Funerary

There can be few jobs more unclean than the funerary. They deal in the dead and the evil spirits and sicknesses associated with them. The maggot and decay, leprosy and pox. The bloated drowned.  They make the masks and are foreign hands laid on the flesh of beloved dead. Taking coin in the time of grief and selling incenses and scented oils, special paints and materials at excessive prices! And that is in care for the wealthy.  The poor and unclaimed too need their funeral.  Buried instead of cremated, and going as criers to announce the unclaimed if the guilds make no identification. And what of those that arise vampiric, revenant, ghoul or ghost? Constant threat and companions!  None should be surprised if they are suppliers for necromancers - for who will miss that unclaimed and unknown, and they bring in coin instead of cost it for the pauper's grave. 

Career

Career Progression

The youth starts with the making of pyres of wood, paper and dragon oil.  They learn to dig the graves. They tend the pyres and watch vigils with mourning family.  They learn the chants and rites and rituals. 
Young boys and girls learn the making of the paints and preserving formulas. Of the harvesting of fragrant pine sap. The spices and powders for incenses and tinctures to slow decay and dissuade ghouls.  They prepare and learn the placing of discreet stakes and slowing the rise of undead. The mixing and use of waxes and clays for death masks.

Perception

Purpose

The priest of Kazollo performs the spiritual rites and oversees the recounting of the deceased's virtues, honors and achievements.  They take the torch that guides the dead from the home, place of death or place of waiting and leads them to rest and reincarnation- casting the torch onto the pyre or into the grave of the poor, the slave or unclaimed.
The funerary aids the family in laying out the dead. In bathing and dressing them for the three days of vigil and mourning.  They apply the preserving paints and oils. They make the death mask. They lay out the pine branches outside the door, denoting the unclean influence of death.  They may arrange the professional mourners and musicians for the procession from home to crematory or graveyard. If the family has no liter for friends, family and neighbors to carry the body - the funerary arranges it.  Likewise if one has none who can or will bear the body, the funerary sees to it.
They have prepared the pyre or grave. They see the final rites are performed. They bury the slave or impoverished. They douse the ashes of the cremation with vinegar or old wine and find the bone for family to bury. They gather the ashes into plain or decorated urns for entombing, burial or placement in family shrines.

Social Status

The funerary is exposed to disease, Corruption, evil spirits, undead and the general impurity, stench and filth of death and the dead.  As such, they are lower than traders and on par with rat-catchers, pit-fighters, street sweeps and beggars.  They may not live within the city proper- unless it is with a temple or shrine.  They may not become artists or serve in offices until they have spent a year and a day in some more wholesome occupation.

Alternative Names

Mourners. Cremators.