My family is proud of our ghosts
In my last blog post, I mentioned that I wanted to show not just the proud factional prowess of pre-hispanic politics but also the beauty of everyday indigenous people/culture.
So, I present a setting element for my game, borrowed and expanded from postclassic maya, perhaps mingled with contemporary Dia de Muertos traditions.
In the villages of the People of the Stars, the people are vulnerable to threats from the jungles. Wild animals or political rivals, but also spiritual threats like Vampire demons and sorcerors.
So it falls to the villagers' antecedents to protect them. The deceased are interred at the family home, and at certain times and seasons they may appear, and they offer protection to their still-living relatives.
Certain offerings may be offered to one's ancestors according to their tastes. Detailed records are kept of what they enjoyed most in life, which is used to appease them after their death. These could be performances of songs or poetry they enjoyed in life, or favorite beverages or drinks. They may become elaborate familial rituals, and ancestors may even need to be satisfied by the prosperity or growth of their descendants.
Ancestor ghosts may not appear or offer their protection if their sacrifices are not offered. They may appear to anyone that makes the right offering, or only to blood descendants. It all depends on the specific ghost's dictates.
A family with many ancestors may need to acquire a great many resources to appease them all, and the records of ancestors that go back ages are protected covetously.
Marriage, of course, must consider a family's material prosperity, but also the strength and power of their family ghosts.
This worldbuilding concept seems extremely gameable to me - players may be tasked with finding a lost family record (perhaps stolen?) or need to find a proper offering for a village's strongest spirit hero to return and defend the village again.
If a player's character dies, maybe they can dictate their proper sacrifices to their "found family" D&D party and can be summoned at another time?
I just wanted to show an element of my setting that advances toward the goals I outlined in another post. If you like it or it fills you with ideas for your game, please steal it. Or if you have run a game like this, let me know how it went.