[RPM] Cultists of the Cold Ones (Apocalyptic Cult of the Path of Nonexistence)

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In my campaign, Caribbean by Night (despite the name, currently set in Galveston, Texas), I need to make up around thirty or so cultists who belong to the Keepers of the Last Hearth, an apocalyptic cult devoted to the Lords of the Last Waste, vast, cool, unsympathetic intelligences that devour all life, light, heat, love, hope and possibilities.

There will be about five leaders, each with their own group of assistants, students, followers and hangers-on. Most of the people involved in the ritual in question come from South America, with previous NPCs associated with this cult having come from such South American countries as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. There are also North American members, however, and the cult seems to be worldwide.

I'm looking for two South American leaders, one from the United States and one from somewhere else in the world. Random dice determination tell me that the American one is female, young and attractive and that she has eight followers (none of whom amount to much).

We know that she was born with an aptitude for magic and that she was somehow recruited into the wing of the Keepers of the Last Hearth that is led by a mysterious Hidden Master in South America.

What kind of person would join an apocalyptic cult?

That depends on a couple of things.

What does 'apocalyptic' mean in context? And does she understand that actual meaning?

That'll have a heavy effect on what sort of person would be drawn to this. It depends in much on what she thinks she's doing, as opposed to what's actually going on.

She might:

1. Think of it as a cold-eyed trade-off. 'I help the Cold Ones wipe out most of humanity, in exchange they give me 'x'. 'X' could be wealth, power, immortality, a hunky lover or 10, whatever appeals to her. It doesn't matter if these benefits will actually materialize, as long as she thinks they will.

Option 1 might tend to appeal to a classic sociopath.

2. Raised to it. Her parents might have been cultists too, and she might have been quite literally raised to take part. Whether she really understands what's involved or not would depend on the details.

3. Totally misinformed. She really has no idea what's actually going on, she thinks the goal is something totally other. She might have been led to believe that the cult is a blind or a distraction for whatever she thinks is really going on. She might have been misled by others or her own wishful thinking. She could be at once intellectually brilliant and clueless about practicalities.

4. Curious. Her academic thirst for knowledge is so great she'll risk global destruction to satisfy it. This is another 'sociopath' type.

5. Bitter/angry about Whatever. It could be something big, she might have been a victim of child abuse, slavers, tortured by the drug cartels, suffered any number of horrific things. It might be relatively minor, maybe her lover betrayed her and she's prepared to destroy the world to get even. Either way she might be said to at least a little insane.

6. A lot insane. Totally bat-excrement crazy. This could be compatible with brilliant, she wants to destroy the world because it's Thursday or because her neighbor is growing sunflowers. Her motives would defy rational analysis because they are irrational.

Note that the sixth option makes her potentially a liability to the cultists, too, because her actions are inherently unpredictable.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

That depends on a couple of things.

What does 'apocalyptic' mean in context? And does she understand that actual meaning?

That'll have a heavy effect on what sort of person would be drawn to this. It depends in much on what she thinks she's doing, as opposed to what's actually going on.

Apocalyptic is my term, not an in-setting selling point to new recruits.

It's a cult, so recruits will tend to have a very skewed idea of the reality behind what they are doing, and most of the recruits will be vulnerable, at-risk people lacking a support network. Many will be addicts or recovering addicts, runaways, people getting out of abusive relationships and, yes, the mentally ill and psychologically disturbed. Because of the message and the communities where recruitment is focused, I expect a heavy concentration of people struggling with depression, self-harm, feelings of low self-worth and an array of other psychological issues.

Only the upper echelons of the cult know anything of what they are really doing and only the Hidden Masters know the full truth. That being said, the five leaders behind this ritual belong to the highest level of the Keepers of the Last Hearth, below only the Hidden Masters, and so will be fully cogniscant of the fact that the ritual is intended to bring about a profound and fundamental change on Earth, one incompatible with human life as we know it. There is, however, ample room for even these senior figures in the cult to be deluded about the consequences of so doing and they will have different motivations.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

She might:

1. Think of it as a cold-eyed trade-off. 'I help the Cold Ones wipe out most of humanity, in exchange they give me 'x'. 'X' could be wealth, power, immortality, a hunky lover or 10, whatever appeals to her. It doesn't matter if these benefits will actually materialize, as long as she thinks they will.

