Category:Boneyard

This section contains canon info from officially published sources

A boneyard is a massive undead creature that is essentially a composite of bones of many, many deceased creatures. By manipulating the arrangement of its components, a boneyard has a limited ability to shift its forms, assuming a serpentine form and disguising itself as a normal set of bones being two common shapes. As hinted by its use of disguise, a boneyard is not a mindless skeleton but a rather intelligent menace, albeit one motivated by the absorption of more bones.^[1]

The bite of a boneyard fills the above hunger through a supernatural bone subsumption special attack that causes the victim's bones to melt. This attack can affect any creature with a skeletal system- even. undead. Moreover, if a boneyard can pin a creature in a grapple, it can absorb all the creature's bones in the following round, instantly killing it. A boneyard can even summon the skeletons of red dragons and trolls from its own component bones to assist it.^[2]

Descriptive Text

"For reasons that I will never know we were sent marching into the gaping maw. Incredibly, the walls, floor and ceiling were not of stone but of bone, human bone, animal bone, unidentifiable bone. The resilient stuff chattered without cracking under our boots as we trundled up the passage. Suddenly comrades plunged from sight as the floor gave way in a half dozen places. But it was not only the floor that betrayed us. The walls and ceiling melted away too in a terrible clattering of bone as the stuff flowed like water back to the cave entrance, where it gathered itself to cut off our escape and begin its assault. What should have been the commanding voice of our captain was instead a pitiful wail that collapsed into a loathsome gurgling. In the ensuing bedlam it was my inspiration to look up. I managed the climb into the natural chimney that would deliver from the debacle the time worn bones that you have here before you and them alone."

- Gustov Petroff, hawkmaster and horse smuggler wanted for desertion from the Falkovnian army, recounting his escape from the Maw of Death in G'henna^[3]

John W. Mangrum's Boneyard Lore^[4]

This section contains Potential-canon info, revealed by the creators from never-published sources

Libris Mortis

Characters with ranks in Knowledge (Religion) can learn more about boneyards. When a character makes a successful skill check, the following lore is revealed, including the information from lower DCs.

DC 24: This massive serpent, made from the skeletons of countless creatures, is an undead horror known by many names, including boneyards, bone weirds, dancing bones, and bone takers. This result reveals all undead traits.

DC 29: A boneyard attacks by snatching up smaller creatues with its crushing bite. When a boneyard bites any creature that has a skeleton, a few of the victim’s bones melt away to join the boneyard’s fleshless mass. A boneyard ignores most weapon strikes.

DC 34: A boneyard is resistant to magic and immune to cold. Once a day, a boneyard can create lesser skeletons from its own mass, controlling them like summoned creatures.

DC 39: A boneyard that pins a creature can quickly tear out the victim’s entire skeleton.

References