Death Breathers

Death Breathers are the Night-Priests of Veedormim, who use viridplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigVirid

Referring to the Virid Kingdom of flora and fauna, toxic to human life. narcoticsplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigNarcotics

Narcotics are chemical preparations or natural products from either green herbs or virid flora, consumed by humans for their psychotropic, euphoric or stimulant properties.

topics in their rituals. They were contrasted with the Sun-Priests, officials of the state cult.

The name was originally pejorative but is now commonly accepted. The Death-Breather cult was at its height in the first century ME, but gradually declined under the influence of missionaries of the Heterodox.

Traditional Veedormin belief holds that life is powered by the sun, represented by the Sun Priests. At death the shade of a person passes into the dark realm of death. This realm is also where people's shades go at night in dreams. The imagination is also a reflection of the dream world.

Death Breather priests are able to cross the line between the waking and dreaming world. They ease the passage of the shade into the dream world, and can sometimes communicate or pass messages to the dead. They also interpret dreams.

Death Breathers are named for their initiation ritual. A priest inhales the smoke from a bundle of virid herbs, often through a pipe, and exhales into the mouth of an initiate. The smoke brings on first severe pain and muscle spasms, then a death-like trance in which the person's body is held in rigor-mortis-like pose.

The initiant then goes through a traditional funeral ritual in which their body is prepared for burial and they are left alone in a dark tomb. During this trance the initiant experiences hallucinations which are interpreted by the priests on “returning to life”.

These rituals would take place traditionally on hills or mountains, but in the lowland cities took place in chambers within mastabas, flat-topped pyramids, great hills of stone with complex internal structures and living quarters.

Priests are raised from birth, usually unwanted children who are left on the steps of a pyramid. They are initially raised by the women of the cult, given a vigorous physical and religious education.

As part of their training, priests undertook a series of rituals building up immunity to many poisons, enabling them to consume toxic fumes which would kill ordinary people. In fact the priests are said to be already dead, or halfway between death and life, their bodies merely animated by spirital forces from beyond the grave. This was the basis of their fearful power.

In old age or when approaching death, some senior Death Breather priests consume a strict regimen of dry foods, resins and toxins. On death, the body is so steeped in toxins that putrefaction cannot occur, and the priest becomes a natural mummy.