Seriously, with the FACT that bodies can come back as undead and are a main component to allow evil to create horrid things, why would anyone actually bury their dead instead of destroying the remains completely whenever at all possible?
Obviously in the Real World there are social, psycholgical and religious issues shaping why we inter our dead but we don't hav actual undead. In a Fantasy world with undead being a very real, very dangerous and deadly reality, why would they? Those same social, psychological and religous factors would be shaped by that reality.
Obviously, there are exeptions to any statement but I really cannot see why destruction of the dead would NOT be the norm in mosy fantasy worlds.
I am interested to hear opinions on this...
Perhaps it's due to the fact that undeads are evil and also necromancy does not have that good reputation. It's bad, it's evil, it's against the law: no necromancer is going to prance around graveyards undisturbed looking for body parts to create undeads.
I mean: I certainly get your point in case of an undead plague, where -every- body rises as one of the vengeful deads... but in any other case, from the big metropolis to the quiet village, a graveyard does not seem that illogical. You also have to consider that perhaps a ghost could arise if a dead one is not honored with an appropriate rite.
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A ghost wouldn't be upset if it was normal to destroy the body. They probably have a rite for that too.
Also, it makes it harder to resurrect them. Perhaps the rich hope to afford it one day.....
Why are people still farming, when their cleric son can make enough food and water to feed the city? Why are their homeless when homes can be conjured. Even if magic is common, people are still people. And hand crafts are still useful.
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A ghost wouldn't be upset if it was normal to destroy the body. They probably have a rite for that too.
Yeah, I was reverse engineering the context. Like, "there are graveyards" so there must be a reason for it.
Actually, there is a very sound reason: Hallow.
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Rule of Cool my friend. Graveyards are cool so they stay.
If you want an IC reason, well I would say that it mainly has to do with the fact that whilst undead exist, they aren't exactly common. Most people in a fantasy world have never seen an undead beastie and in most cases zombies and skeletons are restricted to dungeons and other out of the way places.
In other words, if a necromancer started digging up a graveyard in a village expect him to soon be paid a visit by a delegation of locals: BYOBTAP (Bring Your Own Burning Torch And Pitchfork)
Yes PC's run into them a lot but honestly PC's run into a lot of things that the average villager is never likely to encounter in his lifetime. That means the average village would even consider necromancers and undead a concern. Hence graveyards.
Resurection does not factor in condition of remains:
This spell functions like raise dead, except that you are able to restore life and complete strength to any deceased creature.
The condition of the remains is not a factor. So long as some small portion of the creature's body still exists, it can be resurrected, but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature's body at the time of death. (The remains of a creature hit by a disintegrate spell count as a small portion of its body.) The creature can have been dead no longer than 10 years per caster level.
Also, do not forget that it costs more money and resources to utterly destroy a body than to bury it.
Well ghost, spirit, and ancestor worship/veneration are also a stronger part of these worlds. People can actually talk to their deceased family which could create strong incentives too enshrine their remains in a specific place.
If you can use magic to commune with your ancestors and garner advice, the family Crypt takes on a whole new level of significance. Also, there is a stronger understanding of life after death when priests and others actually commune with Gods and different planes of existence. Keeping a physical connection with your friends/family members is important because they're not necessarily "truly" gone.
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Not to mention that a lack of proper burial rites is one of the leading causes or sub-causes of spontaneously arising undead in the first place.
Added: However, I would agree that there would probably be more cultures inclined to burn and cremate their dead than in our own world, precisely because of necromantic concerns.
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Rule of Cool my friend. Graveyards are cool so they stay.
If you want an IC reason, well I would say that it mainly has to do with the fact that whilst undead exist, they aren't exactly common. Most people in a fantasy world have never seen an undead beastie and in most cases zombies and skeletons are restricted to dungeons and other out of the way places.
Because undead, despite being common in adventurer's lives, aren't really all that common in the average citizen's life?
The overwhelming majority of dead people get buried, decay and never rise again.
This.
