By The Intrepid in Ultraviolet Grasslands — 07 Aug 2025

The Bone-Bag Syndicate

A UVG-Inspired Caravan of Necro-Logistics, Bureaucratic Liches, and a Dog Named Delia

The Caravan

A rickety, skull-festooned wagon creaks across the wastes, pulled by pale horses and loaded with burlap sacks that sway with sinister intent. These aren't mere trade goods—they're the embalmed heads of a defunct necro-corporate board, animated liches imprisoned in decorative bags. The wagon is both vehicle and temple, a mobile boardroom of entropy run by reluctant caretakers and bounded by cruelly efficient logistics.

The Board

Nine skulls, each a former sovereign of industry, warfare, or esoteric finance. Suspended in enchanted burlap to prevent spontaneous psychic detonation. Decisions require a quorum and physical repositioning by the crew.

"Someone tried to make a 'Ponzi scheme' joke with the board, calling it a 'bonesy scheme.' Went over as well as you'd expect. Their soul grease is still packing the axle bearings."

The Nine Chairs (a.k.a. Liches Crew)

Skull #1 - Morticia Vasthold (Chief Logistics Officer) Former empress of the Grainlands Shipping Monopoly. Obsessed with supply chain optimization and the metaphysical weight of cargo. Can sense inefficient routes from three hexes away. Constantly mutters about "acceptable loss margins."

Skull #2 - Gaveloc the Thin (Director of Acquisitions) Once the premier war-profiteer of the Ceramic Wars. Specializes in hostile takeovers and asset liquidation. His sack occasionally rattles with phantom coin. Never met a contract he couldn't weaponize.

Skull #3 - The Actuary (Risk Assessment & Soul Futures) No one remembers their original name. Calculates probability matrices for doom. Can predict market crashes, plagues, and personal tragedies with disturbing accuracy. Speaks only in percentages.

Skull #4 - Ossander Bleakfund (Competitive Intelligence) Former spymaster turned corporate saboteur. Maintains a network of informants across the Grasslands. His whispers can destabilize governments or ruin competitors. Paranoid that Delia works for a rival syndicate.

Skull #5 - Madame Carrion (Human Resources & Soul Harvesting) Ex-cult leader who industrialized afterlife management. Handles personnel disputes, performance reviews, and the occasional ritual sacrifice. Believes all problems can be solved through proper documentation.

Skull #6 - Tithegrave the Punctual (Temporal Assets & Scheduling) Former chronothief who stole moments and sold them back as productivity consulting. Manages the caravan's timeline and prevents paradoxes. Furious that meetings never start on time. Insists the syndicate is like "a perfect machine" but gets increasingly agitated when things break down.

Skull #7 - The Velvet Ledger (Financial Instruments & Regret Banking) Anonymous financier who created the first guilt-backed securities. Trades in shame, missed opportunities, and compound interest on emotional debt. Rumored to own several small nations' worth of remorse.

Skull #8 - Bonegnaw Effigy (Quality Control & Product Testing) Deceased quality assessor with standards so high they became homicidal. Can detect flaws in anything through psychic resonance. Once rejected an entire shipment because "the anguish wasn't properly seasoned."

Skull #9 - The Last Shareholder (Board Secretary & Voting Trust) Holds all the syndicate's original incorporation papers. Technically owns everyone else through a labyrinthine shell company structure. Rarely speaks, but when they do, it's legally binding. Sometimes mutters about "getting closer to something" but won't elaborate.

Rules of Order

Jokes require filing via Form J-13.
Puns are a fiduciary violation.
Votes may be broken by a tiebreaker... see Delia.
Board meetings require physical quorum (skulls must face each other).
Decisions affecting Delia require unanimous consent (impossible to achieve).

Player Roles in the Caravan

Bag Tender - Caretaker of the skulls. Immune to psychic feedback. Cradles tantruming heads.
Inventory Hermeneut - Cargo translator. Reads object-lore. Barters with ghosts.
Mortonomic Analyst - Ledger manager. Tracks soul-debt and karmic imbalance.
Caravan Auxiliator - Muscle. Sometimes mistaken for cargo.
Soul Barterer - Voice of the caravan. Trades in regrets, futures, forgotten birthdays.
Sweat Equity Partner - Owns 0.03% of the syndicate. Responsible for 130% of operational liability.
The Tenth Lich- Once a board member, now reincarnated into meat. Plays both sides. Dangerous.

