Grave Undertakings
Through the Ages, Kuei-jin have attached great importance to the resting places of their mortal shells, wherever they may be. Some Kuei-jin believe that the grave plays a fundamental role in determining where, when and how a Kuei-jin experiences the Second Breath. The care and upkeep of a deceased person's grave, say many Kuei-jin, helps quicken the pace and shorten the length of teh Road Back conversely, the dilapidation of a gravesite offends the rules of the afterworld and makes the journey even harder. To this end, Kuei-jin throughout the Middle Kingdom maintain a series of elaborate customs relating to their mortal interment.
- Jade: The power of jade for any shen, particularly a Kuei-jin, cannot be overemphasized. Jade acts as a lodestone for meditative and spiritual energies, as a receptacle for elements of the soul and as a tangible connection to the Yin and Yang Worlds. Some Cathayans choose to decorate their former tombs with intricate jade sculptures, inlays and other trinkets, in order to funnel and store Chi from the immediate area, as well as to keep the lines of communication and access tothe spirit worlds clear. Of course, this option is available only to those Kuei-jin who can afford to take it. The lower classes of vampires, whose reliquaries are the only items of jade they are likely ever to possess, cluth these baubles to themselves as drowning men clutch life rings.
- Pictographs: Many of the earliest Asian cultures marked gravesites with representations of real or mythical creatures. These pictographs were designed to symbolize the journey through the spirit worlds. Such stylized pictures, either on the actual tomb or on objects buried with the deceased, are often reproduced by Kuei-jin, who place great faith in the power of representation as a sort of talisman. Amulets, signet rings, letterheads, chops (signature markings), corporate logos, and patterns in tiled floors and mosaicked ceilings feature symbols for many wu and courts. Even the simple act of drawing the representation on a scrap of paper while performing a ritual is thought to have mystical significance.
- Protection: The protection of a tomb or gravesite has been a constant feature of both mortal and vampiric culture in the Middle Kingdom. While the tombs of the oldest and most revered bodhisattvas and ancestors are often located in preserved shrines, parks and museums, a large number of burial places (particularily the mass graves on a centuries-old battlefield) consist merely of the actual physical spot where a Kuei-jin was standing when his mortal self hit the ground. Maintaining the physical and spiritual intergriy of such a site in the middle of nowhere is enough of a chore. It becomes exponentially more difficult when someone comes along and decides to build a bank on top of the site.
Protecting and watching over a tomb or gravesite happens on several levels. Many Kuei-jin with surviving families rely on mortal relatives for protectiong. Nine times out of ten, the normal, proper ceremonies of an ancestor worship and ritual are enough to appease local spirits. Some wu and courts in the Middle Kingdom's largest cities institute local measures to safeguard the gravesites and tombs of all native Kuei-jin -- for a fee.
For Kuei-jin without such a recourse, added wrinkles occur. Kuei-jin in this category have been known to use mortal slaves or, in the more remote areas of the Middle Kingdom, chained chih-mei to act as guard dogs. Such practices violate several standing codes of etiquette, but what happens in the hinterlands rarely attracts serious attention from the larger courts. Some Kuei-jin with acute understanding of geomancy and exceptional attunement to Chi lines can manipulate the direction and "frequencies" of Chi deposits around a vampire's interment site, in a method akin to an animal marking its territory in the wild. Although this method occurs most frequently in rural areas, the aftereffect is detectable in certain cases, especially by mortal fang shih, who can sense the natural "disturbances" in an area and steer architects away from unfeasible construction plans.
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