Basic Information
A funerary chapel is a small place of worship attached to a burial ground or other similar funerary site. It will normally be distinguished from any other chapel or place of regular worship by being used almost exclusively for funeral and memorial services rather than for regular worship. The lack of a regular congregation is typically the dividing line between a cemetery with a funerary chapel and a church with a graveyard. Of course, this only applies in those cultures where congregational worship is a thing - and it's entirely likely that a polytheistic culture will substitute a temple to their god of death instead. Where mummification or similar rites of preservation are performed, the chapel may serve for these as well or instead.
Really high end arrangements may place one of these atop a private crypt or catacomb1 - this is exponentially more likely in ancestor-venerating cultures, especially those with large extended families who can share the cost (and use) of the facility.
Sources
Game and Story Use
- For PCs having issues in a cemetery that is livelier than it ought to be, a small patch of consecrated ground may be very useful (presumably the cemetery itself can't be consecrated or the dead would be behaving themselves.
- Of course, modern "multi faith" arrangements might mean that the "committal ceremony building" is a thoroughly secular location.
- Which still has walls and a finite number of doors, so it may be better than nothing.
- Of course, modern "multi faith" arrangements might mean that the "committal ceremony building" is a thoroughly secular location.
- Morrowind players will recall the dunmer family tombs, usually a small catacomb with its own chapel serving an entire clan of dunmer.