Death, Dying and Burial: Fantasy Cremation

[Nyeshet]

If I recall correctly, Ma'at translates as 'truth' or 'honor'. It is basically the modern concept of having integrity or being honorable, but it specifies actions in life that relate to religion. If your soul was true, then it is lighter than the feather of Ma'at (guarded by Bastet, or perhaps some sacred felines) and it continues into the afterlife. If your soul is heavier than the feather, it means you have broken a major taboo at some point in your life, and your soul is forfeit to a soul devourer - the type depending on the type of sin. Did you ever break an oath made to any of the gods? Did you ever fail to show proper respect inside a temple or before a high priest? Did you ever use less than the best when making a sacrifice to the gods? etc. The soul devourers were basically the Egyption form of fiends - except that the soul is utterly destroyed / lost rather than merely condemned to eternal torture.

The boat motiff is nice, but it is never set ablaze in Egyptian mythology. Instead it acts more as Charon's boat did in Greek mythology - a path and guide into the afterlife (albeit an involuntary one. No one, as I recall, could choose not to go aboard it after death). Perhaps the body is carried to the alter in a coffin / pall that resembles a boat, signifying the final voyage in life. There, upon the alter, they are ritually placed, and the final spell is cast.

Hmm, I rather like the idea of 'one miracle for everyone'. I think it could work particularly well in a world like Eberron, where the gods are distant, the actual existence of the gods is in doubt, and most priests are experts rather than clerics. It would be more of an incantation than a spell - as even the mere expert priests could perform it, and the ritual accompanying it would be the entire funerary process - from the ritual removal of organs, to the bearing of the body to the alter in a boat-shaped pall / coffin, to the final incantations that result in the sacred blaze. I like it.

 

[gizmo33]

I was considering the impact of death and burial in a standard D&D campaign. Obviously the threat of death is lessen greatly by availability of spells like Raise Dead or Resurrection. Also, mass graveyards are a target for nefarious necromancer that have a habit of animating dead relatives and having them march against the local town.

IMO DnD needs a "cheap" protection from animation spell for the dead. Using Hallow for that purpose is like using wall of fire to cook your dinner.

Secondly, I think a campaign world that uses burial could probably benefit from a mythological rationale. DMs should consider that these rituals have some actual meaning for the people involved. People bury, rather than cremate, because it serves a purpose. That purpose is campaign specific. For example - buried characters (treated with the appropriate anti-undead spell) are raised at the end of time to fight at their god's side in the final battle. Or maybe, in the case of a druidic faith, the land is somehow "blessed" by each body that is allowed to decompose naturally within it.

The alternative, cremation, leaves only small earthly remains that cannot be raised or resurrected and without a corpse necromancers cannot raise armies. Because of this threat, I was thinking that fantasy cremation may be more common.

Imagine a higher level animation spell that can create a shadow or ghost from ashes. In 1E DnD, the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Ash is a negative material elemental plane - a decent connection for undead.

How would such cremation take place? For flavor purposes, I do not want the priests to set some sticks under the corpse and light it on fire. I was considering "magic ovens" where the magic spells destroy the body. But that reminds me too much of the horror of the Nazi Holocaust, so I'd like to avoid that scenario.

IMO, the classic viking cremation aboard ship, or the funeral pyre (as in the movie Conan) are chock full of flavor. The funeral pyre in the Conan movie is not just some pile of "sticks".

What other cremations techniques can you envision?

Volcano. Elemental Plane of Fire.
Also, there are always things like acid vats and such that aren't fire but could produce similar results. Fire has a sacred quality to it though, that acid doesn't have.

 

[Storminator]

IMC a priest can say a blessing over the dead, and they can't be reanimated as long as that priest is alive and pious. If the dead are buried in a church graveyard, the dead can't be reanimated as long as the church isn't desicrated.

On distant battlefields, the dead are burned. This prevents reanimation. The goblinoids, however, consider reanimation a good thing, with ghouls being especially revered. So when the humans burn the goblin and orc bodies (frex after the recent war...), they are considered monsters. Nothing like a little culture class to keep the game moving!

