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[Babylon]

So we already have ghosts, but I think it would be awesome if dead bodies, Dwarven or otherwise, could rise as skeletons or zombies.  Possibly only in evil biomes.  I think this would be a much more interesting mechanic that just having zombies and sleketons spawn the way any other sort of creature does.  Also a reason to do something with dead goblins aside from just leaving them to rot.

[Girlinhat]

Perhaps with a necromancer.  If a particularly powerful human empire happened to worship a demon, then they might have necromancers, which raise X dead zombies/skeletons upon arrival, and raise X:Y dead periodically.  [RAISES_DEAD:10:2:3] - raises 10 on arrival, and 2-3 every interval, whatever interval time that might be.

[FallingWhale]

If you look it up you'll find your not alone.

[Max White]

Well this has been spoken about a fair bit.

But still, god I would love for suddenly all the corpses to rise and start attacking the fortress as zombies and skeletons. Would be so awesome.

[Girlinhat]

It would also get rid of the corpses, finally.  Unless you've modded ethics to make goblins butcherable, you should have acres of goblin corpses laying about.  Having them all slaughtered when they re-animate might actually be a much-loved cleaning service.  The necromancer's attempt to rip you apart only manages to make room for more bodies!

[Max White]

So... Do we yet have a community driven megathread on this topic?

[anon_outlaw]

either way it's not happening till the army arc.

[IT 000]

either way it's not happening till the army arc.

Why?

In fact, if I recall right, Toady mentioned that there was something like this back in the 2D version that did this. Toady has talked about it a little bit somewhere else to. But I cannot remember which DFtalk it was on.

I hope he brings it back, this sounds like some serious fun!

[anon_outlaw]

why? BECAUSE IT'S COMBAT RELATED.

heaven forbid he holds off till he is doing the army arc to put something like that in...

[IT 000]

Okay well caravans have guards, that's combat related. The army arc will put armies that patrol the earth, stopping by your fortress, friend or foe. It also consists of sending out your own armies. It's not necessarily "Everything even remotely combat related goes here arc" Still it would be cool to have armies of undead wandering around...

But anyways, I would like to see more undead in general. It doesn't have to wait until the army arc. But it's probably not going to happen near the caravan anytime soon. In fact Toady has multiple things for Zombies and Night creatures on his Dev notes. Marked as partially done.

# Causes -- existing from the beginning, death circumstances, being cursed, focusing on specific historical figures at first

# Goals, if any, as individuals, even if it is murdering or mutilating wayfarers in the woods

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html

[sockless]

Why has no-one thought of the obvious solution to zombie goblins?

Guess what it is before looking.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magma

So yes, we should have goblin reincarnations, it gives us incentives to do certain things pertaining to the noun above.

[snelg]

It would also get rid of the corpses, finally.  Unless you've modded ethics to make goblins butcherable, you should have acres of goblin corpses laying about.  Having them all slaughtered when they re-animate might actually be a much-loved cleaning service.  The necromancer's attempt to rip you apart only manages to make room for more bodies!

Wouldn't the amount of body parts lying around increase if you have to take care of them twice or more?
Anyway, looking forward to see something more interesting than those ghosts.

[Starver]

Well this has been spoken about a fair bit.

But still, god I would love for suddenly all the corpses to rise and start attacking the fortress as zombies and skeletons. Would be so awesome.

Unburied or otherwise badly respected corpses[1] should attack the fortress (depends on biome type/relative proportion/exact location where felled, and possibly factors relating to what the trigger is for them to rise).  But properly tomb-buried or (to some extent) suitably commemorated fallen dwarves, pets, war animals, etc that died exhibiting great valour should do what all great warriors do and arise in times of trouble (c.f. Drake's Drum, King Arthur asleep under the hill, etc) in order to help their own side, or at least rally them in ghost form.

They should perhaps be less likely to be helpful if they were the sole dwarf sent out to deal with the siege, of course.  There might be a balancing act needed on the various variable conditions so that one couldn't just have a Undead Shock-Troops Factory by sequentially sending individuals out on suicidal mêlée charges, shortly afterwards wiping out the opposition with the bowdwarves that had been previously held back and then burying the fallen in massively over-engineered and decorated tombs in the expectation that next time you need a handy force to deal with an awful foe you'll get some magically re-animated armour and weaponry automatically stomping into battle for you.


[1] Could also count for hunters not paying due service to the spirits of the wildlife animals they kill.  "Oh great moose, you were a great foe, and I take your corpse into the fortress only so that we may feed.  Unless it happens to rot because some berk has cluttered up the butchers and forgotten to tell the cook to make lavish meals.  Or your fine hide becomes untannable because someone forgot that Urist The Tanner is also on military duty this half of the year.  And as for the bolts we'd be making from your bones, hell, I'm sure they deliberately miss the target and break them on the range walls...  And so, great moose, I lay you at peaceful rest, and if your spectral form ends up manifesting itself and killing me in some absurd way, I'll bloomin' well materialise myself next to your restless spirit and chop your ghostly legs off one by one, so help me Armok..."

[Lord Zack]

I think that sometimes, perhaps a under a certain set of circumstances, and/or just bad luck, dwarves that might rise as ghosts or are ghosts already should instead rise as/transform into revenants or wraiths (the first being physical in nature, the other being "only" a spirit). These might be familiar forms of undead like vampires or mummies, and others might be just generic walking corpses/angry spirits, and still others might be unique forms of undead whose attributes are randomly generated, though some elements might relate to how they died (i.e. a dwarf who died due to fire might come back as a fire wraith or revenant. These would be much more dangerous than ghosts, since they would be monsters basically, striking at the living in anger.

[kilakan]

some ghosts do do that, they can scare dwarfs to death if not treated properly.
But with undead it would be amazing, and possibly if you have a prominant necromancer in world history, maybe with the army arc you could even have him send massive hordes of undead to attack you without coming himself?   Either way I would like to see the old undead come back at some point.