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Author Topic: Restless undead  (Read 24345 times)

Hyndis

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #15 on: July 01, 2010, 05:03:14 pm »

Butchering is one option, but taking the time to disassemble the undead is dangerous. Need to put them under heavy guard since the undead should be persistent. The other approach is to toss the corpses into pits that lead to atom smashers or magma. Or just imprison them forever underground in catacombs. Either way you don't want to leave corpses laying about in an evil, haunted biome.

With coffins I'm assuming that burying the dwarf inside a coffin also has a bit of ritual involved. Stake through the heart? Put a blessing on the coffin to ward away evil? Not sure. That can be abstracted away so that the act of burial also involves doing something to the corpse or coffin that renders it unable to reanimate unless the coffin is disturbed. If a building destroyer comes through and smashes it you now have a disturbed grave, and so the safeguards that protected the corpse against rising up again are no longer there.

I've noticed that for some reason, sometimes a corpse is listed as mutilated. I'm not sure what triggers that...but perhaps a regular, non-mutilated corpse is able to get up again, however once it is mutilated it is no longer able to reanimate. I don't know the trigger for this and why some corpses are mutilated, but its definitely an option. Knocking down the same undead corpse again and again would eventually cause the corpse to be mutilated, in which case it will never get up ever again.
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Mel_Vixen

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #16 on: July 01, 2010, 05:45:05 pm »

What would be nice here is if you have a number of bodyparts lying around that they assemble themselves to a skeletal mashup. Say a Giant scorpion with a tusk of a Elephant as sting Human rips for the claws a trollskull for the head etc. You could even have vermin formed that way.
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Hyndis

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #17 on: July 01, 2010, 06:16:29 pm »

What would be nice here is if you have a number of bodyparts lying around that they assemble themselves to a skeletal mashup. Say a Giant scorpion with a tusk of a Elephant as sting Human rips for the claws a trollskull for the head etc. You could even have vermin formed that way.

Some sort of horrific bone golems made up out of the bones or bodies of numerous undead creatures? Could even use the random creature generation thing to do that, with of course the substances used probably being flesh or bone.


That sounds like FUN.  :o
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Morrigi

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #18 on: July 02, 2010, 12:02:21 pm »

What would be nice here is if you have a number of bodyparts lying around that they assemble themselves to a skeletal mashup. Say a Giant scorpion with a tusk of a Elephant as sting Human rips for the claws a trollskull for the head etc. You could even have vermin formed that way.

Want.  :o
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Cyntrox

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #19 on: July 02, 2010, 12:04:32 pm »

Haha, I love the idea.
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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #20 on: July 04, 2010, 03:55:49 am »

To randomise events some special undead should spawn if conditions are met. (post your own)
Examples from the PITS OF MY MIND.
Drowned Dead: Happens to those that have drowned, attempts to drag other creatures into the depths with them. (the new carp)
Stalker: Hunter that died attempting to kill an undead. Hides and Ambushes stray dwarves, strangling or gutting them.
Shadowlord: Champions or leaders of army should come back as great undead, which other dead are either drawn to or creates its own undead.
Wailing Widow: Occurs to an unhappy dwarf who has lost a wife or husband. Not sure what it will do. Float and have a breath attack?
Ghosts: Occurs to dwarf that were unhappy in life. Unkillable, annoying, scares dwarfs who get a bad feeling about it. To remove: build a nice tomb for the ghost?
Hunger Fiend: A dwarf that has died from lack of food. Will kill anything and then eat it, will also try to locate food stocks and will EAT IT ALL
Thirst Fiend: Same as Hunger Fiend really (cept thirst). Drinks blood? Will drink all booze and blood barrels. Destroys wells?
Morbid Pool: Created via crushing a creature. Carries an infection, can "crawl" under doors, fairly weak.
Undead Demon: Not really an idea just a phobia of mine if this was to be added! D:
Corrupted: Perhaps those in the vicinity or carrying an object of "SPECIAL MICROCLINE" should turn into a more powerful undead
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Hyndis

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #21 on: July 04, 2010, 12:15:16 pm »

I'm not sure how those would be implemented.