PS

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

This sounds very cool. It might be interesting to have a hierarchy of fire spells used, so that a commoner would get a low-level fire spell, whereas only nobility or royalty would get flamestrike. The display would make a good funerary rite to demonstrate importance.

You might consider a holy spell like flame strike. As an alternative, a shaped- Wall of Fire to make it a pillar or column of flame that burns for an extended period.

 

[fnork de sporg]

Does Flesh to Stone work on dead bodies? A little expensive for a funeral, but each city could construct a magic item that casts it a certain times per day. Or you could devise a much lower version of the spell that only works on the inanimate dead.

There's no way they're making those things in to undead armies, and you still get to have wondrously atmospheric cemetery fields. Now filled with grisly stone corpses!

I could see this working for dwarves particularly well.


But, yeah, I agree with the post above that any alternative style of disposing of the dead will most likely just result in some new freakish form of undead, like cremated Fire Wraiths or stoneflesh ghouls, or monstrous spirit-possessed vultures, or what have you.

 

[Nyeshet]

I could see this working for dwarves particularly well.

The world I'm building already has something like this. Dwarves were created a few thousand years ago by an earthen deity wishing to create more perfect humanoids. He sculpted them from crystal, from stone, from metal, and from clay. It is rumored he even sculpted some from melted sand (glass). Then he imparted life to his creations, and they grew softer, becoming flesh. Now, upon death, a dwarf stiffens, and after a few days he returns to the form he would otherwise have had. The original dwarves were purely of a given substance, but since then the lines have intermixed many times, and most become a medley of earthen materials after death (although usually more of one type - such as metals - than another).

Some clans actively contemplate the resultant metamorphosis after death, and marriages within such clans are often arranged with the purpose of 'purifying' the line, so that later generations will be more purely and completely of a given metal, stone, etc - with the idea that such dwarves will be closest to the perfect forms originally crafted by their creator deity (which is no longer alive, incidentally, to guide them in this matter - or encourage / discourage it).

The dwarves of a given type are determined by their original substance: cavern (stone) dwarves, hill / mining (metal) dwarves, plains (clay) dwarves (good farmers, actually, living in large underground tunnels and lairs rather like sentient prairie dogs) are the main ones. Crystaline dwarves are uncommon. They have more or less faded out of existence as a group, their ancestry existing in the mix of the other races. Sand / Glass dwarves are nomadic wanderers of the deserts and arid regions, often acting as uniting factors between distant clans.

After death a dwarf is ceremonially garbed in their best and arranged in a position that befits their dignity, position in life, etc. Their resultant statue is placed in vertical hollows along a hall in the necropolis / crypt. Families tend to have their own walls. Thus the resultant crypt tends to resemble a simple maze of walls inlaid with dwarven statues dressed in the armor, clothing, etc of the age - perhaps carrying a weapon, tool, or other item often used in life.

This is just to show that the idea of becoming a statue after death is not unique but in fact rather interesting. Think of it as another form of mummification - less demeaning to the appearance, among other things. Note that some magic items (including intelligent ones) can be made from metals, stones, gems, etc taken from such statues. Note also that dwarves tend to become very very angry and vindictive upon learning of such desecration - and that all dwarves can tell upon a momentary touch whether the material touched was ever part of a dwarf.

On the other hand, some of the more distant and less social clans are known to deal with criminals in such a manner. Not only are they slain, their bodies are afterwords destroyed, shattered into numerous parts, and any useful ores are melted down and used to make tools traded to humans, elves, or others - or even dwarves bound to menial service, the displeasure of using such an item furthering their punishment in a manner mere hard labor could not. And, of course, there is the demeaning nature of knowing your body - after death - will be used as tools by races you likely consider inferior, etc.

Sorry about the tanget - let's get back on the subject.

 

[Baron Opal]

Wow. Get enough dead dwarves of limestone, granite and sand, crush them on a rainy day, and you can pour your own dwarven concrete wall! Cool. How creepy would that be, having your clan's mausuleam raided to be tomorrow's shell keep?

 

[mythusmage]

About cremation: When the situation prevents cremation how would bodies be protected from necromancy etc.? What with all the Divine magics running around already, I figured people would come up with Divine magics meant to protected the deceased from such desecration.

To encourage the design and development of such magics I've started a thread. You're welcome to participate.