Death

The follow contains a list of beliefs and funerary customs followed by the various races of the Warhammer World.

Wood Elves
When a Wood Elf dies, their body is returned to the forest. Thus does their passing nurture the trees that have nurtured them every day of their life. The precise manner by which this is achieved varies from family to family and kindred to kindred. Some burn their fallen kin on great pyres, echoing the rite that ends Orion’s time in the waking world. Others bury their dead deep in the ground, where the hungry roots of the trees can easily draw nourishment from the mouldering remains.

Such traditions are important to the Wood Elves, and form a key part of their pact with the forest. If an Elf is slain in distant lands, they are brought home to Athel Loren, even though thousands of leagues might lie in between. If this is impossible, as is often the case during times of war, Treemen and Dryads are bidden to feast upon the corpse, so they at least may gain from the tragedy. Such practices are abhorrent to the Elves o f other lands, but to the Wood Elves they are simply another aspect of the Weave.

Fate of the Spirit
Ever since the coming of Chaos, Slaanesh has feasted on the spirits of Elven dead, for no other race possesses souls so sweet and filed with sensation. Alas, few Elven deities can offer salvation, for the Chaos Gods broke the power of the Elven pantheon long ago. Those few that can still intercede are either unreliable, or else offer an outcome scarcely less dire.

Wood Elves
To avoid this terrible fate, the Wood Eloes make a pact with Athel Loren that extends far beyond their mortal bodies. When a Wood Elf perishes, the forest he has tended for so long absorbs his spirit and keeps it safe from thirsting Slaanesh. The final result of this transubstantiation can vary wildly. Most souls immediately lose all sense of identity, and meld with the forest. Some spirits wander the paths they walked in life, hidden from the gaze o f all but the most magically attuned, carrying messages and warnings to those who can hear their words. Others, driven by undying need to protect their woodland home, take root in deadwood hulks, animating the barren timbers into the battle-forms known as Tree Kin. Some Elves even believe that they have encountered loved ones reborn in the form o f wild animals or as mischievous spite-creatures that flit between the boughs.

Such things might seem unlikely to outsiders, but there is little that is impossible beneath the eaves of Athel Loren. In this way, every grove and hall in the forest is overlaid with echoes of past, present and future, and home to both the living and the dead.

Source

 * : Warhammer Armies: Wood Elves (8th Edition)
 * : pg. 21
 * : pg. 26

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