Dead to Right

We’re adding another staple pick to both our Dungeon Delve and Wilderness Trek Wandering Monster tables today—undead skeletons! Our 3D printers gave us two different sculpts to sync up with, either a discouraging indoor surprise or an unenvious outdoor encounter.

Their bony frames shan’t be ignored just because they’re so old school. We just need to introduce these bags of bones in a clever, intriguing way. Let’s explore by starting with a classic dungeon crawl scenario, and then we’ll end today’s DnD post with a different sculpt for another uninvited outdoor encounter.

So this first STL comes from EC3D Designs and their Wilds of Wintertide Kickstarter. Now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Why are you picking a dungeon miniature from a winter-themed set?!” Welp, it’s all about the sculpt’s pose and how you color it. Focus on the designs you love, then utilize your painting and flocking skills to create the proper environment fit.

So DM Ben took a stab at painting these emerging undead attackers and just kept it simple with ArmyPainter Speedpaints (for the rocks and moss) and Citadel paints (for the skeletons). We’re pretty zoomed in on our photo here, but trust us, with the arm’s length rule, these look darn good. 😉

In terms of a potential Wandering Monster scenario, DM Ben expects these haunted souls to burst through the dungeon walls and floors. Even better, if a rubble pile or two is already in the room, the skeletons can come up through any of those rocky terrain spots.

If you want to have fun with whoever is on watch at the time, start by describing some faint tapping coming from one of the walls and the floor. The noise seems to be getting louder and louder.

It turns out the players have picked the wrong resting spot. A squad of skeletons was brutally ambushed here a long time ago by a nasty Chaotic Evil party who unmercifully slaughtered them. Stuck between planes, they become infuriated anytime someone crosses over their resting place.

You can play this two ways: an all-out sword-fest right out of the gate or maybe have them slowly come out and do a skill challenge/diplomacy/side quest. Maybe these skeletons want to leave this plane but can’t do so without a certain object or forgiveness from another NPC. DM Ben is going to have one slowly appear and go the negotiation route. The Skeletons will point them to a secret treasure room if they locate a particular religious pendant (which frees their trapped souls).

And for our skeletal Wilderness Trek encounter, we’re going to use these frickin’ amazing sculpts by Loot Studios. We just love all the various arms and body parts pushing up from the ground here! For the narrative, the party could have inadvertently wandered into an unmarked cemetery or a historic battlefield from years past. The group simply could have taken the wrong set of steps and inadvertently disturbed a fallen soldier’s resting spot.

This could once again be an all-out slugfest, or the skinny minis might not initially be hostile and instead be looking for a brokered deal. Find their beloved object, and they’ll share a treasured secret in exchange. DM Ben is always pushing the party to utilize all their skills, abilities, feats, equipment, and such, not just the things that do damage rolls.

For our skeletal stats, you can definitely go with the 5E standard (AC 13, HP 13,  +4/1d6+2). If you want to add a leader, the Skull Lord is pretty nasty (13th level) but maybe only insert him if you plan on running a diplomacy encounter. If the group draws swords, he can use his 3 legendary actions to summon five skeletons to fight by his side.

If you want to try something different, we found this Reddit thread where someone crafted a Reassembling Skeleton monster that caught our eye. This uninvited undead can reassemble themselves (for 5 HP) in any round where they don’t take certain types of damage. For our six-character, fourth-level group, six reassembling skeletons (AC 15, HP 26, Multi Att +4/1d6+2) would be a medium difficulty (CR 5).

Now, all that’s left to do is update our Dungeons and Dragons Wandering Monster tables. We’ve added the row in for our Dungeon Delve table below and you can see the latest Wilderness Trek table here.

Until next time!