[POLL] do you consiter looting the undead to be grave robbing?

i was playing Skyrim again and after i cleared out a room of undead and started looting. I felt like i was a grave robber because i was taking the gold and other treasure they had on them, that clearly there family given them as a final gift. yes they did come back and fight me but i was invading the tomb too start with. so i was wondering what everyone here thinks about looting the undead.

 

If they were undead then it would be fair game considering they are not dead and can defend themselves. An ant has no quarrel with a boot.

 

can't be grave robbing when they willfully left the grave. They gave up their rights to rest in peace when they picked up and walked away. Loot at will. Don't let it affect your conscience.

 

I mean if the dead are resting, and you come in to rob them so they jump out of their graves.
Yea that sounds like a grave robbery.
I suggested something like this for us dead player bodies.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-about-this-for-death.2779/

I still think that would be a fun system.

 

Well, thinking in a RPG way, "grave robbing" is bad because your are robbing and broking a holy place. But undeads are not holy at all.

 

Maybe you are even good because you are making them to "rest in peace"!

 

True! if they were in their graves and pop out because you walked in then that becomes self-defense! Then it is grave robbery.

I was thinking if they were hanging out in some creepy castle they took over, but if you are walking through a crypt and you get attacked by some undead they could be just protecting their homes.

***********

On another note they could be extraterrestrials that opened up a rift in space-time and are trying to inhabit bodies because their world is dying and they are trapped in a gaseous form. In which case destroying them might be of utmost importance. However a quest like this might lead to us getting a replica of Dr. Who's sonic screwdriver for being a hero for helping fix the rift in space-time.

 

Other point of view is that Im going there to kill unholy creatures (remember, undead are unholy, it depends of the unvierse, but normally they are made by evil powers and to be evil), like a brave and nice warrior. Technically could be grave robbery, but morally... Anyway I think that "moral problem" should be worse in a dungeon or cave. You go there and you steal their treasures to alive creatures. And they also have families, alive families that maybe they have to feed.

Are we playing in the wrong side?

 

Dracula is not evil. He was just hungry.

Wolfman is not evil, He was just following his instincts.

Frankenstein is not evil. He was misunderstood.

Mummy is not evil. He does not like to be looted by grave robbers.

LOL

 

I remember in one of the barrows, someone gives you permission to take the items from his ancestors. So the devs were at least thinking about this issue.

 

"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."

-Jessica Rabbit

XD

 

Make all the excuses you want, but if you decide to take items and possessions that aren't yours then you are committing a crime.
It doesn't matter if those things belong to a creature that is "living impaired" or if it has what we would consider a "low-level" of sentience, when you go to it's dwelling place or lair and invade it with the intent of robbery and killing anything that tries to stop you, you are a villain of the darkest dye and deserve no sympathy.

If you loot a creature that sought you out then that's recompensation, but if you are the aggressor then you are the bad one.

 

Yes it is graverobbing. But in the gaming world we're not much further beyond entering someone's house and looting all the chests in it. Skyrim just adds the "owned" tag to items in a home now but it doesn't seem to mind you robbing the resting places of resident's ancestors. =P

 

You play Skyrim with a conscience? Whoa!
You are definitely helping those lost souls sleep eternally and I'm sure for that they would want to reward you if they could......

 

Grave robbing requires a grave.

Of course given enough time, it magically turns into "archaeology".

 

If its dead, I'm stealing it

 

No more than I consider killing them to be murder.

 

I'm assuming the OP is referring to where you visit one of the many barrows and tombs around the province, kill some draugr and then loot anything of value you can find. These resting places of the dead are clearly known to the people of the province but no one ever seems to mind you bringing back the latest haul of ancient nordic artifacts to sell or whatever. Which then of course makes you wonder why the places hadn't been stripped clean long before you arrived.

To put a more modern fantastical spin on it: imagine there's something haunting the mausoleum at a cemetery in a well to do area in town. You go be all heroic and deal with the problem for whatever reason. Then you begin looting anything of potential value you can find from fancy urns containing ashes of the deceased, to perhaps even the plaques on some of the walls. I'm sure the family of the interred won't mind you desecrating the place like that.

But SotA is going to be in the spirit of an Ultima game. Perhaps there will be moral conundrums like that. Do you loot everything not nailed down or not? What influence does that have on your character's "virtue"?

 

In the context of this game's lore as it has been revealed so far, the undead have arisen because of the Obsidian Sorcerers. They have raised them to fight and now they've run amuck since they can't be controlled and will fight anyone, including those that raised them.

Who are you, as an avatar, an outlander, to pass judgement on whether or not they are good or evil? Are we entering a time of civil war and must now choose sides?

Regarding the poll, at face value robbing is taking that which is not yours, especially more so from a place that you do not own. So yes, technically, looting the undead's tombs, barrows, graves, is robbing them of their possessions placed with them for their "afterlife" or whatever.

Will the game have something to say about this? I hope so. Will it always be a negative impact to virtue? That would be interesting to find out. There may be quests to retrieve items that have been stolen previously and we're asked to retrieve them from these tombs. Or perhaps we're being played. If so, for what purpose, and by whom? I'm anxious to find out!

 

undead not grave robbing , I am just not gonna walk away from loot regardless which made Ultima IV really interesting for me since I couldn't pillage at will.