I'm currently GMing RotRL AP and one of the characters recently has been killed by Scarecrow. Others want to bury him properly, but nobody knows how it's done in Gorum's religion. Is he burned? Or placed in the cemetery? Or send back to his family? And what about his equipment - armor, weapons, magic items - do they go with him?
Deceased character was duergar-inquisitor raised by an eccentric dwarven warrior.
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I don't see anything in Inner Sea Gods that brings up his burial rites specifically, so I imagine it could be anything you want it to be.
For my take, I envision a Gorumite funeral to be pretty much like a viking one. Lay him down on a funeral pyre in his armor and weapons (other equipment can be removed) and light the pyre while telling tales of the great battles he fought. Longboat optional.
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Something destructive and violent seems appropriate for the more evil members of his faith, like flinging his corpse at an enemy, or animating it to go on a bloody rampage.
Making a weapon out of his bones (even just making arrow-tips with bones taken from his ribs or shoulderblades and shooting people with them, so that he gets to get some licks in from beyond the grave) could be a slightly less over-the-top way to go for the CN sorts. Even as one-shot weapons, they might be considered to be individual acts of remembrance and to allow multiple people to each fire off an arrow at some point and give him another chance to engage in battle, at least vicariously. (Bones important to one's ability to fight, like fingerbones, would be left intact, most likely. Leaving the body in a condition where it couldn't, in theory, fight, might be seen as disrespectful.)
Burial in armor and with a weapon (preferably a greatsword, gripped in gauntleted hands?) seems appropriate, but, given the real world tendency for priests to eat the animals 'sacrificed' to their gods afterwards, or people to send their ancestors worthless 'spirit money' instead of burning actual cash, there might be a level of practicality built in where the Gorumite is dressed up in ceremonial armor (for cheap seats) or mundane armor (for higher ranks) and only very rarely is someone buried in masterwork or magical armor of value.
You could cremate him and use carbon produced from that in alloying steel to make a sword, perhaps?
You could cremate him and use carbon produced from that in alloying steel to make a sword, perhaps?
When I first read this, I thought it was silly... but that sounds pretty epic.
It doesn't make a lot of sense from a metallurgical standpoint, but it's just incredibly f@*$ing metal.
(pun intended)
Players do like the idea to make from deceased a sword. They think to place it on the wall, above the fireplace, in their future guildhouse.
Man, I just imagine walking into a church of Gorum and around the shrine, having a pool of sand with swords thrust into it. Each sword is the remains of a truly great warrior who died honorably.
I imagine some Gorumites would not want to be buried with their armor and weapons. I can't recall reading anything specific about this, but The Lord in Iron does not seem like the kind who likes to waste good steel. As much of the equipment of the faithful are taken from fallen enemies in the first place, they would probably approve of a worthy ally taking up their blade to keep on shedding blood in the name of Gorum. There's probably more tools of war littered about Gorum's realm than anywhere else in the multiverse, so it's not like they wouldn't have anything to fight with in the afterlife.
The actual ceremony would be simple, I think. Companions-in-arms recounting tales of their fallen comrade's deeds in battle. The way the deceased is actually buried is probably not all that important, as long as they died a glorious death in battle. Likely something fitting for the local culture, like a viking burial in the northern lands, or interring a dwarf in an underground tomb with the other honored warriors of their clan.