Looking across quite a lot of current play and preparation, I realized I’m riddled with cult members throughout all of it. Like fleas, or maybe less mentionable little skin critters: lookit alla them creeping and crawling around in there!
I doubt we need to slog through any breakdown of the concept. Bluntly, it’s a lazy trope which I’m sort of addicted to, and I justify it, however poorly, by claiming to myself that I bend it different ways for different reasons.
So it might be fun, or maybe you’ll have fun seeing the lameness of my excuses, to review the content and application for these in-action games as played by us at this moment.
Harnmaster
You can watch and discuss this game at One bad harvest. The players are Erik, Filip, Kristian, and Johan.
it’s an extremely naturalistic game, taking every aspect of “we are living daily life” to the point of being playable sometimes minute by minute through the characters’ days. Nathan Crossby, the primary author, wrote a supporting text which presents the idea that we cannot really know whether the in-fiction gods, as named and worshipped by people, exist in the way or in the forms or meanings as ascribed to them, and therefore the magic associated with them is ultimately a mystery, even if the people doing it are certain that it’s all according to divine personalities, attention, and intent.
There’s only one problem: the eight-god pantheon is a flat-out fantasy role-playing pantheon of mostly “bad gods, mean spells, evil clerics, vile cruel culture,” opposed to a few “good gods, beneficent spells, altruistic clerics, more generous, fair culture.” It totally walks back from Crossby’s own intellectual clarification.
I’ve taken some pains to internalize the primary/early Harn content in order to play, but in this one case I’m calling a No, aiming toward the naturalism insofar as I see religion as culture, not a spell-bank, and if it matters to anyone regarding text, I’ll point to Crossby’s essay because I think it’s better than the rulebook.
It’s especially necessary since our game is set in Rethem, one of the “bad guy” regions, where Agrik (Baal, Mammon, etc, in biblical terms) is the primary and official god, and where Morgath, lesser but still one of the eight, is legal. Erik’s character, Fergal, is an acolyte thereof.
Morgath is all about the whole of existence devolving into entropy and, apparently, that means that its worshippers are all about making that happen. Which is fine if one focuses on player-characters and what sort of magical hoo-wa they might be able to sling around, but that doesn’t go at all with every other aesthetic and procedural feature of Harn as location and Harnmaster as rules procedures.
I’ve decided to focus on what people who worship Morgath actually do, you know, on Tuesday, when there is nothing special happening. I like to think that I’m honoring Harn in principle by expanding my attention away from spit-spraying “we are evil! we are eeeevil!” descriptions, and toward anything resembling what I think humans do with themselves.
I did find something pretty good in an auxiliary text which describes them as a kind of donations-for-otherwise-unacceptable-favors service, or as I call it, “dirty deeds done dirt cheap.” It matches well to the general description that Morgath worship in Rethem is legal but still not widely practiced or particularly liked. I also realized their functions can be mutual with Lia-Kavair (criminal network) activity, which I have interpreted as focused on re-minting coinage rather than burglary and pickpocketing.
Anyway, I’ve been developing this notion slowly, but as of the fifth session, I hope you can see in the recordings how we’ve improved these matters step by step.
Drakar och Demoner/Dragonbane (2023, Fria Ligan)
As of this writing I’m still editing the first session’s recording. The players are Jessica, Natte, Yaroslav, Valfrid, and Nisse. This version of the venerable Swedish title is a full reboot with a lot in common with D&D 5th edition, conceptually. We have both the Swedish and English at the table.
I’ll write more about the fictional context in the main post, but for now, the in-box situational material includes a cult devoted to Azrahel Koth, long-gone but not-dead and now-he’s-back priest of the evil demon of the long-gone Demon Empire. There’s a simple but arguably coherent backstory, but the present situation, i.e., what we are to play according to this book’s instruction, is agonizingly stupid. It begins with a cultist dying in a player-character’s arms and mistakenly giving them one of pieces of the statuette which, when assembled, allows entry into the vault which, when entered, trips the confrontation with the … oh for fuck’s sake, why am I even writing this. There are six little scenarios which may be undertaken in any order (oohh! sand box!!) so that they collect the rest of the statuette, and the cultists are scattered about looking for it too, so the characters can kill them.
