A small disclaimer: ordinarily when I develop material for my homebrew setting's groups, I strive for a balance between original content and borrowed inspiration. My profile on the natural world of my setting borrows quite heavily from the real world--each of the biomes included are closely based on real-world places. I aim to avoid that with this guide. I believe it would be in poor taste to appropriate real-world funeral rites for my use in a game, and so I will not be doing any research into real-life funeral rites for this guide (apart from using the Western world's burials for Daltoners). If there are any coincidences in terms of what follows and what exists in real life, the coincidence is unintentional and not intended as disrespect.
Daltoners
Daltoners' faith, which centers around a bloodthirsty incarnation of Pelor, the sun god, views death as a fundamental part of the life cycle, but not in the way that some of Evanoch's more militant groups do; rather, Daltoners see death as a purpose of life. Dying in service of Pelor or taking the life of another in the name of Pelor is essentially the highest honor a Daltoner can earn, so death is something that Daltoners are basically trained not to fear. Along these lines, being a human sacrifice to Pelor is considered one of the highest purposes in life, but that does not necessarily mean that average Daltoners truly desire it. Death by combat is viewed with honor, but not as highly as a death for Pelor. In theory, Daltoners are the group most culturally taught to embrace death, but in practice, they avoid death more than most groups. A "pointless" death (one that does not advance Daltoners as a group or one's family in particular) is considered especially shameful; accidental deaths and deaths from illness are quietly judged.
Daltoners have gone through a few periods in terms of funeral rites. Initially, on the island of Dalton, Daltoners buried their dead in large plots called graveyards. The dead would be placed in wooden boxes called caskets and buried deeply enough beneath Dalton's rocky soil to avoid the island's occasional flooding. The buried casket would be indicated through a carved stone which bore the deceased's name and dates of birth and death. Later, as real estate on the island became more and more precious, there lacked room for actual burial, and dead bodies were cremated, but the gravestone custom persisted, filling in Daltoner graveyards with more stones. But when Daltoners arrived on Evanoch's shores, there was suddenly room for burials again, and graveyards with buried caskets became the fashion once again. Today, a larger proportion of city land is devoted to funeral sites in New Dalton than anywhere else in Evanoch.
When a Daltoner is buried and their gravestone erected, it is common for an official of Pelor to speak briefly about the role of the deceased in the universe--these speeches usually revolve around Pelor accepting the deceased as a parent accepts a child. These ceremonies are kept brief, as dwelling on emotions besides pride in the deceased is considered improper. Family members and friends sometimes visit the gravestone of a passed Daltoner to remember them; this is a complicated social procedure. Paying respects regularly is seen as a matter of duty, but "too much" time spent in a Daltoner graveyard carries a social toll as one becomes perceived as overly emotional, obsessed with death, or unwilling to accept Pelor's wisdom. At the same time, it is considered inappropriate to visit a graveyard with anyone else, but having someone wait at the entrance to the graveyard to assist you when you leave the graveyard with strained emotions is common, and many Daltoner graveyards have waiting areas at the entrance for such chaperones.
Faninites
On their home island of Fanin, death is regarded by Faninites as a natural step in one's progression through existence. Faninites believe that people are born close to nature and that there are two complicated processes that determine one's relationship to nature. It is believed that children have an innate understanding of nature but lack an intellectual understanding of it; children can feel nature but not express it. As a Faninite grows, they slowly lose parts of the innate understanding in exchange for the more intellectual understanding--the ability to articulate the ideals of nature. Upon death, both understandings are bestowed upon the deceased. The goal of a Faninite, then, is to retain or regain the childlike understanding and develop the intellectual understanding before death to enjoy it in life. Death, then, is seen as a great gift and equalizer, as all Faninites gain true natural wisdom when they pass on. Death is not feared by Faninites, but neither is it sought out; just as plants and animals live and die, Faninites know that their lives will end as a part of the natural cycle.
Faninites have always followed the same naturalistic way of tending to the dead: they return the deceased to nature in the most direct way possible. When a Faninite dies, their family and close friends are consulted, and the Faninite's inglefrane, or "place of return," is determined. The inglefrane is a physical location in nature that is dear to the deceased, oftentimes a wooded area where the Faninite has visited for peace and sanctuary during their lifetime. Once the ingelfrane is located, the Faninite's body is taken to the location and placed in a position of rest or contemplation, whichever was preferred and indicated by the deceased. The Faninite's body is then left to decompose or become food for the animals of that area. Most other groups regard this element of the practice to be somewhat barbaric and unfeeling, as it is common for deceased Faninites to be moved around by the animals and elements; however, Faninites think of this as being a fundamental part of the return to nature--allowing the Faninite's body to become a part of nature again, removed from humanoid conceptions about dignity or separation from nature.
