Sepultism

The Sepultist movement flies directly in the face of traditional Tayvan values. All of mortalkind ultimately seeks to work towards the Reclamation. We are drawn to the High Place even in death. To bury one's dead under the soil of our place of punishment makes difficult the flight of their souls towards Tay's embrace. This idea of sepulture strays dangerously close to heresy.

-Mandrite Saythar Bafran of the Steeple

Sepultism is a counter-culture movement revolving around the rejection of traditional sky burial practices and instead opting for sepulture, or the act of interment within the ground.
Sky burial is the traditional burial method used continent-wide across Frehr both by Citadel and Mekar. Though the Mekarii practice what is considered to be a highly divergent form of Tayvanism called Meshikism, numerous traditions remain the same or similar. Both the Treo-Lorian Alliance and Chaesian Empire engage in paganism and thus hold to different burial practices so far is known.
Sepultism first gained notoriety after the Seventh Resurgence during the Time of Heroes. Historians estimated that the 7th Resurgence, the first one mortalkind ever faced without the aid of the Saints, was so destructive that four in five people in all of Frehr (Citadel and Mekar combined) had been killed. The only standing buildings remained in remote villages and cities on the outermost edges of the continent.
With so many corpses to bury, many remaining leaders of that time considered mass graves or mass pyres. The immense number of bodies led to concerns over pests and disease, but there was an apprehension to the practice which was exacerbated by the religious leadership of Tayvanism. Though ultimately, according to historic record, the Steeple succeeded in convincing the people and bodies were put to sky burial, there were several reports and firsthand accounts of small village leaders begrudgingly giving in to mass graves via Sepultism. Some even lauded the practice, mentioning that the lack of smell was certainly a point in its favor.
After this point in history, the idea of sepulture was put forth as a means of dealing with the masses of dead after major conflicts. Though typically minor suggestions that were overshadowed by other issues according to historical account, a full counter-cultural movement didn't manifest until around seven decades ago in the aftermath of the last war with the Mekar Ascendancy.
The Sepultists, as they were called, formed from a rather large contingent of both civilian and military members of the city-state of Vanthekkar. The city-state sits on the westernmost edge of the Citadel Coalition within the Goagan Mountains. This city-state had a history of fending off Mekarii aggression across the isthmus. Often viewed as the first line of defense for Citadel, the Vanthii often see lots of conflict and thus are well prepared and defended. The Weeping War saw the earth before the city walls carpeted in bodies. The enemy death toll was so high that the smell of decay on the field of battle wholly inhabited the region. No highest tower nor deepest cave in Vanthekkar was exempt from the smell of death.
Concerned with smell and possible spreading of disease, the Sepultist movement began to gain more and more traction. Through protests - some violent - and civil disobedience the Sepultist movement managed to convince the king of Vanthekkar enough that he disregarded the council of the Tayvan Archimandrite of Vanthekkar. In an effort to stop both protest and smell, the Vanthii king approved the use of mass graves and even aided in providing the manpower to do so. Civilian and soldier worked side by side to bury the Mekarii dead below the ground on which they rested for so long. That field to this day is called the Wailing Wastes where the local Vanthii claim ghosts of the dead Mekarii soldiers wander.