"Legitimate" way to get a bunch of bones

[kiralon]

Go to a butcher in a decent sized town

[Grazzik]

A bit of work, but...

Somehow convince the local noble to raise money through a retroactive grave tax on cemeteries - easy to count and always adding more. Then go to the townsfolk and offer to empty the graves and dispose of the bones for a small fee so they can avoid the new expensive and unfair tax. You do what is perceived as a public service, get paid for it, and the noble comes across as the jerk. Let's hope the townsfolk don't rise up in protest forcing the noble to send in his goons...

[Library Ogre]

Go to a butcher in a decent sized town

Butcher should work. Or, like you said, buy a bunch of animals, slaughter them, and find a use for the meat. If you're at all religious, throw a feast.

[The Dark Elf]

Buy a dog. Visit a butchers. Buy the bones for your dog....

Then slaughter the dog and use it bones!

[Grazzik]

Since no context was given re location or culture or laws, none of these butchering or feasting ideas would be "legitimate" in communities or societies that are vegetarian or honor nature/animals... killing a pet dog might be considered a heinous crime... just sayin'...

[Grazzik]

Oh, and just had some more ideas...
- do butchers in the area need a license from the local noble to operate? To butcher yourself do you need one and is that restricted by a guild?
- how does the local Necromancer coven or death cult feel about you muscling in on their supply?
- how does the local priesthood feel about an outside usurper holding a feast without their say so? Perhaps undermining their power over locals as it would send the message that if you have enough gold pieces you can buy holiness...
- local herds might not be sizeable enough to fit your needs or it may be the wrong season...
- bonemeal is often used in fertilizer and aquafarming... are you about to devastate a local industry/economy and cause locals to starve this coming winter? Evil...
- will the release of so much PPE at once draw something unwanted and dangerous to the community?

Sometimes, it hard being an upstanding necromancer...

[green.nova343]

Soup bones. Markets will have bones from various animals that can be used to make soup and/or broth.

[darthauthor]

The Dark Elf,

You are BRUTAL!

[Goblin-Jack]

As a variation on one of your suggested course of action, why not donate the animals to a church (or cult), let them sacrifice the animals and process the carcasses as they see fit, so long as they agree to give you the bones. That way they do all your dirty work, but also get the benefit of a sacrifice and feast for their worshipers without the cost of actually buying (or leaning on their congregation to buy) the livestock. You could even setup a regular arrangement with them so on a routine basis, you bring them livestock which they convert to bones for you, and you gain the benefit of them seeing you as an ally if not a benefactor, and perhaps will then supply you with information or assistance you can use for other endeavors.

[Stone Gargoyle]

Depending on how many bones you are talking about, you might need a way of storing and/or moving them out of town. No matter what you do, collecting a huge amount of bones is going to draw attention. You have not provided any context as to what your character does or why he needs the bones, so it is hard to offer suggestions with such limited information.

[GoliathReturns]

It's been a few months, but, since I've just returned from years away, these feels like the appropriate thread to raise from the dead...

So, it depends on the specific use that the bones are for, and what condition they need to be in. The more pristine the bones need to be, the more difficult. Also, if size matters.

The Butcher is the obvious choice, of course. However, a lot of butchers do end up cutting some of the bones, so keep that in mind.

Another source, depending on your alignment and the resources you have at your disposal, is tunneling under the local graveyard, and emptying the coffins out from below. I can neither confirm nor deny the rumors of a rating necromancer doing this exact thing.

Organize a hunt! With bounties for specific types of animals (based on size, and the amount of bone).

Get your hands on a zavor. You only need one. It gets hit with a magical weapon, now you have two. Kill one with mundane weapons; rinse and repeat. Unlimited supply, if you've managed to find a single zavor.

Creative (and careful) applications of black jelly and green mold can also help.

Good old fashioned grave robbing.

In the western empire? Find the local gladiator arena, and hire yourself out to dispose of the slain animals.. since you want the bones, and not just dispose of them, undercut anyone else's bids.

Finally, the hamster or rat. Hamsters and rats can breed at insane rates, giving birth after only a few weeks of pregnancy, and can get pregnant again almost immediately. Mass hamster breeding program, their population will explode, they're all very easy to kill, and you have a ton of skeletons.


Just remember, if you decide to burn the body to dispose of meat and fat, and to make cleaning easier, around 1500 degrees Fahrenheit will start burning the bones of dogs and cats, and the smaller the animal (and bones) the lower the temp. Ants or boiling are generally the most effective ways to cleaning bones.

--GS
Yes, I'm that Goliath Strongarm.

[JuliusCreed]

Ask around for directions to the nearest goblin warren. Goblins are notoriously messy and you stand a pretty solid chance of finding way more than enough bones with a really wide variety of types up to and even including a few humanoid ones (goblins are usually cannibals after all) From there it's a matter of either A. Negotiating a few bits of gold and trinkets for a big pile of bones from the Gobbos, OR B. Slaughtering a bunch of goblins and cleaning up all the bones you can carry, OR C. Simply sneaking in and robbing a goblin garbage pile.

Good luck and great gaming

[drewkitty ~..~]

Go to a butcher in a decent sized town

Butcher should work. Or, like you said, buy a bunch of animals, slaughter them, and find a use for the meat. If you're at all religious, throw a feast.

The butcher should have bones he wants to get rid of, as byproduct of his work.