Boneyard: The Story Behind D&D's Spookiest Skeleton

skeletons may be both spooky and scary but did you know that they're eager to be ripped out of your body if the conditions are right that's foreshadowing for later welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet that thinks Undead should be allowed to vote after all nobody's as boned up on spicy political takes as a skeleton and nothing bones up on anything quite like this week's monster of the week the Boneyard from d d Third Edition as always my goal this week is to go over the boneyard's in-game lore its publication history some combat encounter ideas and of course to present you with some brand new 5th edition monster stats so buckle up because what this monster lacks in meat it more than makes up for in potential in the year 2004 Andy Collins and Bruce Cordell said you know what we need more of some spooky ass [ __ ] and with what I'm sure was a resounding let's go from everyone in the office Wizards of the Coast published libris mortis the book of Undead like the name would suggest this book is packed to the gills with all kinds of stuff pertaining to necromancy and Undead fellas and like most Third Edition books you have a wide array of character options new spells equipment and just a whack of new monsters and on page 89 nestled right between the bone rat swarm and the Brain in a jar yes they are both on the list of monsters for upcoming videos don't worry we see the Boneyard now what a particularly spooky skeleton boneyards are exactly what they appear to be massive Amalgamated creatures built entirely from Bones the most common form they take is a huge bony serpent with some kind of Beast skull as the head however this creature's form is entirely fluid so they can really appear and take on any shape that they want one might be a giant Serpent and another might be humanoid in shape while still another might appear to manifest as just a tidal wave of Bones there are literally no rules so whatever you think is the creepiest shape for all these skeletal components to be in that's the shape they should take on now unlike most Undead creatures they are fully sentient with an intelligent score of 18 they definitely know what's going on probably even better than most adventurers do especially the Paladin and believe it or not the 40-foot Serpentine creature made entirely of Bones is not a naturally occurring organism like pretty well all Undead Abominations that should not be they are created creatures if created intentionally there is a fable ritual which a necromancer must perform at a location with a lot of Bones present your obvious choices would be something like a graveyard or a battlefield however the only condition that must be met is that the magic user in question has access to a ton of skeletal components once this ritual summoning spell has been cast all the bones amalgamate together and what do you know it's a Boneyard now unless the Necromancer has a way to bind the creature into service the newly born Boneyard isn't really beholden to anyone or anything as a sentient creature it is totally capable of thinking for itself so even if it is bonded to its creator or someone else for whatever reason if it's not satisfied with the way it's being treated it can and will actively seek ways to escape what any given Boneyard might hope to achieve is anyone's best guess but the one thing they all have in common is an overwhelming urge to subsume more bones in much the same way that a living animal is driven by its instinct to eat and feed itself the Boneyard wants to add to its form by collecting more skeletons and using their bones to replace old and destroyed bones that were previously part of its form the obvious and probably easiest way for it to do this is to find and absorb other corpses or even lesser Undead such as regular skeletons but when the bone Supply runs dry how do we think that the Boneyard might best feed its craving for osseous matter this is the part of the video where we talk about how it can rip out skeletons the Boneyard is a pretty simple if not extremely effective combatant it only has one attack and it's a very powerful bite and this bite attack does some piercing damage as one would expect but if the target has a skeleton like most things do the Boneyard is able to pull on the victim's bones and try to incorporate them into its body even if the creature it's biting is still alive I would even argue especially if the creature is still alive not only is this horrific in a way I never thought I'd have to realize but the Target also has to take 4D 10 Force damage if they fail a constitution saving throw so it's bad mechanically too so feel free to describe that Force damage to anyone in the thing's Jaws by letting them know that it feels like their skeleton is being pulled out of their meat but wait there's more if bitten by the Boneyard you're also grappled by it which definitely sucks and on the following turn if it bites you again you still haven't escaped the grapple you are now restrained by it and at the start of its next turn if it still has you restrained you have to make a dc-18 constitution saving throw I'll give you a moment to guess what might happen if you fail that saving throw anyone who said if you fail your skeleton is ripped out of your body and subsumed by the Boneyard you win also yeah if that happens you die you definitely are no longer a living person it is worth mentioning though that this extra Force damage does not apply to any creature without a skeleton such as an ooze or a plant or even a construct I'm talking about naturally grown organic bones only none of these processed metal bones or whatever it can also only make one bite attack per turn so in order to get off this instant kill effect it has to hit somebody with its bite and then keep them grappled and then restrained for two full turns so this ability is is not tremendously overpowered in my opinion because there's ample time to get out of it but sometimes the dice just don't go your way and the threat is there and that's what's important that is what's scary in addition to this gruesome ability the Boneyard can also shed piles of Bones a couple times per day to create a small group of skeletal minions using an action it can summon either 3d4 skeletons or one D6 Minotaur skeletons depending on the situation A large group of regular skeletons or a smaller group of powerful Minotaur skeletons both have differing benefits but I think this is a really cool ability that makes the Boneyard an awesome boss monster in terms of actually building an encounter it's pretty straightforward I think your Boneyard is usually going to begin combat by summoning some guys and then it's going to be flying around the battlefield trying to rip out a skeleton here or there oh yeah I didn't mention that did I they can [ __ ] fly lie down they fly now they fly now with a fly speed of 60 feet they are extremely mobile for a creature of their size so they're liable to swoop in drop off a skeleton raiding party grapple an unfortunate soul and then take off to the skies for an all-you-can-eat bone Buffet God this monster is just flying around eating bugs but the real question isn't how the Boneyard subsumes bone matter and agonizing fashion it's why so let's talk about a few [Music] fun fact skeletons are scary so what better monster for a Dungeons and Dragons Halloween adventure than a Boneyard I have to imagine that the most straightforward and obvious story involving a Boneyard would be that of a necromancer summoning one of them to use as a minion I can just imagine a powerful spellcaster sailing over their Legion of skeletons and zombies on the