d40 Answers to "What happens to PC corpses once they've been killed by monsters?"

The following questions was asked on The Black Hack community "Anyone ever seen a random table determining what the monsters do with the beaten, unconscious, and/or dead bodies of the player characters?".

(Turns out +James V West has already written the following awesome d30 table: https://plus.google.com/+JamesVWest/posts/X46fuJAXtvM).

I thought it was decent question so decided to write up my own table in answer.



What happens to PC corpses once they've been killed by monsters? 

Roll a d4 and a d10:

	1	2	3	4
1	The utmost tender care is lavished on the bodies as they are ceremonially wrapped in soft linens and placed in a holy room. Alive the PC's were reviled, dead they are venerated.	Bodies wrapped in dignified cloth and dragged back in secret to the closest settlement of the PC's race. Left anonymously outside the gates, a token of penance left on each corpse.	Mummified, calcified or otherwise delicately preserved and transformed into a corpse lantern. Likeness of PC is kept, body is hollowed out and is a housing for burning oil.	Hung by sacred rope in the nearest room of worship. Corpses become focal point for the next few weeks ceremonies.
2	Heads are immaculately preserved, sliced in half then hollowed. Used as relatively sacred receptacles.	The magic casting caste of the monsters extracts the souls of the PCs, turning them into vengeful ghosts. The preserved skulls act as a spiritual anchor for the ghosts.	Bodies, once striped of all belongings, are burned to ash. Hanging manikins are constructed in windy regions of the monsters dwellings. Crude effigies of the PC's now jangle, clank and swing in the breeze.	Stored in man sized pots until the next storm. When the weather turns the pots and bodies are left at the edge of local precipices as offering to the storm gods.
3	Belongings and vestments are striped and stored. Corpses are placed in bubbling herbal vats for a week. Then shrunken corpses are worn as talismans on the neck of upper caste monsters.	Bodies are put into water filled pots then stored in the frozen lower reaches of the dwellings of the monsters. Once the water is frozen the pots are smashed and the frozen bodies are displayed in a gallery of ice covered corpses.	Local atmospheric magicks sees the flesh of the PC's body decaying and disintegrating at a highly accelerated rate. At the end of this d6 day process swirling miasma forms now haunt and inhabit the abandoned outfits and belongings of the party.	Resurrected poorly by the monster's priestly caste. All stats are re rolled using a single d6. PC re-awakens chained and bound for a re-unlifetime domestic servitude.
4	Striped and wrapped in heavenly gauze, draped in gemmed gold chains. Strategically placed around the monsters dwelling as trap bait.	The scholarly caste of the monsters record the PC's death in excruciating written detail. Drawings, samples, rubbings, diagrams from the bodies are all included in nearby pages. The corpses themselves are strewn in a ditch somewhere.	All blood drained slowly into a golden vat. Once empty of blood corpses are fed to monster's domestic beasts. Blood is combined with a highly potent alcohol and drunk by upper caste monsters. Brew is called "Hero's blood" or somesuch.	Eyes are removed and placed in damp waist hung sacks of the monster's priest caste. Sockets are filled with reflective orbs and sat at the entrance to the monster's dwellings. Priest caste monsters employ magicks to see out of these orbs.
5	Bodies tossed in the closest river, belongings and all. 25 % chance of washing ashore at nearest settlement.	Murderers of the party is called to explain their actions to a gathering of monsterkind. The belongings and bodies of the party are endlessly debated over, eventually divvy'd up fairly between many.	Bodies thrown in to pool of mild acid. After all organic matter is dissolved monsters with metal spatulas scoop up the undissolved remaining belongings of the party.	Bodies are locked in a wiry metal cage then dragged to the nearest settlement of the PC's race. Caged bodies are left at midnight as close as the town square as possible for the transporting monsters.
6	Corpse vine seeds are planted in the belly of bodies. Black vines will erupt from the rotted gut in 1d6 days and tangle about the corpse, then continue its creeping growth. This will either be done where the PC's fell or in an ever growing corpse vine forest.	A grand and glorious feast is announced. The PC's are of course the main dish!	Bodies abandoned the blue glowing "Chamber of Fungi" where corpse mushrooms feast on the parties flesh. 5% chance bodies are re-animated as flesh/fungi hybrid podmen.	Bodies are dismembered, then all limbs stitched together in to a jumbled mass. The magic casting caste of the monsters then re-animate the used parts of the party as a lumbering corpse spider.
7	Bodies fed to a great ever burning brass effigy of some molochian deity of the monsters.	Skin flayed and cured, flesh removed from bone. Small 1 man bone/skin leather tents made as "meditation pods" for monster priest caste.	Arms dismembered, cured and magically re-animated to endlessly grasp and claw. Grasping arms then installed as makeshift security devices around monster's dwelling. Rest of body roasted.	The murdering monsters, after extended pilfering, find some skerrick or clue that links the PC's death to the enactment of some long awaited prophecy. The corpses become relics in a fast exploding monster revolution.
8	Fed to a chained leviathan at the bottom of monster dwelling. Belongings pilfered by leviathan handler.	Bodies are dragged to the cyclopean work bench of a titanic quarry craftsmen. Crude, leering statues are made of they party 1d6 x the size of their original size. The hollow statues are placed over the top of the rotting corpses like a stone sleeve.	Skin flayed, cured and crafted into fetching robes for dapper upper caste monsters.	Bodies are placed in chambers of desiccation for 1d6 weeks then transported with the uttermost care to one of the dwellings entrance corridors. Once transported from desiccation chamber, bodies will crumble to dust with the slightest provocation.
9	Bodies are dragged to the bottomless pit at the deepest point of the monsters dwelling, then tossed in. 5% chance PC's will re-awaken in a lower metaphysical plane.	Bodies are added to an enormous, stinking graveyard chamber in the monster's dwellings. The chamber is behind a huge heavy rolling boulder, only moved by the strongest of entities.	The bodies are placed in the monster's "library of corpses", an entire cliff face/ravine or other sheer surface pockmarked with coffin sized indentations. PC's remains are slotted into an empty spot in the library.	PC's likeness is chiseled into the closest wall to the where they died. Corpse thrown onto a bonfire once chiseling is complete.
10	Monster magic casting caste sends the corpses to the person that most loved the PC. PC corpse is sent in 6 parts over 6 months. Generally the body parts appear in the bed of the PC's loved one at midnight.	Bodies dragged to the entrance of the monsters dwelling. Valuables pilfered. Minor desecration enacted then corpse left to rot as a warning to the next band of adventurers.	Shoved into niches in the darkest, shadow covered section of the monsters dwelling. Future sulking, sneaking invaders of the dwelling may unwittingly uncover them.	Left exactly where they fell, only given attention by bugs and bacteria.