Deaths in Goblin Town should produce a bones file, but one that just consists of a partial bones pile (not a full pile; the implication is that the Goblin King removes some of the best items from it) that is supposed to load somewhere in the early regular dungeon as a warning to other adventurers. These piles should contain a corpse, but since the former hero did not die on that space, there is no ghost. The corpse could possibly also uniquely render as “mutilated”.

Add two types of vine to the plant class: a thief vine, which steals items from you, and a warrior vine, which is only found in bones files near the pile, and which starts with some weapons taken from the bones pile, which it uses to attack you with. (It would generate just after loading the rest of the bones level).

Thief vines, if adjacent to other thief vines, should pass stolen items away from the player, playing keep-away with them.

When a player is killed by a giant spider and leaves bones, there will be a web trap placed on their square, and occasionally one or two giant spider eggs.

Bones of tortle players contain a tortle shell, which is useless except as an indicator the dead player was a tortle, or as polyfodder.

Items in a bones pile, in addition to being cursed, could be subject to additional degradation such as erosion, loss of magical charges, or blanking. (Though since a new player will arrive in the bones level apparently immediately after the death, it could be a bit of a stretch to have the items degrade so much.)

Internally mark all of your starting gear with a special flag; if you die before receiving the quest, any items marked with this flag get degraded when placed into your bones pile: things like magical armor becoming nonmagical, wands lose charges, scrolls may fade, and spellbooks are made too faint to read more than once.