#circa 2022

Inheritance isn't the only significance the Ancestors possess, oh no. They play a greater role in the tribe's spiritual beliefs.

Dead people. Who takes care of them?

Corpses. They need to be disposed of! If you're a Mawkin and you've got a body you need handled, chances are, you'll call for the Order of the Cairn.

A coroner from the Order of the Cairn carrying a tell-tale gourd lamp.

These shrouded carrion-seekers are an offshoot of the priesthood dedicated to caring for the deceased. Some parents tell their children that the souls of bad Chozo fuel the light of their lanterns, but it's really just butterfly oil.

Quiet types are usually drawn to the job. They dress dramatically, but they're mostly harmless. Mostly. They wield cudgels, which they occasionally use to swat away hungry scavengers while collecting corpses in remote locations.

Defiling corpses and graves is strictly taboo. In this vein, consuming the flesh of the honored dead without their express consent is an unspeakable crime: only two individuals have ever been punished for it in the tribe's history. One of the offenders was the lich-lord* Shasskal, who believed that he could take on the power of deceased Warlords through ritual consumption of their flesh. Records of this period are poorly managed, but a surviving manuscript holds that Shasskal "compounded these foul blasphemies and bid [the Honored Dead] to his command". His manuscripts were gathered and sealed away with his remains.

Traditional "necromancers" already don't play the rules, but Warrior-Magicians? That's just downright unfair. Necromancers should be scrawny and clever, not skull-crushingly jacked!

*This moniker is derived from a portmanteau of the phrases "zissva malaga kaskri haibar" and "Ninu man cumane oskoro ve elar": roughly "Accursed devourer [of] consecrated flesh" and "[he] who commands [that which] sees no rest" respectively. It's an easy English alternative, in the very least.

And who should keep these records but the Eyes of the Shroud, who are dutifully charged with watching over the Accursed: Mawkin who died in disgrace. If a Mawkin dishonors their tribe, standard procedure is to execute them, cremate the body, then use three quarters of the ashes to fire a ceramic vessel to hold the last of the corpse dust (however, there have been cases where individuals were scorned in this way posthumously). This practice is very much a holdover from the old days, but it is taken very seriously.

Who you are and what you accomplished in life not only affects how you're remembered, but how your remains are interred.

The Ancestors and the Priesthood

Priests are very decorated individuals. The Mawkin value their ancestors, so the individuals who tend to their needs must be honored accordingly.

The Mawkin believe their ancestors persist after death. Not necessarily in an "oo spooky ghost" kind of way, but they're still around. Not that they can't stick around in a spooky ghost kind of way, because they absolutely can; Samus learned this the hard way on Tallon IV. Sometimes, they guide their descendants in minor ways: maybe a leaf in the wind that a grandson may notice, one he happens to be moving the same direction as and leads him towards a benign experience that sets off a chain of events and changes the course of his life for the better. Other times, they send portents of events yet to come and subtly suggest how to circumvent them, no big deal. Sometimes, the message is as simple as "hey, you left the lights on"... though they usually don't pipe up for things that trivial.

The latter of these two brands of message is usually delivered to the priesthood, who spend much of their time inhaling substances that are believed to make them more susceptible to the whims of the departed. They train their entire lives to interpret messages sent by the dead, most of which they "hear" in passing, rather than simply being approached by a dead person for the sole purpose of sending a message (though it can happen). The Ancestors almost never speak directly to people; they suggest what they want through gesture and signs sent in dreams.

No one can agree whether the priests are actually "walking the spiritual plane" or not, but Bird Magic exists (which the Mawkin actively weaponize; their greatest leaders wield huge arm-mounted Bird Magic-powered guns for crying out loud), so the Mawkin don't really question it. It's been done forever, and much of what the priests say is helpful... or at least they haven't yet been egregiously wrong. There have been theses written on what might be happening during this "communion", stacks and stacks of papers documenting the effects of holy compounds on the brain during inhalation, and miles of theories posited by thousands of scholars throughout the course of history. But all conclusions are riddled with conjecture.

