Grave-Road Veteran

“I have walked roads where the milestones are gravestones, where the fog remembers names, and where the dead sometimes ask who won the battle.”
— Brennan Ruadh Carraig, Grave-Road Veteran of the Crimson Scriptorium

Introduction

You served on the roads that civilized folk avoid after sunset: corpse-roads, execution routes, plague trails, battlefield causeways, pilgrim paths swallowed by marsh, and old military roads where the dead were buried too quickly and too shallowly. As a Grave-Road Veteran, you learned to escort prisoners, guard funerary processions, recover bodies from haunted ground, protect travelers from the restless dead, and survive long marches through territories stained by war, curses, and Shadowfell influence.

In the Shadowmarch of Ozythralis, this background is especially common among gallowsguards, corpse-cart escorts, road wardens, battlefield scavenger-hunters, undertaker-soldiers, and veterans who learned that some enemies keep marching after death. The Shadowmarch Alliance itself is a confederation of fortified settlements in central Ozythralis, known for defending against shadow incursions and producing skilled shadow hunters. Its major hub, Gloomhaven, is built around a convergence of ley lines.

The Grave-Road Veteran is ideal for Fighters, Rangers, Blood Hunters, Paladins, Clerics, Rogues, and Barbarians. It is particularly fitting for members of the Crimson Scriptorium, the Claret Orders, or any grim company that protects the living from what lingers in ditches, cairns, gallows fields, and old campaign roads.

Description

You were not trained in polished parade grounds or gilded academies. Your lessons came from mud, broken wheels, bad weather, frightened prisoners, half-buried soldiers, and the sound a corpse makes when it sits upright in the back of a wagon.

Grave-road work is ugly, necessary, and rarely honored. Someone must escort the condemned to execution sites. Someone must guard plague wagons when villages refuse burial within their walls. Someone must retrieve the dead from cursed battlefields before they rise, rot into something contagious, or become evidence in disputes between nobles, priests, and commanders. Someone must walk ahead of the funeral bell and make sure the road is still a road.

You learned the customs of the dead and the habits of those who prey on grief. You can tell whether a grave was opened by a ghoul, a grieving relative, a necromancer, a desperate doctor, or the buried person themselves. You know how to read old execution markers, battlefield cairns, shrine bells, militia death-rolls, and the chalk signs used by corpse-cart drivers. You understand that fear travels faster than horses, and that a calm voice can keep a caravan alive when the fog begins speaking in familiar tones.

Many Grave-Road Veterans eventually become monster hunters, exorcists, mercenaries, undertakers, shrine guards, or Blood Hunters. The Claret Orders’ philosophy of sacrifice and control fits this path well, since Blood Hunters wield dangerous power to oppose malevolent forces while guarding against becoming the monsters they hunt.

Background Ability Bonuses

Grave-Road Veterans are shaped by endurance, awareness, physical labor, and grim social authority.

Choose one of the following options:

Option	Ability Bonuses
Road Warden	Constitution +2, Wisdom +1
Gallowsguard	Strength +2, Wisdom +1
Corpse-Cart Escort	Constitution +1, Wisdom +1, Strength +1
Battlefield Retriever	Wisdom +2, Constitution +1
Execution Road Captain	Charisma +2, Constitution +1
Undead-Site Survivor	Constitution +2, Intelligence +1

 

Using the Grave-Road Veteran Background

This background works especially well for characters who have already seen the ugly machinery behind death: soldiers, guards, execution escorts, battlefield medics, corpse haulers, monster hunters, and road wardens. It gives a character practical reasons to understand undead threats, battlefield aftermaths, cursed roads, criminal justice, grave customs, and the difficult moral space between mercy and necessity.

For Brennan Ruadh Carraig, the Grave-Road Veteran background frames him perfectly as the Crimson Scriptorium’s heavy frontline presence: a former gallowsguard who learned how to hold the line while others panicked, how to escort dangerous prisoners, and how to recognize the moment when a lawful execution becomes a supernatural disaster wearing a hood.

The background also fits the broader Shadowmarch theme. Ozythralis is a continent shaped by proximity to the Shadowfell, shadow-infused geography, ley lines, and cultures built around resilience against enduring darkness. A Grave-Road Veteran is one of the people who keeps that resilience practical: boots in the mud, lantern in hand, blade ready, counting the dead before the dead start counting back.

“Do not hurry past the graves. The dead notice disrespect, and so do I.”

 

Ability Scores: Grave-Road Veterans are shaped by endurance, awareness, physical labor, and grim social authority.

