Crown of Repose

It was a beautiful service. Everyone there was so kind and respectful, and your father looked so handsom in that flower crown.   Those flowers that you sent for the crown were truly wonderful, the way they glowed like fireflies as they laid him down.
-My mother, in a letter

As anyone will tell you, spirits are all over the place. Spirits of nature, yes, like storm spirits and wind spirits. The spirits of rain and of sunlight that accompany spring. There are, of course, spirits that take on a more human appearance. They go by many names, Ghosts, Specters, Wraiths & Wights, Kas, Poltergeists, Phantasms, etc. Many aren't harmful, and many more just require some prerequisite knowledge to be counted among the same genre. There is academic debate as to what causes such spirits to form and if they truly are a human soul anchored to this plane of existence, but they are united by one thing.   The search for a vessel. These more phantasmal spirits seek to inhabit a form that is close to a baseline human and what is closer to a human than a human form now devoid of a soul. It has been an ancient search for for something that could lock out inhabitation by spirit since the dawn of written history, and while many ancient societies relied on particular methods of disposal, some of which remain popular today like cremation and ritual burials involving hungry animals.   Societies that wished to keep the bodies of their dead intact had to figure out a way to work around or prevent the possibility of body possession. Their result was the crown of Repose. Traditionally, the Crown is constructed of flowers and other ornamental plantlife from their native lands, which are woven together into a crown; as the name implies. Magic is woven into this floral jewelry that brings about the desired effect, then the crown is placed on the head as if wearing it, then the body is buried in the soil or a crypt as normal. While wearing the crown, the body will both remain pristine as it was when the crown was placed on
With the advent of modern magic, the Crown of Repose doesn't need to maintain the tradition of the flower crown, though that remains the most popular option for funerals.


Cover image: Ignacity Soda Ad (Via Artbreeder image generation) by Artbreeder image generation, user provided

Comments

Please Login in order to comment!