Tomb raiding & grave robbing?

It seems to me adventures often revolve around or feature finding or recovering ancient treasures buried with in forgotten tombs with their former owners, but you never seem to see slain adventurers get buried with their prized magic items?

I gather this is a reflection of the changes in the real world. From civilizations that buried their lords & heroes with weapons & treasures to ensure or aid their passage into the afterlife, to the modern attitude that 'you can't take it with you'.

But how do you justify it in a DnD universe? A universe where priests would KNOW whether its important or not to bury the dead with treasures for the afterlife. If it was important a thousand years ago, you'd think the gods would still consider it important, so how could PCs loot tombs & graves with impunity?

Why would it be important to bury your fallen with treasured items? What effect would that have - to the spirit travelling toward the afterlife & to those that would rob the graves of the fallen?

Or are the tombs & graves in your campaign devoid of all but corpses.

Am I the only one who's even thought about this?

Errant said:

It seems to me adventures often revolve around or feature finding or recovering ancient treasures buried with in forgotten tombs with their former owners, but you never seem to see slain adventurers get buried with their prized magic items?

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Speak for yourself. In the ArTeeTeeTee'o'Ee'Ee campaign I was recently in, we buried dead PCs with basically all their items.

I gather this is a reflection of the changes in the real world. From civilizations that buried their lords & heroes with weapons & treasures to ensure or aid their passage into the afterlife, to the modern attitude that 'you can't take it with you'.

But how do you justify it in a DnD universe? A universe where priests would KNOW whether its important or not to bury the dead with treasures for the afterlife. If it was important a thousand years ago, you'd think the gods would still consider it important, so how could PCs loot tombs & graves with impunity?

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Social rites are rarely rational, especially when it comes to matters of the afterlife. Given the variety of customs and ceremonies that exist and have existed in the real world, anything that happens in fantasy is almost certainly going to look mundane.

The known existence of deities and other planar beings is a red herring. There's nothing that requires these beings to take an active interest in funerary rites, or to intervene personally in affairs of the material world.

Why would it be important to bury your fallen with treasured items? What effect would that have - to the spirit travelling toward the afterlife & to those that would rob the graves of the fallen?

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If it was good enough for Merry and Pippin, it's good enough for me!

Am I the only one who's even thought about this?

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No.

In my adventures, it is usually a powerful person or group that chose to bury the artifact or powerful thing in a catacoms so that no o ne can use it. The thing is usually guarded by a monster that is almost immortal.

A player is never buried with his belongings because these thinsg are usually not that powerful, and so the paty chooses to recycle it.

Another thing is a catastrophe that destroys the entire kingdom. From this, everyone dies, and so the undead guards the thing. and retrieveing it is no smal task cause you have to go against nature and also the unnatural...

Grave robbing or what

Well in a game I was playing in we thought of it like ths.

If it has been buried for less than hundred years it is grave robbing.

If it has been buried for over a hundred years it is archeology

Works for me.

Re: Re: Tomb raiding & grave robbing?

hong said:

The known existence of deities and other planar beings is a red herring. There's nothing that requires these beings to take an active interest in funerary rites, or to intervene personally in affairs of the material world.

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That may be true, but in a DnD universe, people get resurrected from the dead. If being buried with or without treasured items makes any sort of difference to one's passage into the afterlife, people are going to figure it out.

Re: Re: Re: Tomb raiding & grave robbing?

Errant said:

That may be true, but in a DnD universe, people get resurrected from the dead.

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SOME people get resurrected from the dead. Even if you go strictly by the book, there's nothing that says everyone who _can_ be resurrected _will_ be resurrected. Do not confuse a device that exists for player convenience with a necessary and pervasive component of a game world.

If being buried with or without treasured items makes any sort of difference to one's passage into the afterlife, people are going to figure it out.

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And this is important because...?

Re: Re: Re: Tomb raiding & grave robbing?

Errant said:

That may be true, but in a DnD universe, people get resurrected from the dead. If being buried with or without treasured items makes any sort of difference to one's passage into the afterlife, people are going to figure it out.

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But being resurrected does not mean you necessarily come back with any memories of what is experienced when one is dead. For that you must ask the dead or gods. And both can lie.

I have played in games where resurrected characters can only say "It is all hazy from that time, was I really dead?" They could not even say whether they were in heaven or hell, or other while dead.

Of course in my current campaign all the undead insist that the dead should still have their stuff.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Tomb raiding & grave robbing?

Voadam said:

They could not even say whether they were in heaven or hell, or other while dead.

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The answer is obvious, they were in HELL, who in their right mind would like to return from paradise.

More importantly does a party really want to adventure with a charcter whose deeds put him in hell.

That is why our group never wastes time with raise dead spells.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Tomb raiding & grave robbing?

hong said:

SOME people get resurrected from the dead. Even if you go strictly by the book, there's nothing that says everyone who _can_ be resurrected _will_ be resurrected. Do not confuse a device that exists for player convenience with a necessary and pervasive component of a game world.

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No confusion here. I thought it pretty obvious only some get resurrected & didn't think it worth belaboring the point.

(Errant &) hong said:

(If being buried with or without treasured items makes any sort of difference to one's passage into the afterlife, people are going to figure it out.)
And this is important because...?

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(For want a better phrase, I'll call all the sorts of valuables buried along with the remains of the dead "offerings")

It seems mere logic to me, that if it is common knowledge that offerings do NOT aid the passage to afterlife, mourners won't include offerings in burials because there's no point. So it would be extremely rare to find anything inherently valuable in a tomb/grave etc.

OTOH, if it is common knowledge that offerings DO aid the passage into the afterlife, mourners would often include offerings in burials, particularly of loved ones. So you would often find valuables in tombs etc, and you may well find the occasional vengeful spirit or celestial minion sent after you if you loot the tombs of those still/about to make their spirit-journey.

I also accept that those raised from the dead may well not remember their trip into the afterlife, but there's still Commune, Contact Other Plane, Plane Shift & various other magics that could penetrate the veil. Unless there's some divine united conspiracy you'd expect word to get out one way or the other, & can you imagine all the divine powers in the average DnD cosmology staying united on any point?

IMC, I rule firstly, that when you die your spirit takes time to leave the material plane & travel via the astral plane to your eternal fate.

Secondly, just as Astral Projection sends "an astral copy of all you wear and carry" with you onto the astral plane, when you die, your spirit carries copies of all you wear, carry & are buried with on your spirit's journey.

If you are a devout follower of a particular deity, your spirit will be met by a minion of your deity and guided to your rest. If not, you may have to find your own way, following an instinctive tug toward a plane most suitable to your alignment.

Lastly, in addition to the minions of good deities trying to find & gather the loyal worshippers of their patrons, there are malevolent spirits that hunt lost spirits, consuming or enslaving too weak or confused to defend themselves & find their paths.

Just how long the journey takes & what I'd do if a player wanted to play out the journey, I still haven't worked out.

I started this thread because i was curious whether anyone else had given the subject any thought & come up with a rationale for their campaign.

Judging by the limited response, I guess not, but I'd still be happy to be find otherwise.

Well, in D&D, 79% of cemeteries and 99% of old crypts are full of undead.

At least a few of them are usually intelligent and can use items.

So, you see, they do have a use for their stuff after death.