Gents,
An off-hand comment by Liam Devlin in another thread sparked my interest in ths topic. Rather than hijack that thread, I've started a new one here.
In regard to Virasa, the primary religion on Dulinor's homeworld of Dlan, Mr. Devlin wrote in that other thread:
Your "interred on Dlan" would create a very interesting cargo trade throughout the region!
During the brief excitment surrounding the JTAS "Antares Supernova" setting, which was sadly abandoned almost as quickly as it arose, I toyed around with a few ideas for background description/adventure seeds. One idea riffed off the beliefs of the Church of Stellar Divinity.
It seems Antares is home to one of that faith's 'mother churchs'. The SD 'patriarch' or 'pope' calls the planet home and, as a theocracy, Antares is ruled by the SD. One of the tenets of the SD faith has true believers rewarded in the afterlife by becoming 'one with the gods'. When your remember that stars are gods in the SD faith, certain burial customs come to mind. With Antares among the most visible stars in the sector, if not the Imperium, and the home to the mother church, it is only natural that members of the Stellar Divinty faith would wish to be interred in the Antares system.
Believers who are wealthy enough would arrange to have their remains or part of their remains shipped to Antares. Just how wealthy they are would determine whether a corpse is shipped, a package of ashes is shipped, or a few grams of ashes sent along. When you factor in tens of billions of believers across hundreds of worlds, the Ash Trade to Antares will be substantial.
Of course the SD in Antares has to handle this constant stream of remains. The planet itself would be dotted with thousands of ossuaries and hecatombs. After centuries, I'd suspect the church to begin restricting interment on Antares itself and beging interring remains elsewhere in the system. For example; once suitably sanctified, a honeycombed planetoid could hold the remains and partial remains of millions. Such a site would require 'caretakers' if only in a religious sense, I found the idea of a vacc-suited monestary quite intriguing.
I jotted down a several adventure seeds with all this. The Ash Trade would have large socio-economic issues. Shipping costs are high, even for a few gram 'sample' from a believer's remains. Churches distant from Antares would club together to ship remains, negotiating price breaks with transport firms. Believers would pay into 'insurance' policies for decades to cover the cost. SD theocracies would try and subsidize shipping costs leading to all sorts of political problems. There could even be lotteries that selected which remains were shipped from distant worlds to Antares for interment. Because interment on Antares itself would be restricted, all sort of shenanigans would take place when sufficiently rich, influential, and/or crazy relatives tried to ensure that Great-uncle Gummo ended up on Antares and not in some 'less stylish' planetoid.
As for the Antares supernova itself, which will happen sooner or later, the SD has decidely odd views about it. According to SD doctrine, the supernova is a good thing. That suggested a whole raft of other adventure seeds. Imagine that the supernova occurs, what sort of actions will believers beyond Antares then take in order to become 'one with the god'?
cure evil laughter...
Have fun,
Bill
An off-hand comment by Liam Devlin in another thread sparked my interest in ths topic. Rather than hijack that thread, I've started a new one here.
In regard to Virasa, the primary religion on Dulinor's homeworld of Dlan, Mr. Devlin wrote in that other thread:
Liam,
Your "interred on Dlan" would create a very interesting cargo trade throughout the region!
During the brief excitment surrounding the JTAS "Antares Supernova" setting, which was sadly abandoned almost as quickly as it arose, I toyed around with a few ideas for background description/adventure seeds. One idea riffed off the beliefs of the Church of Stellar Divinity.
It seems Antares is home to one of that faith's 'mother churchs'. The SD 'patriarch' or 'pope' calls the planet home and, as a theocracy, Antares is ruled by the SD. One of the tenets of the SD faith has true believers rewarded in the afterlife by becoming 'one with the gods'. When your remember that stars are gods in the SD faith, certain burial customs come to mind. With Antares among the most visible stars in the sector, if not the Imperium, and the home to the mother church, it is only natural that members of the Stellar Divinty faith would wish to be interred in the Antares system.
Believers who are wealthy enough would arrange to have their remains or part of their remains shipped to Antares. Just how wealthy they are would determine whether a corpse is shipped, a package of ashes is shipped, or a few grams of ashes sent along. When you factor in tens of billions of believers across hundreds of worlds, the Ash Trade to Antares will be substantial.
Of course the SD in Antares has to handle this constant stream of remains. The planet itself would be dotted with thousands of ossuaries and hecatombs. After centuries, I'd suspect the church to begin restricting interment on Antares itself and beging interring remains elsewhere in the system. For example; once suitably sanctified, a honeycombed planetoid could hold the remains and partial remains of millions. Such a site would require 'caretakers' if only in a religious sense, I found the idea of a vacc-suited monestary quite intriguing.
I jotted down a several adventure seeds with all this. The Ash Trade would have large socio-economic issues. Shipping costs are high, even for a few gram 'sample' from a believer's remains. Churches distant from Antares would club together to ship remains, negotiating price breaks with transport firms. Believers would pay into 'insurance' policies for decades to cover the cost. SD theocracies would try and subsidize shipping costs leading to all sorts of political problems. There could even be lotteries that selected which remains were shipped from distant worlds to Antares for interment. Because interment on Antares itself would be restricted, all sort of shenanigans would take place when sufficiently rich, influential, and/or crazy relatives tried to ensure that Great-uncle Gummo ended up on Antares and not in some 'less stylish' planetoid.
As for the Antares supernova itself, which will happen sooner or later, the SD has decidely odd views about it. According to SD doctrine, the supernova is a good thing. That suggested a whole raft of other adventure seeds. Imagine that the supernova occurs, what sort of actions will believers beyond Antares then take in order to become 'one with the god'?
cure evil laughter...
Have fun,
Bill