When one wishes to mourn for or connect to a deceased Faninite, there are two general schools of thought. One of these ideas dictates that the visitor should go to the location of the Faninite's inglefrane and commune with them there. This method is fairly standard for the period of time after the Faninite's body has returned to nature through decomposition or disturbance by animals; many Faninites, even the most nature-minded, struggle with seeing the still-present corpse of their loved one before the return to nature. The other view, which is more popular among the recently passed as well as those mourning Faninites who were laid to rest across the ocean back in Fanin, is that being joined with nature makes someone universal with nature, meaning that the Faninite's spirit is not tethered to a specific location. Communing with a Faninite in this way means that the deceased is in a way everywhere, and it is not uncommon for Faninites to speak under their breath to passed family members and friends regardless of location, as they believe the deceased to exist everywhere in nature.
Dwarves
Dwarves regard death as a complicated concept, and while many dwarves claim to understand death as an unavoidable part of the process of life, the practical reality is more complicated. Broadly speaking, most dwarves fear death; despite (or perhaps because of) their relatively long lifespans, they see death as something that can rob them of their rightful claim to life more than as an entity in and of itself. It is because of this conception of death that fewer dwarves call themselves worshippers of Nerull than any other group--in fact, dwarves pray for long and safe lives more than any other group. For an average dwarf, dying is something that remains unspoken about--death is the great taboo of dwarven culture. When a family member or close friend dies, dwarves usually stay as distant as possible socially and emotionally, but because participation in funeral rites is socially important, they often contribute what is expected and resist anything further.
The dwarven method of remembering the dead began when essentially all dwarves lived in the capital city of Underhar, but it has been adapted to use in other places. In Underhar, the city is mined out of a mountain range's foundation; the city exists under and inside the mountain itself. Traditionally, when a dwarf died, their name would be chiseled into the walls of Underhar--not the walls of the buildings carved within, but the outer walls that hold the buildings. Thus, the first eight feet or so of every outer wall are covered in intricate dwarven writings that name the fallen dwarf. Over time, these carvings have climbed higher and higher up the walls, and many lower class dwarves have taken to chiseling the passed dwarves' names onto the ground or into the buildings where they lived, while wealthier dwarves' names have climbed even higher up the outer walls. Traditionally, the dwarf's name is carved by loved ones, each of whom is responsible for an individual dwarven rune. Outside of Underhar, fallen dwarves are memorialized by carving their name or simply initials into nearby stone faces--family and friends perform this rite if possible, but it is increasingly accepted to have the nearest allies do so. The carving of the name is more about being one with the stone and less about being preserved in some way. Dwarves' physical bodies are cremated in special forges.
Dwarves culturally reject notions of emotion expressed over death--they simply prefer to not directly address these ideas. However, for dwarves in grief, the most common approach is to make practical use of the emotion. The commonest method for this is in creating arts or crafts, usually in the form of small and intricate rock carvings but increasingly via similarly small leatherwork pieces--these crafts honor the dead by depicting things that the deceased cared about. It is believed that putting care and intention into the passions of the deceased connects the living to the dead. These tokens are kept at home and are distributed when the grief has passed. Receiving a token of this sort is a great honor, as it indicates importance to the passed dwarf, but it would be completely unheard of to display one of these tokens, even in one's private home. Visiting the carved name of a passed dwarf is considered highly dramatic and is frowned upon; this would generally be seen as hysterical and impractical. Speaking the name of a dwarf in the first year after their death is considered terrible luck; rather, nicknames are employed to avoid explicitly naming them.
Orcs
Orcs regard death not as a singular idea, but a broad series of related concepts. Death itself is the end of life, but it is also a new part of existence--generally speaking, orcs believe that an unknowable new life begins at death, and many orcs argue that existence on Evanoch is itself not the first life that a being experiences. At the same time, it is believed that the only things that remain constant throughout these continuous lives are nature and the orc's spiritual development, and death actually unveils hidden spiritual knowledge unavailable in life. Thus, death is regarded as just shy of a celebration in terms of advancement for the passing orc, but it is also a somber time for the orc's clan, who must learn to live without the deceased. This is also affected by what role the orc in question played during their life. A noted warrior is more mourned than celebrated, as their value to the clan is greater in life than in death, where a wise woman or curtran is more celebrated than mourned, as her death indicates the "promotion" of her soul to the next world. Along similar but practical lines, losing a warrior means losing clan strength, where losing a curtran means the promotion of the next generation of wisdom.
