Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Urist Glimmerbowels]

So the other day I was thinking about my favorite subject: Viking Funerals. You know, where they would put the viking on a boat, set it on fire, and send it off to sea?

After my new fortress suffered its first goblin ambush and I locked my best engraver outside to be murdered horribly, I thought maybe I should honour his soon-to-be-reanimated corpse in a fitting tribute. Also, his disembodied head chased off a rampaging Cyclops.

Anyways, dwarves aren't a particularly naval people - they don't build boats and water is only good for washing off blood. Fire, however, suits them well. I decided to dwarf up the tradition a bit. Instead of a boat, I'd use a minecart, and I'd combine fire and water for a slightly different sea.

I started this fortress by burrowing all the way to the center of the world, which makes getting around slow and tedious but I don't have to use coal so it's worth it, dammit. At the very bottom I dug out a graveyard/corpse dump, placed some loving memorials to the dearly departed, threw them all in a pile, loaded them up in a wooden cart, gave it a push, and sent it careening into the earth's glorious liquid heart. It's efficient, industrious, and ends in fire. It's exactly how they'd want it.

I toyed with the idea of loading them up with personal possessions, so they'd have the tiny molten fragments to use in the afterlife, but that would be a horrible waste of materials. No no, they leave this world the way they entered it: bearded and naked.

Oh, and as the cart sinks and burns, in the very last instant before it disappears forever, it touches down on a vein of adamantine. I designed it to do that.

(As for the goblins who killed him, I threw them into a very deep pit filled with snakes.)

[Di]

After my new fortress suffered its first goblin ambush and I locked my best engraver outside to be murdered horribly, I thought maybe I should honour his soon-to-be-reanimated corpse in a fitting tribute.

threw them all in a pile, loaded them up in a wooden cart, gave it a push, and sent it careening into the earth's glorious liquid heart.

So much about honoring.
But the idea of replicating viking burial this way is genius.

[Urist_McGamer]

After my new fortress suffered its first goblin ambush and I locked my best engraver outside to be murdered horribly, I thought maybe I should honour his soon-to-be-reanimated corpse in a fitting tribute.

threw them all in a pile, loaded them up in a wooden cart, gave it a push, and sent it careening into the earth's glorious liquid heart.

So much about honoring.
But the idea of replicating viking burial this way is genius.

It could be done one by one if you wanted. It'd just take longer and need more minecarts.

[acetech09]

Build a non-magma-safe metal minecart. Piling them in wood in death is the worst insult you can do to a dwarf.

[Loud Whispers]

Build a non-magma-safe metal minecart. Piling them in wood in death is the worst insult you can do to a dwarf.

1. How so?
2. Copper would be ideal

[Mageziya]

If I recall correctly, a viking funeral was done at sunset. If the flames matched the color of the sunset it was believed the departed would be going/had gone to Valhalla.

Okay, so how can we Dwarf up that aspect of viking funerals?

Wait.... wasn't the burning boat treatment only given to warriors? Some vikings ended up in the ground. That's how the whole horned helmet fallacy came to be. Since vikings were buried with their drinking horns it was presumed, when first discovered, that the horns fell off the helmets.

[Gentlefish]

For land-vikings, you build a giant wooden ship for them outside. Then you either drop magma on it so it burns or encase it in obsidian. That would be similar to the wooden vessels they find inland with all sorts of treasures.

[Oaktree]

Instead of dropping the cart into magma I think it should be accelerated and skipped across the surface.  More skips is a sign of good luck for them in the After Fort.

[Sprin]

I think of the afterfort alot...
Its embarked on a hill of meat and has a river of hevan mead, and homes and furniture are made of spoilerite!!

[Mageziya]

Instead of dropping the cart into magma I think it should be accelerated and skipped across the surface.  More skips is a sign of good luck for them in the After Fort.

If they skip enough they should hit a bump or something to propel the contents out the cart. If their bodies hit a wall and violently explode it is a sign that they will become Armok's personal assistants.

[exolyx]

I'm almost certain that dwarves would enjoy the thought of burning wood as their last act. Alternatively, someone could try to mod in bone minecarts....

[SuicideJunkie]

It took me quite some time to get a shaft down to the magma sea, but all the bodies now get tossed down to the SMR.
NO coffins, NO slabs.

My fort is a bit like the Hotel California, and the population is 50% ghosts (all forlorn or restless and thus harmless).

[Wrex]

The give living dwarves bad thoughts. no So harmless, eh?

[Kate Wissen]

So when I saw 'Dwarven Funeral' the song that instantly came to mind was this. A proper funeral requires proper funeral music.

[Xob Ludosmbax]

After I read just the first sentence of the original post, I started picturing a cast obsidian "boat" that travels down from the volcano's caldera to the SMR below, then a new boat is cast for the next lucky traveler.