I’ve decided to play the backstory pretty straight … but I’ve revisited and retooled the Dead Eyes Cave encounter/adventure considerably. Again, I’ll go into the details in the main post, stating here that there isn’t any (oh come on) statuette to re-assemble, and that the cultists are quite reasonably attempting to capture the basilisk. I re-tooled the setup’s timing so that they stole the chickens first, as armed with chickens, they have a shot at controlling the thing.
So far in play, the cultists themselves haven’t had much chance to shine, aside from one of them presenting a friendly face for about ten seconds before the others creep up in the dark, with curved swords, chanting. As of this writing we’re in the midst of a brutal fight with them, and I did note, for what it’s worth, that at least one player shuddered in real reaction to my description of the chanting as they fight.
My key here is actually to have the cultists be up to something, for that something to make some sense, and for them to have a pretty good plan to achieve it. I might come up with some kind of reason or ideology that would lead them to want to follow Azrahel Koth, beyond the book’s babble about evil miasmic vapors. I’m even beginning to get an idea of different points of view within their little band in this adventure, so it’s time to provide some names. In other words, as cartoony and robed with curved swords as they might be (i.e. borderline racist frankly), they’re on task, and I can play them flexibly as a group and possibly as individuals regarding exactly what seems best to them at any given moment in order to get it.
Dungeons & Dragons (B/X)
This one is presented at The architecture in this town; the players are Filip (not the same person in the Harnmaster game), Neo, Nils, Arvid, and Theo.
The context is a small long-lost temple which I have packed with three different dangers (in order of antiquity): the ancient quiet dead who might be awakened, a reasonably fair-minded if savage local baboon troupe who use a bit of the temple as a nursery and occasional shelter, and the deadly cult who’ve terrified the nearby community and recently repurposed part of the ruin around their object of worship, a gelatinous cube.
This cult is even less comprehensible than the one I just described. It’s outright badness perpetrated by bad people in a completely unspecified and non-cultural way. Interactions with them so far include:
- A fellow who’s terrified of the party due to a disastrous reaction roll, who ran to a building in town and shouted, “I take it back! I’ll join up! Let me in!”
- Another fellow who calmly emerged from the same building, helpfully provided directions to the abandoned temple (the cube loves eating elves), and finished with “Have a blessed day.”
- Seeing a few of them proceed spookily through the corridors, murmur-chanting and carrying candles after a ritual at the cube
Here, my virtue is utter lack of pretense. This isn’t anything but the thing, such as it is. The cult is a collective dangerous monster, composed of acolytes, berserkers who cannot be visually distinguished from the acolytes, trained stirges, a wandering crocodile or two, and the cube itself. Unlike the undead, who might not be awakened at all; or the baboons, who, although unseemly and unlikely to group-hug anyone for harmony, are at least not determined to kill people; the cult is actively malevolent.
Although the concept is a bit stupid and troped to the gills, and although I confess that I don’t even really know what this cult claims or wants, it or rather they are not tactically stupid, and they are statistically quite deadly to our player-characters. That’s the key, that they aren’t there for speedbumps. This is about confronting a dangerous and determined monster with some social presence. They fit the bill, I find them fun and intuitive to play, and that’s all.
RuneQuest (~1980, hacked a bit)
This began as an off-the-cuff full dive into the RuneQuest supplement Cults of Terror, staying close to the RuneQuest rules that I purchased somtime around 1980, but working from the supplement’s concepts rather than its direct content in Glorantha.
- The first game, in 2018: Brambly hick coming-of-age fantasy, Hippie fantasy, adults are not to be trusted, How to feel bad for killing a really unlikeable jerk, Fearshock, decapitation, village insurrection, gaining a fetch, The road to Green Rock, Death and secrets in the dark, Epilogue: down in the dark
- The Gothcon games in 2019, Grim teenfic RQ at Gothcon, 10 AM, Young heroes, aged players this time,
- A Spelens Hus game in early 2024 with Daniel, Helma, Erik, and Matthias. I considered that I was stagnating the concept a bit by repeating the single “realization” process in play, instead of developing play from that point onwards. We got in a fair number of sessions and intense outcomes. Unfortunately play was curtailed by one person needing to move away, another peron’s health, and an external drive crash which destroyed my recordings, so I didn’t share it here.
