A weird cult of Heironeous?

[Jon_Dahl]

I'd like to have something just to shake things up in my game. Basically just to make things interesting.

A high-level cleric of Heironeous would feel that there faith is not doing enough to prove their devotion to their deity. In an unusual stress-related psychotic break he would come up with a strict set of rules that don't make any sense, but he would believe that following these rules would bring them closer to their deity. He would pray to Heironeous, who would not answer: the rules would be meaningless to him and this sort of minutiae doesn't concern him. It's simply none of his concern. The cleric would feel that Heironeous has accepted his rules (this would not move Heironeous either) and he would start a cult. His sheer charisma and the general sociopolitical atmosphere would draw in cultists. They would follow their unusual lifestyle in Heironeous's honor.

I haven't decided on the rules yet, but they should be something visible, such as wearing large white pointy hats and refusal to look at semi-naked people. Some other suggestions would be the complete ban on cursing/foul language and using weird terms to describe body parts, such as "shield" for buttocks. Whenever they accidently break any of the rules, they must pray aloid and frantically wave their hands around. The PCs could be tempted to join the cult since the members clerical magic on a massive discount.

Any suggestions? What do you think?

[MisterKaws]

Heroineus Loves Killing Heathens, and his church is designed as being an army by itself, go wild with that and start an inquisition or something.

[The Glyphstone]

Are you going for a comedic cult, or a sinister cult? Are the PCs intended to be looking to join it, or to destroy it?

[Fitz10019]

Sinister: starting wars against 'impure' countries; scaring the populace into wanting wartime taxes

Comedic: basic idea 'always be ready for war' extrapolates into the absurd

doing everyday tasks with their left hands so their right hand is every ready to smite in the name of Heironeous, and punish yourself for every failing
weaponize everyday objects: 'this spoon isn't sharp enough to kill. Fix it now!'
require passwords for the simplest exchanges of information

[Jon_Dahl]

Are you going for a comedic cult, or a sinister cult? Are the PCs intended to be looking to join it, or to destroy it?

An ideal option would be to have both. Something that would be so confusing that the players and PCs would not know whether to laugh or fight. Or fight laughing. I have no particular intention about having the PCs join it or destroy. It would be great to present the cult in a way that both would be viable options. What do you think?

[Jon_Dahl]

Sinister: starting wars against 'impure' countries; scaring the populace into wanting wartime taxes

Comedic: basic idea 'always be ready for war' extrapolates into the absurd

doing everyday tasks with their left hands so their right hand is every ready to smite in the name of Heironeous, and punish yourself for every failing
weaponize everyday objects: 'this spoon isn't sharp enough to kill. Fix it now!'
require passwords for the simplest exchanges of information


Dark comedy, in other words combining the sinister and the absurd:
'Spies of Chaos' must destroyed. Only their cult has the understanding what these spies are, but the understanding is very vague, such as the divine revelation says that the Spies have a different smell than the servant Law and Good. The Spies must be destroyed or banished if Heironeous's faithful is ever to win the Great War against Evil.

[LTwerewolf]

Their prayers absolutely could be answered. By one of the lords of the nine, who would love to send emissaries to increase the power of this cult, which would damage the name of heironeous. In fact it might be a direct messenger from asmodeus himself in order to help out his good buddy hextor.

[Jon_Dahl]

Their prayers absolutely could be answered. By one of the lords of the nine, who would love to send emissaries to increase the power of this cult, which would damage the name of heironeous. In fact it might be a direct messenger from asmodeus himself in order to help out his good buddy hextor.

I like that idea, but I think that could be something that could draw Heironeous's attention pretty fast, thus ending the whole deal...or not? The fact that the silliness of the cult simply doesn't interest Heironeous because the cultists still perform their vital duties might be something that could easily create long-standing and not easily solvable problems within the realms of men. I don't know. Both sound good and I like your idea.

[LTwerewolf]

Asmodeus didn't keep his throne because he went about things so very blatantly. He's the master of subtlety. Within that subtlety, he can easily influence mortals without others realizing he's involved at all. Devils have a huge variety of powers which can be used to deceive nearly anyone, especially a mentally broken cleric who is looking desperately for confirmation on any little thing. At first it starts out pretty innocuous. Over time things gradually get more damaging. Asmodeus has millennia to work this plan, he's in no hurry. You can have this cult as far along as you like in that process.

[Ger. Bessa]

In FR, the "good guy gods" are a trinity of three aspects of paladin virtue. (The triad : Tyr, Illmater, and the third one).

