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[PosiBolt]

Ok, so a mason of mine recently had a bit of a confrontation with a dragon...and lost... Dragon came and attacked while a few novice masons were building my road, as well as my triple legendary maxed stats mayor that was working on Masonry to pass the time. Dragon comes in as they were all heading back in from just finishing their work... Mayor hauls ass and makes it back in before the dragon gets to my entrance. Novice mason...didn't make it. The other two masons stayed back at the road and were safe, but the one that followed my mayor started getting chased. Instead of having him lead the dragon to the others, I activated him and watched him charge head first towards a swift fiery death.

The dragon promptly entered my fort and was struck down by my weapon traps.

But anyway, I was left with an extra crispy flaming dwarf corpse. I apparently had a spare coffin ready in my general dwarf tomb, when I thought I had none free. So while i'm busy assigning the task of building more, one of my dwarfs starts moving what's left of Tun Ducimcog's body to his tomb.

That's when I noticed smoke was billowing out of one of the coffins in my burial chamber. What threw me off was that checking outside, I could see that Tun's corpse was still there, and still on fire. Checking inside the coffin, however, revealed that someone had kindly already placed his flaming skull within the coffin, which was the source of the smoke.

The question here is obvious though. Should coffins be keeping out smoke as well as miasma? Also, wouldn't placing a burning corpse inside of a sealed stone coffin technicaly put the fire out due to lack of oxygen?

[Kagus]

Who cares?  You've got a flaming skull inside a coffin that's spewing smoke, and you're discussing ways of stopping it?  

This thing should go in the hall of history.

[hapes]

Oxygen?  Dwarves don't breathe oxygen, they breathe BOOZE!

[Baro]

That is so metal

[PosiBolt]

Looking further into it, apparently the mason that didn't make it wasn't a novice... He was one of my artifact creators, and a Legendary mason. Also, the rest of my dwarves have ignored the body, content to have just the flaming skull in the tomb...which continues to burn. None of my dwarves are unhappy that their friends corpse remains outside.

An interesting note here... the corpse has started to rot, is still burning, and is damaged to the point of large XX's next to it. So I have !!XTun Ducimcog's rotting corpseX!! still smoking on the ground outside.... the Skull, however, is still in the tomb, still burning, and still undamaged. I think it very well may burn forever.

Which brings me to an interesting question... what happens if you remove a coffin? Do the contents of the coffin stay with it, marked forever as belonging to its eternal guest, or do the bits pop out and lay on the ground? Would moving it make the dwarves unhappy? I'm tempted to move the smoking tomb to a more central location...perhaps the centerpiece of some waterfall garden as some sort of flaming effigy.

[Lord Nightmare]

The everburning skull of Tun Ducimcog. That'd make a great story.

[Shadowlord]

I'd suggest saving your game, trying to move the coffin, and reloading if it doesn't work the way you hoped.

Saving is always a good thing before testing something.

[Karlito]

The corpse is burning and burning items aren't supposed to generate jobs.  On that note, I have no idea how the skull got into the coffin.

[Impending Doom]

Burn your head!

Metal health will drive you mad!

Burn your head!

Metal health will drive you mad!

[Anfold]

Imagine if one of your dwarves made an engraving of it.
             Igna Cranius "The Burning Skull"
This is a masterfully done engraving by Ihv Nowherk.  It depicts a crystal coffin. Inside the coffin is a burning skull.  The coffin is making a plaintive gesture.  The skull is laughing.

[PosiBolt]

In all honesty, I have no idea how the skull got in the coffin either. I just know he has a tomb, the dwarves are satisfied that he was properly buried, and his corpse is somehow still sitting outside burning and rotting.

[roguester]

If you remove a coffin, the remains will pop out on the ground. The dwarves will then rebury it if there are coffins available. I've never seen unhappy thoughts from this.

I've built a number of glass towers on flat sandy ground with aquifers. (Well, started them really, the current one is the first to actually rise above ground level as I won't build a tower on a sandy foundation.) Anyway, it usually takes a few years for me to get down to bedrock, so dwarves that die in that time are placed in temporary tombs until they can be properly interred in living stone.

[Asehujiko]

This might seem obvious, are you sure that the skull is actualy in the coffin and not just on the same square?

[PosiBolt]

No, the skull was inside the coffin, and only viewable through the view items in buildings command. It seems that the corpse has finally burned itself out, and the remaining bones were placed alongside the skull, which has also sadly stopped burning.