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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nyeshet" data-source="post: 2749792" data-attributes="member: 18363">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.</blockquote>

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