How does an elemental cult of fire get involved in society?

[NecroDancer]

So I want to have 4 evil cults based on earth, wind, fire, and water. The cults are trying to gain the respect of the the people in order to slowly corrupt them into worshipping the primordials.

Each cult would be disguised as something relative benign for example the air cult is a group of "knights" who use giant birds as mounts, they are currently recruiting people by pretending to be an emerging paladin order. The water cult is a group of saliors/traders who are drawing people in by offering the richs of the sea to members. The earth cult pretends to be an order of monks dedicated to "hardening the body and soul".

However I'm still trying to figure out a cult of fire would integrate themselves with the common folks.


Yes is this loosely based on "Princes of the Apocalypse".

[denthor]

Mages that really like fire spells

Quote fire cleanses the soul

Or

Firesting cleanses all

They burn to help put down a layer of ash for plants to grow. In our world the ash lets water soak into the soil and prevents evaporation. Plants get more water to grow all the while needing to use less

[ArcanaGuy]

Fire Chef Arena. Big public cooking contests with free samples for the audience. And let's not forget feeding the poor. They can get lots of recruits from the poor and homeless, none of whom doubt the lifebringing value of fire.

Trick is - how are they evil, and how do they keep from getting changed by the influx of new members? influence runs both ways.

[Shamash]

Well, think about the element of fire it has many positive connotations, warmth, light, technology, purification, and even rebirth.

Maybe they have blacksmiths who use fire magic; maybe they can create fire undead a la Scorpion from Mortal kombat.

Maybe they develop steam technology, maybe they deal with gunpowder and alchemy.

Fire doesn't need to be destructive it was the base for human civilization and technology.

[NecroDancer]

Fire Chef Arena. Big public cooking contests with free samples for the audience. And let's not forget feeding the poor. They can get lots of recruits from the poor and homeless, none of whom doubt the lifebringing value of fire.

Trick is - how are they evil, and how do they keep from getting changed by the influx of new members? influence runs both ways.

Well each cult has methods are indoctrination for example:

The air cult starves new members so they can "be like air and purify their body", eventually the new members will commit any act if they get to break their fast.

The earth cult's brutal training hardens new recruits causing them to lose their empathy.

[Vitruviansquid]

Fire cult is all about "unleashing the Sorcerer in you"

They teach people to release their emotions and express their passions as a way to purge negative feelings and become badasses. This is linked to a belief that everybody is capable of sorcery, it's just difficult for some people to tap into because they are too socially inhibited.

This is corruptive because unleashing your emotions all the time and wearing down your restraint eventually causes you to turn into a ragey, anti-social brute.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Maybe they have blacksmiths

That's my answer as well, something industrial. Maybe beer brewers even?

[curious-puzzle]

Going with the Fire=Passion idea, why not a group of entertainers, speakers, and musicians? They encourage people to follow their hearts and desires above all else, but actually foment rebellion, discord and chaos.

One day the Dancers in Flame (placeholder name) visit a city and put on a festival, couple days later the peasants are revolting and trying to burn the nobility at the stake.

[Ralanr]

Why not make them caretakers? Playing up the theme of the hearth and providing shelter (and warmth) for the less fortunate?

They way you can get a steady supply of sacrifices.

[sktarq]

Fire as revealer of secrets.

Fire changes you.

It draws metal from ore

Many use it as a metaphor for light and thus knowledge in darkness.

but it always has a cost. found in the fuel. and a risk of being burned.

They could well play on such ideas in terms of a self help group. A monastery perhaps. They give guidance, sell alchemical goods, drugs, etc, help train out weakness and give people burning passion in their craft or mission in life, even offer to see the future (see those drugs that they have boiled off so many time and now turn into smoke for their targets).

and some do that guidance they need. if they are not susceptible to "proper" indoctrination they become used as allies, contacts, source of donations, advertisement, etc. but are not invited into the depths of the cult.

some charms and suggestion spells would probably go a long way to help people gain the habits they want to train into people.

[cobaltstarfire]

Looking into the philosopher Hera****us might give you some interesting ideas to play with for a fire cult.


Edit: Seeing as I don't know how to get around the forum filter, just look up "flux philosophy" on google and you should get the right guy.

[LibraryOgre]

My first thought: Firefighters. While it might seem counter-intuitive, they don't DESTROY fire... they control it. Fire destroying a home? Contain it. Move it.

They're going to be popular, to say the least. And, well, if it helps to cover the occasional murder-by-arson, well....

