The Charnel Ground

There was a famine in the vicinity. People were continually dying. Sometimes half-dead bodies were brought to the charnel ground, because people were so exhausted with the constant play of death and sickness. There were flies, worms, maggots and snakes. Padmasambhava, this young prince you had recently been turned out of a jewel-laden palace, made a home out of this; seeing no difference at all between this charnel ground and a palace, he took delight in it.

- Crazy Wisdom, Chogyam Trungpa

At the bend of the river lies the charnel ground. A delightful feast for the carrion-eaters, vultures and jackals, tigers and bears. The bodies of the dead and dying are left here during the day, splayed out naked under the burning sun. 

No sane, good person attends to these places. The beasts make little distinction between a dead offering and a living visitor. Ghosts and zombies rise here. Demons frequent these places and steal the freshest bodies for their pleasures. Who would come here on their own two legs?

The charnel ground is an isolated meeting place for the dregs of society; for spies, traitors, bandits, witches and sorcerers. It is dangerous and chaotic, but if you fear being followed, passing through a charnel ground will lose a less resolute pursuer. 

If you seek out necromancers and cannibals and their ilk, who are hidden elsewhere, you will find them in the open here, dancing among the bodies. 

Hooks

1. A scandalous rumor engulfs the city; a shepherd saw the young prince returning from the charnel ground, coated in blood! The prince has not been seen in days, and the shepherd is locked at home.

2. Newly arrived and lacking any social status, the party is assigned a task for the lowest of the low; pulling a wagon of fresh bodies to the charnel ground; not all of them are dead yet.

3. The party is close to uncovering a long-sought secret, or may finally meet their anonymous benefactor; but the meeting may only occur at midnight, at the ruined temple in the charnel ground.

The benefactor is:

1. A cannibal

2. A witch

3. A cannibal witch

4. A sorcerer

5. A demon

6. A sentient giant scorpion

The Charnel World

In Tantra Buddhism, the charnel ground is a metaphor for the world itself. Underneath any illusory glamour or self-deception, the universe is an infinite charnel ground, extending in all directions. You are surrounded at all times by death, by sickness, by the woes and tribulations on the dying whose entrails are slurped out of their bellies by carrion-eaters. There is no hope. There is no salvation.

This would, at first, appear a nihilistic proposal. Or, perhaps, you think, this is another test. One must only give up all hope, embrace hopelessness, and then salvation will paradoxically arrive!

It will not. It is exactly what it says on the tin.

What can one do in a world with no hope of escape? No breaking of the cycle? 

The obvious answer is to cower in a corner and wait for death.

But another, much better answer, is to adventure. To understand your position in a charnel world, and yet make the best of it. Drink from rivers of poison and revel in the taste, explore and document the horrors which unfold in all directions. Seek out the most wondrous and dangerous of all things in the world, and slay them, or learn from them, or bang them. 

Just do something interesting, for crying out loud.