The Tavern

Alright so my reasoning in simple: If you ever see a dead player, its a ghost of that player. Boring.
My solution is simple: Whenever a player ghost is generated, give it a 25/75 chance (or w/e) of being a player Skeleton instead.

Personally I think skeletons in the dungeon are plain ole hilarious & cool, so that is an automatic bonus for me. Voila, a little bit more variety in visuals and play. I understand that skeletons have limitations which ghosts don't, so what? Maybe there are some nice ideas for differentiating player ghosts and player skeletons.

Have at it!

I think there was a similar thread a while back, but proposing that different types of "ghost" could be created depending on how you died - eg if you were killed by a zombie you come back as a zombie, if you died with Necromutation active you come back as a lich, if you starve you become a hungry ghost, etc. I don't remember skeletons specifically being mentioned, but they could probably be included somewhere.

I think adding different kinds of player undead depending on how you died is a good idea. There shouldn't be octopode skeletons though.

Ignacio actually gave me an idea a while back. In his flavor-text, he was turned into a demon in death. What if that could happen to players too? High-piety followers could be turned into angels or demons depending on the god, and perhaps even be randomly summonable.

Ghosts have the conceptual advantage of ghostly equipment. Whatever is left of a player must never drop something carried by the original character. But benefits from the wielded and worn stuff are pretty much necessary for player undead to function. This just doesn't work with corporeal undead, and doesn't work very well with demons.

Also, skeletons and zombies tend to be really really stupid in crawl. Only skeleton warriors and bone dragons have some brains left. To fit in with the rest of the crowd the remains would have to become mummies or liches. Demons would work better in this regard, but humans turning into demons is supposedly extremely rare and only possible by divine intervention (if I recall Ignacio's description correctly).

Also, what would any of this add to the game? As in gameplay.

I wouldn't mind if the occasional dead player was a lolstupidskeleton, I mean. No need for equipment etc

I think i posted the last topic on this. My thing was just a simple cosmetic one, namely that when you die under certain gods(yred or kiku i think) they mention how your body becomes a zombie...so why not just make it a zombie.