Orcs mark the passing of their dead via a marking called a horroscan, or "spirit marking." The horroscan is a very metaphorical method of remembrance--the death of an orc is marked by driving a spike into a stone and removing it, leaving behind a hole which represents the "hole" left behind by the orc's passing. The horroscan is sometimes created at the site of the orc's death, particularly when the orc's passing accomplished something of note beyond combat, but it is usually created at a favorite place of the deceased, usually not far from the orc's home. As a result, many orcish settlements have noticeable patches of holes driven into the ground or elsewhere. The horroscan does not change appearance or creation method regardless of how the orc died--an orc who died defending a village and an orc who passed from illness are marked with identical holes--and the holes are not labelled in any way, making each hole totally anonymous. In fact, trying to link a specific orc to a specific hole is frowned upon, as it is believed that all beings are equal in death. [Note: The physical body is completely ignored in burial. Orcs consider a dead body to be fundamentally the same as a pile of earth.]
In orcish culture, there is a special utterance--not quite a prayer, but more spiritual in nature than a simpler mantra--which one recites to honor the dead. Some orcs feel inclined to honor any horroscan they see, while others avoid addressing even loved ones out of respect for death's role in orcish society. Those who recite the utterance consider three distinct concepts in turn. First, they attempt to imagine an orc without defining features to respect the anonymity of the horroscan. Next, they reflect on the concept that death is death, and any death propels the orc towards a new struggle, a new life. Finally, they consider the metaphor of the hole--how the elements can never undo the hole's creation, but they can expand it. The rememberer promises to expand and never undo the passed orc's legacy, whatever it may be. Those raised in orcish culture can perform this process quickly and almost automatically, but even the most practiced tend to suspend the practice in the larger parts of Grob Island, the homeland of orcs which bears the horroscans of generations slain in the War of Kraal.
Elves
As Evanoch's long-lived denizens, elves have a somewhat peculiar set of views on death. To an elf, who can live to be a millennium old, the cause of death is thought of as an incidental fact. Even whether or not a death is prolonged or painful means fairly little to an elf--elven soldiers are notorious in the military world for being the least susceptible to intimidation and torture. The only thing that matters in death to an elf is the age at which one dies. Even here, the idea does not guide much meaning in terms of tragedy--elves regard the loss of the young, middle-aged, and old as functionally equal in terms of senselessness, as each period of life could be said to carry great tragedy. Rather, elves most strive for and respect deaths which exemplified the qualities of their lives. Elven artists desire deaths befitting of their creativity and beauty, such as passing from gentle illness at a beautiful natural vista; warrior elves wish for deaths that bring victory and honor to their allies; close families hope to pass away surrounded by their loved ones. It is not uncommon for elves to make choices that would create such a situation if they sense danger or illness, and elves have developed the term xillren to express this kind of death, which is neither a purely accidental death nor a suicide.
When an elf does die, the traditional method of tending to the body is to mummify it. Using long passed-down methods and tools, elven embalmers remove any organ or part of the body that cannot be preserved (keeping as much of the body intact as possible--ancient methods removed most organs, but current methods only remove the eyes), then submerge the body in a fluid that toughens and preserves the tissue. When the body has absorbed this fluid for several days, it is dried for one week, resulting in a preserved body that will not deteriorate for millennia. This process was originally devised as a way to keep elven bodies around for elven generations to continue visiting them, and embalming remains a healthy industry in elven communities. The body of the deceased elf, which at this point looks quite identical to the elf in their later years, is usually displayed in the home of their nearest relative for one year's time. This custom has become more flexible over time, allowing close friends to adopt the body, after a rise in grudge-holding relatives posing the deceased bodies in indecent positions. After the year of display, the body is generally placed in a family mausoleum for wealthier elves or in a public cemetery in a display case above ground.
