Keepers of the Dead

The Keepers of the Dead are the pelt-keepers, ancestor-keepers, and archivists of the Khilaia. The Keepers gather, protect, organize, document, and do itineraries of the pelts of deceased selkies, kept in the Sacred Crypt of Motosui - a fortress built around the sacred lava-tube crypts of Pawapua. They also coordinate pelt shipments and track reports of stolen pelts. Keepers are high-status priests capable of excommunicating crews if they lose pelts to outsiders, and may even organize armed expeditions to retrieve caches of pelts. The Keepers also act as a branch of the the Exorcist's Guild for the Khilaian Isles, and they sheperd spirits there into designated haunted spaces.
The Keepers of the Dead are highly ritualistic and are deeply infused with the traditional religious practices of Hamekun. They are very syncretic (as Hamekun is not an exclusive or universalizing religious tradition), but any member must be willing to devote significant ritual energy towards the ancestors and ancestral gods. The Keepers act as the Cult of Daykai, the great selkie ur-ancestor and God of freedom and kinship. The cult organizes the great festival of Dayhaidol in August on the Khilaian Isles and in the march kingdom capitals.

Structure

The Headmaster of the Keepers, also called the Wapupasa, is the supreme leader of the Keepers. Unlike most of the Hanahai, the Keepers choose most of their own candidates, with only nominal input from the Selkie Circle of Elders.  
There are a number of arcane ranks within the Keepers, but the main divide is between acolytes, full members, and officers - particularly the elite officers who handle Expeditions, the Hebamosi or Pelt-Finders. Pelt-finders gather groups of Keepers and mobilize institutional connections to rally hunting parties to recapture lost pelts. Not all lost pelts attract Hebamosi, of course; individual pelts can easily be ignored. But if a famous non-selkie person uses a selkie pelt publicly, or if a large number of pelts are lost, or if a pelt is stolen and a family member of the victim sues in court, an expedition is inevitable.

History

The Keepers of the Dead are the oldest of the Hanahai orders, and represent an institutionalization of sacred pelt protocol and taboos dating back to the first days of selkie-outsider trade. The Keepers were created by the First Great Selkie Empire of the 290s and 300s, established by the Empress Kova the Great as a way to reaffirm her commitment to tradition and to contain keep selkie pelts from becoming a luxury commodity for the Samvaran nobility. The Keepers used their immense imperial power to reconsolidate wayward pelts, and Keeper outposts remained scattered across Samvara after the empire's holdings crumbled into selkie vestige-states. Eventually, the Keepers were driven back to the Khilaian Isles, but their mission had been established as part of what the Khilaia fundamentally was now. 
Three main developments helped the Keepers become as perpetually successful as they are: Lunar alliances, institutional alliances, and the stigmatization of the pelt trade. Over the 700s through 1200s, the Keepers formed first pacts and then formal treaties with each of the ten Lunar Pantheon Gods. These Gods were able to help identify pelt trading hubs and wayward pelts for the Keepers, and the Keepers were generally regarded as a politically neutral institution in heaven worth supporting across factional lines - a rarity! This helped the Keepers form alliances with other Lunar neutral institutions such as the Exorcist's Guild and Healing Church, groups seen as international moral goods for maintaining a kind of magical order. This all contributed to a more subtle, but powerful cultural process: the stigmatization of selkie pelts as a morally wrong thing to buy or sell. This attitude is often reaffirmed by selkie and foreign merchants alike as a package deal with "trading in slaves is an absolute moral evil", a concept in turn promoted globally by Theia the Liberator. This cultural complex has traveled even further than selkie fleets, and has often created beliefs that selkie pelts are innately cursed (but safely handled using selkie magic). 
While one could go into the ebbs and flows of administrative unity and subtle policy among the Keepers over centuries, that would be exhaustive and unproductive - the Keepers are astonishingly consistent, partially in thanks to their clear message and Lunar relationships perhaps.

Founding Date

300 ME

Type

Religious, Holy Order

Ruling Organization

Selkie Circle of Elders

Official State Religion

Hamekun

Parent Organization

The Khilaia

Location

Khilaian Isles