The Lantern Sepulcher

Monster-Hunter Confraternity — Pilgrim Roads and Fortified Grave Inns#

"If there is a Sepulcher lantern above the door, sleep without fear. If there is not, bar the window as well." — pilgrim guide, Road of Saint Aldric

The Lantern Sepulcher was established sixty-two years after the collapse by a coalition of shrine-keepers and road-wardens whose communities could no longer rely on imperial patrols to suppress the feral undead colonizing the Reach's haunted districts. Its founding mandate was narrow and practical: escort pilgrims through dangerous road sections, destroy unlicensed undead, and maintain a network of fortified grave inns — staging posts with secured crypts that prevent the recently dead from becoming a local problem between pilgrimages. The Sepulcher charges fees graduated by route danger and pilgrim wealth, and invests the proceeds in lanterns, silver, and more Sepulcher members.

The confraternity's members are organized by regional chapter, each headquartered at a fortified shrine-inn on a major pilgrim route. They maintain bestiary records of known haunted sites, creature classifications, and tactical notes on everything from feral revenants to the more sophisticated entities that occasionally emerge from proximity to the Voided Zone. This intelligence has a secondary value: the Sepulcher tracks which noble houses maintain bargains with vampire courts, which local lords suppress reports of undead activity to avoid losing tourism revenue, and which clerical establishments house things in their crypts they have not disclosed to diocesan authorities.

The Sepulcher does not formally sell this intelligence, but its chapter-masters are known to offer 'route safety consultations' to interested parties at rates that reflect the sensitivity of the information provided. Adventurers working alongside Sepulcher escorts often find themselves accompanying confraternity investigators pursuing leads that are considerably more politically charged than a simple haunting clearance — and occasionally discover that the creature they have been sent to destroy was placed in its current location deliberately, by someone who purchased a very specific kind of route disruption.