Hello everyone. Faith has always played a major role in our people’s life. For virtually all of history, the faith of the Four has been dominant among us and dictated the rules and customs. However, not everyone wanted to adhere to it, giving rise to numerous minor religious movements. The same is true in the South, but their ample pantheons leave more room for individual deviation. Today we will explore one of the many small cults that, despite its small size, caused disturbance in its region. This is how it started…
***
Lakkunin, year 1528 of Era I
The birth of the cult was strange, but not exceptional. When its members were first observed, the group was tiny – it only consisted of the spiritual leader and two followers. Soon after their arrival in the Empire, people from the areas they passed through would join, sometimes because of their teachings, but mostly lured by the illusions created by the priest, who was magic and had basic knowledge on how to control the power.
Their beliefs were practically monotheist – they worshipped a god named Ade, a minor deity in the South, enlisted in Lakkunin and parts of Taervin. Their belief system was centered around the concept that despite being merely a divine keeper of cattle, receiving worship in a relatively small area, he actually holds immense power over all living things. The key element in their religious practice was blood. The main ritual was based on pouring blood into water while reciting prayers or chanting one of the few hymns they had created. Initially, they would use animal blood, but quite quickly the doctrine that Ade craves blood of his enemies became dominant. However, the cult was too small to wage war against the whole outside world. For this reason, they would often start meaningless conflicts with villagers, and then kidnap and slay them in the name of Ade, to then perform the ritual on their altar.
At its peak, the cult had almost a hundred members. After a few months of constant travel, the group initially settled in the middle of nowhere in the duchy, by the bank of a small river. For some time they performed the ritual at the river, without any specific instruments. Quite quickly, they constructed a small temple that would later be named Basalt Shrine, in honor of the hard rock boulder that was used for the altar, with a large water bowl on top.
The existence of the cult was a major nuisance for the local population. Kidnappings were frequent, and even more frequent were arguments with the villagers and related incidents. The most notable of them was when one of the followers insulted a farmer who supposedly did not treat his animals well, which resulted in a major fight with over a dozen people involved, out of which two were killed and one lost an arm. The folk made a few attempts to expel the cultists from the region throughout the years, but all of them were futile. The villagers begged the duke to take action for many years, but he deemed any response overly costly. Eventually, no action was needed, as the cult died a natural death – no new followers joined, and after about a century of existence it simply disappeared, leaving no traces except for their lonely temple.
That’s the end of the story, thank you.
Aedilër 