Mausoleum's have always been popular in the land of Bellflower. In a land where Necromancer's can raise the dead, having them in unattended plots of land it is generally considered dangerous.
Historically, many were family vaults that would be used repeatedly with multiple bodies per vault. Since
The Plague of Silmora most opt to cremate their dead and only inter their ashes in the mausoleums. This was done to help prevent the spread of the plague, and even with the plague no longer affecting many people it is still common practice.
The poor historically were interred en masse in catacomb style mausoleum's beneath temples that were hallowed to prevent undead, while the rich would often have expensive marble buildings built with dedicated holy curators.
Tablets of Remembrance
In either case tablets of remembrance were used to mark the outsides of the vaults with names and family information about the deceased. Typically these tablets were made out of a hard stone, recording the name, parents, spouse and relevant dates. Sometimes the same large stone would record an entire series of generations of the family. Kings were known to have displayed publicly the tablets of their ancestors on large columns, plinths, or obelisks. With the popularity of cremation, some ashes are now spread elsewhere and the tablets are in the family residence instead of the mausoleum.
Stones of Memory
Rarer are the Elven Stones of Memory. These magic semi-precious stones are prepared prior to death by the owner. The stone is imprinted with special memories of the person as a sort of memory based memoir. Like real memories these are imprecise and colored with the emotions and bias of the imprinter. While most stones only store a dozen short memories, it is said that certain mages found ways to record extensive information in special rare versions. If such a technique exists, the high mages of
Tuathanan are the most likely to know of it.
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