[Knaight]

One major option is fire suppression - a lot of pre-modern towns in a bunch of different areas were highly susceptible to fire (a lot of flammable stuff packed close together), had a lot of fire around (electric heating and lighting weren't exactly present), and didn't have much in the way of fire control. An elemental cult of fire willing to risk close proximity to fire to put it out could potentially be widely loved.

[erikun]

"The Hearth" is probably the most common and positive aspect of fire. It's the general warmth and security of a homestead. It can be especially important in more northern climates, where winter can be longer or just unusually brutal - any place where the winter can end up killing livestock, or even just areas where the wind is quite breezy, would probably appreciate a "hearth" group of followers.

Someone also mentioned blacksmithing, another very common use of fire in society. While it isn't so common, fire-reading and in general divination or oracles could apply as well. They could also be a use in a military sense, especially with catapults and flaming arrows - although they aren't likely to be popular with anyone such nations war against.


Given what you are going for, I think that oracles would be the best fit, in order to create an excuse for its people to frequently be using their fire-powers.

[georgie_leech]

The existing three bear some passing resemblance to the cults from Princes of the Apocalypse, a D&D 5e adventure path. If you don't mind continuing that pattern, their Fire Fulton the surface has some heavy elements of 'returning to nature's and having all sorts of, for lack of a better term, 'pagan' rituals that tend to involve dancing around fires. Also the usual subject matter for hippies and burning or smoking things.

[Honest Tiefling]

Sell their services as mercenaries and guards. Since this cult is evil, they could be attacking and defending the same place, just unaware the other side is a part of their cult as well.

Gunpowder is pretty fire-based, for instance, so they could be inventing basic cannons to smash the opposition. If your group cannot be trusted with gunpowder in real-life OR the game, then they could have superior forging techniques, perhaps even able to make better alloys of steel. Their armies could simply be better equipped, and able to make field repairs a lot better.

Or they could be a bunch of fire mages, and borrowing a page from Promethus, give the power of magic to all of humanity, not just the wealthy or high-born. Even if they don't teach fire magic, having a few commando mages able to sneak behind enemy lines and light their supply chains/boats on fire will probably make a huge difference.

Or...They could just threaten to set people's houses on fire. Maybe there's a decoy sect of all of the people who didn't quite make the cut for the rest of the fire cult who get shuffled into this. And the best way to deal with arson are fire mages, hurray! So they get hired to deal with their dud recruits.

[Dalinale]

Besides the blacksmith and cooks, simply sending out priests to wander around and destroy perceived threats might be a option. 'Fire Paladins' and associated lesser priests and hanger-ons would wander around major cities and smaller towns deliberately hunting down critters like goblins and such; good fire tends to burn things about as much as fire thrown by evil people, so looking like proactive saviors while also whittling down perceived threats to the cult's activities could be a major part of their plan.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Going with the Fire=Passion idea, why not a group of entertainers, speakers, and musicians? They encourage people to follow their hearts and desires above all else, but actually foment rebellion, discord and chaos.

One day the Dancers in Flame (placeholder name) visit a city and put on a festival, couple days later the peasants are revolting and trying to burn the nobility at the stake.

I love the evil fire circus idea.
http://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/f/f8/Carolina_Eade_V._Campfire_Mime.jpg

Maybe they also convince the children to go with them, like so many children used to run away from home to join the circus in real life.

[veti]

Fire is the element of hearth and home. It provides warmth and illumination, it cooks food, it keeps wild beasts away. It is, almost literally, the beginning of civilisation.

"We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys." - Douglas Adams.

Seriously, how can it be hard to market fire?

[Eldan]

A lot of good stuff already said, let me add one more: cremation. Fire can be used to deal with corpses. And waste in general.

Also: guard fires.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

What about focussing on the utilitarian nature - fire is used for cooking, for making bricks, earthenware pots and plates, for forging metal objects, for heating to preserve life in the cold months and so on, while letting their priests control it when necessary (Village under threat from a forest fire? Maybe the fire priest can protect them) and playing down the destructive aspect so that using it to destroy or kill is seen to be done with great reluctance and only in special circumstances (at least until they can rise up).

[NRSASD]

At the risk of joining the chorus, may I suggest blacksmiths? Not just any blacksmiths though, but the Forge bound from the video game Tyranny. A secret society of fire mage/blacksmiths who work inside giant smelters to directly shape the metal and refine it to a degree impossible to replicate. The only thing that stands between them and incineration is their concentration on their wards.

