Eternal Grace Cemetery
900 North Pine Road

Eternal Grace was first established in the mid-nineteenth century to cater to Shadowgard's wealthiest and prominent citizens, who ended up erecting a number of opulent crypts and mausoleums, each grander than the last and each seemingly designed to disprove the old adage that you can't take it with you. Back in the day, many of the crypts had metallic accents; some had the entirety of their roofs plated in copper and gold. Fine marble statuary crowded the cemetery, and gargoyles and grotesques glowered from the tops of mausoleums at those who passed below. Many of the mausoleums even featured stained glass and interior altars with priceless, exquisitely crafted gold crosses and other such accoutrements.

Today, however, the cemetery is a study in faded glory. The statues and gargoyles are worn and weathered, some of them broken and vandalized, and in many places the metal accents and plating have been worn away or actually ripped away and removed from the cemetery, presumably sold elsewhere. Actual accounts of such thefts and sales are difficult if not impossible to find, and many locals credit the ghostly figure known as the Reaper of Grace for this.

According to legend, the Reaper of Grace is the cemetery's guardian spirit, usually manifesting as an ominous figure in a black cloak who carries a huge, wickedly pointed iron scythe. He appears only at night and is typically visible only out of the corner of one's eye, and somehow manages to stalk each and every person who dares to trespass upon the cemetery grounds after dark. If such trespassers demonstrate proper respect for the dead, acting only to fight evil or make offerings to those who have passed on, the Reaper watches them warily, but stays back and leaves them in peace. If, however, those who trespass do so in order to vandalize or steal, the Reaper's wrath will fall upon them. They might be permitted to leave the graveyard in the wake of their crimes, but they will not escape the Reaper's justice -- he will inevitably follow them wherever they go, and at the first opportunity, he will pick off anyone and everyone involved in such misdeeds one by one, until all are dead. This includes not only the original thieves or vandals, but also any accomplices or fences who may become involved before or after the fact. The origins of the Reaper vary from one version of the tale to the next: some say that he's simply a ghost, some say he's one of Shadowgard's upper class working to preserve the memorials of his spiritual predecessors, and some even claim that the Reaper is a demon summoned by a cabal of the town's wealthiest personages to protect and preserve their investments. This, and only this, is known for certain: sightings of the Reaper are frequent and remarkably consistent in their finer details.

Though very few people are buried within Eternal Grace at present -- the cemetery is almost entirely out of space -- the crypts and mausoleums make popular homes among Shadowgard's undead population. As such, this cemetery is frequently filled with vampires and occasionally their intended victims. The Reaper seemingly takes no notice of this; some of those locals in the know claim that he simply doesn't care, while others claim that the undead and their actions are somehow invisible to him. On any given night, there may also be a few treasure hunters searching for the various secret compartments, storerooms and subterranean complexes said to hold the vast wealth of the more miserly dead, but between the very real vampires and the possibly real Reaper, this is a risky proposition at best. Many a treasure seeker has entered the graveyard after dusk only to be found dead and drained of blood by the groundskeeper in the morning. The dangers of Eternal Grace Cemetery are not to be taken lightly, even by experienced hunters, and those who ignore this essential warning seldom live to take their lesson from the experience.