Alter of the Departed

ALTAR OF THE DEPARTED
Where the Lost are Remembered… and Claimed

Long before written history, there existed a quiet belief whispered across dying tongues — that the soul does not ascend or fade, but lingers, waiting to be named.

The Altar of the Departed is a relic from that time — a sacred construct built not by hands, but by wills desperate to hold onto the dead. It appeared where sorrow pooled deepest: amidst plague, after massacre, in the ruins left by forgotten gods. No one knows who first shaped it, only that it appears when grief reaches a fevered pitch.

At its center rests a skull — never decayed, never claimed — crowned in a frame of timeworn spires and waxen offerings. Cloths soaked in centuries of mourning drape its form, and candles that never die burn with the ache of memory. Those who kneel before it speak the names of the departed, hoping to summon a final glimpse… or to be heard from the other side.

But the altar does not give freely.

For every name spoken aloud, another is taken — drawn from the speaker’s heart or history. Memories become fractured, faces blur, and in time, the one who prays too often forgets even their own name.

Legends speak of “the Hollowed,” pilgrims who fed the altar with too much longing. They say their souls now live inside the altar, woven into its design, watching with hollow eyes through the skull’s gaze… waiting for someone to remember them.

And if you do — if you speak a name etched in silence — the altar will burn cold, the candles will flicker, and something will stir in the dark just behind you.