Sepulkin

Sepulkins are bound remnants of burial rites that frayed at the edges: bodies laid without proper name rites, coffins broken in storms, or funerals interrupted by raiders. Folk in older districts whisper that a Sepulkin is made when grief is left unpaid and the small knot of mourning refuses to loosen. They are most common in neglected graveyards, churchyards abandoned after plagues, and family vaults where the lamps have burned out. Local clergy and antiquarians note a pattern: Sepulkins rarely range far from the ground that birthed them. The Veilwardens, a guild of cemetery-keepers, keep crude iron stakes and prayer-tokens to repel them while tending old stones. Scholar Hestorn Pelre wrote the treatise On Lingered Departures after cataloging a dozen Sepulkin hauntings in the ruined parish of Tressel Fold; he claims Sepulkins are drawn to voices and to the scent of unspent offerings, and that they can be placated, if not wholly destroyed, by night-long vigils and the correct recitation of the Deadfold Blessing.

A Sepulkin stands just under 4 feet tall, gaunt and narrow-shouldered. Its skin is a gray parchment tone stretched thin over ribs that show like short ridges. Long, tattered strips of burial linen cling to its limbs and hang loose from a spine ringed with faintly fossilized lichen. The creature's head is slightly oversized with deep, rimmed eye-sockets that hold a dull white phosphorescence rather than actual eyes; a small, cracked funeral mask is sometimes lodged on its forehead. Fingers are long and tapered like a graverobber's — tips frayed and stained with earth — and its feet are bare, toes curling like roots. Textures should emphasize brittle cloth, dry skin, and the sheen of old burial oils; scale reference: the Sepulkin is about chest-high on a human kneeling at a graveside. Artists should place it amid leaning headstones, cracked paving, and faint, drifting mists.