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[Footkerchief]

Currently when creatures die, their bodies turn into a corpse, which is just an item.  Items lack many of the abilities of creatures: they can't bleed, or get dismembered, or have an organized inventory, or be examined for distinguishing features, or decay bit by bit.  In other words, corpses are much more boring and uninteractive than they should be.

So, corpses should act more like creatures.  For combat purposes, they could act as a prone creature with really bad defensive rolls, although armor could protect the body even after death.  You could keep hacking off limbs (useful if you need to bring back a head as proof, or if you're a sicko), and the corpse should keep bleeding until it's out of blood.

The detailed body info would also allow you to examine wounds after death, which would be helpful in cases of Sudden Dwarf Death Syndrome.  Certain statuses like Drowning or Starving could also be preserved (changed to "Drowned," "Starved," etc. as appropriate).

Letting them keep their inventory (items they're wearing, i.e. clothes and armor, and also projectiles stuck in their body, but not held items) would make corpse hauling much more efficient -- dwarves could carry everything in a single trip, rather than hauling each individual sock.  Corpses could also be properly weighed down by their armor (for purposes of buoyancy, etc.)  If it were important, you'd also be able to determine what finger the corpse was wearing its ring on or whatever.

It's worth noting that many "corpse processing" actions, such as skin removal, should be doable on creatures whether they're dead or alive.   Another point in favor of making corpses act like creatures.

[Draco18s]

Insert a picture of Mutilate The Bodies (go up a level) from Munchkin here.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I fully agree with this.

This is more useful than just 'corpse as container' suggestions.

[Neoskel]

Ooh, this also opens up possibilities with burial. You can dress up your dead in traditional garb and ceremonial armor as part of a big ritual, like putting a full fire imp leather set of clothes and magma proof armor on a corpse and dumping it in the magma pit so it can beat up firemen in the afterlife. Oh, and being able to sew all the parts back together for the ceremony while at it. Maybe even mummification of various degrees and forms.

Also would be cool for eventual necromancy, like when storing an important person's body for later raising you have to make an effort to keep it from rotting in certain places, or tacking together some abomination of nature from different corpses and raising that.

On a related note, it would be cool if said necromancy could raise severed body parts and attach them back to the living (or a living) creature. 'Urist Workrazors of the Skeletal Hand'.

[Warlord255]

I like the idea of re-dressing a dwarf after death (Funeral shroud, anyone?) but having corpses marked as enemies might be a little difficult; there currently is no AI differentiation between "kill everything" and "don't kill everything".

Also, cooking lobsters alive is one thing, but skinning a horse alive? That's cruel, even for me.

[bjlong]

Perhaps there should be a tag for animate or inanimate, and the AI would target only animate objects Death removes the animate tag.

[Footkerchief]

I fully agree with this.

This is more useful than just 'corpse as container' suggestions.

Yeah.  Although I'm not sure whether a) severed body parts should turn into inanimate objects (possibly containers), or b) they should be capable of being further dismembered, etc.  It makes sense for them to have their own inventory, but should you be able to flay an individual arm as well?

Ooh, this also opens up possibilities with burial. You can dress up your dead in traditional garb and ceremonial armor as part of a big ritual, like putting a full fire imp leather set of clothes and magma proof armor on a corpse and dumping it in the magma pit so it can beat up firemen in the afterlife. Oh, and being able to sew all the parts back together for the ceremony while at it. Maybe even mummification of various degrees and forms.

Also would be cool for eventual necromancy, like when storing an important person's body for later raising you have to make an effort to keep it from rotting in certain places, or tacking together some abomination of nature from different corpses and raising that.

On a related note, it would be cool if said necromancy could raise severed body parts and attach them back to the living (or a living) creature. 'Urist Workrazors of the Skeletal Hand'.

Awesome.  Dressing the dead is a must, both for ceremonial reasons and so that skeletal dwarven berserkers can rise from their tombs, decked out in the finest steel plate, to protect the fortress once again after thousands of years at rest.

Also, cooking lobsters alive is one thing, but skinning a horse alive? That's cruel, even for me.

Well, that's kind of the point.  Flaying alive is a fairly effective means of being cruel.  Goblins should probably do it to you.

Perhaps there should be a tag for animate or inanimate, and the AI would target only animate objects Death removes the animate tag.

This is more or less what I had in mind.

[Len B]

Living screaming kitten mittens, flesh cruelly torn from their hapless squirming bodies while the mad dwarf mitten maker thrusts his blood covered fist into the crudely sewn sack of gore, holding it up in triumphant insane glee.  *mew*

Living Kitten Skin Mitten Artifact!

***

Perhaps dead corpses can be set up as practice targets in the Archery Ranges and Barracks for sparring.  More uses for corpses - or perhaps for practice Surgery/Healing on if there are no dying dwarves about.

[Footkerchief]

Living screaming kitten mittens, flesh cruelly torn from their hapless squirming bodies while the mad dwarf mitten maker thrusts his blood covered fist into the crudely sewn sack of gore, holding it up in triumphant insane glee.  *mew*

Living Kitten Skin Mitten Artifact!

Or, perhaps, Fell Moods that are not entirely lethal.

Perhaps dead corpses can be set up as practice targets in the Archery Ranges and Barracks for sparring.  More uses for corpses - or perhaps for practice Surgery/Healing on if there are no dying dwarves about.

Haha, using corpses as archery targets would be amazing.  Also, once you can load corpses into catapults, they can blow apart on impact, just like when a live creature slams into an obstacle.

[Sareth]

I so posted this as a suggestion in a shorter form a while ago.

But nobody cared.

[lucinthus]

I care!  i like some of these ideas, especially leaving the corpse with a state.  also, the ability to find the corpse from the "deceased" entry in the u menu.

[Warlord255]

Or, perhaps, Fell Moods that are not entirely lethal.

I had an idea for a soldier who goes insane (in an evil area) and cut all the flesh off his arm.. and the bones still moved. Then he murders his wife and makes an artifact gauntlet to go on it.

[lucinthus]

Then, he talks to dolphins and monkeys, AT THE SAME TIME!

[zagibu]

And discovers that donkeys are actually a cross-breed of dolphins and monkeys.

But seriously, this corpse mutilation and flaying alive thing could turn DF into a horror game. Not that this is a bad thing...

[tigrex]

Since unmodded dwarves can't make kobold leather trousers, or cannibilise each other, its safe to say that they would not engage in skinning of living creatures.  So this option would be reserved for goblins and demons. 

Which is fine by me.

(They would, however, probably find nothing wrong with using goblin corpses as catapult ammo.)