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Death, Burial, and Cultural Observances of the Steel Realms
Heartlands: Death, Burial, and Cultural Observances reflect mostly burial. All souls must transit through The House of the Dead to get through the promised Afterlife. This is a known and established fact to the denizens of Helca. Different cultures have different proscriptions for the process of handling the corpse after death.
Burial is the oldest tradition. For this, the use of family crypts and mausoleums were and still are used heavily. Near the Lich Lords power in the north, this practice has given way to cremation – leaving nothing for their powers to operate on. The Green Church and Lightbringer clergy are kept buy sanctifying the old graveyards to keep the Lich Lord’s power at bay from the ancestors’ remains.
- Death and Funerary Traditions of Gwinn are different from most.
- The Saelish: The Salisnean culture does not follow the ancient Burial Traditions of The Bronzemen of leaving their dead out for the wind, animals, and elements to strip the flesh off them. The Saelisnean people bury bodies, but have no head stones. The head of the grave is slightly raised and a rock is carved with a saying or remembrance. After a few hundred years, burials stop. Then, after a hundred years, the cemetery land is tilled for crops and the plaques are all moved to a single place to mark the presence of the dead giving back their nutrients to the living.
Umbak: Umbakian Culture shares the rites & practices that are common to the unified pantheon of the Lightbringers universally since CY 8200 – they are cremated; Generally, they make no graveyards though do upkeep older graveyards and re-sanctify them. Umbak has ancient and specific passages added to the cremation ceremony that are part of the Amarata that relate to the spirit of the departed rejoining their family. Originally this was for the upper class only, since CY 8200 it is applied to all.
The South: Burn bodies
Loamwold: The death observance custom is to be buried back into the earth; Bodies are buried with ceremonial and symbolic items for their journey through the House of the Dead to wherever their faith takes them. Items of wealth or value to their community are shared with the living.