Halloween fast approaches and those of us running holiday themed modules, spooky adventures or those who simply want an interesting undead encounter, will need bigger and badder skellys.

I am currently building a ruined sunken city and wanted to have skeleton hordes roam the desolate flooded streets. However, I found them rather uninteresting as creatures go and for any party level 5 (as my players are) skeletons are no big deal. So in the spirit of Halloween I thought it would be fun for us to all brainstorm on how to make these classic creatures more interesting and exciting. Both stat block wise and encounter design wise. I'll start off.

Encounter design wise, skeletons usually come in two forms: Mindless enemies found roaming a dungeon or ruin. OR servants working for a necromancer. However the MM mentions that skeletons often act out events and actions it had taken in life, despite not remembering any of its past. Lets dig into this concept.

Encounter: Skeleton Wedding. This encounter can be placed anywhere, but works best in an ancient or ruined temple or an abandoned town. The party enter a temple or other once holy place, to find around 30 skeletons in a bizarre act. The skeletons do not attack nor even notice the players. Instead, they seem to be acting out a twisted wedding. Skeletons of various forms sit silently in rows, all wearing rotted clothes of an ancient fashion. They appear to be watching a procession.

A skeletal priest wearing the rotted robes of a forgotten religion stands beside a tall skeleton that wears clothes that may have been fine once. A skeletal bride, in a moth eaten dress, walks slowly towards the center. The skeletons silently act out wedding vows and religious traditions. Eventually this ends with the bride and groom entangling in a poor imitation of an embrace. One of the skeletons in the crowd suddenly stands, draws their bow and fires an arrow which pierces both the bride and groom, that fall to the ground as if slain. The assassin skeleton walks up to the pile of bones that was once the couple, and begins gnawing upon the bride's skull.

The skeleton watchers clap and chatter their bone jaws in delight. The skeletal priest then raises his arms, as if resurrecting the fallen couple, who then stand up. After a few minutes of silence, not one of them moving, the skeletons all rise and change places. The event is then acted out again with a new skeleton playing each part, over and over. Should the players interfere or interrupt the skeletons in their act, the entire group attack, some drawing weapons, others grasping and grappling with bony hands, attempting to drag the players into their eternal act.

If the players stay and watch the wedding until completion, they must succeed a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or become entranced with the act. A player who fails the throw sits down with the skeletons, becoming one of the watchers. They can be shaken out of this state using an action, but must otherwise sit through the entire wedding. When the wedding ends the player may remake their wisdom saving throw, becoming self aware once again. If they continue to fail, they will keep watch the wedding over and over again until they die of thirst or hunger. Their body becoming an animated skeleton, which eternally takes part in the wedding.

I've also came up with a few new skeleton types of my own, as an example to start off with. This one is an interesting and more durable version of a regular skeleton, and should prove quite difficult to deal with in groups.

The Reassembling Skeleton: http://imgur.com/cxBqp0m

I've also included something more silly. The Spooky Scary Skeleton: http://imgur.com/a/Sz6SU

Edit: Formatting