Option 1 might tend to appeal to a classic sociopath.

This is fairly classic for mid-level cultists and, perhaps especially, criminal associates of the cult, that the PCs have encountered. Of course, from what the criminals say, they have no idea of the ultimate goals of the cultists, just that they are too scary to refuse, pay well and perform magical rituals (complete with human sacrifices) that actually work, so they are terrified any disloyalty will be discovered and punished by awful curses. So the 'ordinary decent criminals' actually claim to be a little from this column, a little from column 3.

At least a few cultists with self-serving motivations appear to be ritual magicians, who must to some degree be initiated into greater secrets of the cult. Of course, it's difficult to disentangle motives of self-interest from bitterness and psychological illness when the person in question speaks, apparently sincerely, about the beauty of oblivion and the coming End of Days, but also uses Path of Nonexistence rituals that cause unconsciousness and memory loss as date rape drugs.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

2. Raised to it. Her parents might have been cultists too, and she might have been quite literally raised to take part. Whether she really understands what's involved or not would depend on the details.

The Girl with the Kaleidoscope Eyes, who was apparently supposed to initiate the ritual, seems raised in this cult.

There is reason to believe she's exceptional (and not only because not that many children are born in Antarctica), however, as the PCs cannot find any evidence of the cult existing before the year 2000 or so. If it was founded earlier, it would have been very small, maybe just a couple of people. At any rate, the supernatural hasn't been present in the setting very long, with the first reports that the PCs know about dating back to the 1980s and while paranormal phenomena have been appearing at increasing rates after 2000, reports of it are still officially disbelieved and the history of the world is pretty much identical to ours until the mid-90s.*

So it's unlikely that there are many others raised to the cult and even if there are, they'll tend to be young. I imagine that the five leaders concerned with this particular ritual are all old enough so that they were adults (or at least teenagers) when they learned about the existence of the supernatural, although I suppose that the youngest of them, our hypothetical Asian-American from California, could be born in 1987 or so, which would make her young enough so that she might have discovered magic as a child.

And, of course, even before the campaign world diverged from reality, children in our world can be raised in cults and strange subcultures of all sorts, albeit ones without functioning magic, and maybe that kind of upbringing makes people more likely to join a ritual magic using cult later on.

*The main differences between the campaign world and ours, aside from the existence of hidden supernatural threats, is that in the campaign world, instead of the rise in crime rates seen in the US and many other countries during the 80s and early 90s peaking and then receding since then as happened in our world, in the campaign, crime rates have risen steadily from the 1980s onward and at the end of 2018, rates of violence in the world are about four times what they are in reality.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

3. Totally misinformed. She really has no idea what's actually going on, she thinks the goal is something totally other. She might have been led to believe that the cult is a blind or a distraction for whatever she thinks is really going on. She might have been misled by others or her own wishful thinking. She could be at once intellectually brilliant and clueless about practicalities.

Totally misinformed will be confined to lower-levels of the cult, associates and other useful idiots, but wishful thinking and self-delusion are entirely valid.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

4. Curious. Her academic thirst for knowledge is so great she'll risk global destruction to satisfy it. This is another 'sociopath' type.

That's an interesting motivation. What would make someone who was capable of performing ritual magic so curious about the ideal of oblivion, nonexistence and the End, rather than investigating magic in itself, learning from spirits or exploring some other aspect of the paranormal world opened up by their gifts?

Perhaps at first, someone might be unaware of the existence of anyone else who knows about magic and have no other way to learn it, of course. But at a certain point, at least if they reach a leadership role and can create powerful rituals, they'd learn enough to be able to contact different spirits, if they really wanted. So someone would have to be really curious about the Lords of the Last Waste specifically, or about something which distinguishes them from all other extranormal entities reachable with the right rituals.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

5. Bitter/angry about Whatever. It could be something big, she might have been a victim of child abuse, slavers, tortured by the drug cartels, suffered any number of horrific things. It might be relatively minor, maybe her lover betrayed her and she's prepared to destroy the world to get even. Either way she might be said to at least a little insane.