Always being the hero (or GM) amid the stuff of legends will give you a skewed idea of just how common undead crises are, just like watching the news/TV/movies without doing any research on your own will give you a skewed idea of how many murderers/rapists/child molesters are running around, and hanging around people like yourself ("birds of a feather" and all that) will give you a skewed idea of how popular X or Y is or how the opposition party's ideas don't make sense and so on.
Realistically, we do it to honour the dead in general (it's way more for the living than the dead), and I assume the same would be true in a fantasy land.
HIn fact, I would say that since most cities and large towns would have Hallowed graveyards -- so in a fantasy land burying the dead would be the best way of avoiding the evil necromancers from creating armies of the dead and taking over.
Rich families with their own graveyards on their estates would likely also have hallowed ground) -- so the biggest source of necro-material would likely be battlefields, mass graves and those few people who insist on being buried out in the forest (or "next to the lake", etc..)
However, the growing (real-world) popularity of cremation comes at least in part from the fact that we have the tech to build devices that do so completely and reliably -- I suppose magic could be used to do this, but then, magic could also be used to protect the corpses, so no real gain there.
Having said that, places like the Northlands where the ground is frozen would likely (as we see from Norse culture) have a tradition of funeral pyres... Similarly islands (with limited space) would likely go for burials at sea.
Just because something is pragmatic doesn't mean its going to happen; especially with human(oid) culture.
In addition, cremation is far more expensive. I do not believe you realize just how much heat and fuel it takes to perform a full cremation.
Despite what movies show the human body will not just burn itself away if lit on fire. You will get a charred hunk of fat and sinew like an overcooked steak.
Burying a body is economical and in reality, ecological as well, as it returns precious nutrients to the soil that worms and other recycling insects in turn spread to the surrounding area.
There are so many reasons to bury over cremate its not surprising. Even in a world with necromancers.
And I have to say that in the dark ages people believed in necromancers and the undead; yet they still buried the dead.
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I remember playing in a home game where there was a little mountain country (picture Tibet) where it was common practice to Animate Dead on your ancestors. A party of adventurers, on arriving in town found a Zombie chasing children is a fenced in yard. And did what adventurers do, only to be arrested for chopping up "Great Aunt Magrat". They had to pay to have her put back to gether and pay for the trama caused to the children who had been playing Zombie Tag with her. Real culture shock. Different cultures, different customs.
That's hilarious.
Naturally, these superstitious acts don't actually do anything; magic doesn't exist in our world.
WHAAAAAATTTT!?!?!
Take that back, take that back NOW!
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If you want a reason for graveyards, what if many of the religious rituals used to bury your relatives actually afford them some protection from later becoming animated corpses (at least making it much more difficult).
Necromancers might skulk around older, more abandoned (and creepier) cemeteries where these protections have weakened over time (or maybe the old crypts that no one else has set foot in for over a century).
My wild guess:
1) Bodies rising up as undead is actually pretty rare.
2) "Social, psychological and religious issues" overrides the above rarity.
Obviously in the Real World there are social, psycholgical and religious issues shaping why we inter our dead but we don't hav actual undead. In a Fantasy world with undead being a very real, very dangerous and deadly reality, why would they? Those same social, psychological and religous factors would be shaped by that reality.
Why do they do it in the real world?
Bodies may not ACTUALLY rise from the dead... but back in the old OLD days people still feared things like that. Didn't stop them from burying their dead. They just added stakes and garlic.
Considering the cost of land and the overcrowding of people... Funeral Pyres REALLY would be the way to go in OUR world too... but the Social, Psycological and Religious factors trump 'logic' any day ;)
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Don't take away my playgrounds, please.
In addition, cremation is far more expensive. I do not believe you realize just how much heat and fuel it takes to perform a full cremation.
Actually I do. It was significantly less money to cremate my mother after she had passed than to bury her. On a factor of 1/10th the cost of burial in a modestly priced casket, including the burial cost of her ashen remains.
While I see a lot of arguments against the concept I don't see too many taking a viewpoint of the evolution of an actual fantasy world. Most just reply that since it happens in our world it should happen there too, but there are two hugely important factors that don't apply in our world: We don't have real undead or real magic that are publically proven on a mass level.
