Funerary practices

Both major religions of Kasslyne view the sea as a type of hell because the Khert is bound to the continent and those who die far enough out at sea cannot have their souls and memories taken by the khert. Burial at sea is thus sacrilegious and a form of desecration.

## Gefendur

Gefendur bury their dead, returning the crude matter of their bodies to the earth and Mother Yerta. If a body doesn't get buried it's not a huge deal allowing unclaimed bodies to be used as plods without offending Gefendur doctrine. Younger twins are ritually killed and eaten in sacrifices to the twin gods, though the custom is becoming less popular and more sanitized over time. Twins' skeletal remains are interred publicly at Twin Srines where their elder twin's remains will be joined with their younger twins after their own deaths. Other Gefendur may be buried in individual plots or interred in crypts.

### Cresce

Gold and cyan are the colors associated with the khert due to benign ghosts being those colors, thus they are the colors of mourning and death. "[Standard Crescian mourning robes are g]old and cyan silk robe with a headpiece that’s supposed to dangle brass petals over their eyes to hide them, kind of like a veil[...]. The family of the departed hold a wake with the body for a day, then there’s a funeral in the local Gefendur shrine and all the priestesses carry the body to the cemetery where it’s interred. A priestess stays at the gravesite for a week in case the soul wanders back whole or piecemeal, so she can shoo it along. Everyone else prays that the Twins and perhaps a locally significant Victori help the dead person’s spirit out on its journey through the khert. Offerings are left at the gravesite and shrine, usually incense, tiny figures of the gods or Yerta’s fawn [Niper], softi flowers, and jars of super sweet homemade fruit wine which is superstitiously thought to be a favourite of wandering ghosts."

Graveyards and crypts are often decorated with statues and reliefs of the twin gods, Yerta's fawn, and Riv's chaos beasts. The graveyard in Lurick hides the entrance to Juste in a statue of Yerta.

### Alderode

Superstition regarding the sanctity of leather made from twinflesh has led to a large black market for human skin, to be turned to leather and used in armor by Gefendur paladins and other items for Paternal Gefendur adherents. This has resulted in skinned bodies of various origins being dumped in areas outside of the Ghers. Use of bodies for the making of Plods is outlawed though the Gefendur have no doctrinal basis for such a decree, instead having it forced upon them by their Ssaelit countrymen. Plague victims are cremated regardless of their religion when things are organized enough for the dead to be disposed of, though things have broken down enough in the plague lands that bodies may end up left to rot or tossed in the trash.

### Rachshane

In isolationist Rachshane the government has decreed that the only proper way to deal with human dead is through cannibalism.

## Ssaelism

Natural decomposition is viewed as an undignified process, one of the failings and cruelties of the gods. Thus Ssaelit dead are to be cremated quickly before the body can begin to rot. It's for this reason that plods are specifically damned and outlawed in Ssaelit scripture, making them illegal throughout all of Alderode. "Ssaelit undertakers are typically wrights. They’re licensed to tidily core leech whatever remains after the initial cremation. This was one of Duane’s duties in the army, in fact: walking through battlegrounds, collecting the Aldish version of dogtags, whispering last rites, and then disposing of the dead." While traditional Ssaelit cremation sees the deceased cremated at high temperature and then remaining bone fragments ground or core leeched those without financial means or family to see to their proper cremation are tossed in a pit and burned in a less regulated manner. Those who die at sea are thought to have their souls permanently lost, and burial at sea is forbidden. "A lock of hair or three are sometimes snipped from the deceased, and installed into tabletop family shrines for a surviving spouse or child. Then that’s often burned with the survivors when it’s their time, provided there’s no one left who’d want to hang on to it. The Ssaelit aren’t very sentimental with the dead, generally though[, and rarely keep such mementos.]

In some more rural parts of Alderode, [Ssaelit add cremated ashes] to fields when they’re plowed, but this isn’t as popular as it used to be." "The planting of the dead [is] a week long springtime custom when Ssaelit ashes from the previous year are turned over into the new year’s soil, along with all the services and customs surrounding it. In the cities and further north where the ground doesn’t thaw, this is represented by the planting of lots and lots of flowers, hanging greenery everywhere, and celebrating people who died in the last year by making all their favourite food, playing their favourite music, and telling stories about them. It’s also when new babies have their names officially entered into the registry of their ghers.
At the end of the planting, all the decorative greenery is put into a bonfire, and everyone gets super drunk."

## Inak

"Inak don’t generally believe in any sort of existence after death[.] Inak view death as a well-deserved rest inside the hearts of ones’ children."

The matriarch of the Children of Shaensigin clan displaced beneath Litriya Shrine in Cresce keeps her parents’ skulls decorated with paint and gemstones "in a special spot above her resting place and the memory of them cherished close, which is pretty standard practice."

## Plague Dead

Those who died from the Weeping Plague are cremated, oft en mass, with their eyes covered and access to the bodies extremely restricted in areas outside Fachlyne in order to try and prevent its spread. While the place hardest hit with the Plague is a Ssaelit majority ginnal and most of the dead would have been cremated anyway Gefendur plague victims are also burned. Because of Fachlyne's strict quarantine and the dismantling of the Damakhert within it proper disposal and customs relating to the deceased are not well regulated within the *ginnal*.

## Desecration

The corpses of opposing forces are often desecrated by survivors, though Ssaelit teachings demand that all bodies in the care of their followers are respectfully burnt. After the Lions of Mercy attacked the Gefendur twin shrine Litriya, attempting to rape and murder the girls within, the Cresceian military had their bodies thrown into the sea.

1. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/158900994955/is-there-a-particular-reason-symbolism-behind
2. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/162978507000/weird-random-question-crescian-mourning-dress-is
3. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/156758493165/ive-a-question-aside-from-giant-pictures-in-the
4. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/621379387609186305/is-there-a-set-amount-of-time-you-have-since
5. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/102786977760/what-do-ssaelit-do-if-they-dont-have-enough-fuel
6. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/615320458497261568/small-problem-with-ssaelit-burnings-burning
7. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/658552961269645312/since-ssaelit-dont-let-their-bodies-rot-i
8. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/615227851126538240/hi-do-you-do-easter-at-your-home-is-there-easter
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/188369789365/in-that-linked-page-was-nana-referring-to-an