With talk about what sort of role religion will play in CoE, I got to thinking about the purpose of religion in the real world. Part of what religion does is it helps humans cope with the concept and mystery of death. However, in CoE, death is widely understood to be the end of the physical life but not the end of the soul's journey. So, it makes sense that religion and, more specifically, religious rituals would play a different role when it comes do death and the departed.
I was wondering, what if the natural order of Elyria was that when someone's body dies, the body is returned to Elyria, either through burial in the dirt, cremation with fire, or left to decompose in nature and made food for other creatures. In these ways, a soul's body is laid to rest in a "natural" way that is acceptable to the soul.
Alternatively, what if a body was subjected to unnatural effects after its death? What if they are left to rot on a blood-soaked battlefield or decapitated with their head put on a pike and displayed for all to see or what if they are buried in a desecrated place? Could this result in the soul of the deceased having "unfinished business" that imposed a penalty to their skill ramps or additional spirit loss until they or their family could set things right?
If this was a mechanic in the game, it would certainly give a mechanical reason for family members to tend to the corpse of a fallen loved one. For individuals who overthrow the rule of a noble, placing their head on a pike and displaying it would not only penalize the soul of the noble in its next life (perhaps preventing them from coming to reclaim their lost noble title) but it would also work to draw out the former noble's allies as they attempt to recover the slain noble's head and undo the unfinished business. Unfinished business could also cause bodies to rise as undead or other monsters.
Just saying, there could be a lot of fun to be had with a mechanic like this.