 September 25, 2012 - 11:17am | What are yazirian tombs and graves like? Stone heads of great deeds, engravings of their defeated life-enemy? Do yazirians have personal effects buried with them? Racial weapon, family heirloom, etc. What happens when a yazirian grave is desecrated or robbed? Retribution? All clans, no matter their hatred of each other respect the graves of enemies. |
 September 25, 2012 - 4:07pm | Well there is a very short story about a yazirian grave being desecrated from the lost internet SF sites that I've included in my Book of Khadan's project which had a Hir kal or clan spirit haunting the crew of the ship that found and disturbed the grave. but what you are suggesting seems to be old school and ancient and I think there would be a dicotomy between the way things use to be done and modern wrinkles introduced in the past few centuries. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 25, 2012 - 4:20pm | One thing about yazirian's, their ancient past is their present future. :-) Yazirians have deep rooted cultural backgrounds, it's something that glues them together. Yazirian shipmates in space often bury there dead by spacing them towards the systems star. These yaz are wrapped in a formal cloth with the possession secured to the body. ...anyway, some random thoughts --- Nowhere have I seen references to ghost or spirits. Something new you're kicking around? |
September 25, 2012 - 4:51pm | I'm pretty sure I shared it with you a year ago (in fact you commented on it)- something written approximately 12 years ago. But its written in such away that the yazirian character believes their is a spirit and the reader never really knows for sure. At anyrate I co-opted it for the Book of Khadans. RE: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/5976 I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 25, 2012 - 8:32pm | Looks like I archived it. :-P I should add these to the SFman project... |
 September 26, 2012 - 10:14am | Have you ever read the book Midworld by Alan Dean Foster. They have a race of tree dwelling people that bury their dead in the trees. They take a hole in the tree, place the body in it and cover it with something that grows into the tree. Thus the body is absorbed into the tree. I am not suggesting the full back to the tree and reabsorption line but I like the connection to the trees for Yazirians. I see Yazirians making coffins from tree trunks and large branches. They hollow these out from one end and slide the wrapped body inside then cap the open end with another piece of the same trunk/limb cut previously from the same piece and fashioned into a cap. The coffin is left to look tree like (log like) on the outside and lashed into the branches or on the sides of a large tree. The exposed wood of the cap (the cross section) is carved with a representation of the deceased and his name and clan are carved into the cap as well with some short accounts of his life in a still living ancient hieroglyphic yazirian text. The ancient yazirians would have developed excellent treatments for wood; varnishes, lacquers, and sealants to preserve the wood and seal the contents in permanently. I also see them carving the insides of the coffins with well wishes and accolades for the departed only to see. Imagine this grave tree with coffins lashed to it all about. The tree is well groomed and managed. Yazirians visit their dead by climbing the tree and leaping and gliding from coffin to coffin to read the engraved caps. Then they can hang privately with their departed kin in this comforting environment. Modern yazirian worlds lacking the proper trees build great tree like buildings with alcoves and limb clefts to secur imported wooden coffins too. The building slowly over time takes on the appearance of a real great tree as the coffins cover the surface and arboreal plants are added to decorate the grave tree. -iggy |
September 26, 2012 - 10:42am | @ Iggy: I like the tree grave thing and to that I would add that on their native yazira they would have adapted to a variety of environments such that those that lived in cliff dwellings may have carved a Hall of Warriors deeper into the cliff face that they filled with the coffins you described. other geographic areas lacking the big trees may have made other adaptions of the practice but the practice you describe could be a base line ancient practice. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 26, 2012 - 11:06am | Yes anciently there would have been environmental variations for a time but clan traditions prevail and the grave tree wins out strongly creating a stable trade in coffin woods. Some clans here or there with long histories build grave cliffs or grave peaks, but never graves on low ground or planes. The need to climb and glide forced these ancient clans to travel long distances to bury their dead at a "respectable" height. Clans that can no longer trace their history back to an alternate grave site fall back to the grave tree. One common theme in all of the various sites would still be the use of wood for the coffins, even when they were not strapped to trees. I can see the coffin being made of multiple pieces of wood cut and joined together to appear as a solid piece of a trunk/limb but these have always been substitutes for the real thing. -iggy |
September 26, 2012 - 1:08pm | Good stuff! The Clult of Creation This 60% yazirian, 30% human and 10% dralasite cult believes in burying dead where it will be preserved the longest. The most unique place are comets. They've financed a special ship for such endeavors. A 6 man crew rotates every two months, there are currently three such crews. Yazirian Burial by Clan
|
September 26, 2012 - 3:46pm | Yazirian Burial by Clan
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 26, 2012 - 4:51pm | I would suspect it would be Clan Amona since their form Athor and use a symbol of a gold leaf. Anglann is from Hentz. |
September 26, 2012 - 7:19pm | I would think its about power and who has it, transplanting a tree is not as easy as it sounds and Anglann has control of the gene ark. To be able to say you transplanted a tree in an exodus of this type? has to be that the powers that be are doing it. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 26, 2012 - 9:29pm | So the type of tree matters for status of the dead. Any tree will do if you have no honor, or no tree at all for the honorless. I would think a tree from the original stock would be reserved for the highest honor of the highest clan. Consider this, some might steal rare trees to create the honored coffin. |
September 26, 2012 - 9:32pm | I make a distinction for no honor and honorless. No honor could include one who has not defeated their life enemy or something like that. Honorless would be those who have been shuned from their clan for whatever reason. |
September 26, 2012 - 10:05pm | No honor get a common tree or location close to the ground. Honor-less get placed on the ground. I can think of a prominent yazirian CEO being buried outside of the office window of his corporate headquarters sky scraper. Some Howard Hughes type of character. -iggy |
September 26, 2012 - 10:26pm | No honor get a common tree or location close to the ground. Honor-less get placed on the ground. I can think of a prominent yazirian CEO being buried outside of the office window of his corporate headquarters sky scraper. Some Howard Hughes type of character. or the roof top. In the Himilayas they practice Sky burial where the body is flayed and butchered on a stone and usually chained there to keep it there and left for the vultures to consume then the bones are ground into a meal and cakes are made for the birds. Don't ask me to explain it, I'm not sure of all the theological reasoning behind it though the practical reasons behind it is they lack the land to have actual cemetraries and the wood resources for cremation. I've been around and handled dead bodies and I think the undertaker/priest that perform this must cultivate a hard mental attitude just to carry it off. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