Magic could easily (and I would assume far more cheaply than we can technologically) make a 'Cremation Cabinet" that could disintegrate a dead body put into it that would last entire ages without requiring fuel or expense past initial construction and that could have a limitation constructed in of only affecting unliving matter placed inside it.
I still think it would be something most societies would adopt. While you cannot stamp out all undead if you eliminate the vast maojority of usuable bodies you certainly curtail their ability to exist.
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While I see a lot of arguments against the concept I don't see too many taking a viewpoint of the evolution of an actual fantasy world.
Actually, you do, you just seem to be skipping over all of them that talk about Hallowing the graveyards (Wonderful spell, and lasts forever!) As I said earlier, a graveyard in a world like that would be where you want to put your dead so they don't come back.
Magic could easily (and I would assume far more cheaply than we can technologically) make a 'Cremation Cabinet" that could disintegrate a dead body put into it that would last entire ages without requiring fuel or expense past initial construction and that could have a limitation constructed in of only affecting unliving matter placed inside it.
I still think it would be something most societies would adopt. While you cannot stamp out all undead if you eliminate the vast maojority of usuable bodies you certainly curtail their ability to exist.
Well, disintegrate is a very expensive spell, but sure, like a nuclear power plant, it may be all up-front costs and then cheap to operate afterward... however... You know what's cheaper than that?
Casting Hallow. Once. Done. Taa-daa. Now, you bury something, it doesn't come back, it's like the anti-pet Semetary.
Also: You can visit the grave (a plus), and you can see the thing going into the Hallowed ground, rather than hoping that the pile of dust they gave you wasn't just the left over coals from last night's stew and that the creepy guy who works with the dead all day isn't actually a necromancer gathering remains.
At least, that's how I see it.
Actually, you do, you just seem to be skipping over all of them that talk about Hallowing the graveyards (Wonderful spell, and lasts forever!) As I said earlier, a graveyard in a world like that would be where you want to put your dead so they don't come back.
No that is a very valid point, but it does depend on how a ref interprets hallow for his game. In a world where hallow secureds the body for all time, even if removed from the hallowed ground, then your fine. In a world where the body is protected only so long as it is IN hallowed ground, the problem is unchanged since remains can be removed and stull used (and I have seen it done both ways by different GM's).
Also: You can visit the grave (a plus), and you can see the thing going into the Hallowed ground, rather than hoping that the pile of dust they gave you wasn't just the left over coals from last night's stew and that the creepy guy who works with the dead all day isn't actually a necromancer gathering remains.
At least, that's how I see it.
Also true, but I guess my point is, would the world even see their departed's remains in the same view we do if Undead were a factor of existanse and reality. Most fantasy tropes are full of stories of 'armies of undead' being used to conquer lands or 'territories being terrorised by vampires', etc. Lands traumatized by these experiences would very likely adopt a policy of 'better safe than sorry' with their dead, much like they did during the Black Plague of the Middle Ages in Europe, where burning the dead WAS the norm.
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Seriously, with the FACT that bodies can come back as undead and are a main component to allow evil to create horrid things, why would anyone actually bury their dead instead of destroying the remains completely whenever at all possible?
1) The "haunted graveyard" or "ancient tomb" are such AWESOME adventure sites, first of all, that excluding them simply because folks are afraid of making potential undead generators is bad for the game.
2) Despite fears of undead, fears of CREATING undead by not honoring the dead properly (as with nice burials or other rituals) is why graveyards exist in the first place. You should be thinking "Whew... without graveyards, we'd have a bunch MORE angry undead out there, thank goodness we appeased the spirits by honoring them with a memorial!"
3) Just because undead come out of graveyards a lot in RPG games, don't confuse that with the idea that ALL graveyards in a game world do this. Only ONE graveyard needs to do this on the planet—the graveyard the PCs are going to adventure in. So if a planet has 30,000,000 graveyards, and the one the PCs visit is haunted, that's a pretty small fraction of the overall that are actually haunted.
4) As a corollary to #3 above... focusing on the PCs and their interactions with a game world creates a skewed version of that world. The PCs don't spend time in places that are safe and free of mayhem, because that's not the game you're playing. The PCs seek out dangerous areas. They don't go to the vast majority of graveyards and tombs that are un-haunted. Think about all the towns and villages your PCs have visited where adventures HAVEN'T taken place in the local graveyard, then compare that to the ones that DID have haunted graveyards. Chances are good that most of those towns had perfectly safe graveyards.
