remove a buildup of spirits that are damaging a lychgate, or to help a priest conduct a ritual that reinforces the wards.
In places where there are no lychgates, the spirits may find ways to leave the corpse road, causing havoc and destruction. It is said that powerful and especially evil people who are brought through lychgates or set down on a coffin stone may cause the wards to suddenly fail, destroying the lychgate or coffin stone, releasing the evil contained within the corpse as a wraith, ghost, or poltergeist.
Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, 2021 Wizards of the Coast
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