An autumn wind blows from the east...

It symbolizes the end of all things.

On it leaves the summer sun,

With it comes the winter snow.

But for now, there is only slow, rotting decay.

The Dead and the Dying

Safety is an illusion, provided by strong walls and swarthy soldiers. Every inch of it is expensive, and so space must be consolidated. Those that have died, no longer earn their keep, and so were exorcised to graveyards beyond village walls.

But in those plots of sullen soil, intruders seek to disturb the fallen. Graverobbers steal the riches of the noble dead, ruinous experimenters with the forbidden magics seek new flesh to sew, and horrors of the night dig up rotten corpses to feed their unending appetites. So prevalent were the dangers that to be made a gravetender was to live an existence of existential terror.

So, the church stepped in to provide a service to the people. The Order of St. Callixtus of the Church of the Sacrificial Lamb (colloquially referred to as the "Order of St. Callixtus") set about constructing a grand cemetery for all righteous kingdoms to use. Guarded day and night by church militants, warded against evil by holy shrines, and the grounds kept by monks of local abbeys.

However, in the decades since its creation, the Grand Cemetary of St. Callixtus has fallen into ruin. Corruption and heresy have spread through the ranks of the Order, the church militant has become slowly disbanded in order to hoard wealth, and the protective shrines among its grounds have descended into disrepair.

Evil stalks the Grand Cemetary, and with each new dawn, it grows...

Contents of the Grand Cemetery

What adventures lie inside the rusted gates of the Grand Cemetery of St. Callixtus? What creatures stalk its cobbled paths, and back wood roads? What treasure lies within? What people would still reside in such a wretched place?

And who wants to get in/out before all hell breaks loose?

You tell me!

The Grand Cemetery of St. Callixtus is a setting zine that calls upon the Crowns community to create dungeons, bestiaries, full-hexes, magic items, encounters, new systems, rogues galleries, settlements, etc, that fit in the theme of the Grand Cemetery.

When it's all said and done, the top contributions will be selected to be combined into a hex-crawl zine that will be sold in both PDF and physical form (formatted by me), with all proceeds going to CHARITY.

Charitable Contributions

This is a game for a good cause!

All sales made on the pdf will go to support US Army SOCOM Veterans and their families through the Green Beret Foundation! We are by no means partnered with them, but seeing as I was once a beneficiary of this amazing organization I'd love to give back!

I recommend you follow the link above and read about them, but your contributions to this community project will go to help raise funds for this terrific organization.

Any print runs done will have some of their funds diverted to funding the print copies themselves and delivery of the physical copies to my house for distribution. All remaining money will go to charity, however!

What You Can Submit

No matter what you submit, please have it be a single zine page (5.5" by 8.5") or a double page spread (11" by 8.5"). This is to help with formatting the main zine.

You still own your content, and if you want to sell it yourself or submit it but do not want it included in the zine, go for it! If your content is put in the zine, your name will be attached to it

• Bestiaries and Encounters. Monster stat blocks and descriptions along with the unique ways they interact with the environment
• Dungeons. Barrow mounds, sprawling crypts, ruined shrines, collapsed abbeys, and anything else you can think of!
• Locales. Places of interest, lore, and information gathering that are not necessarily dungeons
• Settlements and NPCs. Of those that still live in the Grand Cemetery are the gravetender monks and other small enclaves, but who else could live amongst the rubble?
  
• Magic Items, Grimoires, and Potions. Buried with nobles? Lost in the barrows? Kept in a monastery's vault?
• Factions. What powerful groups have taken up residence in the Grand Cemetery? Are they friend? Or foe? Or... neither?
• Art. Pieces of thematic art for us to use as scatter throughout the zine or for other people's submissions!

There will be 19 hexes on the map, with each one containing one or two "encounters" (pieces of content the players can come into contact with). Each hex is roughly 6 miles across. Pick a hex and fill it up!

The three golden rules are:

1. It tells a story
2. It's short
3. It's interactable by the players

Share your submission on the Ward Against Evil Discord as soon as you're done so it can get the publicity it deserves!
https://discord.gg/EJ6f7dUvDs

Submit as many of your creations as you want!

Get the CROWNS Core Rules for FREE at this link:
https://ward-against-evil.itch.io/crowns

Check out the monthly expansions for CROWNS at this link (some of them are FREE as well):
https://ward-against-evil.itch.io/crowns-rpg-season-of-crows