A rite-offering is an item constructed specifically for the purpose of religious sacrifice. They are part of a cultural tradition shared by dwarven cultures across Kishar, believed to have originated in the first dwarven society of the Kingdom of Gold and Iron.
Rite-offerings vary in form, but most commonly are works of fine craftsmanship of some type, usually a finely constructed and ornament-laden building or a masterfully made tool or weapon. Despite the months if not years put towards their creations, they are never used - rite-offering buildings are maintained but otherwise lie empty, and rite-offering tools are placed in positions of honor out of reach. There they stay until such time as they are required for sacrifice. When a dwarven community has acted against the divines in some way - through disobeying their commandments, typically, or through angering the antagonistic gods in the case of the Taruhmite dwarves - the transgression is ritually transferred into the rite-offering, at which point it is completely and utterly destroyed, thus removing the wrongdoing with it.
Each rite-offering must be a tangible loss to its creators - they must materially suffer for their actions against the gods. They are not made after such a deed, however, but rather long beforehand, so that they are ready when needed.
Purification rituals involving rite-offerings are shared, in one form or another, by many dwarven cultures around the globe. Peoples as distant as the dwarves of Barat Rkund, Harv Taruhm, Haran Gurr, and the Island Kings all have some variation of the practice, even if the details of the ritual and preferred items may shift. Rkundi dwarves, for example, most often construct elaborate empty dwellings near their city centers as rite-offerings, which are then demolished stone by stone while chanting prayers to the offended god, while Esh-Gurr dwarves collect massive caches of gunpowder to ritually destroy their cave-ranches. Only the Akwarai dwarves are known to have no concept of a rite-offering, though the practice is also considered archaic by those in Kharakun.