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Originally posted by Afetbinttuzani

Marvelous, thank you all.

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Originally posted by Bladewind

Fire sticks sound like they may be tindertwigs from the PHB?

Anyone find that Liira's Dance of Death scary and macabre? I like it though.

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Borch and Asgetrion,
Things vary so much across the Realms that it’s difficult to give any valid overall answer to your questions. However, in general, burial matters in cities and large towns across Faerûn “work like this:”
Only noble or very wealthy or very old (long-established) families (or guilds) in an urban area have, and are allowed to keep, crypts within the city walls - - usually beneath the city proper. Everyone else must inter their dead (after allowing beasts to gnaw the bones clean, in some faiths, or after cremation in some faiths or in cases of disease, fungal growths, mummy rot, lycanthropy, suspected undeath, and so on) outside the city walls.
This is the case in Baldur’s Gate. Or to put it more correctly: aside from a few old, well-hidden old-family crypts in that city, the dead are disposed of in two ways: shipped out to an offshore isle for burning (a formerly-popular custom, now used only for sailors or shipowners), or far more often corpses are carted well inland, to a monastic community. Homeless and penniless folk make the journey in a common “dead cart” known as “the Vulture Run,” and most citizens have a simple walk-with-the-cart funeral.
In the case of Baldur’s Gate, the graveyard is about five miles northeast of the city walls, and (again to try to bring something of a “general rule across the Realms” into this answer) is consecrated ground surrounded by the claimed and farmed fields of a monastery, in an attempt to guard against undeath (or at least armies of shuffling undead rising out of graves unnoticed, until they pose a deadly threat to isolated steads and wayfarers). The Gate’s graveyard is called “the Field of Rest,” and consists of a vast burial hill surmounted by a simple chapel, in the heart of the mixed monastic community of Darfleet (named for its long-ago founding monk), temple-farms dedicated to the veneration of Chauntea. The monks bury all dead, using spells and fire-sticks to fight any undead who rise, and eventually till sections of the burial fields with plows, sewing edible crops that are harvested only for their seeds (sold and sent widely across the Realms). Other Darfleet fields do yield food that’s sold directly to folk in Baldur’s Gate and elsewhere, via city carters and passing caravan-merchants.
So that’s why you’ll find no graveyards on the FR ADVENTURES maps: the dead are either taken well outside a city, or are interred in underground crypts (guild members under a guild headquarters, for example, or members of a noble family under their own family mansion). After the Threat from the Sea, the mounded corpses of attacking sea-creatures were piled up on damaging, sinking vessels, towed out to sea, and incinerated with spells - - so the dryland defenders, to avoid any insult to their families, were all taken to a height (to the north) overlooking Baldur’s Gate, there burned, and carts full of the wetted-down ashes were taken to Darfleet for “tilling in.”
Borch, your earlier and longstanding questions haven’t been forgotten, and I WILL get to them in the fullness of time.

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Hi. Lack of time and not wanting to tread on the toes of Realms fiction writers describing burials (as Elaine and I did in CITY OF SPLENDORS recently) keep me from delving into detailed burial or death-commemoration rituals, but let’s run down your list:

Chauntea: no crypts. Bodies aren’t cremated, but rather ploughed into fallow fields, to enrich the soil (some temples so treat bodies of the faithful only; and for priests, sites are marked and skulls retrieved later, for veneration; other temples don’t do this), such fields being left fallow for at least the same growing season as the burial takes place in, and preferably three seasons; in cities, the dead taken out to countryside; where fields can’t be spared, burials are done in orchards, woodlots, or forest

Helm: Embalming, buried in full, sealed (with pitch and other substances) stone casket, buried with weapons and holy symbols to prevent becoming undead spontaneously, but to preserve them for use as “guardians” if a priest of Helm needs to animate them “for a holy purpose” (this almost never occurs, as the animation is frowned upon, but would be done to create temple defenders if a mad ruler or breakdown of all law and order or arrival of an orc horde endangered the consecrated ground)

Kelemvor: no crypts, but in-ground burial, in simple muslin or “found cloth” (used clothing, such as deceased’s own cloak, tunic, and breeches, sewn together) shroud (with holy symbols to prevent spontaneous rising as undead) of faithful and of all “common dead” not brought to other clergy, or refused by other clergy. If disease, mummy rot, or other dnger to the living exists, bodies are sewn into a shroud (temples keep some “large bag” shrouds ready for this purpose) and burned in a pyre without delay. Intent is to “keep the dead dead” and return their bodies to the earth for “the Endless Cycle”