5) Finally... looking at an adventure supplement or gazetteer that lists locations in the world is ALSO a bit skewing; we don't usually bother writing about the safe (and thus boring) parts of the world that much, and even if we say "45 of the graveyards int his nation are haunted" the only ones the players know are haunted are the ones they visit. So if they visit 3 of them... the other 42 are unknowns and, to the PCs, might or might not be haunted. If you as the GM want them to be; they are. If you don't because you want the haunted graveyard to be the fun and spooky exception then they aren't.
To add to some of the good reasons James gave. Why do we have graveyards on this planet? Some people find solace in having A PlACE to know where there family or ancestors remains are.
Because in the end it is that most likely it is that humans make emotional and illogical decisions that really make us human. No matter what we idealize in pure logic we aren't built that way.
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Because undead, despite being common in adventurer's lives, aren't really all that common in the average citizen's life?
The overwhelming majority of dead people get buried, decay and never rise again.
+1 to this right here.
It comes down to the rarity of undead in your game world. If everything dead will eventually rise again, yes - they would burn all remains. I think that in most all situations - the dead, stay dead.
Necromancy should be the exception (requiring heroes to address it) and not the rule.
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In the real world we have banks. Despite the fact that sometimes criminals steal from them. Why would we put our money in centralized locations despite the fact that there is a very real chance some bad person will use that as an opportunity to do harm?
Most societies make an effort not to let criminals (necromancers who create undead would fall under this category for the most part) dictate how they live their lives.
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Option 1, honor the departed and, perhaps, someday, have to worry about a CR 1/3-1/2 skeleton or zombie.
Option 2, cremate the body and scatter the ashes, and, perhaps, someday, have to worry about a CR 5-7 ghost, spectre or wraith.
Plus there are plenty of burial rites that can eliminate any chance of a skeleton / zombie being created without relying on expensive magic (and can't be dispelled or desecrated by the arrival of a fiend or something). Mummification procedures that strip away the flesh and replace it with clay would leave the skeleton baked into a clay prison, even if some yob came along an animated it. Binding the arms and legs with decorative bindings could leave an animated skeleton incapable of digging it's way free. A good solid coffin could do the same.
(Never mind that, technically, the necromancer would need line of effect to the corpse anyway, since that never seems to the case in fantasy art, where the undead are bursting out of their coffins to answer the necromancer's call...)
Animating dead humans is a huge waste of onyx anyway. If it wasn't for the 'rule of cool,' nobody would ever do it.
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For the same reason castles and armies of NPCs are around despite CR5+ characters making them obsolete. They're genre conventions.
That reason is that the VAST majority of most fantasy worlds are populated by characters and creatures lower than CR 5. Just because a castle won't help against the powerful minority doesn't mean you throw out the design, since it still helps protect you against 90% of the rest of the world.
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Just because a castle won't help against the powerful minority doesn't mean you throw out the design, since it still helps protect you against 90% of the rest of the world.
Actually, I would expect the design to be modified with countermeasures for such threats. Such as open castles going to closed forts with fighting positions to attack flying intruders from.
Just because a castle won't help against the powerful minority doesn't mean you throw out the design, since it still helps protect you against 90% of the rest of the world.Actually, I would expect the design to be modified with countermeasures for such threats. Such as open castles going to closed forts with fighting positions to attack flying intruders from.
With lead sheets strategically placed to stop some of the more basic detection spells. Plenty of ways to light up surrounding areas to thwart creatures with Darkvision attacking at night. Sensitive pendulums placed on the ground to detect burrowing assaults. Lots of little nonmagical methods one can use.
As to the undead? That's why you resort to old world methods of graveyard care. Beheading corpses, deep burials, garlic palced in the mouth, proper prayers and rituals performed during the caretaking of the dead. What's superstition for us is very very real in a fantasy world.