Ah, yes, always a classic. One fairly feckless cultic assistant was a depressed teenage boy who frequented Internet forums dedicated to incels and discussing suicide, which led him to nihilistic websites devoted to an aspiration toward the suicide of the human race as the only ethical choice. The sort who idealizes Rusty Cohle in True Detective and doesn't realize Cohle is trying to convince himself of the philosophy of nihilism, because the alternative hurts too much.

Bitterness could also be said to be the motivation of Sister María Teresa, the strongest personality among the five leaders who've come to Texas to perform this ritual. A nun from Colombia who dedicated her life to helping the weak and the poor, she gradually lost her faith through working with the less fortunate in the Candelaria district of Bogotá through the drug war and civil wars of her home country and the continuing cycle of violence that in this world seems unending. When she discovered the existence of the supernatural, she came to the conclusion that the existence of demons, ghosts and spirits must necessarily torpedo any rationalist, materialist explanation for the world, so that the God of her childhood must exist in some form.

And He must be either incompetent or evil, to allow so much suffering. So as He was clearly not ready for the responsibility, the only moral thing to do was to take His toys away, for good. Oblivion was better than the alternative, an eternity of man's inhumanity to man.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

6. A lot insane. Totally bat-excrement crazy. This could be compatible with brilliant, she wants to destroy the world because it's Thursday or because her neighbor is growing sunflowers. Her motives would defy rational analysis because they are irrational.

Note that the sixth option makes her potentially a liability to the cultists, too, because her actions are inherently unpredictable.

There is evidence in the campaign world that people who practice magic rarely exhibit perfect sanity and prolonged use might actively cause alienation and psychic trauma. Certainly, most people that the PCs know about who've studied the occult to any extent are deeply eccentric, at best, and confined to instutitons as dangers to themselves and others, at worst.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Icelander

There is reason to believe she's exceptional (and not only because not that many children are born in Antarctica), however, as the PCs cannot find any evidence of the cult existing before the year 2000 or so. If it was founded earlier, it would have been very small, maybe just a couple of people. At any rate, the supernatural hasn't been present in the setting very long, with the first reports that the PCs know about dating back to the 1980s and while paranormal phenomena have been appearing at increasing rates after 2000, reports of it are still officially disbelieved and the history of the world is pretty much identical to ours until the mid-90s.*

Hmm...does that mean that there wasn't any magic at all before about 2000 A.D., or was there supernatural activity a long time ago and it stopped and now it's started again?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Hmm...does that mean that there wasn't any magic at all before about 2000 A.D., or was there supernatural activity a long time ago and it stopped and now it's started again?

While true certainty about the past is impossible, all the evidence suggests that at some point in human history, the supernatural world and our world were more closely intertwined. One PC at least believes that there were societies of powerful magical beings living among humans before the start of recorded history and while his specific theories are outré, the idea that, for example, fey folk and humans might have coexisted at some point is not considered implausible by the most learned occultists the PCs know.

However, most theorists aware of the occult believe that as human cicilization grew more complex and technology advanced, the connection with occult forces decline. By the 19th century, the supernatural was mostly superstition, as in our world, perhaps with very occasional exceptions in Places of Power and/or in relation with truly special individuals or times. Few, if any credible reports of the supernatural exist between 1901-1990 and the PCs believe that there might have been no events at all from 1889 to 1980. And before the year 2000, supernatural phenomena was so rare in most of the Western world that the US might see only a few incidents in the entire decade from 1990-2000. Only in the 2010s has the pace of incidents accelerated to the point that it seems incredible that no uncontroversible evidence has been publicised.

