Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement

by Bruce R. Cordell, Eytan Bernstein, Brian R. James

All about the most horrifying monsters of D&D(R)--the walking dead!

The sourcebook provides information about undead origins, tactics, myths, lairs, behaviors, and more. In addition, this book provides elaborate lair entries (including tactical encounters) for undead at each tier of play. Broad story and campaign elements in Open Grave give DMs ready-to-play material than can be easily incorporated into a game, such as undead templates and power substitutions, adventure hooks and quests, and statistics for unique undead such as Acererak and Vecna.

Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead depicts a host of new undead, including new varieties of zombies, wraiths, skeletons, ghouls, and vampires. Open Grave also introduces several completely new types of undead, such as moongaunts, forsaken shells, and death oozes, to name just a few.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming, Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, Reference, Fiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 20, 2009

About the author

Bruce R. Cordell authored books for Dungeons & Dragons over the course of 4 editions (2nd Edition through 5th Edition D&D). These days, he’s a senior designer for Monte Cook Games, LLC designing Numenera , Gods of the Fall, and The Strange. Also a novel author, his credits include several titles set in the Forgotten Realms. Bruce’s tenth novel, Myth of the Maker, is just out from Angry Robot Books:
http://brucecordell.blogspot.com/2017...

Reviews

[Bret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Woof, is this a hard read. Lots of good info about some major undead players in the worlds of D&D, like, a LOT. But it's not very well written. A couple of these writers I've come to expect more from.

That said, the info is good enough to use as a resource for any edition you happen to be playing.

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great dnd rpg book about the undead!

[Trip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still consider pages of pre-built encounters to be wasted, since it's so easy to make encounters in 4th edition, but there were plenty of pages of monsters and horrible ideas.