The (spanish?) In-k-k-k-quisition is only one possible path, you could also flanderize another aspect. You could make a cult of ubermartyrs that don't do much besides flaying themselves. As in :
- Oh no, a werewolf appeared near the village and eats our kids
- Do not worry, I, a champion of justice, will save you.
- Will you slay the beast ?
- No, I shall pray without eating or sleeping for seven days and seven nights in that barn over there, for the salute of the souls of those who died.

That would also leave plenty of job for your players.

[Sheogoroth]

I made a weird cult of Pelor as a backstory for a character built around these feats (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/channel-force-aasimar). The idea was that he saw Pelor as the one true deity and all others were usurpers, so he would actively destroy and undermine religious institutions while building his cult.
The idea behind the cult was that it was more LN, because it would burn heretics alive or tie them up and have them be "Judged by Pelor", that is to say- death by exposure. It was sort of a nation-building campaign, so we were going for rule through strict religious law.

I had started working on a "Book of Pelor"

In the beginning was chaos and the chaos was darkness. The chaos and darkness were together and the world was evil. Then there was light, and the light separated from the darkness and became Pelor. So there was Pelor and Darkness, Order and Chaos, Good and Evil, Day and Night. So it was and so it is until the last day, when Pelor shall banish the night and light shall reign.
And so it came to pass that I was blind and my eyes were opened.
Pelor, the Noonday Sun, the Everburning Flame, the Eternal Pyre, the High Judge, He who Walks Before. He spoke to me in the darkness, because I alone among men of the earth longed for the truth. Yea, I yearned for the light and the light was blinding, and the light was purifying, and the light was good.
Yea, it was good. And he said unto me- my son, my chosen messenger. I have given you the sacred fire, the cleansing flame. Spread this fire across the face of the earth, until all have joined with Pelor or been consumed by its heat. Then the earth shall shine as bright as the sun, and Pelor shall descend to reward the faithful, and wage eternal war upon the demon, the devil, the heretic, and the undead.

These Commands I received to spread to the faithful. Failure to fulfill the Nine will result in penitent wrath as Pelor commands.
1. Thine worship is owed None but Pelor
2. Thou shall not suffer the Heretic to live. He will convert or die
3. Thou shalt not steal. There is no thievery in the name of Pelor.
4. Thou shalt not kill. There is no murder in the name of Pelor.
5. Thou shalt suffer the beast, the mutant, the alien, if he will but kneel before Pelor.
6. Thou shalt seek the sun and keep the days of Pelor.
7. Thou shalt suffer not the undead nor the demon nor the devil to live.
8. Thou shalt not neglect the faithful.
9. Thou shalt respect the cleansing flame and obey The Prophet of Pelor.

There is only Pelor and Helios his prophet.
Any who will not serve has not seen the light, and if he see the light and he shall not serve, he shall be purged of his eyes or worked- and if he be purged and shall not serve, he is a heretic or a demon and shall die.

The truths.
1. These truths shall be evident among those who have seen the light. This is truth
2. The races of the earth shall be equal in the eyes of Pelor. All shall serve and Helios is is prophet. This is truth
3. The burning sun is the judge of the service of all. This is truth
4. Under all things you labor under the sun and the eye of Pelor. As you labor, know that Pelor watches and sees your laziness. This is truth
5. Some may ask what right we have to exterminate the heathen, the heretic- but them that have seen the light, know that we have no right to let them live. All belong to Pelor. This is truth
6. It is no crime to burn a heretic. Indeed it is a mercy, for an unrepentant heretic is already undead. This is truth
7. Light is Preeminent. This is truth

The histories
Pelor born first among the house of deities. His wife, Iomedae gave birth to all pantheon of the gods. And though their worship was owed none but him, they usurped his throne- a fellowship of unworthy children and spread lies into the hearts of men and beasts, so that they would look to them for strength.


But alas, I decided that I wanted to save him for a different campaign, so I put it on hold. For the time being it remains unfinished.

You could just as easily replace "Pelor" with Heinousness and do a little re-write.

[Telonius]

For the comedic side, you might take some inspiration from Terry Pratchett. In Monstrous Regiment, one of the gods (Nuggan) had kind of gone off the deep end, and issued a series of Abominations - lists of things that were displeasing to Nuggan. From the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_Regiment_(novel)):

To put this in perspective, these things include garlic, cats, the smell of beets, people with ginger hair, shirts with six buttons, anyone shorter than three feet (including children and babies), sneezing, rocks, ears, jigsaw puzzles, chocolate (which was once Borogravia's staple export, plunging the country into increasing poverty), and the colour blue.