Ironically, while elves spend considerable time and energy ensuring that they have the ability to pay their respects to the dead through their physical bodies, in practice, they rarely do. That is largely because respect to the familial dead (or close friends who have passed) is built into several other parts of elven society. Here are a few notable examples: when an elf welcomes a guest into their home to use the community welparin space, they traditionally invoke the names of their ancestors stretching back three generations with a special title (hirien) for the deceased; prayers to Corellon Larethian, the god of the elves are structured to begin and end on invocations of one's most recently passed relative; even elven small talk commonly involves asking when the last time one's home hosted a deceased relative's preserved body among other things. As a result, formal mourning really only lasts during the year display period, and elven culture guides further mourning.
Half-Elves
Half-elves are known in Evanoch for a few related things: they are artistically-driven, they are cultural innovators inspired by their elven and Faninite ancestors, and their innovations tend to guide modern fashions. This is true with funeral arrangements as well. From their Faninite parents, they adopt the custom of placing the body where the deceased would want it, adding a dash of inspiration from the Daltoners and burying the body (but without a coffin to connect it to the earth) at the preferred site--these steps reconnect it with nature along the Faninite's ideals. At the same time, a sort of proxy body, an artist's tribute to the deceased, is displayed in the home of relatives or friends with a suggested time of one year, but this timespan tends to adjust according to the host's personal beliefs. Today, Evanine funerals are typically referred to as "burials" even when a different funeral method is employed--the vocabulary across the land has generalized the word to refer to any funeral rite.
The actual process of burying the deceased is deliberately kept vague in terms of custom. The standard elements are digging the shallow grave (a special role is conferred on the person doing the most digging--they are referred to as "the guide"), laying down the body (being "the steward"), and covering the body (being "the pilgrim"). Most groups regard this type of funeral as a smaller affair--most would add no more than three people, one for each role. In fact, there is a special honor in a funeral entirely administrated by one person, as this marks a special and meaningful commitment to the deceased. Sometimes, words are spoken during the covering of the body, often parts of religious texts (Daltoners and dwarves) or personal remembrances (Faninites and halflings), but just as often, silence (gnomes) or music (elves and orcs) is considered a superior accompaniment.
Practically speaking, visiting a burial site made in the half-elf tradition is not ideal in the weeks that follow the burial, as the body's decomposition tends to be overwhelming in terms of odor. This makes the element of an in-home display a practical necessity. Most commonly, a home will lack a display for the deceased for at least several days until a sufficient work of tribute to the dead can be crafted; with the rise in popularity of half-elven burials, a small industry has arisen for artists who can quickly create these sorts of funeral displays. The increasingly popular model for displays of this sort involve some manner of depiction of the deceased (wood carvings, paintings, and metalwork are all common media) as a foundation for the display--typically, visitors are expected to contribute additional tokens that commemorate the life of the deceased or try to bless the dead through religious items. There is a growing social phenomenon of judging a deceased person's social status by the quality and quantity of tokens in their funeral display.
Gnomes
Most outsiders would describe gnomes as a people of great silliness, joy, and irreverence. While that description may be generally true of some elements of gnomish society, gnomes are especially solemn when it comes to death. For gnomes, who spend so much of their time building and REbuilding devices, the very permanent end of death is difficult to deal with. Gnomes, who live longer than most groups but certainly not as long as the dwarves or elves, feel vulnerable in many ways when it comes to their mortality. More than any other culture, gnomes have sought to use science and magic alike to stretch their lifespans out and treat preventable deaths. All of this has translated into a general sense that death is an overwhelming foe to be struggled against with full force, meaning that when death does occur in a gnomish community, it devastates. Even an expected death of an elder with no additional dramatic stakes generally leaves a whole neighborhood in deep mourning.
When a gnome passes, their body is collected and examined by a medical expert of some sort to detect illnesses that might have spread and to study the body for anything that may benefit the scientific community. When the body is deemed safe to be around, the next of kin is offered the body as is or processed through various options (gnomes are not particular about the physical body after death)--the most popular method today is a form of incineration that produces a burning fluid, which is dropped into cold water to cast it into a small, almost metallic chunk of matter. A gnomish funeral is an elaborate affair that involves serving the favorite meal of the deceased and opening their home to be inspected and explored by the attendees, and throughout the funeral, no one speaks a single word. Guests are expected to leave when they feel they have mourned enough to begin to move on, and gnomes have been known to stay wordlessly in their passed loved ones' homes for as much as a week before leaving.