That means no real continuity with any ancient and esoteric organization of the past. There are religious orders older than this, yes, and even various fraternal organizations, but even while magic might have been theoretically possible in the 18th and 19th century, the vast majority of people involved in the occult even then were not practising effective magic. And a century is enough so that all the people in authoeity have grown up during times when magic was purely supersitition and been taught by others who knew the same, so even rituals that could have once had power were being performed by people who probably didn't expect any effects.

And aside from religious practices, most occult traditions and organizations in the Western world have grown irrelevant, except as social clubs, over the 19th and 20th century. So any cults and occult conspiracies in my campaign are new, though some of them might have roots in a conscious revival of various older traditions.

[Icelander]

Hermana (Sister) María Teresa Romero Borja (October 31, 1963; Bogotá, Colombia) is a well-read, well-educated Catholic nun from an upper class family in Bogotá, who had long ago lost her faith, but kept her vows and continued ministering to the poor and downtrodden from the Adoratrices convent in the historic Candelaria district of Bogotá. Her work involved seeing the worst of the world, in a neighbourhood filled with prostitution, crime, violence and endemic drug use, but Sister María Teresa had been gradually losing her faith throughout the violence and misery of the 1980s and 1990s in Colombia.

Ironically, as the violence and wasted lives around her got worse and ever more senseless, Sister María Teresa had cause to question her earlier private convictions about a materialistic universe. As crime rates rose and kept rising, it seemed insufficient to explain the horrors with mundane causes and sociological statistics. Tales told by the marginalized, the people of the streets and the night, were steeped in superstition, but suggested an awful truth nonetheless.

As Sister María Teresa ministered to the victims and perpetrators of the vast crime against humanity taking place day by day, street by street, firefight by firefight, needle by needle, in the brothels, avenues and alleyways, she felt, at times, the presence of Evil around her. As predatory criminals and the police that should have protected the people from them sunk to new depths of cruelty, mostly against the innocent instead of each other, Sister María Teresa could dimly sense an unseen force toying with them like ants.

Around the turn of the century, Sister María Teresa experienced a loss more personal than her daily misery, as her best friend within the convent disappeared and was found five months later, brutally murdered. The straw that broke the camel's back and filled Sister María Teresa with fury against the uncaring, unhelpful, imperfect God she had served all her life was when it eventually came to light that the murderer was another nun from the convent, the prudish and judgmental Sister Leticia, apparently motivated by disapproval by the victim's 'sinful' association with and empathy for sex workers and drug addicts among her flock.

Now, Sister María Teresa is still nominally a Catholic nun in good standing, but her one abiding desire since that day, sixteen years ago, when she confronted the revelation of the petty tyranny and small-minded hatred of Sister Leticia that extinguished the sole light of her existence, has been to end the charade of divine benevolance and stop the torment of this vale of tears, not just for her, but for everyone. She sees clearly now, you see. There are devils and if there are devils, there is a God. And that God is the worst monster of them all.

By now, Sister María Teresa has spent the last sixteen years exploring the dark and mysterious forces she sensed around her, researching the occult and esoteric while pretending outwardly to be still the same stalwart minister to the poor as before, retaining her habit and her vows. She has learned terrible secrets from the whispers of spirits and wrestled forbidden lore from entities of vast and inhuman powers.

Along the way, she made contact with fellow students of the occult, carefully building a network of contacts and a few trusted allies. Eventually, she found a like-minded mentor and took to the creed of the Keepers of the Last Hearth with all the fervor of a convert, discovering again the intensity of religious feeling she felt in her forgotten childhood.

What I want to know, is, if she has three favored students and confidants who assist her with secret rituals, who are they?

Fellow nuns?

Former prostitutes, drug addicts or both, encountered in her ministrations?

Someone else?

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Fellow nuns?

Former prostitutes, drug addicts or both, encountered in her ministrations?

Someone else?

There's a two-sided problem here.

Fellow religious are more likely to be reliable people, but recruiting them has the downside that if they say "no" and go to the authorities (conventual authorities, but still) they are likely to be believed that this lady's gone crazy and is up to something bad.

People from the underworld won't be believed, but they're also unlikely to be reliable.

