Help with creating a Deity of Death based on Mexico's Día de Muertos.

[aimlessPolymath]

I'm going to quickly plug LudicSavant's excellent versions of Wee Jas and Nerull.

On the Day of the Dead specifically:
After glancing around Wikipedia, the following things stick out to me as possibly relevant:

People go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed and build private altars containing the favorite foods and beverages, as well as photos and memorabilia, of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them.

Some people believe the spirits of the dead eat the "spiritual essence" of the ofrendas food, so though the celebrators eat the food after the festivities, they believe it lacks nutritional value.

Some people believe possessing Day of the Dead items can bring good luck. Many people get tattoos or have dolls of the dead to carry with them. They also clean their houses and prepare the favorite dishes of their deceased loved ones to place upon their altar or ofrenda.

In some African cultures, visits to ancestors' graves, the leaving of food and gifts, and the asking of protection from them serve as important parts of traditional rituals.

Overall, I see the major traditions here as having a few major features:
-First, the belief that the dead can "come back" to visit and observe the living, if only on one day. In a D&D universe, this could extend to actual visits by ghosts. How is a community shaped when your yearly visit to meet Grandma moves to a cemetery?
-Second, the belief that offerings given actually reach the dead, and are consumed by them in some fashion. In a D&D universe, this... I'm less sure about this part, but what if, when you die, the tradition is to bury you with your equipment so you can keep using it in the afterlife? It's a bit more of a militant culture thing (Ysgard, basically), but it might work out?
-A significant focus on "telling the stories of the dead", and remembering rather specific things about them- their favorite foods, for example.

Some thoughts
-Does anything before death matter?
-Archeology as a divinely mandated activity?
-What does it think about intelligent undead? Vampires will "re-die" again eventually, so are they kosher?
-Do gods die? Will the god of death die? What happens then?
-Negative energy is strongly associated with undead. At the same time, it doesn't really have any innate moral dimension. What does this god think about this?



On a separate note, I'd like to offer a suggestion for an orc/ogre/troll god (whatever, as long as they are exclusively carnivorous, ideally maybe cannibals?), based on a rather silly one-shot I played in once:

Spoiler: Precepts of Yog

Show

MEAT IZ GUD
PEOPLE IS MEET
THEREFOR
MEET IZ PEEPLE
WHEN EET MEET, MEET GO IN BELLY
WHEN EET MEAT, GROW BIGGER
I.E.
WHEN EET MEET, MEET BECOME YOU
THERE4
WHEN EAT PERSON, PERSON BECOME YOU
EAT MORE PEOPLE = BE MORE PERSON

YOU AR WHUT YOU EAT:
DON'T BE PLANT
BE PERSON

WHEN DIE:
IF EATEN, BECOME PART OF EATER
IF NOT, LIVE ON IN AFTERLIFE AS EVERYTHING EATEN:
IF ATE WOLF HEAD: HAVE WOLF HEAD
IF ATE BEAR ARM: HAVE BEAR CLAWS

(the unspoken subtext to this is that most orcs in the afterlife look like hideous amalgamations of everything they ate during their life)