What type of warning sign would people make to keep future humans away from a dangerous thing...

What type of warning sign would people make to keep future humans away from a dangerous thing, even thousands of years later?

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99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/
wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp exhibit message to 12,000 a_d.htm
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A detailed picture of whatever it is you should stay away from

I remember reading that people were still discussing how to mark radioactive waste dumps so that future humans will know how to avoid such places.

Skull and bones usually works pretty well, and has for centuries. Foolproof? No, but effective for natural selection

It’s pretty well drilled into our knowledge now, and the bright coloration of the signs catch the eye and help convey the danger

this

...

99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/

I'm partial to the ray cats myself. Hell, they're perfectly doable in a fantasy setting without the players/wisemen of the setting realizing they're next to the Ark of the Golden Age or something.

The problem is that for many centuries the skull and crossbones were a symbol of rebirth, being associated with Jesus and appearing alongside him in countless depictions of the Crucifixion

This is assuming society continues. The debate is over how to warn future generations about the dangers of radiation if society as we know it collapses. People won't know to stay away from brightly colored signs with a picture of a glowing rock on it if they're not taught it at some point. Obviously if the village idiot dies after walking into an irradiated area they'll think "oh shit, maybe that sign was a warning". More likely though a bunch of people will die from it before anyone figures it out because radiation sickness kills you quickly, but with a delay where nothing seems wrong.

Another issue is the abundance of signs in everyday life. There are signs everywhere you look, and people of the future may not be able to read them. If I went to Tokyo right now, a sign indicating a brothel would look no different to me than a sign for a grocery store.

The idea is to keep it marked even if we have a massive disaster and a lot of our knowledge regresses.
Symbols change over time, something that means evil radiation to use, could mean something entirely different to people a few hundred years from now. If it means anything.

Wouldn't just the skull itself be a good symbol? Easily-recognizable, almost always associated with death - hasn't sticking skulls on spikes been a pretty common warning or territorial marker? I mean, even places where the skull doesn't have quite the same morbid association, like Mexico, it's still connected to death.

A big bronze plaque with as many varied warning and danger symbols as possible, as well as arrows pointing away from it along with stick figures clearly running in that direction.

Don't put a warning sign, just conceal the dangerous thing somewhere really hard to get to and put no markings on it at all. If you put warning symbols, you're going to have adventurers digging it up and using it as a weapon in no time at all.

big hooks n spikes n shit

like a hellscape

This.

Conan age civilizations are just going to send slaves to dig it up, even if it makes you sick, especially if it makes you sick.

Better to just bury it away from any natural resources or in areas that naturally deter inhabitation.

>the spike miners dug too deep

It meant rebirth for a while.

Granite cube with pictographs showing humans dying

Cover it up with unintelligible bullshit about "forbidden power" and such while sending out a handful of keys to the vault to various family members of the people that used to work there as keepsakes that will never ever be used to re open the danger vault

OH! and you should also probably let a few maps with riddles and waypoints slip out so people will know where to avoid.

Skull without crossbones on a bright yellow sign does the job. Yellow always = caution, especially in the animal world.

I saved that pdf in my disk. Gave me an eerie feeling reading that shit.

There's a hawk that sits on a yellow traffic sign every morning by my house, so I'm gonna call bullshit on this one.

like this
wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp exhibit message to 12,000 a_d.htm

>ray cats
Damn, these are loreworthy. Hell, maybe even genemod people to become Glowing Ones when they come close to a radioactive waste site, that'll be something.

Better yet, what if radiation fuels the magic of the future?

And if that thing is an abstract concept that may not be understood?
And how do you make it mean 'no, really, stay the fuck away from this' and not 'stay away, there's treasure in here'?

W-What happens at level 6?

the goose attempts to usurp the throne.

But what if future warlords try to harness it?

I wouldn't want to hike to there, but I would totally hire onto the expedition to uncover more about the bizarre shrike-worshiping ancient culture and rob their graves.

>tfw you are not high enough level to accept this quest

Pic related. It still wouldn't work, but it's your best shot.

Skulls, skeletons, corpses. If the people of the future still fear death, they’ll get the message.