back of a Boneyard Mount that would not only make for an extremely metal piece of concept art it would also be a pretty mean final boss fight but if you want something a bit more outside the box I think a Boneyard could be a really creative way to play on the spirit of Vengeance Trope I mean we already have revenants to kind of fill that role of an undead creature that rises from the grave in order to seek revenge on those who wronged it while it was still alive but when a Revenant isn't enough of a threat perhaps you have an entire Legion of soldiers that was sent to their death by a local Monarch for some reason that have now risen as an Amalgamated Boneyard set on Revenge perhaps they were sent to die for political reasons or maybe it's just pure ineptitude on the side of the leader but whatever your reason Justified or not the Boneyard has now started wreaking havoc on the countryside and it's only a matter of time before it makes its way through that Monarch's Kingdom and up to the castle now we've got some Intrigue a mystery to be solved and a big scary monster this stuff dreams are made of and if you don't want to use the Boneyard as like a big boss type enemy for the end of a campaign perhaps you use it as the opening of a campaign I think it could be very fun to do that same kind of combat encounter where you have the Necromancer casting their profane ritual at the local Cemetery at the center of town then the party arrives on the scene takes down the villain destroys the Boneyard and combat ends but in the act of Terror bring up the cemetery to summon this Boneyard the necromancy has unknowingly revealed some kind of secret perhaps underneath the tomb of a long dead Knight that was in the cemetery there is a chamber that was hidden and sealed off from the rest of the world for hundreds of years nobody knew it was there and inside this chamber or maybe it's even an entire dungeon that's where the true start of the campaign begins what's waiting for them down there that's totally up to you if you want to keep it simple maybe it's just a few powerful magic items or a horde of riches but perhaps there's something relevant to the story of the campaign such as a scroll containing a prophecy of something Grim to come or maybe even the ghost of the night who was buried in this tomb is still hanging out down there waiting for somebody to find them and they have some kind of wisdom or quest to bestow upon the party in fact if the thing torn up was a huge Monument maybe it's not even just one night but like an entire order of knights who were all buried there and entombed who were in service to the previous King and they know something about the current ruler that nobody else knows this atrocity that was committed during a time of War when the kingdom was originally conquered who knows you can shake things up however you want this could just serve as an excuse to discover something that was buried underneath the town which was sort of in plain sight but no one else knew it was there but however you choose to use this monster I do think the Boneyard is a truly unique creature even among skeletal kind and I'm so glad I got to talk about it here today if you do want to use this monster Linked In the description down below there is a Google Document which contains all the stats and lore tidbits and everything you will need to successfully run this creature in 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons and if you're one of my lovely patrons over on the patreon page which is also linked down below you will find the PDF stat block presented with the unique dungeon dad Style with all the artwork and flavor text and all that good stuff plus it helps support me and the channel and keeps all these very very hot stage lights turned on maybe I got a little overzealous when I wore a hat in this video I just wanted to be winter so bad it's so hot in this office but speaking of patrons it is time for patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is Mr Saturday thank you so much for the support I appreciate it immensely and if everything went as planned hopefully this video comes up on the day of your namesake I guess we'll see if it's not Saturday today something happened and thank you for watching I appreciate it immensely if you have a monster from a previous version of D and D that you want to see show up on Monster of the week leave a comment let me know or get at me on Discord we have a monster suggestions Channel and the link to the Discord is in the description down below also so you can let me know there we'll add it to the monster list and who knows you might just see it show up on the channel also over on the dungeon dad Discord we're currently in the midst of a giveaway happening I am giving away five badges to Pax unplug their full weekend badges which usually I think costs like 87 US dollars so if you want to go to Pax unplugged and you don't want to pay for your tickets and the dungeon dad Discord and the giveaways Channel all you have to do is do a little Emoji reaction thing to the giveaway post and you will automatically be entered to win a free weekend pass shout out to the folks over at Pax for hooking us up with those free passes to give away and regardless of all that I'm gonna be there doing some interviews and stuff during the weekend and if you see me around the show Floor come up say hi tell me what your favorite monster is I got some like dungeon dad stickers made you can have one of those I'm going to be wearing probably a ridiculous outfit so I shouldn't be too hard to find I also do want to quickly mention the quintessential guide to monster encounters it is a new book that I am working on along with Wally DM and Mr tarasque I'll put up some artwork from the book around here somewhere uh that's gonna be going to Kickstarter real soon I believe the 25th of October is our planned launch date for the kickstarter so it would mean the world to me if you would click the link in the pin comment go over to Kickstarter and just follow the project just check it out on the launch day there's going to be a free sample PDF of three full new monsters brand new to the game that we've come up with along with artwork uh some lore stuff and a full encounter that is scalable so you can run the monster at different levels for different types of parties we're really excited about this book it's gonna be a lot of fun it's gonna be all about bringing some new monsters to the game and kind of giving advice on how to run and build effective encounters as well as giving you a bunch of pre-generated encounters for those times when the party wanders off and you don't know what to do just pop the book open oh we're encountering this boom there it is yeah like I said you can click the link in the pinned comment down below to check that out it would mean the world to me I'm very excited about it I'm definitely going to be talking about this a bit more on the channel over the next month and all the kickstarter is happening because this is the first like fully bound book that I've gotten the chance to work on and what I mean by that is like a hardcover book that's actually going to be printed and sent out which is very exciting definitely something I've wanted to do for a long time something I've talked about doing for a long time and now we're finally doing it so let me anyways that's pretty much all I got for this week again thank you guys so much for watching I appreciate it immensely and I will catch you in the next one until then [Music]

Channel: Dungeon Dad

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Id: U5gB5nJRevA

Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 21 2022