Burial at sea

Burial at sea refers to the disposal of human remains in the sea, most commonly done from a ship, boat or other naval vessel. It has traditionally been performed on the island of La Rossa, where it is the most common type of funeral, owing to the lack of usable land on island needed for other forms of burial. The burial is usually done in weighted sacks, in order to avoid the corpse rising back to the surface.

La Rossa

The tradition of naval burial on the island of La Rossa arose from the limited availability of suitable land on the mountainous island, as the Montesuvian mountain range covers most of its surface. The frozen rocks of the mountaintops are not fit for burial, while the softer dirt of the coastline is heavily rationed to allow for its use in agriculture and food production. Although ground burials are likely to have happened in the island's earliest civilizations (archaeological evidence seems to support this claim), the rise of city-states placed great strain on the use and conservation of land. The practice is likely to have emerged concurrently with viable ships.

Due to the destructive power of the Storm, voyages by ship have been particularly dangerous in the period of early sailing. In order to reduce risk, only the ship's trained crew were allowed boarding upon vessels. Although ships were primarily used for trade between the emerging cities at the time, the pressures associated with the need for burial of the island's dead led to a funeral service arising. Regularly traveling ferries would come to collect the town's dead for a small fee, accounting for the usually large numbers. The growth of cities led to the spread of disease, additionally bolstered by corpse-collecting practices such as these, due to the proximity many people would have had to the sources of sickness. For a long time, the funeral business thrived, and it took until the advances of the Rossan Silver Age in order for safer practices to be put in place. Richer families, which were able to afford their own private vessels, or at the very least, private burials, happened to be mostly insulated from the issue.

Following the handover of the remains, no living passengers would be allowed on the ships, bar the ferrymen themselves, who were paid well for the risks they undertook. Sailing off into the sea waters, out into the Storm, they would quickly dispose of the dead in sand-filled sacks, weighed in order to prevent them from floating back to shore. With the entire unsentimental ceremony rarely lasting more than a few minutes, the ferry would begin to return back to the shoreline, in order to avoid the crew joining those whom they left behind. Tempestry, a Rossan religion heavily tied to the reverent worship of the Storm, would be heavily influenced by the coldness it had shown towards the burial of their dead. Funeral remembrances would be held at home by the families of those who had passed, with memories of the deceased being shared among family members over a somewhat ceremonial dinner.

Following the Calming, the mellow waters eased the toll of the ritual greatly, as they allowed for the practice to continue without presenting the danger they once had. In the years following the event, families would begin to pay ferrymen to join them as passengers as the remains were disposed, allowing them to part ways with the dead in a more natural manner. With time, funeral agencies would greatly expand, allowing for small, individual ships to be rented for several hours for the purposes of private funerals. Final remembrances and discussions tend to be done on the ships as families unite for hours over their shared connection with the deceased. Ferry captains and crew members are instructed to stay silent, unless asked by the funeral-goers, in order to avoid disturbing them. They are occasionally asked to perform a pre-written speech for the deceased, or to play a song record while the disposal occurs.