I have a potential group for BitD that wants to have a funeral parlor as part of the set-up. I know Doskvol is pretty much as you want it to be but with ghosts etc. I don’t know if the city has private undertakers or not.
Any thoughts about this?
I have a potential group for BitD that wants to have a funeral parlor as part of the set-up.
I have a potential group for BitD that wants to have a funeral parlor as part of the set-up.
How about a crew of Smugglers who run an illegal funeral parlor? Supply Line: Arcane/Weird. They could take the special ability that makes them immune to possession and allows them to transport ghosts in their bodies as passengers. Their whole deal could be helping rich folk maintain their lives after death.
Theoretically they shouldn’t, since corpses are cremated to avoid the spirit raising, but I could totally see a vigil held on the ash vessel out of respect for a nobleman. Or even the funeral of an important person with a crew of spirit wardens standing watch until the third day.
There is lots of scope for interesting things with a funeral parlour. Firstly is the likelihood of this being a less than legitimate business. Running or exerting influence over a place like this is a good way to get rid of bodies that you’d like to disappear. Sure you can dump them in the river but maybe you want to make sure the story that they “went away” doesn’t get contradicted or the volume of your bloody business might attract attention if you weren’t circumspect. Perhaps you worry about public health. In addition there are certain parties who would find easy access to fresh corpses useful, from medical students to occultists (see the funeral home in I, Zombie as an example of this). Who will really know if Aunt Edna has a companion in her coffin, or is she goes to her eternal rest with some of her organs missing.
Secondly is the possibility that grave robbery requires a more serious attention to security. If you look up grave robbing on Wikipedia there is some interesting reading. Perhaps the better off buy coffins with booby traps or arrange for burial in cemeteries with groups of armed men guarding the recent graves. Maybe it is very important that the right rituals and wards are used to prevent the aforementioned ghosts. If you poisoned your uncle so you can steal his position in the cult you probably want to be sure that he doesn’t come back as a vengeful spirit.
Also: no graves, the Bellweather Crematory house processes all the corpses with electroplasm.
Again, I could totally see an urn gallery for important people.
That’s what I thought. Certainly there are possibilities with this but not as a front (Doskvol being what it is) 🙂
Scott Udall this is a very interesting thing because Smuggler crew what one of the players said he was interested in! This could very well be part of their deal.
So, your idea is that PCs or at least one of them lets a ghost to ride him and they smuggle the spirit from the city?
Actually I am not quite sure how smugglers operate in this setting with terrible powers outside the cities, so smuggler crew gives me bit of a worry, too.
Well, on the one hand, I think everything is run through the Spirit Wardens. That said, funeral homes could still serve the purpose of hosting funeral services and requiems, so it’s possible.
I would see undertakers as the middle-men between the family and the Spirit Wardens. Sure, everyone gets cremated, but do you want a basic “burn and go”, or a more dignified event with a ceremony, etc?
I can see funeral parlours existing for the brief time between death and arrival of the Wardens. The crafting of death masks and other rituals, and of course its a status symbol to properly prepare the corpse just for incineration.
You could also set the game in a different city which may have a different workflow for death. Say somewhere that uses mumification to trap ghosts in bodies?
Just because the Spirit Wardens are officially in charge of electroplasmic cremation doesn’t mean they do it personally, does it? We outsource all sorts of stuff to third party organizations, even our prison system. Who says you can’t have a crematorium that is sub-contracted to the Spirit Wardens?
And, rather like Dan Voyce suggested, I don’t know about a parlour between death and the Wardens – I envision that being a very short period – but certainly after the process is done, families may wish a “traditional” funeral with some sort of effigy / empty urn/casket.