Scriveners of The End
A splinter sect of Interitus’ priests founded in the year 2012 in the region of Kengir, the Endscribes have historically been labeled the accountants of death.
Organization
While most Interi priests have given themselves the sacred tasks of overseeing funerals and consoling the mourning, the Endscribes act as coronaries, and at time murder investigators across Astalia.
Upon entering the priesthood each Endscribe is given a black, leather-bound journal used to record every death and its cause, time, surviving family members, and the likely afterlife of the deceased. Each book is expected to last three months, and once filled is sent to the scribe’s base Scriptorium for auditing and permanent recording inside the expansive libraries the scriveners keep.
While they have bases of operation throughout Astalia in any of its major cities, scribes also frequently travel in search of natural disasters and wars to record, and are often called by government bodies when wars are waged and death is expected.
A common saying is that, ‘Where an Endscribe goes, Interitus shall follow’.
Beliefs
The sole truth of the world is this: all souls must die. To seek immortality or a life after death is the greatest sin imaginable… and a lot more paperwork for the Endscribes to file.
Other than following this one guideline, Endscribes have no set moral code or ethics to adhere to. They are instead encouraged to find their own joy in life, as once you are dead there will be no joy left to find.
While souls should never be resurrected and returned to the mortal plane, repurposing dead bodies into undead servants is a common occurrence in the Scriptoriums. It is considered a great honor for an Endscribe to be chosen for this duty upon their death.
For the Endscribes there is no value in rituals to mourn the dead. By the time anyone can get around to preparing the funeral and cleaning up the corpse the soul is long-departed, with only the shell remaining.
Endscribes have no great attachment to their bodies, seeing them only as vehicles for the soul. Priests are free to dress and present themselves in any way they wish.
Interitus sometimes likes to bring back the dead. They don’t like this.
Activities
While not a personal concern for them, Endscribes have their own funerary rites they may perform should they be requested by the bereaved. These are significantly more clinical in nature than those done by other Interi priesthoods. The priest in charge of the rite will simply name the deceased and all information listed about them in their journal, and then allow any who knew the dead to speak about their memories of them.
In cases where no funeral rites are performed, Endscribes will try to find more useful purposes for corpses rather than simply burying or burning them. It is common for priests as well as particularly ardent worshippers to request their bodies be raised into servants for the living. Other common options are donating bodies for medical purposes, or even using the body for compost. If a body is not to be used for undeath it is required that it be chopped up for easy storage.
Despite their focus on death, Endscribes are well known for their genealogy work. Some older Scriptoriums can date back lineages as far as the inception of the denomination itself, and are happy to help others go through their many, many shelves of death records to find long-lost relatives.
While traveling it is customary for Endscribes to seek out others of their denomination and copy down each others’ notes to ensure no records are lost to time.
Celebrations
On the last night of the spring season, Endscribes take a break from recording by reading the names of every death they personally recorded over the past year. The ceremony culminates with all the scribes burning the scroll from which they were reading and begin a night full of drinking, eating, dancing, and partying.
Scribe bodies that were granted undeath will have small parties hosted in honor of their former host to celebrate their Deathday.
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