Demonic temples

[b-dog]

I am thinking about the way demonic temples worked in old school adventures where a temple was built and then bandits and goblin-kin and other malign humanoids would go out and collect treasure and sacrificial victims to bring to the temple. That is fine but it leaves out the corruptive influence of evil. In the case of corruptive evil, the people around the temple may become corrupted by the temple and then bring treasure and sacrifices to the temple in exchange for evil blessings or to have power bestowed upon them. Some townsfolk might even sell their souls to get power too. Eventually they will steal and rob others to get the treasure and sacrifices they need so they can keep the power granted to them.

In this scenario, the temple would have their own guards to protect the temple but they would not have to have a large army to lay siege on other lands to get the sacrifices, instead the sacrifices and treasure would come from the people who have been corrupted because of their greed or desire for power. The evil temple would be analogous to a drug cartel or drug gang who hold territory so the people can voluntarily sell their souls to get the power and blessings they desire the same way drug addicts steal and sell things to get the drugs they desire. . This scenario would be good for the GURPs skill system because a lot of the adventure would be finding out who has been corrupted and who has not. This would give the PCs with social skills more of a chance to shine in the adventure too.

[Dalin]

This reminds me of a thread in Merlin Avery's DFRPG adventure, Forest's End. It features some corruption among the general population which can be a clue to the PCs that all is not right. It doesn't include the sacrifice element, but it would be interesting to add that element.

In a similar vein, I've been running a DFRPG version of the venerable AD&D adventure, Against the Cult of the Reptile God. In my variant, the cultists have powers granted to them that make them more dangerous (since the PCs are much more powerful than first level AD&D characters).

I agree that this sort of scenario plays to the strengths of the GURPS skill system. Lots of social skills play a role, along with knowledge skills like Current Affairs, Hidden Lore, Occultism, and Theology.