Choose one of the following options:

Option	Ability Bonuses
Road Warden	Constitution +2, Wisdom +1
Gallowsguard	Strength +2, Wisdom +1
Corpse-Cart Escort	Constitution +1, Wisdom +1, Strength +1
Battlefield Retriever	Wisdom +2, Constitution +1
Execution Road Captain	Charisma +2, Constitution +1
Undead-Site Survivor	Constitution +2, Intelligence +1

Feat: Grave-Road Veterans are hard to frighten, hard to kill, and skilled at keeping others alive when roads turn hostile.

Feat	Use
Tough	Represents years of hard marches, poor sleep, bad weather, and worse company.
Alert	Reflects the veteran’s habit of sleeping lightly and noticing danger before others.
Healer	Suitable for those who tended the wounded, stabilized prisoners, or kept victims alive long enough for confession.
Skilled	Represents broad practical training across travel, burial, cart work, field medicine, and guard duty.
Sentinel	Ideal for a veteran trained to hold narrow roads, bridges, gates, and graveyard entrances.

Skill Proficiencies: Grave-Road Veterans learn to survive harsh travel, read death-sites, and keep order among the frightened.

You are proficient in Survival, Athletics, Mediicine, Intimidation, Religion, and Perception.

Tool Proficiencies: You begin with the following equipment:

Weather-stained traveling clothes, Grave-road cloak, Shovel or folding spade, Iron Lantern, Bundle of grave Stakes, Bell cord or road bell, Whetstone and oilcloth, Small funerary kit, old route token, bedroll and mess kit, pouch with 15 gold.

Languages: You learned scraps of language from soldiers, prisoners, shrine keepers, and border settlements.

Suggested Characteristics

d8	Personality Trait
1	I count exits, graves, heads, prisoners, and horses without realizing I am doing it.
2	I speak plainly around death. Pretty words are for the living who fear it.
3	I sleep lightly and wake faster than most people can draw steel.
4	I treat frightened civilians with patience, but fools who endanger others get the iron edge of my tongue.
5	I keep small rituals before travel: touching a road marker, checking the lantern, listening for bells.
6	I can make jokes in the bleakest places, though not everyone enjoys them.
7	I never step over a body without checking whether it is truly dead.
8	I remember the names of the dead better than the names of the living.

d6	Ideal
1	Duty. Somebody has to walk the road no one else will.
2	Mercy. The dead deserve peace, and the living deserve the chance to keep breathing.
3	Justice. A lawful death must not become murder wearing official clothes.
4	Endurance. Fear passes. Mud dries. Dawn comes. Keep walking.
5	Protection. The weak, the grieving, and the frightened need shields more than sermons.
6	Truth. Every corpse tells a story. I do not let the powerful edit the ending.

d6	Bond
1	I survived a grave-road massacre and still carry a token from someone who did not.
2	A prisoner I escorted escaped, died, or transformed, and I am still hunting the consequences.
3	I owe my life to a shrine keeper, undertaker, Blood Hunter, or road priest.
4	I protect a particular road, cairn, gallows field, or battlefield as if it were family.
5	I carry the death-roll of a lost company and intend to return every name to its proper grave.
6	I joined my current companions because they remind me of the only convoy I ever failed.

d6	Flaw
1	I assume every journey will end badly and prepare accordingly, even when others need hope.
2	I struggle to leave bodies behind, even when recovering them endangers the living.
3	I distrust officials, priests, and nobles who speak too cleanly about death.
4	I can become cold or brutal when panic threatens group survival.
5	I drink, gamble, or work myself into exhaustion to avoid remembering certain roads.
6	I sometimes mistake mercy for weakness, especially when dealing with prisoners or monsters.

Contacts

Your years on the death roads left you with a hard-used network of contacts: undertakers, corpse-cart drivers, grave-tenders, shrine keepers, militia captains, prison wardens, battlefield scavengers, plague doctors, road priests, executioners, Blood Hunters, and families who still owe you for bringing someone home. In the Shadowmarch, such contacts may know which roads have gone silent, which graves refuse to stay shut, which execution sites are drawing cult activity, and which officials are hiding the true number of dead.

The Claret Orders’ broader mission against malevolent forces makes Grave-Road Veterans valuable allies, especially when undead, fiends, cursed bloodlines, or blood-borne horrors threaten the innocent. Their initiates endure severe trials and learn control, survival, and sacrifice, making them natural companions for veterans who already understand that survival often costs more than coin.

d8	Contact
1	A corpse-cart driver who knows every unsafe road within five days of Gloomhaven.
2	A shrine keeper who sends you warnings when funeral bells ring without hands.
3	A prison warden who once trusted you with a prisoner too dangerous for ordinary chains.
4	A battlefield scavenger who finds relics, letters, and teeth in old killing fields.
5	A grave-tender who can tell which dead have started dreaming.
6	A Blood Hunter who calls on you when a hunt begins with missing bodies.
7	A village elder whose settlement survives because you once held a road through the night.
8	An executioner who believes one of your former prisoners was innocent.