6 Undead Plot Hooks for D&D 5e
Ready-to-run undead hooks for D&D 5e, each paired with a free statblock and a one-shot in Questweaver.
Drop one of these on the table
Grimcrown Caller
CR 4 humanoid- A widow paid the caller to speak with her dead husband and came back mute, her voice traded to bind the spirit longer.
- Three soldiers found their dead captain's signet ring on their doorsteps overnight, each engraved with a new order in his handwriting.
- A pale bird has been circling the bell tower for six days, and the sexton says it screams in a voice he recognizes.
Hollowveil Seer
CR 4 undead- A merchant stumbled into town unable to remember his own name, clutching a scrap of parchment with a date three days from now and nothing else.
- A noblewoman's mirror shows her a hooded figure standing behind her each night, but no one else can see it.
- Travelers at a crossroads shrine report finding answers to questions they never asked, scratched into the stone in their own handwriting.
Cinderwing Revenant
CR 9 undead- A caravan found scorched to its axles on the high road, every body reduced to white ash but the cargo left untouched.
- A village well has gone warm overnight, and the water tastes of sulfur and old bone.
- A hunter's blind on the ridge overlooks a crater where nothing grows, and at night a shape with burning wings circles above it.
Marrowpact Shaman
CR 5 fiend- A merchant's hands turned black overnight; he says he bought a charm from something in the bog and never paid the second installment.
- Villagers leave animal skulls at the swamp's edge each new moon, and the fever that plagued them for a decade stopped.
- A missing herbalist was last seen following a trail of golden sap into the mire.
Wailer of the White Rift
CR 7 giant- A blizzard moves against the wind, carrying a low mournful horn.
- Missing hunters are found frozen upright, eyes glazed with fear.
- Old maps mark a rift that never seems to stay in the same place.
Stormgrave Dracolich
CR 11 undead- Every thunderstorm now cracks with the sound of rattling ribs.
- A ruined tower is lit each night by blue fire in its empty skull.
- Farmers find fields scorched in a spiral pattern after the storms pass.
Undead monsters and NPCs
Undead one-shots
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What the Dead Remember
The party needs information only a dead person can provide. A Grimcrown Caller can summon the spirit, but every summoning feeds the shade bound to the caller's crown, and this one is getting hungry.
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The Price of Knowing
The party seeks a prophetic oracle at a crossroads shrine, but the seer's truths come at a steep cost. They must negotiate what they are willing to forget in exchange for the answer they need.
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Ashes Walk Again
A cinderwing revenant has risen from a battlefield cremation pit and is burning its way toward the town that ordered the mass burning. The party must track it through scorched terrain, survive its flame-choked lair, and destroy or banish it before it reaches the town walls.
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The Bone Ledger
The party seeks out a swamp-dwelling shaman to lift a curse or retrieve a missing person. The shaman deals on its own terms, and if the party cannot stomach the price, the negotiation turns violent fast.
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The Moving Rift
A traveling whiteout swallows the mountain pass. The party must find the moving rift, rescue trapped travelers, and stop the giant before the blizzard reaches the next settlement.
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The Storm-Bone Spire
A storm refuses to break over a coastal ruin. The party must reach the spire, destroy three bone-anchor nodes, and confront the dracolich before the next tidal surge.