[Zaq]

You could make a cult of ubermartyrs that don't do much besides flaying themselves. As in :
- Oh no, a werewolf appeared near the village and eats our kids
- Do not worry, I, a champion of justice, will save you.
- Will you slay the beast ?
- No, I shall pray without eating or sleeping for seven days and seven nights in that barn over there, for the salute of the souls of those who died.

That would also leave plenty of job for your players.


I feel like there's some potential here. You've got the silly aspect down, since that's obviously kind of absurd on its face, right? The sinister aspect could be in how well they get the common folk to agree with them. Have a nontrivial section of the population (not everyone, that's obviously dysfunctional and would collapse in a week) fanatically agree that they can't really solve their own problems, so the solution is to subject themselves to ever-more-rigorous bouts of fasting and self-sacrifice and mortification of the flesh (without, you know, doing anything that would actually help). The absurdity is definitely there, but it would also be kind of scary to have to look at the weird learned helplessness that leaves people basically unable to take care of themselves or unable to deal with any challenge that life throws at them. You've even got a fun meta aspect to it—we all know the trope of the NPCs unable to perform even the simplest tasks without the help of the hero/heroes, of course, and this is kind of turning it up to 11 and giving it a very unsettling edge.

(I'm not saying that the cultists would be fasting and praying every hour of every day—I'm thinking that whenever anything at all unexpected happens, they just have absolutely zero coping skills and immediately resort to holing up and flagellating themselves instead of fixing the problem. Farmer Brown can still go out and tend his sheep, but if a sheep happens to escape, he starts praying and fasting and beating himself rather than, you know, finding the missing sheep, even if the missing sheep is just over in the neighbor's fields and not anywhere dangerous or difficult to get to.)

You could have divided reactions to what happens when the heroes solve these people's problems for them. A few could be grateful to you, but I think more of them would be grateful to Heironeous without even acknowledging that the PCs actually did anything. Or even better, most of them could be angry at the PCs for interfering before Heironeous solved the problem. (Some players might end up seeing themselves as agents of Heironeous indirectly answering these people's prayers, which you could choose to encourage or discourage.) You'd have to have at least a few NPCs who reward the PCs with gratitude and material rewards, since otherwise the PCs are just going to say "screw this" and let the weird cult starve themselves to death, but the grateful NPCs might be the ones who haven't actually fallen under the sway of the cult. The non-cultish NPCs might think the cult is just as crazy as the PCs think it is, but the cult members are still their friends and family and neighbors, so they still don't want to see them get in trouble. Maybe the non-cultish NPCs have been working themselves to the bone trying to take care of having a sizable chunk of the population just stop doing anything useful at seemingly random intervals, and while they can mostly take care of mundane matters, anything truly dangerous would be up to the PCs to help out with.

The real question would be why the cult is so effective. You could put a lot of effort into explaining it (a ridiculously charismatic leader is a good start, and it's up to you whether their efforts are sinister or whether they're sincere but misguided), but you don't necessarily have to, depending on what your players tend to like and how much digging they tend to do when presented with bizarre situations. The problem with tying everything to the influence of a charismatic leader is that a lot of players (and/or PCs, take your pick) will feel like the best thing to do would be to try to assassinate the leader in the hopes of freeing the cultists from the leader's influence, which may or may not be the direction you actually want the story to go. So if your players are likely to take that course of action, you might not attribute the influence to a specific leader—or at the very least, you shouldn't make the leader a present figure.

Not sure if this is still in line with what you had originally asked about, but I think there could definitely be some interesting storytelling to be had with this kind of setup.

[BWR]

The big problem I have with splinter sects of weird or very alternative dogma is that in a world with real divinities with real agenda and things they approve of and things they do not approve of, it's hard to get any sort of real religious schism. A god can very easily and obviously make their will known, either through direct revelation or a simple Commune spell. All it takes is one 9th level cleric asking "hey, God, is this stuff important?" and the rationale of the splinter sect falls apart. At best you might have different traditions here and there but if both keep getting their spells from the same source they would pretty much be forced to admit that their differences are purely cosmetic.
Now a weird cult might work for a short-lived, mostly isolated, low-level cult but it wouldn't work for a big, pervasive spreading influence.