When the gnome's funeral is over, their property is taxed and passed to those in the will in a complex legal procedure. Gnomes have something of a disdain for physical reminders of a deceased person--they believe that attempting to memorialize a full humanoid being is futile and disrespectful to the dead--but they embrace memorializing the dead in more intellectual ways. Most gnomes write a personal book (not quite a diary) throughout their lives that chronicles all the most important and meaningful discoveries and ideas they encounter, and this book is generally published after a gnome's death, often with a foreword (or a few forewords) from friends, colleagues, and relatives. The books range from personal philosophical musings and crystallized ideas about life to proprietary formulas, blueprints, and other discoveries that can change industries. In fact, these funeral books, or lyfbuk, are some of the most sought-after publications in gnomish society, and it is not uncommon to hear a gnome say of someone they admire that "I'm dying to know what's in her lyfbuk." Sales from lyfbuks go toward government programs, but a new law in Vestry proposes that that money should be attributable in the will.
Halflings
To a halfling, death is paradoxical. They are small and fragile creatures without real strength, and they live in a rainforest where the deadliest of plants and animals are found; death is something that they are highly vulnerable to and surrounded by. And yet, halflings face death more directly than perhaps any group in Evanoch--perhaps their being so used to it has worn off on them over time. Halflings don't so much fear death as make practical decisions to avoid it. There are elven and dwarven sayings that both say that bravery comes naturally to halflings because they are short-lived enough to laugh in death's face but also long-lived enough to have something to fight for. But none of this is to say that halflings don't view the loss of life as a tragedy--after all, they were the first kingdom to forego warfare out of respect of life. Halflings face death with bravery, but they also mourn the fact that the bravery needed to be summoned. Unlike gnomes, halflings don't see death as unspeakable--only unavoidable.
When a halfling passes away, the traditional method of marking their death is to burn the body and mingle the ashes with the wood that was used to build the fire; the ashes are then collected and mixed with wild animal manure or manure from the departed's pet(s) and occasionally a favorite meal of the departed; this mixture is added as fertilizer to a farmer's land who has been chosen by the departed. (Selecting a farmer to receive one's remains mixture, called a yurjin, is a coming of age rite. The receiving farmer, the yurjill, is considered an important figure in one's life, and sharing a yurjill with a new acquaintance is considered excellent luck.) The yurjin is added to the soil at the next time it would be beneficial to the crops. When multiple people in a town die during an off-season for the farmer, they are darkly referred to as yurj-mates, as they have mingled together in the farmer's fertilizer stores. There is no ceremony held to include the family or friends in an official mourning. While other groups see this practice as uncomfortable or disrespectful of the dead, halflings regard being useful to both the natural world and one's community as the highest honor one can hope for.
While halflings do not hold a funeral immediately after a death, they are actually one of the most committed in terms of consistently remembering their deceased family and friends. Halflings have a triad of beliefs which are all enacted through practical means meant to honor the deceased. The first is physical: the deceased's body is used to create sustenance, and so that sustenance is connected to the deceased. The crop grown by the deceased's yurjin (not the specific yield from that crop, but any crop of the type that was grown, such as eggplant or plantains) is a special dish to those left behind by the deceased, and eating it honors them. The second method is mental: in halfling society, when one remembers a loved one who has passed on, it is suggested that they mark the occasion by saying one positive thing about the deceased, even if one is alone. (This can cause a whole chain of positive remembrances as one person sets off another.) Finally, the third method is spiritual: a halfling saying tells people that when you feel like a loved one's death was not ideal, appropriate, or befitting them, you should imagine them happier than you ever saw them in life. This is not to say that they have achieved some sublime afterlife--only that imagining them happy is better for us than being dissatisfied. Thus, halflings are almost always actively or passively creating positive memories about the deceased.
There you have it--a complete guide to the funeral rites, memorial styles, and views on death in my homebrew setting. I will admit that part of what drove me to write this was spending a lot of time visiting cemeteries on a recent vacation. (I'm just generally kind of weird that way, but I also think seeing cemeteries is very life-affirming.) As I walked through acres of sprawling gravestones with several different cultures represented, my mind was on what it means to live and be alive, but I soon started thinking about my world, too. Writing about who believes what and why has been very good for me and my understanding of my world--I know each group much better now than I did before writing. As always, writing about my homebrew setting opens new doors of creativity and storytelling--I hope you take the time to think about these things, or things like them, too.
That's all for now. Coming soon: how to write a one-shot, public views of a historical event in my homebrew setting, and transportation in my homebrew setting. Until next time, happy gaming!
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