What do you do with the bodies of your fallen enemies?

[Mikaze]

Do your characters take the time to bury the fallen or otherwise see to their final rites, whether in accordance with their traditions or yours? Do they just leave the fallen to scavengers and the elements? Do they replenish their food supplies?

Thinking back, my characters seemed to tend towards burial or respectful cremation(as in not just piling them up on a bonfire) whenever possible for sapient beings. The only character I can remember that left dead enemies to rot was my only evil one, and that was in Conan RPG so...expected M.O., really.

Started thinking about this because of all of the disappearing bodies in Mass Effect 2.

 

[Lhorgrim]

"Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms." (The outlaw) Josey Wales.

Depends entirely on the situation. If there's time and need to dispose of bodies my groups have usually been pretty pragmatic about the method. At sea we "return them to the sea", but in most settings it's burial or bonfire. Once again it depends on the situation. Bonfires attract attention, so we wouldn't do that in enemy territory. In the deep wilds, we had a tendency to "return them to the wild" Roc's gotta eat, same as ankhegs.

 

[diaglo]

since i mostly referee. i give the impression to the party that the dead will rise again.

so they tend to burn the bodies.

which of course also attracts more predators to the bbq.

meat is meat.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In my current game, the PC's enemies are powerful necromancers attempting to build an undead army of extraordinary magnitude.

When the PC's leave behind serviceable raw materials they have thier enemies' gratitude.

The high priestess is a magnificent leader. The PC's should give her a hand.........

 

[Storminator]

We stack the bodies like cord wood. Or like Kord would. It's a running joke in our campaign.

PS

 

[Bluenose]

One of my PCs used to mutilate the bodies of intelligent enemies and leave them (or parts of them) behind as a scare tactic. Sometimes it worked and pursuers left us alone, sometimes it angered them enough to chase us further. C'est la vie.

 

[Celebrim]

Never really thought about it. We either left them to rot, or, if they were a magical beast, carved it up for spell research/magic item creation and then left the rest to rot. Occasionally, if the creature looked edible we carved out some steaks and had a cookout (I seem to remember doing this with a few dinosaurs on the Isle of Dread). I can't ever remember anyone ever giving the losing side a proper burial unless by proper burial you mean coup de grace on the corpse or cutting off their head, sprinkling holy water on them, and running a stake through their heart to make sure they don't come back.

 

[Mallus]

Rather early on in our current campaign, our adventuring company, "The Just-Us League" made arrangements for corpse disposal with one Mr. Kloot, an intelligent ghoul entrepreneur who business provides like services in our home city. We blow an enchanted silver whistle and within minutes his ghouls manifest physically from the Other Side, and, well, we don't stick around to observe what happens after that point.

Once my Dragonborn poet-paladin, Yatagan, gouged out and ate a fallen enemies eyes. During the heat of battle he promised to "sh*t out his eyes". Being a creature of his word, he did just that. Gave him stomach trouble for days...

He's also stuffed corpse full of fireworks, doused it with flame oil, and hurled it at the enemy line (with his wizard friend igniting it while in mid-air) . But that was a fallen party member. Think of it as the Dragonborn version of a Viking funeral.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Loot them, mostly.

 

[questing gm]

Let's see, I've had players cut them up for trail rations, chopped heads, ears for war trophies, pissed on their corpses especially for foes they really hate and even setting up camp wherever they just slain a bunch of enemies.

Never have I seen them honorably bury them. (So far they haven't thought of using dead enemies as fuel for their campfire, surprisingly)

I really need some rules for diseases from corpses.