Death And Bodies





As adventures you will have a lot of dealings with death. From your allies falling in battle to being too late to save someone. These things happen. But once a characters dies and you manage to recover the body, what happens.







Preserving Bodies





Many times when an adventure falls in battle, the group is far away from any town to give them a proper funeral. Now you could always burry them or burn it, but if they have a family, it may not be the best idea.

To preserve a body you will have to salt it. You need around 20% of a body's weight to properly salt it. A human with a weight of 114lb would need 7 pounds of salt. Salt can be bought from most general stores at a rate of 5cp for a pound.





Resurrection When it comes to resurrecting a salted body, it's a bit harder. True Resurrection doesn't have any problems, but the standard Resurrection spell has trouble with the state of the body. The -4 penalty only decreases by one every other long rest.





A properly salted body will stop bacetria from devoring the corpse. This can work for 1d6 months. Even if you salt it shortly after death, it will still look dead, just not rotted. It will start to smell anyway, but the smell won't worsen, witch could attract savenging animals and would be unpleasant for those traveling with the body.

However, applying an herbal mixture with herbs like rosemary or thyme. As long as a town has an established barial site, the church or other group that manages barials a mixture for 5gp. Standard perfurme is also effective. A succesful DC 19 Nature check in the proper enviroment will allow a player to find the proper herbs themselfves.

Burning the Body

Even choosing to simply burn the body is still a task. A proper funeral shroud costs 1gp and could easily be purchases from a steamstress. For 1gp more it could be made with a desgin. If that fails, any piece of fabric large enough to cover the body could work. If no shroud is used and the players sit around to watch, they end up seeing the face melting and other creepy stuff.

A pyre is larger than a normal campfire and requires a torch and enough wood lie the body over. It takes 1 hour for one person to put it together and another to find the wood in a suitable envioment assuming they have the tools to cut off branches. The help of another person can decrease the amount by 25 minutes.

It takes 4 hours for the body to fully burn.

"Viking" Funeral Common among sea-facing cultures, is the practice of sending a body out to sea on a burning boat or barge, useually the property of the deceased. A torch is needed to light the boat and at least 2 people are needed to push it into the water. If you don't want to use a fancy boat, a pyre boat can be bought for 45gp from a boat seller from a culture that practices viking funerals. A pyre boat cannot be used as an actual vehicle.



Burrial: Offical

An offical burrial can be an expensive process. It requires an area in a town to be set away for burial purposes. Most towns have them, but some may charge for out-of-towners to use it, or even ban them altogether. There are still several fees related to it, but they don't have to be paid.

Burrial clothes: Typically black and fancy. The extact style depends on the culture. Poorer towns will not offer them. Unless a town is very culturally diverse, it would be hard to manage to find a steamstress to make you barial clothes for another culture. They cost 15gp.

Coffin: Basically essential for the burial purpose. Construction can take up two a day and will cost 1gp per foot of the bodies' height. There is also a base charge of 2gp.

Gravedigging: It takes about 2 hours and an unskilled hireling would be paid 1sp. If equiped with a shovel, a player character could also do it. They would also barry the body once it's placed in the grave.

Stone Headstone: A headstone costs 2gp and another 1gp for engravening. It takes a day to be made.

Wooden Marker: An unmarked wooden marker costs 2sp . 1gp can be paid for the wood to be carved.

Coffin carrying: It takes at least 4 people to carry a coffin. A smaller creature may take less while a larger one might need more. 1cp can be paid to an unskilled hireling to assit.

Burrial: Improvised

When the group doesn't want to bring their fallen comrade back to a town to barry them, they may improvise a burial. Elements of an immprovised and an offical can be combined in anyway, if the players have acess to certain recoures.

Gravedigging: If they have a shovel and no spell to help create a hole to leave the body in, it will take one person 2 hours. The help of another person who also has a shovel, the time can decrease to one hour, but it cannot take less than 1 hour. The land must be smooth dirt and not have too many rocks. It takes two more hours to barry it.

Wrapping: Typically a body is wrapped in cloth when barrial is improvised. A bedroll can easily be used, but any piece of cloth large enough could also work.