Becoming Time: Body Preservation Methods

This article is a Work in Progress and will be finished soon™

Flag of Dhalmain by Naelin

In the religious faith of Autonomism, followed in the Republic of Dhalmain, the universe is made of ten Laws, which created it and each other with their primogeneal ability to wonder, and function as this religion's deities.
The Autonomist belief of the afterlife dictates that, when a societarian dies, they will join the Law of the Universe that their life and death most closely represented.
This belief led the Dhalmanite to be the culture with the most diverse funerary practices in the Haan Archipelago, as the followers of each deity tried and perfected ways to turn their bodies into reflections of their chosen patron.
Due to the funerary methods associated with Gleamauros, the Law of Time, his priests have a vested interest in the development of advanced preservation techniques for corpses.
However, funerary work is considered to be under the patronage of Regicielo, the Law of Chemistry, due to her association with the cycle of life and death, and so the Temples of both Laws have worked together through the years in the advancement of the arts and sciences of body preservation.
Priests of Gleamauros travel to the Temple of Regicielo to study and exchange knowledge, and even hold conferences that include taxidermists, a distinct profession under the patronage of Isimoje, the Law of Dimensions.
One of said collaborations led to the creation of a well know academic document titled "Becoming Time: Body Preservation Methods" which teaches the different methods of body preservation with an aim to share the necessary considerations to achieve all kinds of goals.
Though its title is a source of some contention for followers of other Laws of the Universe, "Becoming Time" has turned into a widespread source of information well outside the Temple of Gleamauros.
It is nowadays an important reference document used by museum preparators, relic makers, taxidermists, and of course funerary workers both in Dhalmain and outside.

Segments of the Manual

Introduction to Maceration

Gleamauros offers us a great lesson on patience in the process of skeletonizing the societarian body.
The method of maceration, by far both the simplest and most reliable one, will produce a great quality result provided one gives it the months it needs to work.
It is not just the wait once one has fed the remains to the water that will teach us that patience is key when dealing with the deceased: The meticulous, tiring work that must be performed prior, carefully cutting, picking and pulling the meat away from the bone will be rewarded with shorter waiting times and a less unpleasant cleaning the more hours of work and depth of perfection one puts into it.

A segment at the start of the chapter on maceration describes the cornerstone technique of skeletonisation as a lesson from the Law of Time himself.
The technique, which is said to only require entry-level materials and knowledge to produce good results, takes many months to transform the freshly deceased body into a pile of bones, a wait that might make some families and novice funerary workers uneasy, but that fits perfectly under the Law that it is aimed at.

Preservation of subspecies traits

Feathers

Beaks

Furs

Fur is the hardest skin type to preserve, as it requires preservation of the skin as well, unless the requester only wants to preserve a small cutting of longer hairs.
Many recipes can be used in the preservation of fur, known as "tanning", the most common of which is the use of a paste made out of the boiled brain of a creature (or of the deceased themselves), which is applied to the underside of the skin after it is extensively degreased with a dull knife or spatula.
The amount of brain to use is as much volume as the brain of the deceased would have, following the knowledge of seasoned furriers that "Every creature comes with its own tanning kit"
The skin needs to be stretched (unless it is to be used in taxidermy) in a frame, have the brain paste applied to the entire underside and kept this way for several days. It is afterwards needed to soften the skin by "breaking" it: pulling, hitting, rolling, etc, until the fibers of it break apart and turn the skin supple and soft.
Furs, as much as all of the other described traits, requires careful storage and treatment to avoid an infestation of critters that could gnaw on them.

Chitins

Table of References

Method	Aimed Towards	Other Uses	Considerations
Donation to Science	Curiosity Intention Space	Encouraged in people with rare conditions or phenotypes	Considered gruesome in some contexts
Donation to Art	Curiosity Dimensions
Donation to Pact Creatures	The World		Considered gruesome by most people
Ground Burial	Matter	Disposal after mass casualties
Sea Burial	Directions Space	Under certain conditions, used as a method for skeletonisation
Entombing	Time		Costly to secure a place
Embalming	Time	Preservation during long processes
Mummification	Time		Difficult to achieve due to humidity
Skeletonization	Time	Donation to Science Donation to Art	Takes a very long time
Taxidermy	Dimensions	Donation to Science Donation to Art	Doesn't work well with some phenotypes Requires experts to have a decent outcome
Preserving in Reliquary	Physics	Grieving aid	Large amount of leftover bodyparts
Preserving in Jewellery	Physics	Grieving aid	Large amount of leftover bodyparts
Cremation	Chemistry	Discarding Unused Bodyparts Disposing of infected bodies
Above-Ground Burial	Matter		Requires to secure an uninhabited/protected area to perform

Type

Manual, Professional Skills

Myth

Autonomist Afterlife

Out of Universe: Inspiration for this Article

Charly by Naelin

Vulture Culture, or the art of preparing and collecting bones and other body parts from ethically sourced animals, has been my passion for a long while.
With around 16 years of experience behind me and always trying new techniques, most things written in this article are very close to or straight up real techniques of specimen preparation that I have used myself.
I have been working for a long while in a real-world guide for techniques and procedures and after much pondering I decided using WorldAnvil's excellent capabilities were the simplest way to present my knowledge, so I wrote the article below.

This article is an OOU guide that includes real-world graphic descriptions and examples.