How to make them evil? Working in the smelters drives out impurities of thought, forces one to learn discipline and focus or to perish in the attempt. Forge bound believe themselves to be inherently superior to all others, and as such think nothing of killing those who stand in their way. Not to mention, good apprentices are hard to find. Why not use the same technique one uses on metal ore to sort out the useful parts? Throw them all in the smelter, and the ones with potential will survive.

[LibraryOgre]

A lot of good stuff already said, let me add one more: cremation. Fire can be used to deal with corpses. And waste in general.

Also: guard fires.

Undead hunters, too, goes well with the fire/burn the corpses.

[Braininthejar2]

"This burning agony is just weakness leaving the body!"


:smallsigh:
And now I'm reminded of a horrible primary school compulsory reading about a poor boy growing up in a crapsack, uneducated village, where his sister died because the local medicine woman tried to chase the fever out of her by having the family put her in the oven.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Undead hunters, too, goes well with the fire/burn the corpses.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kill_it_with_fire.jpg
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/99/9984e215e188ff9a291a7cdcef5febf5ed0478406b1eb66cbb 7628207e842462.jpg
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/128/622/KILL-IT-WITH-FIRE-FUNNY-FORUM-PICS.jpg

[Kami2awa]

Fire has a million and one associations. It's associated with technology, passion, destruction, creation, purification, witch-burning, cooking, fever, home and hearth, Hell and devils, angels with flaming swords, civilisation, inspiration, sterilisation, God, holy smiting, volcanoes, the sun, stars, spectacle, apocalypses, science, and those are just the ones in Western civilisation.

[Slipperychicken]

By installing themselves into conventional armed forces as an elite warrior-caste. Moving military culture toward fire-worship could help help take advantage of peoples' nationalistic fervor while cementing political influence.

And I would have pegged the earth guys for helping out with agriculture, mining, and construction, giving them the chance to leave their symbols everywhere and build grass-roots support. They might also promise better harvests for people who venerate the earth-god-thing.

[bulbaquil]

1. Fire lets us see in the dark (and in the day, too, since the sun is often associated with fire).
2. Fire keeps us warm on cold winter days (and on hot summer ones, too, since the sun...).
3. Fire/heat allows us to cook meals and bake bread.
4. Fire/heat allows us to smelt and purify metal ores and engage in acts of metallurgy in general.
5. Fire/heat allows us to bake bricks and create pottery and ceramics.
6. Fire/heat allows us to identify owners of livestock and, in certain cultures, slaves and/or criminals (branding).
7. Fire is associated with passion, willpower, and individuality.

All of the above could be considered useful things for civilization, and could easily be a way for a cult of fire to integrate itself in society. Sure, fire can harm or destroy. So can water (drowning, floods, blizzards, hail), air (tornadoes/windstorms, poisonous gases), and earth (stoning, burial alive, earthquakes, landslides).

[Shark Uppercut]

Time to talk about Dark Souls how important fire is. Alter it to suit your cosmology as you see fit.


Fire is important because it's old. It's in the DS creation myth. It also created the concepts of life and death, before fire everything was vaguely immortal.
Fire is important because it reminds mortals to be humble. Mortals will die one day and go to the afterlife of their master, and since fire has a lifespan of hours it's a little "remember you will die" for humans.
Fire is important because it's godly. In DS, Fire created the gods. Rather, people who would become gods 'found their souls' within the first fire. Also see: Prometheus.
Fire is important because it springs from (divine) lightning. Remember that in Avatar, advanced firebenders use lightning? Sure lightning may be 'more divine', but they're clearly linked.
Fire is important because it can destroy things holding the world up. Mostly because fire burns down trees, and trees can be important. In norse mythology, the world is one giant tree, Yggdrasil. in DS, fire magic was explicitly used by a god to burn down giant trees to weaken their enemies in the past.
Fire is important because it's a convenient, simple way to offer to the gods. Both IRL and in tons of fantasy religions/cults, people burn offerings to divine beings. Compare to the other 3 elements: burying offerings isn't really a thing, tossing offerings in bodies of water is uncommon and how would you even offer things to the sky?

Of all 4 cults, the fire cults should have the most divine casters.

The fire primordial isn't a god, but should probably act more like one than the other primordials.

Sacrificing to a non-god primordial wouldn't be heretical because people already burn offerings to the gods, so it'd be the stealthiest cult of the 4.

Alternatively, these are good reasons that primordials would hate fire, because they aren't gods. So maybe there are only 3 primordials.