Death at sea, in the sky, and far from home has produced customs centered on witness, objects, names, and return. Communities disagree over theology, but most agree that disappearance should not be allowed to erase a person.
Quiet Honors
On many working vessels, the dead are named and entered into the log before any formal service. Bodies are wrapped in work canvas. A tool connected to the person's service may be laid across the covering. The crew carries them together. The ceremony is restrained because the work of keeping the ship alive has already required every voice.
Sea and sky
Sea burial is common when distance, weather, or damage makes return impossible. Skyship crews often descend to commit the dead to water rather than release them into open air. Some navies carry weighted cloth and standard prayers. Independent crews use household customs.
The missing
A missing sailor creates a different grief. Families may maintain an empty place at feast days, leave a name unclosed in the household book, or wait for a formal loss finding before dividing property. Salvage evidence can therefore change not only a legal claim but a family's right to mourn.
Tarlaxian remembrance
Many Tarlaxian households preserve names through objects, beads, road memory, and obligations carried by the living. Practices vary widely. The central principle is that the dead remain named, and that damaging a burial place is an attack on the continuity of a people.
Dockyard memorials
Yards and rescue stations keep plaques, tools, bells, and painted boards listing people lost during repairs, storms, fires, or failed rescue. The most respected memorials record workers and passengers as carefully as officers.
What everyone knows
Never use a dead person's tool without asking the household or crew. Never erase a name from a working list merely because the body was not recovered.
At the table
A funeral can reveal alliances that official meetings hide. Watch who attends, who stands apart, which name is omitted, and who carries the tool.