Lathander: no crypts. In solemn temple ritual, with loved ones present if they want to be, bodies are transformed into other organic substances at random (Will of Lathander ritual akin to the “wild” effects of a wand of wonder), for use (as compost or material components or raw building materials or whatever) in “new beginnings”

Lliira: no crypts. Dance of Death spell cast in a consecrated (bare-earth and private place shielded from public view, deep in temple grounds [often ringed by gardens] or in the cellar of an in-city temple) bower, that animates corpse to dance endlessly until it collapses, the various pieces continuing to try to move until all joints fail and what’s left is allowed to rot on site; many corpses may be dancing in the same bower at the same time; rotted remains cremated and the ashes cast into the air by dancing clergy of the goddess, while participating in certain festivals (most of the major ones, throughout the year)

Selune: no crypts or embalming. Naked skyburial (on high platform, to be picked clean and scattered by scavengers and storms) if far from sea, otherwise laid naked on a raft and set out to sea (released when well out from shore; land should be “just visible” on the horizon) in moonlit conditions, to “voyage at the Lady’s bidding”

Sharess: no crypts or embalming. Priests embrace the dead in a ‘last intimacy’ (that need not be more intimate than a kiss while the living cleric’s arms are wrapped around the corpse), and the corpses are then animated in a Firedance spell, to cavort in air above a pyre, which is then lit to consume them (so they dance as they crumble into ash, “dancing on air” no matter how much they’ve crumbled, rather than collapsing as a Dance of Death spell allows)

Tempus: Embalming, with blood and fluids being drawn off for use (with transforming spells) into oil for armor worn by others into battle; prepared corpses are borne into shared crypts on a “bed of swords” (swordblades held flat, between priests on either side of corpse, to form a horizontal latticework), and laid to rest on stone shelves, holding weapons (their own, whenever possible) if the body is intact enough to allow such holding, and with a stone graven with their name, death date, and abbreviated deeds (“Murtar, died 1273 DR. Warrior of skill, fought at Eskryn, 1211; Horn’s Call, 1214; Mornar’s Bridge, 1216; much armed service guarding Secomber; fell fighting orcs valiantly”); fragmentary bodies are placed with tablet and any salvaged weapons or relics (piece of helm or armor); crypts typically hold hundreds, and are guarded by armed priests day and night to “honour the Valiant Fallen”

Tymora: crypts for some, embalming for some, resurrection for some, cremation for some, dicing and rotting for some: “Last Gamble” ritual involves dice (cast by loved ones if they want to be part of this, otherwise by the Lady’s clergy) that determine fate of the deceased; in above list, “crypts” means full magical preservation spells and sealing in luxurious but small crypt (like a canopied bed made of stone); embalming means body is preserved by physical means rather than magic, and placed reverently in a shared crypt; resurrection means clergy (for free) use all the magic they can muster to restore the corpse to whole and hale life, under no obligation whatsoever to the church of Tymora; cremation means burning on a shared pyre; and “dicing and rotting” means bodies are chopped up and scattered in a charnel (compost) heap to rot down, and eventually be spread on farm fields

And there you have it. Individual temples vary, especially in the amount of time they keep bodies in “cold crypt” storage (deep in stone-lined or solid stone chambers, to slow decay and prevent rats or other scavengers getting at bodies) for possible resurrections (if requested by family, adventuring colleagues, or civil authorities investigating crimes.

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Asgetrion, the dead are buried in Eveningstar as follows: all Lathanderites and good-aligned folk whose families don't express wishes to the contrary are interred, yes, on the Temple Grounds (crypts for the wealthy who donate, and in a ground plot to the north of the tilled temple fields, hard by the temple buildings, for the less wealthy). "Unknowns," the homeless, and outlaws tend to get buried in the Gorge, anywhere well away from the stream and not too much of a hike away from Eveningstar. There are also separate burial grounds for some other faiths (small boulder-walled rectangles of ground with lots of mature trees growing in them, shading all) on the north side of the main trade-road, west of the temple lands (so, just off the map). A few eccentrics have been buried in their own cellars or in various odd places, at their written-before-death requests. The diseased or poisoned or "tainted by necromancy" are usually burned in an outdoor pyre, and then their ashes buried in a regular grave.
As for Elminster, the answer depends on what you mean by "featured." It also depends on whether certain future plans come to fruition.

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