Cemeteries

[burble]

I think it would be cool if there was a way to capture the history of the players within the game. So how about cemeteries? You'd have the option of burying the remains of someone in memoriam. Other players could go and look at the tombstones to see the pc's that have gone before.

Coding: Reuse the board system. Have rooms similar to say the tents/shanty area in Luirs where each room in the cemetery has a board (instead of "look board" it could be "look tombstones" or something) representing a row of tombstones. "Read X" could be left as it is even though we know most zalanthans can't read. I envision that bards would be doing the reading/interpreting of the symbols on the tombstone. Or perhaps specialist bards know all the songs in a cemetery and when you type "Read X" you get "A bard starts chanting - <insert memoriam text here>".

Problem: Don't want every amos salt grebber getting a grave.
Solution: Make it expensive, if you are rinther would the people who survive you really spend 4000 sid on a tombstone or would they just run off with the sid?
Make it exclusive, only bards can write on these boards. So you'd have to find a bard, pay the bard to create a memorial, then the bard can put it on the board/tombstone.

Example:
in a graveyard room
>look tombstone
A row of tombstones (find someone more creative for this part)
1 A statue of a tall, muscular man died X.X.X

>read tombstone 1
A bard comes over and starts chanting in (some pace?)
"There was a tall muscular man and amos was his name..o"
"A..M..O..S..O, A..M..O..S..O, amos was his name..o"

Ok, maybe you want to be careful which bard you hire or maybe your survivors didn't really like you as much as you thought.

It would be an IC way to connect with past characters that were well liked or important enough that others wanted them remembered.

[Bogre]

Well, since 'reading' isn't possible for the average commoner...

some of this is in game, I believe - I've seen, and even, yes, read some inscriptions on statues.

But I am all for more building of history and things. It should be very, very rare though. Imagine if one room of the Dragon Temple had reliquary spots. Your friends (or you) could pay for a tiny alcove, and maybe a t-desc amount of description.

> l 45.alcove

This small alcove, high in the wall, contains a grave marker.
This marker bears a time-worn jade saber patch, and two small black basalt rings.

> l 3.plaque

This ancient plaque has a worn engraving of three arrows over a Kuraci fist-eclipsed sun.

> l sarcophagus

This red sandstone sarcophagus is set deep into the wall. A timeworn sandstone sculpture of a robed woman bearing an axe-bladed polearm comprises the top slab.
An inscription is cut into the base of the stone, but you cannot decipher it.

> l sarcophagus

This red sandstone sarcophagus is set deep into the wall. A timeworn sandstone sculpture of a robed woman bearing an axe-bladed polearm comprises the top slab.
An inscription is cut into the base of the stone, which reads, in sirihish:
"Great Lady Bautha Tor, who smote the rebel encampment of the Lakarrim."

[Delirium]

^^^ I love that idea.

[valeria]

Or it could just say "12,642,743 deaths worldwide."

... jk.

While I think the idea stated in the op would be very cool, I'm not sure that it fits in with the theme of the game.

My alternative idea is something like Bogre's, but different. Because I don't think keeping remains around is something that happens in Zalanthas. The unlucky are dragged to the pile or lost in the desert, the very lucky are cremated. But...

Picture the hall of faces as depicted in the HBO version of GoT. Now picture each of those faces as a stone carving of about hand sized. For an extremely high fee, you could describe the face of your deceased friend/loved one and have it carved into a stone to be placed in a hall of faces (similar to a stonework Mastercraft). Similar to Bogre's system.

No graves. No remains. Just a memorial hall.

[Bogre]

Valeria, that is my idea, actually. I was thinking of the hall of faces, too. Commoners don't get graves (unless they're a hero of the arena or major crazy status or something)

You'd pay a pretty good sum (shit ain't cheap) for an alcove to put some memorial trinkets, or a carving, or something.

For noble houses, I can imagine that they might have some areas around that they'd store a crypt or mausoleum for their own members...tribes may have a secret burial ground.

[valeria]

Yes, my idea is a lot like yours, except instead of any description I'd just have it be faces.  The remains reference was more in response to the OP.

[Asmoth]

I like it, but I want to be able to defile the graves for loot too.

Oh and it would be an all you could use zombie smorgasbord for the last few nilaz.

[burble]

The main points I was interested in -
something that uses existing code so there is little effort
something that didn't need imm/builder intervention - player creations
and something that uses bards because I feel like bards are underutilized and in an illiterate society the story keepers are the repositories of knowledge and history.

Even commoners would have their heros and legends as well as just people that everyone knew. Things like that get lost too easily in this game.