Remember, not only do you have to have a suggestion, but you also need to make a suggestion in a way that is technically feasible to put into the game. If you start suggesting things like flying cars, yes that would be awesome, but good luck trying to impliment it.

If an unburied corpse had a small percentage chance of rising up into an undead creature each month that would go a very long way towards creating an undead horde while at the same time requiring a minimum of new programming. Essentially its just a monthly check on all corpse objects in the game. If the corpse is buried do nothing. If its unburied roll a random number. If the number comes up, the corpse object despawns and an undead creature of the same type is placed there.

At that point the newly risen undead behaves like any other undead in the game. A single zombie or skeleton, by itself, is pretty harmless, as it should be. Get a few hundred of them together? Better barricade the doors!  :o
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Karnewarrior

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #22 on: July 04, 2010, 02:39:48 pm »

 I like this idea!
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Pilsu

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #23 on: July 05, 2010, 08:33:37 am »

Again, why would burial deter undeath?
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Neonivek

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #24 on: July 05, 2010, 12:05:05 pm »

Again, why would burial deter undeath?

Because one common cause of undeath is improper burial. (another is improper treatment of the body)

Another way to prevent the undead is to appease the dead... which could be done with a proper burial.

Then there are the religious practices involved in a burial that could prevent people from turning undead.

Finally a coffin is generally a sealed container in which a body is housed. So that prevents air and water causes of undeath if properly made.

There is also the unofficial prevention where the person turns into a zombie but they are eternally (until they rot to nothing) housed in that coffin. Heck forget the coffin, if they were burried in the earth the zombie wouldn't be able to move.

There... All the ways a Burial prevents undeath.
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Hyndis

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #25 on: July 05, 2010, 12:08:42 pm »

The act of burial implies that there is a funeral of some sort. There are probably some religious rituals that the dwarves perform during the funeral, and the act of burial, including the religions rituals, is enough to ward off the evil that could reanimate an unburied corpse.

Treating the dead with respect, honor, and dignity is enough to keep the evil haunting the evil biome at bay. Leaving a corpse to rot in the middle of your dining hall is not showing it respect, honor, or dignity, and so then that corpse is unprotected against the evil, and thus vulnerable to being reanimated by it.

Religion is currently part of the game, though it plays an extremely minor role currently. Combining religions with combating undead hordes would be a great addition, and would also make religion useful.

Add in a priest type appointed noble position perhaps? The priest perhaps goes around and blesses things, as well as performs burials.
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Neonivek

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #26 on: July 05, 2010, 12:16:34 pm »

Oddly enough that could mean mass burning, looting, and crafting all the corpses of the enemy could be a bad idea.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2010, 12:18:20 pm by Neonivek »
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Hyndis

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #27 on: July 05, 2010, 12:31:57 pm »

If you completely disassemble the corpse, such as turning the corpse into bone crafts, there wouldn't be anything left, structurally, for it to be reanimated. It would of course be macabre, but would be safe.
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Neonivek

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #28 on: July 05, 2010, 12:50:34 pm »

If you completely disassemble the corpse, such as turning the corpse into bone crafts, there wouldn't be anything left, structurally, for it to be reanimated. It would of course be macabre, but would be safe.

Though there would be a lot of bad spirits around mad at you. Who knows what that could do.
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existent

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Re: Restless undead
« Reply #29 on: July 05, 2010, 12:54:19 pm »

If you completely disassemble the corpse, such as turning the corpse into bone crafts, there wouldn't be anything left, structurally, for it to be reanimated. It would of course be macabre, but would be safe.

Though there would be a lot of bad spirits around mad at you. Who knows what that could do.

Dwarves can already be possessed...
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