Monster Cults

[SlaadLord]

Do you find that you/your players have tired of hunting down and killing the servants of evil gods, demon lords, and (if you run that sort of game) celestial beings?

Are you tired of using the same cleric over and over, with slightly altered domains?

Looking for a more "grounded" element to your game, meaning everything is happening on the material plane, no gods/powerful outsiders involved?

If the answer to any of these is yes, look no further for a solution.

Consider: most people, even in a high-magic D&D world, where clerics are granted actual, tangible power by gods whose existence is a fact, will have trouble believing in something they will never see, hear, or feel. Furthermore, the way to this power from the gods is hard, and not everyone has the talent or hears the calling. However, there is something that their senses can confirm, whose power they cannot refute, that they can learn from and serve directly regardless of their individual talents.

For the DM, a monster cult is any group of NPCs who take inspiration and leadership from a monster of some kind. For instance, a tribe of lizardfolk who attacks human villages or caravans and brings their treasure to the green dragon they venerate is a monster cult. The small town who sacrifices random wanderers to the kraken in their bay is a monster cult. The servants of a single hezrou who dominate the slum district in a city are a monster cult.

In short, the building blocks of a monster cult are:
1. A reasonably intelligent monster as a leader, the subject of veneration (henceforth, to be referred to as the idol). Replaces the god/demon lord/archdevil/etc. of a typical cult.
2. A collection of followers, who are usually individually weaker than the idol.
3. The point of the cult is (usually) to amass material goods/power for the idol. (Ex. the lizardfolk-dragon cult previously mentioned)
4. The cult as a whole has little or no larger religious implication; that is, the idol is the only object of worship. There are no greater beings involved.

The attraction of a monster cult is a simple thing to a DM. They can be built at any level, using servants of any sort (although most consist of humanoid servants), and can feature NPCs of any class. Want your kraken cult to consist primarily of rogue/fighters (pirates)? Fine. Want the dragon cult to feature sorcerers and half-dragons as its leaders? Fine.

The strongest point of a monster cult is its class flexibility. While most cults of a god, demon lord, archdevil or what have you are "led" by a cleric, a monster cult is often led by whoever the monster in question happened to favor at the time or whichever individual has proven the strongest servant. Even more perplexingly, it is possible for the monster cult to have no leader, under the monster itself (that is, lacking a "high priest"- think if every member of this sect of Vecna worshipers or that cult of Erythnul was the cult's leader). All members might be directly accountable only to the monster around whom the "worship" is based.

Obviously, stronger monsters make better cult leaders. Krakens, Rakshasa, Demons/Devils, and Dragons all make good leaders of a monster cult, because they're both physically and magically powerful or resilient. A rakshasa, for instance, is extraordinarily difficult to kill (unless you happen to have a few blessed arrows lying around), is much smarter and more skilled than the average human being, has a selection of magical abilities suited both to manipulation and demonstrating power, and has the desire to subjugate and rule that most monster cults are formed as a result of.

The final point I'm out to make here is that monster cults can vastly simplify your worldbuilding. You can have your core pantheon, sure, but who wants to create (or, realistically, use) the wide range of demon lords, archdevils, or minor gods available? The use of monster cults provides a grounding element, as well; if you slay the idol of a monster cult, it's gone. Not so with that cult of Demogorgon- there's another one out there somewhere. It's a concrete and final victory on the part of your PCs, unless you mean the idol itself to be a recurring villain, and that in and of itself can be a campaign waiting to happen.

Anyways, enough of my chatter. Anyone have any tales of things like this that, in retrospect, might fit in the description of a "monster cult"?

[locutus]

I Love it! I've actually got a number of cults... though no monster cult. I do have one that seems to be a monster cult based around a Xorn, but is actually something far larger; they were just calling the xorn to ask about the tectonic disposition of it's domain. The stolen armor was just the agreed upon payment, not tribute.

I've also got a dead empire cult and a growing cult of Dionysius. So far the players have blundered into all three, though the dead empire cult is the only one they recognized. and joined.

