The Tomb-Builders were a culture that lived throughout the islands of the Wounds many thousands of years ago. In the modern day relatively little is known about the Tomb-Builders, as all that remains of them is their decaying structures scattered across the archipelagoes upon which they once dwelled. Most notable of these are the elaborate burial sites from which their name is derived.
Identity
From the contents of their crypts, the Tomb-Builders are presumed to have been human, either entirely or at least in part. Many believe they were the predecessors of Rashareka and the many disparate Fanakara tribes and peoples, but such claims are difficult to prove from the evidence they left behind. Notably the practice of building tombs is not one held by any modern culture in the Wounds, all of whom prefer cremation or sea burial, or in the case of worshipers of the Ta-Lasau-Kori, simple interment in shallow graves.
Tombs
The burial places of the Tomb-Builders are elaborate structures found as far apart as the Wisps and the Chain - in fact, the Soul's End Islands appear to be the only major archipelago within the Wounds where they did not have a presence. These semi-subterranean monuments of basalt and other stone were built in semi-elevated locations, always away from the water, and today many have become buried by soil, vegetation, or lava flows.
The interiors and exteriors alike of their tombs were carved with elaborate organic-looking reliefs, depicting odd plant and animal forms that blend and merge together in sometimes confusing ways. Nearly all contain, or once contained, undead, seemingly placed there intentionally to guard the deceased. The dead occupants of the tombs were evidently individuals of at least somewhat high status, based on the amount of valuable grave goods they were interred with, perhaps priests or a ruling elite.
Strangely, the Tomb-Builders appeared to have had an aversion to eyes or certain fingers, the third and fourth digits in particular, within their tombs. All artistic works within them are missing eyes and these fingers, as are their undead guards, who had them removed from their bodies. Even the individual interred in the sarcophagi within had a metal blindfold placed around their head before burial and those two fingers severed.
Other remains
Besides their tombs, the only relics and ruins the Tomb-Builders left behind are square, stepped quarries into volcanic rock and small plinths near the peaks of some mountains, particularly those within the Grievous Islands.