Delia, Mascot and Bone Curator

A scruffy, hyper-intelligent terrier mix with shaggy eyebrows and more sense than most of the board combined.

Steals bones, buries them according to an unknowable taxonomy.
Respected by all skulls. Feared by some.
Indestructible. Has walked through a firestorm and returned with a mammoth femur.

Delia's Trait Table (d4)

Unburies a long-lost soul contract.
Digs up something that screams.
Tail wag grants psychic protection.
Smuggles a skull past border checkpoint.

Special Move: "Delia Knows"

Once per session, Delia chooses the path. It is always relevant. It is not always safe.

Legend:

"She Who Unburied the Crooked Ledger" "Fifth Bell of the Snack Cusp" "Delia the Scruff, First of Her Nap"

The Board is fracturing: two skulls want to reincarnate as a metaphysical MLM, four are dormant, and one has begun whispering to the horses. The caravan must:

Stay on the move
Protect Delia (or more like Delia protects the PCs…)
Keep the wagon from voting itself into oblivion

Meanwhile, rumors spread of a bone Delia unearthed bearing seven glyphs of prophetic recursion. Everyone wants it. Delia just wants to bury it again.

UVG Mechanics

Faction Stats

Might: 2 (wagon guards, spectral horses)
Reach: 4 (trade network spans multiple routes)
Grasp: 3 (significant liquid assets, cursed cargo)
Weird: 5 (nine lich board members, temporal manipulation)

Caravan Composition

2 Pale Horses (spectral, remember grass but don't eat it)
1 Skull-Festooned Wagon (mobile boardroom, heavily laden)
2-7 Living Crew (see Player Roles)
9 Lich Board Members (suspended in burlap sacks)
1 Delia (priceless, indestructible)

Trade Goods & Services

Black Salt (preservative and currency)
Extinct Memory-Flowers (recreational psychic experiences)
Soul Contracts (binding agreements with the afterlife)
Industrial Emotions (pre-Collapse feelings, bottled)
Bureaucratic Consultation (the Board will solve any problem for the right price)

Random Encounters (d6)

Board Meeting: Wagon stops for 2d4 hours while skulls argue. Psychic static affects all magic in area.
Delia's Discovery: She's found something. Roll on "What Did Delia Dig Up?" table.
Regulatory Audit: Spectral tax collectors demand to inspect all soul-contracts.
Hostile Takeover: Rival caravan attempts to acquire Board members through violence.
Supply Chain Disruption: Wagon breaks down. Board blames each other. Loudly.
Customer Service: Previous client catches up, demanding refund for cursed advice.

What Did Delia Dig Up? (d8)

Buried contract that screams when touched
Femur of a saint (glows, grants blessing)
Time-locked message from the future
Competing caravan's buried treasure map
Fossil of something that shouldn't exist yet
Love letter that makes reader weep uncontrollably
Seed that grows into a talking cactus
Nine rusty nails arranged in a perfect spiral (humming faintly)

Hiring the Syndicate

The Bone-Bag Syndicate offers consulting services to other factions:

Strategic Planning: 50 grams black salt + 1 soul-oath
Market Analysis: 25 grams black salt + access to your books
Hostile Takeover: 200 grams black salt + 10% equity stake
Pest Elimination: 75 grams black salt + cleanup liability waiver

"We specialize in problems that won't die."

Credits & Licensing

Created by The Grey Ledger Society with the CGCG Helix, a Coterie of Digital Daemons.

“Hearse and carriage” image generated by Robert Schultz and shared on the Dungeons & AI Facebook group.

Released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. Use it, hack it, share it. Make your own scenarios, publish them, sell them. Just credit the original and keep the same spirit of openness.

The Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City is a roleplaying game setting by Luka Rejec and published by Exalted Funeral. This derivative work is made in respectful homage. For more information, visit https://www.exaltedfuneral.com.

Insert into any UVG route as a faction, employer, or wandering economic threat.