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For the same reason castles and armies of NPCs are around despite CR5+ characters making them obsolete. They're genre conventions.That reason is that the VAST majority of most fantasy worlds are populated by characters and creatures lower than CR 5. Just because a castle won't help against the powerful minority doesn't mean you throw out the design, since it still helps protect you against 90% of the rest of the world.
Adding on to Mr Jacobs response in a totally different way...
Why do we have battleships when there are torpedoes?
Now ask the original question.. Why are there graveyards when there are undead?
Your campaign may differ... but in mine, farmers still plow fields, not watch magical Johne Deere trackers do it for them.
Lamps and city "street lights" are still lit using a pole and a wick.
Bread is still cooked in an oven.
Little Johnny still gets a wooden sword before a keen mithril one, despite being the non-optimized choice.
Do some communities come to regret their graveyard? I am sure. Just like I am sure there are campers in Yellowstone who regret cooking bacon near their tents and not washing the pan.
In such a world undead, mad sorcerors, and flying dragons attacking castles without a roof happen... somewhere else. If it were common to have undead in the area, be sure additional safeguards would be used to protect loved ones.
Just 2 cents.
I seem to recall reading that many (not all) corpses buried by the Celts were dismembered and laid out in their graves in a systematic way. Very ritualistic and almost certainly tied to the afterlife somehow.
Also, funeral pyres were not uncommon. Darth Vader was burned after his death, and Luke was honoring his memory, not incinerating the evil in his bones. Burial at sea is another option, if you have a coastal settlement; building a funerary raft designed to sink after a time and shoving it off with some candles and the corpse... And just because you have a graveyard doesn't mean you have to have bodies in it. It could just be a field of monuments to lost loved ones where everybody has personal stone shrines for flowers, candles, and trinkets.
Actually, you do, you just seem to be skipping over all of them that talk about Hallowing the graveyards (Wonderful spell, and lasts forever!) As I said earlier, a graveyard in a world like that would be where you want to put your dead so they don't come back.No that is a very valid point, but it does depend on how a ref interprets hallow for his game. In a world where hallow secureds the body for all time, even if removed from the hallowed ground, then your fine. In a world where the body is protected only so long as it is IN hallowed ground, the problem is unchanged since remains can be removed and stull used (and I have seen it done both ways by different GM's).
Oh, hey, it doesn't save you from grave-robbers (and from a GM's perspective, nor should it). But that's what caretakers (and the town guard) are for... Generally you have time to see someone doing all that digging.
Also true, but I guess my point is, would the world even see their departed's remains in the same view we do if Undead were a factor of existanse and reality. Most fantasy tropes are full of stories of 'armies of undead' being used to conquer lands or 'territories being terrorised by vampires', etc. Lands traumatized by these experiences would very likely adopt a policy of 'better safe than sorry' with their dead, much like they did during the Black Plague of the Middle Ages in Europe, where burning the dead WAS the norm.Also: You can visit the grave (a plus), and you can see the thing going into the Hallowed ground, rather than hoping that the pile of dust they gave you wasn't just the left over coals from last night's stew and that the creepy guy who works with the dead all day isn't actually a necromancer gathering remains.
At least, that's how I see it.
Sure, because there were too many dead to bury (and by the time you could get around to it, the corpse gave you the plague) -- but as I said before, considering the power of Hallow (and the known power of the church over the undead), for most people, I suspect, burying the dead in holy ground is the solution to the problem....
Considering most spawn (wraith, spectre etc.) rise in rounds or hours (and so you'd not be burying them before they rose and tried to kill you), the only "real" threat in a "plagued" area would be vampires -- and yes, I'm sure in plagued areas you probably have the "behead and bury with a mouthful of garlic" solution -- which is far more manageable (and affordable) than a disintegration chamber.
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I seem to recall that if a body is turned into one undead, it can't become another. So ... we need to animate the guys we think might come back and tell the Zombie to stand still while we chop it up. Or have it chop itself. That way it's not coming back as a Ghoul/Wight/vamp/whatever.
Also, evil empires may have created graveyards as a sort of Nacromacy Ammo Dump. Might not even have to be evil ones... borderline neutral ones? And only the poor/outcast/bandits/rebels get buried. Everyone else who can afford it get's cremated (gives a new meaning to the term Death Taxes).
