Though elves are almost as long lived as dragons and eldarin come from (and return to) another plane, death finds members of both races often enough that funerary customs have been put into place.
After a death, clerics of fey gods of death notify the friends and loved ones of the deceased. They should participate in the cleaning and preparation of the remains. These same clerics, friends and loved one employ the Gentle Repose ritual to preserve the remains. They inter the remains on the morning of the first full moon following the death as part of elaborate and festive ceremony. Weather permitting, a sapling in planted over the grave – occasionally an elf or eladrin reincarnates as a dryad as the saplings matures into a tree. Elves and eldarin allow members of other races attend these events if they were close to the deceased.
In time between the death and the interment, elves and eladrin keep the remains of the dead in tombs, under guard until the final interment. These tombs are elaborates and see lots of reuse and a haunted tomb is usually the result of a tomb burglary before final interment. Elves and eldarin consider it strange to employ a tomb as the final resting place for the deceased. However, certain items – such as arcane books, weapons, armor, magic items and the like – are stored in a family’s tomb until an appropriate heir is ready to lay claim to an object.
Elves and eldarin usually exile criminals and for serious enough crimes they exile them from the living world, forcing them alive by magic into the shadow land. These criminal do not receive proper interment and sometimes become undead.
Adventure Hooks
- A necromancer stole the remains of an elf from its tomb, where it awaited the next full moon. The party is hired to retrieve the remains before then.
- While walking through an elf forest an older character, who knew a now-deceased elf, encounters a dryad claiming to be that dead elf… and asserting the character still owes her money.
- Valued friends of a dead eladrin, the party are excepted to participate in the funeral.
Great post! I’m always on the lookout for little bits of salient detail that can be dropped into Encounters to vary it between groups that play through the session, as well as that can be added into other existing modules to alter them enough to make them re-playable with some new twists and turns. Thanks for the thematic elements and adventure hooks!