Gentle death

The **gentle death** is a rite of suicide practiced by some Diabrans to circumvent the religious prohibition against self-harm. The gentle death is achieved only through othin ingestion, a painless, lethal drug cultivated and distributed exclusively by the Batiorum to control and audit the suicide rate in the empire.

## Tradition

In the Ushanra Empire and Sitaran societies, the option of suicide is entirely normal and in some cases institutionalized and officiated by religious and government systems. In Diabranewa, Solemn expressly forbade that any Diabran should commit self-harm, as with a sharp instrument or rope, narrowing the choices for suicide down to poison—the 'gentle death', as named by Ushanran theologians.

## Notes

Suicide in Ushanra is pursued for a variety of options, be it personal or economic. In order to follow through, the person must first petition their local diaar they are registered with and if their plea is accepted, a measured sample of othin is delivered to their residence to be taken in privacy. After the date of the scheduled suicide, coroners from the diaar are summoned to retrieve the corpse, and the othin vial to prevent its duplication. Anyone registered to die is tracked down to ensure their expiration, as the rarity of the poison is legendary and many have faked petitions just for a chance to recreate it.

A person's suicide request can always be denied, of course, after their plea is reviewed by the diaar. Some verdicts have deemed petitioners' reasoning as "trivial" or may even recommend counseling to the redeemable. Other petitioners are too valuable to lose to suicide, and are denied on the basis that they can still contribute to society. The most commonly approved pleas are from victims of chronic disease or illness, or the elderly, for whom suffering is an incurable constant.

Culturally, Ushanrans approve of (and even require) that members of their community who have shamed themselves, their family, or their country with dishonor should take it upon himself to petition the diaar for a gentle death and spare the world further grief because of their actions. The Ushanrans view the gentle death as the route of the honorable penitent, the ultimate atonement, and grudges or vendettas held towards him or his kin after the fact are criticized by the community. After a person has chosen the gentle death to atone for their dishonor, it is considered reprehensible of anyone they have wronged to seek reparations of any kind of the family. According to the culture, the suicide victim had already forfeited everything they were and everything they could have been as redemption, and it is beyond distasteful to make demands of the penitent dead.

Three classes of people are forbidden from applying for the gentle death: those accused of capital crimes, soldiers in the Ushocon, and slaves.

Any unsanctioned suicide is penalized by the empire, which seizes all of the deceased's assets regardless of whether or not they left relatives behind.

## Trivia

* Ironically enough, there have been many cases of "faked" suicides, when petitioners who were denied the gentle death may hire someone to stage their murders, so as to relieve their burdens but protect their estates from being seized.