Preface

I set these notes down for my apprentices and for any householder who must, in grief or duty, prepare a loved one for the long crossing. Customs differ from island to island, but the purpose is constant: guide the soul to the Spirit World and leave the body harmless behind.

First Principles of Passage

Every corpse retains a tether—habit, love, terror, unfinished oaths. The rite severs this tether and turns the spirit toward the Veil. Where such rites are kept, the flesh, if later put to wicked use by necromancy, can only shamble as a mindless puppet (what townsfolk call a zombie). Where the dead lie unrited and unburied, especially upon Ghor-wounded ground, the spirit and flesh may sour together into a ghoul: hungry, quick, and sometimes cruelly clever.

Remember this much and you will already be wiser than most priests who love their incense more than their people.

Earth-Burial with the Passage Words

The common way. Wash the body. Bind the jaw and hands. Lay a line of salt from crown to heel. Place a bundle of rosemary or its local cousin at the throat. Trace the guiding sigil over the heart. Speak the passage words once, clearly. Do not shout; the dead are not deaf, only distracted.

Lower the body shrouded, or in a wooden box if the family can afford it. A small lantern at the head of the grave, kept until dawn, is good sense where the Veil is thin.

Cairns and Barrows

In rural hamlets and outlying farmsteads that lack temple yards, folk raise stone cairns or small earthen barrows. The rite is the same; the stones deter beasts and meddling hands. Families return on remembrance days to renew the ward-marks cut into the capstones, for a ward never spoken again is a ward forgotten.

Tombs and Family Crypts

Noble houses and old guilds favor stone. There is no special virtue in marble beyond discouraging thieves. Ensure each interment receives its own passage rite, and relight the ward-lamps on remembrance days. Desecrated vaults near Ghor-stained places have birthed nests of ghouls because some steward thought “once blessed, blessed forever.”

Sea-Burial (a Fading Tradition)

Once, sailors were committed to the deep with weight and prayer, their bodies given to the tides beneath the stars. Salt was thought to serve in place of earth, and many logs speak of the comfort it gave crews to see their mates returned to the waters.

Now, few dare it. The seas are whispered to belong to Ghor, and unrited corpses cast into his realm are feared to rise again as drowned horrors. For this reason, even aboard ships, the dead are preserved with salt and cloth and borne ashore for proper burial when port is made.

Memorial Gardens

In towns where space is dear, families inter ashes or bone-tokens in communal memorial gardens. Each plot is marked by a flowering plant or small tree grown in consecrated soil. Priests and kin tend these places together. The living ward of many tender hands helps, but it does not replace the passage rite; it stands beside it.

On the Crimson Pyres

The Crimson Order rejects all meddling with the Veil. They burn their dead without burial, claiming fire alone frees the soul and that burial traps the faithful between worlds. I will not argue doctrine here. I note only this: ash does not rise as flesh does, and their pyres leave little for a necromancer to toy with. Some families—quietly—ask a Veil-student to speak the passage words before the body is given to flame. I have done so where grief asked and no priest was watching.

Mummified Vows

In elder days, the vowed of Quintra and Denday were prepared with spices and bindings, their hearts entrusted to sigils I am not permitted to copy here. Such mummies do not answer necromancers. When they stir, it is because an old charm has woken or a curse has been trod upon—never because some hedge-wizard whistled at them. The City of Silence keeps these sleepers; walk softly there.

Ossuaries and Bone-Houses

In crowded districts, bones are gathered after a year and a day and translated to common houses of the dead. If the first rite was true and the translation blessed, an ossuary is safer than a patchwork of neglected graves. If the first rite was botched—then you have merely stacked your troubles neatly.

Field Rites for Dark Times

War, plague, and winter do not wait for ceremony. When you have minutes, not hours, do this and do not falter:

1. Close the eyes. Bind the jaw. Cross the hands.
2. Draw a small guiding sigil over the heart with ash, chalk, or clean earth.
3. Place a sprig of any bitter herb at the throat.
4. Speak the passage words once without trembling.
5. Mark the place for later tending.

I have seen a field thus tended lie quiet where the next valley festered into a den of ghouls. It is not perfect work, but it is good work.

Thin Places and Ghor’s Scars

There are places where the Veil frays like old cloth—battlefields, plague pits, the shadow of certain ruins. Here, even well-spoken rites feel like shouting across a canyon. Double your wards. Keep a lantern through the night. If you have a Veil-mage, set them at the head and feed them broth when they sway.

Who Should Lead?

Any sober-hearted person can speak the lay words and mean them. Priests lend comfort and order. As for us Veil-students, we are at our best where the border is troubled—mending thin places, sensing when a spirit clings, setting a ward that will hold until the family can do the rest. Call who you have. Better an honest neighbor than a hired chanter who minds the purse more than the passing.

Afterword

If you remember nothing else: the rite is for the soul, the laying-to-rest (whether burial, garden, cairn, pyre, or vault) is for the living, and the wards are for both. Keep all three in balance, and your dead will be the kind who visit only in dreams.