These people definitely plant crops.
On the significance of Passage of the Soul:
This goes a bit into game mechanics, so bear with me.
When a person dies, his soul goes to Heaven. In the case of Laranians, it goes to Tirathor, Laranian heaven. Or, maybe, his soul doesn’t make it. Perhaps it is claimed by demons, or wanders the land as a ghost, or meets some other dreadful fate. In game terms, what determines that?
Piety points. Every character who is not an atheist has piety points, and also has a skill called ritual. Ritual is basically your skill at saying the Lord’s Prayer, knowing how to take communion, etc. Most characters have ritual at around 10-15, enough to get by in church without looking like a fool. Priests, obviously, have a much higher ritual skill. (NAF has 72.)
Piety points are sort of like god money. The more you have, the more your god likes you. Jesus had a few thousand of them. Fred Phelps probably has negative six. You earn PP by praying, going on holy quests, helping little old ladies across the street, etc.
“How many PP do I have?” You don’t know. You can only hope you’re in good standing with your god. Feeling all high and mighty is no guarantee that your god likes you. Likewise, some very humble people may be the holiest of all.
So what happens when you die? If your PP equal or exceed your ritual skill, you die in a state of grace and go to heaven. If not, well… And obviously, a priest needs to have more PP than the laity.
When Passage of the Soul is invoked, the priest gives piety to the deceased. The hope is that this will give the deceased enough piety to make the journey.