Dear Nords of Skyrim:

Is it time yet to rethink your method of interring your dead? Is lying them out in the open, fully kitted with weapons and armor, really the best we can do? Are those big refrigerator boxes really meant to be that easy to open ... from the inside? Is coming back to hideous unlife, only to be smashed, burned, and shot with arrows by the living, who just want to steal 12 gold from an urn, really the peaceful rest you envision for your loved ones, and for yourself when your time comes?

How about funeral pyres? A massive wooden structure for each and every death, something really substantial, not just another hole carved into the wall of some cave. Think about it, won't you? A huge stack of wood that the whole village helps to build, a spectacular bonfire, a big party, the women cry, the men stand around and look brave, you're consumed to ash along with all your favorite weapons, and you don't come back to life groaning and shuffling and get your skull bashed in by some punk Dovahkiin who then runs off with your favorite Ancient Nord War Axe.

This thread was originally going to be something about "Is anybody else sick of fighting 200 Draugr in every [censored] dungeon?" but I decided to take it in a different direction.

even when you burn them they come back as ghosts.

always loot your bodies...

YES. it seems like theres no dungeon variety at all. really disappointing.

A Whiterun guard died in Riverwood after a dragon attack so I undressed him and hung him on the planks where the fish were hanging by the river. That's more human than throwing people in cold forgotten massgraves.

Also I hate fighting massive quantities of Draugr. The regulars ones are okay since they are so weak but when 5 Draugr Wights attack you at once...

yeah im getting pretty sick of draugrs too... every time i get to fight anything else is like a holiday for me haha for me most fun is fighting falmer, bandits and the occasional spider xD

beats those dumb goblins from oblivion though.

Hey, when the Empire taxes your people into Oblivion to pay for rebuilding their capital in a senseless war (Senseless in the fact that you accept the same terms that started the war to begin with), a Nord has to provide for his family some way. And if that means spending eternity guarding some backwater hole in the earth, then so be it. Little Yorland and Helga are starving, and every Septim counts.

You'd think in a world where dead bodies have a chance of rising up as undead abominations, you'd quickly adopt the practice of cremating the dead. Or at least have one guy in the village who is a priest of Arkay and can do the necessary rites to assure you don't have to chop down you desiccated, decomposing ancestor's corpse with an axe.

I don't know if they think cremating is considered disrespectful in Tamriel or what, but it seems way more disrespectful to have them rise as undead. And if they become ghosts instead, should've found a priest and ghosts are weaker anyways (In Skyrim at least. Don't even need a silver/enchanted/daedric weapon, they fight just like anybody else and are for some reason entirely corporeal.).

draugr and bandits r seriously the biggest trolls evr in this game...

Isn't the reason they awaken because they were cursed for canibalising on their fellow nords or something like that? I don't think they intended to give the undead peace.

Maybe for some, but I don't think all of them only reanimate because they are dishonored dead. Yngol Barrow houses the remains of Atmora's first heroes to reach Skyrim, but they still rose as undead to attack you.

It's entirely possible that necromany wasn't around during the time of the ancient Nords so they didn't really think that burying their dead fully equipped for combat didn't strike them as a bad idea. (EDIT: Yup, just checked UESP. Necromancy didn't come about until early 2E.) They likely thought that by burying them so they would carry those possessions with them to Sovngarde.

...And are best treated with a bath of flames.

I think it's only after they become draugr that they start eating people.

If only dishonored dead become draugr, I'm sorry, but the Nords have a lot of freakin rejects.

You ever think the ancient Nords did this on purpose for [censored] grave robbers

That's the feeling I got as well.

My favorite time was when we burned the body at the end of the companions questline then the blacksmith starts using the forge with the body still on it lol

If I remember well they aren't "dishonored" they just sided (Don't helped the Nords) with the Dragons.

man i need to pull that book or whatever up because i remember something about the whole cannablisism of thier people

Didn't the Vikings and Nords used to place the body in a boat, set it off floating in the water and then, with a fire arrow, set it alight, or have I dreamt it?

Dragon friend = rejected from Sovngarde = zombie. Makes sense to me!

Vikings, yes; Nords, no.

NOPE! That's what I exept when I enter a crypt. It's fun to kill'em with Dawnbreaker.

Rrauger rent so bad at the strt. Its when every 5 seconds you hear "ro dah" it becomes a pain.

I think when my companions die I may drag them to falkreath... Or more likely get bored of that idea, and think the stream is good enough.
Or just use necromancy and their bdy turns to a pile of ash.

Although I am tired of draugr, you're correct that their proliferation does make sense, due to the high ratio of crypts:other buildings in Skyrim.

"Looking for the Eagles Hawk Bakery? It's just down the street on your left, right past the War-Bear Crypt, between the Fire-Beard Crypt and the Shatter-Shield Crypt. The bakery is actually on the second floor of the Red-Spear Crypt; make sure you don't use the door on the ground floor; there are tons of death traps. Use the stairs for the bakery entrance."