Dungeon Memos

Dungeon Memos, fourth memo

To: His Unholy Majesty, the Lich King Wormrot

From: Dynamic Dungeon Designs, LLC

Priority: High

Date: 05 Silvertrees, 103rd year of the rule of the House of Greyheart

Re: Zombie Priests

Your Unholiness, 

I apologize for the delay in my response to your last communiqué. Attention to my immediate responsibilities has left little time for administrative tasks. Please excuse the straight forward nature of the following missive, but my time to pause and write is short and the amount of information I have to relay is great. 

I admit I was quite taken aback by the appearance and mannerisms of the two Zombie Priests sent to assist our recruiting efforts. I initially found them both particularly foul-smelling and ill-natured. In addition, the hissing noise they make while speaking is quite unsettling. There were also initial concerns from my work-teams about the sanitary issues involved with the numerous insects and small snakes that make their homes in the priests’ clothing and rotting flesh. 

But, I have to admit, they have been quite effective in their particular fashion. They immediately went to work, reanimating all of the workers previously slain by the ghouls. Once finished with that, they visited the cemeteries of the local villages, and raised a multitude of additional zombies.  

Predictably, the resurrection of their dead relatives to assist in building your Unholy Tomb did not sit well with the villages’ living residents. Since the Zombie Priests’ recruitment of their ancestors, the locals have attempted on several occasions to assault our construction site armed with pitchforks and torches. Luckily, these attacks had to be aborted when the villagers’ ruckus attracted the attention of the ever-present ghouls, who mercilessly attacked and killed many of the villagers, whom the Zombie Priests then immediately raised and added to the ranks our undead workers.

The villages attracting the wrath of the ghouls instead of us is good news indeed, as all attempts to locate sufficient goats or equivalent livestock to use as decoys have been futile. Yet, judging from the few sheep, llamas, and pack mules we have so-far located and used to distract the ghouls, your strange-sounding advice appears effective. It is, though, unfortunately impractical at this time. 

The zombies added to our work-crews have provided fresh momentum to our construction efforts. We have excavated the sub-chambers of the main tomb and cleared and leveled the land the Death Maze will occupy. However, zombies cannot replace the skilled laborers I have lost. They simply are not smart enough and do not retain any of their previous masonry skills on the far side of the grave. 

Therefore, I have sent agents abroad in search of viable replacements. But, again, the rumors that those who labor on a Lich King’s Tomb will be put to sword at the end of the project has made recruiting difficult and, in the rare instances when successful, quite expensive. Of course, I do not listen to such reckless talk, but many of those that we attempted to hire could not be persuaded of this rumor’s inaccuracy. 

Therefore, I have dispatched my agents farther afield in hope to find a population of potential workers not polluted with these rumors and willing to enter into a contract. I will keep you advised of our progress. Unfortunately, until these skilled artisans and masons are replaced, the finishing work on the Unholy Tomb will be slow. 

Dynamic Dungeon Designs wishes to work with you in any way we can to realize your dream structure, but our recent budget considerations, we must, as I mentioned in my last communiqué, find a way to cut our costs. True, the zombies labor for free and that helps a little, but that savings is easily overshadowed by the high wages demanded by the skilled workers we have been able to convince to join the project. The only way I see that we can successfully address this budget shortfall is to truncate our construction plans. I previously  suggested the Lava Pits because they are both extremely expensive and dangerous to construct. And, as they lay on the bottom-most level of the Death Trap, they could easily be removed from our blueprint without serious detriment to the overall aesthetic appeal of the Unholy Temple. 

But I know you are reluctant to forego the construction of the Lava Pits from your last response and I respect your feelings on the matter. I am happy to implement any viable alternative you wish, as long as it brings us within budget.

I eagerly await your response.