What if undead left remains behind?

[danr]

I think it would be cool if zombies would leave rotting corpses when you kill them. And skeletons could leave piles of bones - for use with bone shards spell, perhaps.

The corpses would not be good for sacrificing, but they could be used for corpse rot or sublimation of blood, and possibly even reanimated as disfigured flesh blobs?

[szanth]

The first time I really gave necromancy a shot I came to be disappointed that they didn't become corpses. I just hadn't really noticed up until then.

[mageykun]

Personally, my internal justification for when monsters don't drop things they obviously had (of course he had a corpse! I just ran it through!) is that said item got mangled beyond use in the fight. So the corpse didn't drop because it was too mangled even for necromancy, or too stirred up to separate any good bits from the bad for eating (or something. ew...)

So in this light, it makes sense that zombies don't drop corpses- obviously if you beat a zombie till it dies, you've produced a body that isn't good for necromancy anymore. :p

Eh, but that's all flavor. Nethack had zombies dropping rotting corpses. But that had no effect on gameplay- unless you were dumb enough to try and 'et one. Here? Animate dead becomes a problem. It's bad enough when where clear a room of enemies, and then a priest or necromancer walks in and you have to kill them all over. But if the zombies drop corpses, then chain necro becomes a problem, especially in crowds.

I suppose we could just have a tag that doesn't allow for rezombification, but it seems weird to implement that just to have restricted use corpses. I suppose it is a small buff for the corpse rotters, sublimation-ers, and distillers.

[danr]

If they were re-animable (?), it should be as something weaker that would turn to a puddle of goo when killed.

[jpeg]

I think it would be cool if zombies would leave rotting corpses when you kill them. And skeletons could leave piles of bones - for use with bone shards spell, perhaps.

The corpses would not be good for sacrificing, but they could be used for corpse rot or sublimation of blood, and possibly even reanimated as disfigured flesh blobs?

If chain necromancy is out (and I agree it should be), what's the point of undead leaving (inedible) corpses and skeletons? Both corpse rot and sublimation don't really need the help. I could see adding a "heap of bones" as a new item type - its disordered state would mean it can no longer be animated, so the only point would be flavour and bone shards.

[galehar]

the only point would be flavour and bone shards.

Except bone shards is no more...

[Stormlock]

Zombies could leave rotting chunks instead of rotting corpses. As for gameplay uses; rotting corpses/chunks are still food for some entities. At that point it's a matter of whether ghouls and trolls deserve the extra food source. Rotting corpses produce fungus as well.

[danr]

I could see rotting chunks. This could be a slight buff to trolls and ghouls doing the undead levels.

[jpeg]

the only point would be flavour and bone shards.

Except bone shards is no more...

Doh, I was afraid that might be the case! In my defense, I did check descript/spells.txt, and when Bone Shards was included I figured it was still in the game.

Somehow I can't see zombies leaving chunks that are edible by anyone other than a Ghoul...

[Stormlock]

Well, it kind of depends really. For zombies that have been in the dungeon since you got there, sure. But if you murder a dragon and it gets raised as a zombie and you murder it again immediately, how rotted should it really be?

[danr]

Well, the zombification process itself probably corrupts / contaminates flesh in some unholy way.

On a related note, I really love that wands of disintegration can literally blow a monster into chunks all around the dungeon.

Having zombies leave rotten chunks behind would add a similar cool bit of flavour.