Delvetenders

Spread across the white plains of southwestern Axia there is an order of monks commonly known as the delvetenders, though this is no formal moniker. Officially they are the Holy Order of the Daughter's Mercy or the Orden vala Chynnevelle, though few outside the order would recognize either name. These groups are dedicated to the belief that the dead must be returned to the land for their spirts to be claimed by the gods. To that end, they maintain special mines in the chalklands where they intur the remains of the recently deceased.

Once their pratices were relatively standardized, consisting of a ritual dismemberment and dessication of bodies followed by the remains being embedded into the chalk. In more recent years specific practices vary from group to group, which has resulted in something of a schism in the already diminished order. Groups of delvetenders have effectively isoalted themsleves from the others with their practices drifitng further from these origins. For example, there is one group located on the western edge of the plains, approaching the towers region, which have taken to cremating bodies and utilizing the remains along with their mined chalk to produce a kind of concrete with which they erect row monuments and other structures surrounding the monastery mine. For the more traditional, conservative groups within the order this is seen as misguided influence of other beliefs at best and a blasphemy which imprisons the souls of the deceased at worst. As their influence and membershiup continues to dwindle, and by extension individual groups within the order interact less frequently, such divisions are becoming more common.

Outside the membership, many modern Axian citizens view the delvetenders as a regressive and even dangerous order, with stories spreading of the order kidnapping and murdering the elderly to use in strange death rituals. The empire has officially declared there to be no evidence of wrongdoing associated with the order, but given their tiny number and morbid purposes such beliefs persist, especially in rural communities. In Axia city, the bulk of the citizenry are mostly or even wholly unaware of the order, likely owing to the influence of the imperial temple. East of the Rushing River the delvetenders are all but unheard of outside priestly or scholarly circles.