If there's time for the recruitment to be a gradual process, then slowly corrupting reliable people (such that by the time they have something damaging to say they're already complicit in it) is probably the better bet.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

There's a two-sided problem here.

Fellow religious are more likely to be reliable people, but recruiting them has the downside that if they say "no" and go to the authorities (conventual authorities, but still) they are likely to be believed that this lady's gone crazy and is up to something bad.

People from the underworld won't be believed, but they're also unlikely to be reliable.

If there's time for the recruitment to be a gradual process, then slowly corrupting reliable people (such that by the time they have something damaging to say they're already complicit in it) is probably the better bet.

There are sixteen years between Sister María Teresa's fall into darkness and the time in play when she is encountered along with her most trusted followers, so I imagine that any recruitment was extremely gradual.

I'm imagining that at least one follower was the abandoned child of a drug-addicted prostitute (born addicted and HIV positive), who was one of the charges that the nuns ministered to in the Candelaria district. Sister María Teresa wouldn't technically have raised him (he was raised in an orphanage), but she would have visited him regularly from the time he was very young.*

*Initially, not as a conscious strategy or anything, but because she did (and does) continue her charitable ministering work. Also, I imagine that this child would have been born around 1995 or so, so Sister Luz Amparo Granada (her friend, murdered at the end of 1999) would have been the one to first bond with the child and they'd have visited him together.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Icelander

While true certainty about the past is impossible, all the evidence suggests that at some point in human history, the supernatural world and our world were more closely intertwined. One PC at least believes that there were societies of powerful magical beings living among humans before the start of recorded history and while his specific theories are outré, the idea that, for example, fey folk and humans might have coexisted at some point is not considered implausible by the most learned occultists the PCs know.

However, most theorists aware of the occult believe that as human cicilization grew more complex and technology advanced, the connection with occult forces decline. By the 19th century, the supernatural was mostly superstition, as in our world, perhaps with very occasional exceptions in Places of Power and/or in relation with truly special individuals or times. Few, if any credible reports of the supernatural exist between 1901-1990 and the PCs believe that there might have been no events at all from 1889 to 1980. And before the year 2000, supernatural phenomena was so rare in most of the Western world that the US might see only a few incidents in the entire decade from 1990-2000. Only in the 2010s has the pace of incidents accelerated to the point that it seems incredible that no uncontroversible evidence has been publicised.

That means no real continuity with any ancient and esoteric organization of the past. There are religious orders older than this, yes, and even various fraternal organizations, but even while magic might have been theoretically possible in the 18th and 19th century, the vast majority of people involved in the occult even then were not practising effective magic. And a century is enough so that all the people in authoeity have grown up during times when magic was purely supersitition and been taught by others who knew the same, so even rituals that could have once had power were being performed by people who probably didn't expect any effects.

And aside from religious practices, most occult traditions and organizations in the Western world have grown irrelevant, except as social clubs, over the 19th and 20th century. So any cults and occult conspiracies in my campaign are new, though some of them might have roots in a conscious revival of various older traditions.

Hmmm...could some long-lived, or immortal, supernatural beings have been there all along, in concealment or passing themselves off as human?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Hmmm...could some long-lived, or immortal, supernatural beings have been there all along, in concealment or passing themselves off as human?

No.

Supernatural beings cannot survive without Mana, certainly not for any extended period.

For most of the 20th century, nothing existed in the setting that does not exist in the real world.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Icelander

No.

Supernatural beings cannot survive without Mana, certainly not for any extended period.

For most of the 20th century, nothing existed in the setting that does not exist in the real world.

The reason I ask is that the rise of the cult would be easier to explain if there was some seed crystal for it left over from the previous time of magic. If not an immortal entity, than maybe something they left behind. A book, say, enchanted to reach out to someone once the magic came back. Or more likely a set of books, containing rituals or at least a way to contact the outer entities for instruction in rituals.

The only actual magic that would be required would be something that drew someone suitable to the books to start the ball rolling, something that could operate once the mana resurged.

Maybe the books were stored in some place of power where a trickle still flowed...