I think you just gave me an idea for another one here....

[DeltaEmil]

The Forgotten Realms has those Occular Adepts, which are a bunch of crazies worshipping a (or some) Beholders.

I think they're situated under the city of Waterdeep.

[North_Ranger]

Pathfinder's Golarion campaign setting has an interesting variant of what the OP is suggesting. One of the setting's core gods is the Chaotic Evil god Rovagug, also known as the Rough Beast - essentially Cthulhu on steroids: an omnicidal, all-loathing, god-killing monster who wishes nothing else but the unmaking of creation in a destructive orgy of blood and teeth and flesh. Because of his essentially bestial nature and that the gods locked him away in the depths of the earth in the beginning of time, some of his cults venerate him by focusing their worship on a massive beast that is kept in a pit and fed by his (half-)mad priests.

In this variant, there is still a god being worshipped - but the god is that of apocalyptic destruction, the end of all things whose only gift for those who might one dark day release him is swift death and not being there to see when he destroys the world. And the cult's object of veneration is a massive monster. Maybe they believe the monster is a representation of Rovagug, there to be the god's maw that crushes the still-screaming sacrifices between its jaw. Or maybe the cultists are raising the monster, planning to one day release it upon the world in an imitation - no matter how pale - of the holocaust the Rough Beast will one day inflict upon creation. Or maybe they are just goddamn out of their minds - a very real option, considering their patron.

[SlaadLord]

I am familiar with both Pathfinder and the Ocular Adepts of Faerun. the Ocular Adepts are a monster cult; the church of Rovagug is not (in the sense that I mean). The monster in question is undeniably a deity; his children, although they may be worshiped as well, are respected largely because of their ties to the Rough Beast and not because they themselves are out for found a following and gather "worshipers."

Tl;dr: Ocular Adepts yes, Rovagug's church no because it violates rule #4. The fact that the cult's idol is a god means the cult has a larger religious implication, in this case the possible end of all things.

locutus: So the cult summoned the xorn and paid it with (presumably) stolen magical armor to find out the information they needed? Glad to hear I may have inspired you! :smallamused:

[North_Ranger]

I still wouldn't dismiss the Rough Beast so easily. Personally I found the concept interesting and ripe for gameplay: the PCs think they are just dealing with another minor cult of robed yahoos who've kidnapped the duke's daughter, but just when they put the relatively low-level "high priest" to the sword, they hear something snorting and clawing its way out of the dark sacrificial pit... Even if it's a level-appropriate monster encounter, I'm willing to bet there's a heightened sense of "Oh S*it" they realise that the cult's "god" is rising from the proverbial stygian pit.

[KillianHawkeye]

I really like this idea. I'm making a note to remember it the next time I do some world-building.

[awa]

Short version In my current setting there is an awakened tree that is worshiped as a god.
it's priests spread cuttings which are connected to the original tree.

long versionin the setting certain things have power faith, fear, death all leave a trace of power in addition exceptional or unique things draw power to them. Ages before the game a wizard ruled as a god he gave his decrees from underneath the massive tree. The tree became the symbol of the god. Latter the wizard left to fight in a war of wizards, so the people gave their prayers to the tree with time the wizard was forgotten and the tree became the object of worship in its own right. During this time bodies were buried under the trees roots and criminals were impaled on its branches. The wizard gravely wounded from the war returned and tried to draw upon the tree as it was his place of power but the tree had grown beyond him in power and instead took his power leaving him and empty husk. Millenniums passed and an army of vampires invaded the people were helpless and fell back to the tree all the fear, death, prayer was enough to awaken the colossal tree, which overwhelmed the vampires in minutes impaling them on its branches. Fully aware the tree bade its priest to take cuttings and seeds and travel to far of lands spreading its word and its seed


the idea of the rough beast might be interesting but it is clearly a powerful outsider so has no bearing on the idea of monster cults as presented in this post