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[Ineth Grumblepot]

I've been thoroughly enjoying building a vast catacomb in which to inter the (very, very many) dwarves who have died from my fortress's wars, weremammoth-related situations, bursts of insanity and gravity. I thought it would be nice to inter them in family tombs with statues of their deities, all their pets and a few grave goods of their favourite stuff, but the inability to view the dwarf's old Relationships and Thoughts and Preferences screens mean I can't look up what these things were.

Of course, if we were to go full Ancient Egyptian on this, there'd be a setting selectable on a coffin something like this:

a) Make tomb
b) Make family tomb

Selecting either would open a yes/no option to "Inter grave goods?"

The ghosts of particularly greedy dwarves will be angered if buried with an insufficient value of goods and wander around smashing things until they are suitably propitiated.

"Make family tomb" would enable an area selection which would designate all other coffins in the area for family members and pets of the tomb owner.

If there are not enough coffins for the current family and friends roster, an "Insufficient coffins" warning is generated, and anyone who doesn't have a coffin in the tomb at the time of their death will have to be buried elsewhere. This may cause the ghost of the tomb owner to rise and steal the corpse, dragging it back to their tomb and dumping it on the floor.

If a dwarf's spouse has remarried after their death and they are buried in a different family tomb, this may cause fun.

[Azerty]

It could be coupled with ancestor worship: I imagine some cultures would have relatives worshipping their ascendents.

Another would be burial in temples, especially for powerful or wealthy groups.

[FantasticDorf]

+1

You couldnt really tell what the prescription for a mummy curse might be, but this suggestion might be a good pathway to having them represented in fortress mode. Maybe some sort of deity curse could cause a promise of a post-mortem rise, without any immediate consequence with the mummy's strength needing to be satiated by a well made tomb to keep them resting.

[Pillbo]

Adds fun grave-robbing potential too. You'd have to be paranoid about visitors, kobolds, gremlins, and general troublemakers stealing from the catacombs.

Robbed graves could lead to angry ghosts. If a dwarf is buried with their prized artifact and it's stolen could you ever make their ghost happy again? Extra cool would be seeing a ghost rip a thief apart in the tavern and take their possessions back to the grave.

[Uthimienure]

I missed this post, but it's something I've wanted too.

+1

[DwarfStar]

I do like this idea, and in particular the ability to look up stuff about dead people seems pretty easy to implement. I guess it would be relatively easy to just keep a copy of dead people’s T&P the moment they died. Although, reading it would be a little horrifying, since there’d be a lot of “She was terrified after receiving a major wound” type stuff. Maybe we should just leave thoughts out of it and just have preferences, relationships, kills, owned objects, etc.

I also love the idea of getting haunted by not putting enough stuff in the tombs. The (former) king didn’t have that fancy tomb built just so you could haphazardly reassign it to his successor! One small thing to consider is that coffins are optional, since you can always incinerate the bodies and carve slabs. It’s not a bad policy in reanimating biomes! So probably the same tomb-making abilities should be available with slabs.

[Uthimienure]

The deceased's last thoughts should be preserved imo because they could be tied to the behavior of their ghost. Then you could get some extra insight as to why this ghost was benign and another was violent or whatever. That's aside from the fun of reading those final, agonized thoughts, which would be interesting to some of us, perhaps 

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

+1

I've often though dwarves and others should be buried with some valuable items, because it opens up the possibility of grave robbery, both in adventure mode by the player and in fortress mode by, well, a lot of people.

Adv mode:
It would be hugely fun to do a grave robbing spree, avoiding the police when such a thing is made - and maybe use grave robbing as a way to equip your character. Items should probably be picked at random from a list of suitable items, important people should have a lot and non important people barely any.

Humans and dwarves should IMO work pretty much the same: I am not sure if Elves and Goblins even bury their dead or what they do? 

Fortress mode:
The burial goods in fortress mode could be a selection of the items the dwarf own, if they don't add up to a certain value then random items are added till the minimum value is reached.

Should somehow be made to nobles > legendary dwarves > rest gets each a different tier of stuff, with a noble grave having a lot of valuable stuff and a peasant grave maybe a bone goblet or something.