Most of what these priests are smoking is burned as incense, usually in a little decorative bowl or lidded pot. The older priests have diffusers which they rig to absolutely saturate the air during rituals. If you're eight years-old, and you're going through the spiritual portion of your first maturity rites, you're bound to sit in a room with an old guy wearing more layers than you've ever seen on a person in your life, breathing in the densest, most cloying air ever to pass through your lungs. Like, "how much of this is even oxygen at this point" thick.

The Mawkin have identified numerous chemical compounds that their priests find useful, and know of ways to synthesize them in a pinch. There are three compounds associated with communication beyond the physical realm:

Mathor Root

This hardy little root opens a priest's mind to the will of the Ancestors. Most days, a priest might burn some mathor and go about their day, perhaps go for a stroll and see whatever signs are sent their way. Vapors from burning mathor are pretty spicy, and the dry, smoky consistency can be difficult for the unacquainted to get past. The root contains hallucinogenic compounds that make colors seem brighter, heighten one's attentiveness to subtle noises, and bolster wakefulness, among other side effects.

A priest who is administering a youth's maturity rites will inhale a bunch of this stuff before the rite actually happens because the substance burned while the kid is in the room induces a state similar to REM sleep, and the waking compounds in mathor dampen the soporific qualities of the dreaming vapor. The priest wants to experience the plane-shattering effects of both substances so they can monitor the fledgling's journey without inserting themself into the narrative.

If the priest needs to intervene, they can, but they're not disrupting the kid by remaining awake. The priest gets to walk around the room feeling subtle vibrations in the air, tasting the colors, and narrating the scene to no one in particular.

That last part is especially useful because the spirits don't usually talk, and when they do, it's especially inaudible to those who aren't "attuned to the spirits", (read: they don't smoke enough of this stuff to know how to perceive the words), so if someone on the other side of the veil has a particularly pertinent message for the kid, the priest's voice in the waking world can help deliver these words to their not-quite-asleep little ears.

Ralis Oil

Speaking of which: ralis oil. The whole fungus can be used here, but the cap of this mushroom contains the highest concentration of the good stuff, especially in younger stalks. When you burn ralis, you'll begin to feel drowsy and descend into a state comparable to lucid dreaming. The hallucinogens will make everything wonkier than your standard dream, and you may encounter the silent spirits of long-dead relatives, but otherwise, it's just as surreal as an ordinary dream.

During a ralis trip, one can be rather easily awakened, as they're not experiencing deep sleep. It is of utmost importance that one under the influence of ralis vapor is not awakened in the middle of their dream unless by a trained priest. Either they ride it out for the duration of their unconsciousness, or you get someone who knows what they're doing to slowly ease them into the waking world. People have died from interruptions; it's not a pretty death.

Ralis is most often diffused during rituals such as the aforementioned rites of maturity, but priests will inhale the fumes if they feel there's something that's trying to be conveyed to them, but can't be effectively communicated through other means. The worst offenders in this regard are the spirits of Warlords long past.

That's right: ralis is most often used to listen to complaints from the Mawkin's dead leaders. But the Greatest of the Mawkin's Ancestors won't just speak to anybody. Sure, they appear in Joe Schmoe's non-drug-induced dreams every now and then, but when they really need to talk, they want to see the high priests or their apprentices: the old hens and rooks who are going blind, losing sensation in their limbs, and are having difficulties ambulating unassisted (All problems that seem to disappear when they fill the room with smoke. These compounds are stiff).

These dream-meetings are immensely sacred events and occur in utter isolation. Not a peep from the outside world is to reach the dreamer's ears, not a single light is to be left on, save for whatever flame is still burning near the source of the fumes or however many candles are required by the circumstance.

Usually, if the Warlord is to hear a message from his predecessors, it's delivered by whichever priest facilitated communication between the Old Ones and the tribe. They'll arrange to see Raven Beak and arrive in full regalia to tell him every last detail of their communication with the old Warlords: what did they see, what did they hear, who was there, were any words spoken, what could they deduce from the encounter, any symbolism, etc.