Mortalisi
The Mortalisi is a group in Nevarra primarily dedicated to dealing with the threat of ceaseless. In many cultures, the dead are burned or dismembered so as to prevent postmortem demonic possession. In Nevarra, the Mortalisi show up in minutes, sometimes seconds, after someone has died and perform special rituals to protect the body. The dead are then taken away into one of the nation's sprawling crypts.
Structure
There is a fraternity within the Mortalisi known as the Mourn Watch. Their members, known as Watchers, serve as the elite guardians and keepers of the Grand Necropolis and its sacred repository of the dead. The Mourn Watchers have absolute authority over funerary dead. These members also have the important role of tending to the wards and sigils in the Grand Necropolis that delay one's possible transformation into becoming ceaseless when within the city's confines.
Culture
The order studies death extensively, and its members are known to experiment with necromancy. These mages specialize in binding the entities of the Fade that are drawn to death. Within Nevarra this practice is well-appreciated, but outside the nation most give it a negative and creepy connotation. Some Mortalisi keep animated skeletons as assistants or use skeletal horses as a means of transportation through the Grand Necropolis. Such beings also serve as guards in the catacombs.
Some might ask how these mages are treated as well as they do despite the Chantry's harsh stance on magic. There's two reasons for this. First, Nevarran culture considers death to be an important part of one's existence and treating one's self well after they die is just as important as it is in life. Secondly, many high-ranking Mortalisi come from noble lineages. In their eyes, they are nobles first and Mortalisi second.
Public Agenda
"According to a Nevarran belief, when a soul of the dead crosses to the Fade it displaces a demon. Based on this, the Mortalisi believe that mummifying corpses provides a host through which demons can be entombed, effectively gone from existence. In the grand catacombs that sprawl underneath Nevarra City's streets, swaths of demons are shackled for eternity. This view, though quite popular I've found in Nevarra, is considered barbaric by most other nations. It should be noted that during my travels I heard lingering rumors and whispers that perhaps the Mortalisi aren't as simple as they appear to be. Many assume them to be maleficarum, but no person will dare oppose the group that plays such an integral role in the cycle of life and death in the nation. Others claim that the Mortalisi are simply academics obsessed with death, which is understandable given the complex nature of the Fade. One might be so curious as to ask: how do the agents of the Mortalisi know so easily when someone has died, and how do they arrive so quickly? Some questions, as I've come to find during my many years, are best left unanswered..." — From In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar by Ferdinand Genitivi
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