Poisoned Corpses - Idea

[Yokunama]

As of lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking. I thought to myself, "What if someone could figure out that my character was poisoned, examing the corpse with the use of some sort of skill or magickal means?"

Any suggestions or comments?

[UnderSeven]

For all I know this might already be sort of possible.

Though I must say it would be cool if corpses gave a little more information.  Blood on clothes right now is the only indicator we have as to cause of death, but really it should be pretty clear if a body is hacked up, or totally clean or what have you.

[Oxidised Lizard]

I like it - similar to some of the ideas expressed in the wounds thread.

Edit: I'd rather see evidence of wounds on corpses than be able to detect poison though.

[desert_spider_eater]

Along with the visible wounds on a corpse, this would be another interesting addition to the game.

- Marduk

EDIT:  Why don't we cover this in a broader spectrum and say that just about any determinable cause of death should be learnable through various means?

[LoD]

I started to suggest this spell in another thread awhile back, but never did.

Spell: Deathgaze

This spell, when cast upon the corpse of a sentient rate, would grant the caster the deceased's last vision before blacking out and/or dying.  The image displays only the last moment before death.

Sandy Wastes [NEWS]
The body of the tall, blue-eyed man lies here.

>cast "wek un deathgaze" corpse
You extend a closed hand, fingers suddenly lurching toward the body.

The image *a black-shelled scrab pinches you very hard on the neck* wavers in your head.

or perhaps:

The image *You feel the burn of poison in your veins." wavers in your head.

or perhaps:

The image *The figure in the black-hooded dustcloak slashes you very hard on your wrist.* wavers in your head.

-LoD

[Sir Diealot]

Pure awesome, LoD.

[Morgenes]

Very nice idea LoD, unfortunately I imagine it'd be tough to handle that.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Very nice idea LoD, unfortunately I imagine it'd be tough to handle that.

Why not log the information when PCs die and let the spell code search the log (for the matching sdesc, if storing the PC name on the corpse object is troublesome). To prevent the log from getting too large, a new one with a timestamp in the file name could be opened each time the mud reboots.

[Xygax]

Our current logfile, which only references everything that has happened in the last 11 hours, is already 24MB.  Searching it for any reason would be impractical, and the information we'd want to have, in this format, would not be available.  This is better handled with a more sophisticated data structure.

-- X

[John]

Our current logfile, which only references everything that has happened in the last 11 hours, is already 24MB.  Searching it for any reason would be impractical, and the information we'd want to have, in this format, would not be available.  This is better handled with a more sophisticated data structure.

-- X

I imagine a flag on the corpse itself (when the corpse is created or has the mdesc removed or whatever, add a flag of cause of death) would be better. However that could end up being a cludgy fix, and could get cluttered depending on how many flags the corpse already has.

In short, we don't really know

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Our current logfile, which only references everything that has happened in the last 11 hours, is already 24MB.  Searching it for any reason would be impractical, and the information we'd want to have, in this format, would not be available.  This is better handled with a more sophisticated data structure.

-- X

That's fine. Just create a separate little log file as well that holds only the necessary information for the spell. Sure it's redundant in the sense that the information is already being stored, but it would still do the trick nicely.

[Dalmeth]

Why not store that last line before the mantis head and put it in a tag when you create the corpse object like it was a special assess tag?

[Xygax]

Why not store that last line before the mantis head and put it in a tag when you create the corpse object like it was a special assess tag?

> cast 'mon un check corpse echri' corpse
Swirling doodies whirl through the air around your badass self as you begin your incantation.

>

*beep*Welcome to Armageddon!

[bloodfromstone]

That is hot stuff, LoD.

[SpyGuy]

I'd drool over that spell.  Though I'd imagine only two or three mage types would get it, limiting its use.