Whoa... interesting concept... A king who charges his subjects to either pay a hefty fine for cremation (to be disposed of ritually as the family sees fit; the money fuels the expansionistic military) or their corpse is forfeit and the government is allowed to use it to fuel a necropolis army/war-engine.
That's pretty dark.
And awesome.
I seem to recall that if a body is turned into one undead, it can't become another. So ... we need to animate the guys we think might come back and tell the Zombie to stand still while we chop it up. Or have it chop itself. That way it's not coming back as a Ghoul/Wight/vamp/whatever.
Also, evil empires may have created graveyards as a sort of Nacromacy Ammo Dump. Might not even have to be evil ones... borderline neutral ones? And only the poor/outcast/bandits/rebels get buried. Everyone else who can afford it get's cremated (gives a new meaning to the term Death Taxes).
Whoa... interesting concept... A king who charges his subjects to either pay a hefty fine for cremation (to be disposed of ritually as the family sees fit; the money fuels the expansionistic military) or their corpse is forfeit and the government is allowed to use it to fuel a necropolis army/war-engine.
That's pretty dark.
And awesome.
Just imagine when they require all evil priests to keep a desecrated altar in their graveyards. And to have scrolls of remove paralysis on hand. if the city gets attacked you have a horde of fast zombies within moments.
I seem to recall that if a body is turned into one undead, it can't become another. So ... we need to animate the guys we think might come back and tell the Zombie to stand still while we chop it up. Or have it chop itself. That way it's not coming back as a Ghoul/Wight/vamp/whatever.
Also, evil empires may have created graveyards as a sort of Nacromacy Ammo Dump. Might not even have to be evil ones... borderline neutral ones? And only the poor/outcast/bandits/rebels get buried. Everyone else who can afford it get's cremated (gives a new meaning to the term Death Taxes).
Whoa... interesting concept... A king who charges his subjects to either pay a hefty fine for cremation (to be disposed of ritually as the family sees fit; the money fuels the expansionistic military) or their corpse is forfeit and the government is allowed to use it to fuel a necropolis army/war-engine.
That's pretty dark.
And awesome.
It's just yet another variation of Terry Pratchett's Piss Harry. who collect all the "garbage" because the inkers need dried doggy do and the tanners can use uric acid and the alchemist need natron.
To take it into a more Neutral bent the practice has been in place for centuries (imagine the size of those military reserves) and culturally it has become a matter of honor to have family members serve in the bone legions. Or instead of mandatory militia training as a young person it occurs post mortum. You could work it sort of like the Dustmen from Planescape the noble families and living members of the corps serve in life or pay handsomely to return as more potent undead members of the legion after death. There is nothing in that situation that assumes malevolence or malice so it may not be evil. But then again I think the whole undead MUST BE EBIL thing Paizo did was, well, a bad call. Most of the mindless ones should be neutral as they function like either animals under command of a trainer or by raw instincts.
dont forget the amount of wood it would take to cremate every dead body, trees would disappear quickly. you would need a cremators guild or something with wizards that do nothing but burn bodies all day. plus without zombies who would eat all the extra braaaiiins.
It seems to me that there is such a thing in the world as Forgotten Realms Glut. This is where roleplayers' experience with standard fantasy settings where every square inch of land on the map is crawling with orcs, skeletons and ghouls, and every single mountain cave houses a major dragon or lich, and every single hole in the ground opens into a dwarven hold or lets into the Underdark, has informed their notion that such things are supposed to be not only common, but granted.
I suspect that dead rising from the grave is supposed to be an extraordinary, and extraordinarily rare event. Much as the heroes in the campaign are rare, superheroic types, so liches and necromancers are supposed to be rare and supervillainous.
So imagine the whole, wide world as this huge place. In most towns, people have heard about dead rising, stories coming from much more haunted realms, but almost nobody has ever seen it happen. You bury your dead, and for 99% of that enormous, wide world, no ghouls or skeletons or zombies rise.
You just happen to be a player or GM in a game, and that means your PCs get to deal with the 1% of incidences where it happens.
