In this Wednesday Wisdom episode myself and Hannah discuss some of the ways that the rituals surrounding death, burials and graveyards can be used to enhance your game.
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As a a bonus below is a table of graveyard superstitions that you can use in your own games, some are adapted from superstitions that were common in the real-world whilst others are made up entirely:
| 1D10 Dice Roll | Graveyard Superstition |
| 1 | Carving the effigy of a skull onto the headstone wards off the attention of Orcus Lord of Undeath. |
| 2 | Burying a body so that the head faces the direction of the rising sun will prevent them from returning as a vampire. |
| 3 | If rain is allowed to fall in an open grave before the deceased is laid to rest in it then bad luck will follow the family. |
| 4 | The spirit of the first person buried in a graveyard is believed to rise and protect both the grounds and the bodies of the other people who rest their, so it was traditional to bury them with small tokens representing weapons to help them fight off any evil that may bedevil the graveyard in future. |
| 5 | Mourners traditionally wear black and veils to make it more difficult for restless spirits to identify them and follow them home from a burial. |
| 6 | Flowers only grow on the grave of a person who was good in life, whilst weeds and poisonous flora grow on the grave of a person who committed foul deeds. |
| 7 | If you hear an owl hoot whilst in a graveyard it is an omen of a future death that will affect you or someone close to you. |
| 8 | Should thunder sound during a burial ceremony it is the sound of the gates to the afterlife swinging open to admit the spirit of the deceased. |
| 9 | An iron grave-marker prevents the spirit of the deceased rising after death. |
| 10 | Victims of murder should be buried face-down to prevent their spectre from rising to seek out their killer. |
Below are links to a few websites containing further information on burial superstitions if you’d like to look into this further:
- A Grave Interest : Grave Superstitions
- 5 Superstitions about Funerals & Cemeteries
- Family Tree Magazine: Cemetery Superstitions, Little-Known Facts and Genealogy Secrets
- Superstition Dictionary: Superstitions About the Dead, Dying, Graves & Cemeteries
- Icy Sedgwick Cemetery Superstitions: How to avoid bad luck in a graveyard
The image used in this article is Halloween Graveyard Grunge by Linnaea Mallette, taken from PublicDomainPictures.net