Sibsig

It is often said that the Gloomers would not allow the sun to set if they could prevent it. Outsiders to the Loam Province often misunderstand the spirituality behind their decision to resurrect the dead in the various forms that they do. Outsiders often claim that Gloomers are lazy, arrogant, or worse, uncaring about the toil their ancestors felt in life, given that they refuse them rest.

For Loam Province, this could not be further from the truth. The people believe that the duty to serve your country does not end in death, and they undertake the act of animating their dead with a solemn understanding that their time will come when they too pass. They call this mentality 'Sibsig'; life within death, a term also used for those who dwell in sapient undead forms.

In the eyes of their people, the body is a hollow shell, the spirit long gone, and so to abandon it to the rot of the earth would be a greater sin than to call upon the dead to aid the living. In Gloomer households, it is not uncommon to see skeletal or mummified undead family members caring for young children, undertaking chores, or fulfilling ceremonial roles when living equivalents cannot be found.

There are three tiers of honour for the dead.

1. The Broken Rest - When a body is too broken to be animated, or an animated corpse is destroyed fulfilling its duty, they are used in medicinal or ritual practices, each treated with solemn reverence. The exception is if the skull is whole, where it is preserved and placed in an archival catacomb to allow its ossified memories to be called upon as needed.
2. The Endless Duty - When a person dies, there are two possible paths for their reanimation. As mummified body, they are buried in salt pits to drain their bodies of moisture before they are wrapped in sturdy fabrics and animated as Wrapped Ones.
   
   The alternative is for the body to be lowered into a pit of flesh-consuming insects in a ceremonial basket. The insects consume the soft matter of the body and leave only pristine bone within a week. These skeletal forms have their bones linked with golden alloy or jade rings to hold the bones together while animate. This body is then animated as a Hollow One.
3. Sibsig - The greatest honour a Gloomer can receive is eternal unlife as a Sibsig. The Sibsig can be crafted from any corpse, but it is typically done with fresh bodies to minimise the decay of the corpse. Any missing components are typically replaced with jade, which can make the animation of long-dead Sibsig exceptionally costly.
   
   The would-be Sibsig is then animated in a lengthy and secret ritual, wherein the spirit is bound to the body and jade, and the remaining flesh is preserved. The spirit is then called back to the body, and it awakens in an undying form.
   
   The returned sibsig retain a sense of self and memories of their life before return, but there remains some question if they are wholly the same person. Most sibsig will still consider themselves the same individual and continue in the same role, often with an elevated status; there are examples of returned individuals having different personalities from whom they were in life or having memories that do not seem to be their own, and may pursue entirely different roles within the province after their return.
   
   The raising of unwilling persons is forbidden, while leaders, skilled artisans, and venerated warriors vie for the honour of being returned.

There is a banned form of this ritual that uses altered processes using transmutative spells from the Flux Province that cause a living person to achieve a form of undeath. The act of bestowing unlife to a living individual is abhorrent to all practitioners of the Sibsig way. Most notably, the process involves painfully transmuting all internal bones within the body to a form of 'living' jade. Such individuals are known as Reborn .

Anyone found performing the ritual is said to be stripped of all clothing and belongings and is to be cast into the Living Wilds at the rising of the next sun.

Anyone found willingly undergoing this process is bound into the Archival Catacombs.

Anyone forced into this process is granted an opportunity to serve the community anew.

Type

Religious, Cult

Permeated Organizations

• Loam Province