"You can't take it with you...but I can certainly take you with me."
- —Symon Schreiber, grave robber, to his latest victim.[2a]
A grave robber of the Empire
Grave robbers are criminals who make their living by exploiting the dead of the Old World, through the contested or unlawful taking of a body (usually from a grave), which can be extended to the unlawful taking of organs alone.[1a]
Both medical and magical professions create a constant demand for fresh corpses, some for study, others for more sinister purposes like the practice of necromancy. Obtaining such corpses legally is quite difficult, so physicians and wizards both have come to rely on grave robbers. It is a loathsome profession, but a profitable one. The freshest corpses can command exorbitant prices.[1a]
Some particularly desperate body snatchers go so far as to take still-living beggars and vagrants directly off the street! As one might surmise, the risks of this line of work are substantial. Watchmen, Priests of Morr, the god of the dead, and witch hunters all keep careful watch of graveyards and punish interlopers harshly.[1a][2a]