Local Cults

On this page you can find local established cults of the Mass. Players entering game as an Accensorite or a character with Anomaly Skill: Faithful Patterns, may use these local cults as their main faith with approval from the Experience Designers.

Players who are baptized in game are not required to submit an approval. 

The Followers of the Deep

One of the curiosities of the Mass is its Gravemind biomass. With the majority of it underwater, early survivors used to capitalize on the riches that were buried just below the ground floor of the ocean – old world treasures, technology, medicines and artifacts. It became so popular and well-known that rich Pureblood families would take ‘pleasure cruises’ out of Rogue Island and Baytowne and hire a Jones to scavenge them up treasures, much like old-world pearl hunting.

However, the more they scrapped the bottom, the closer they got to the biomass of the Gravemind which was expanding upward at the same time. Eventually, those pleasure cruises stopped coming back – or they came back with a shipful of people who were , forever changed,  a twisted visage of their former selves. Often spreading “the truth” that they found when at the bottom of the sea, they claimed that the ocean and the ichor at its depths opened their eyes, and that all peoples should worship the ocean and its secrets in order to become enlightened. 

Now the ocean biomass is so close to the water that it’s rumored that the ocean acts as a natural conduit for the biological and psychological influences of the Gravemind. It has made ocean exploration a source of treachery for sailors, not only because of the biomass, but because of how it also influences the deep water sea creatures that live in the deep waters.  Destroying those creatures has become a journey of the faithful for many of those who ascribe to the tenants of the Deep, whether to test themselves and their faith, or to defend those who may fall to it.

Tenants:

• The ocean is all powerful, it gives and takes away.

• Never seek the unknown, the Bottom is where madness dwells.

• Monsters of the sea must be slain, their flesh is the ocean's bounty.

• To the faithful, the ocean shares its deepest secrets and treasures, to its doubters, a typhoon of doom.

• There is but one fate for the mad, to be driven to the bottom and languish forever as slaves of the Bottom.

• Offerings of madness offer great reward, but can levy a hefty toll on the soul.

Based on those tenants, The Followers of the Deep has two subsect cults in addition to the standard faithful:

The Hats – a byproduct of the first forays into the Deep, the Hats are a mentally shattered group of individuals who have become so broken by what they experienced that they no longer recognize humanity. Their life line is their hat – hence the name. The sailing cap they went out with is their sense of self, their identity, and their tether to being sure they exist in the real world. Hats who lose their hats become close to catatonic. Lead by a local graverobber, the Hats are intensely knowledgeable regarding sailing, ocean-based creatures, and the Gravemind. Their goal is defend the landbound portions of the Mass from the horrors of the ocean-based biomass at all costs, up to and including their lives. The Hats are not an accessible cult for characters.

The Riversworn – Formerly known as “The Rivermen”. The scattered members of the formerly massive Gravemind cult have in the last few years chosen to shift some their ideologies and gather under a new banner, one borne by the Grave Robber Carrion and his “Children”. Their original Doctrine taught them to gain understanding from death, and in doing so they sought to spread that enlightenment to others by force. Now their beliefs have broadened to regard the entire process of death and dying (and the forcing of others into that process) to be a source of spiritual fulfillment and significant power. The Riversworn are not an accessible cult for characters.