Working from cult as the root of culture, but also maintaining them as raw evil. I also preserved the default character creation which places them as sixteen-year-old with barely or hardly any effectiveness. Effectively, these characters are growing up in a bad space in a bad place.
Specifically the cults: ritualized, symbolized, and internalized practice of “how we live,” “what we fear,” “how far we will go,” :the price we pay,” and “what is punished,” for a society ruled by fear, threat, anxiety, gaslighting, force, and a determination always to explain. Who could argue that the Warchief keeps us safe? That the Mother’s love nurtures us? That the Witch must be respected, with caution? That driving it all is an inescapable Hunger which must receive sacrifice? It’s just realistic, right? Or at least, it’s socially inescapable, and now, at sixteen, it’s time to grow up, to learn to abuse the designated victims, which shows you aren’t one of them.
I’m getting ready to play it again at Conpulsion in Scotland next month, focusing this time on Wendrara the Loving Wife and Mother, as challenged by Mari the Joy, called the Whore.
It is a truly disturbing achievement to reconcile the evil skulking cult with the actual root of culture, when I don’t permit myself any content-eliding. Play is strikingly horrible and emotionally-riveting, as mid-teens realize that their own society is inimical to them, and all the adults they know are variously corrupted and at best terrified and helpless. Even if they survive, that survival is itself capitulation and ultimately compliance … and the small, strange, anti-establishment proto-cults which might offer hope also entail have little chance to thrive.
How dark is it in there when I really look, well past Miller’s The Crucible or Jackson’s “The Lottery,” and I don’t mind saying that it is not fantasy to consider actual society to be itself horrible, with claims of progress and protestations of intent. That it may be a genuine crime against humans to bring them into the world in the pretense that we have anything to teach them and anything good to provide for them. That actually-existing normality is pragmatically disastrous and, given any notion of ethics, criminal.
“Ron, do you believe this?!” Hell if I know. I do know that I can see it from here, and that playing this showed me how clearly.
Against the Cult of the Reptile God (1982; Advanced D&D)
I can’t help but point to the primary source which folded Call of Cthulhu into D&D, i.e., a railroad disguised as an investigation skinned into a fantasy context.
I presented thoughts on it specifically in Kittybox, and I presented more fundamental concepts in Situation: case study, including my old term Bobby G. For this post, I’m brushing up an old draft (fifteen years ago) for you to check out:
I recommend acquiring the module, reading it carefully, and applying my points to it directly in order to assess their worth. I tie the sterility of the cult (which is epically sterile) to the railroad; the two concepts are interlinked as practice. Thoughts are appreciated, certainly, especially concerning your real experiences in play of many similar games and published adventures.
Footnote
In case you’re wondering what the post title is about, wonder no more (Bloom County, early 1981)
5 responses to “Pear pimples for hairy fishnuts”
I recognize the cult in Against The Cult of the Reptile God is influenced by Cosmic Horror. But from the perspective of society at the time, in many ways it represents exactly how some aspects of society viewed the rpg player. Don’t go play D&D, they’ll drug you and make you do the murder.
I do not know that is the author’s intent or not.
(Lovecraft) The direct Lovecraft content is the potential abduction at the inn, which is totally from Innsmouth, as is the sort of reptilian look for some villagers. Otherwise there’s not much content, e.g., no implication of generations of interbreeding, and no mission statement or even content at all for the cult itself. Apparently you’re just “in the cult” because the naga hypnotized you, it’s not about believing or worshipping anything. And she’s just a monster, not an eldritch horror or atavism or whatever. So it’s more like a nod than an actual expression of those ideas.
(Moral panic) Maybe? Niles was working from older material, so I guess mid-late 1970s in origin, but the dates are pretty close if we’re talking about development for publication in 1982. Egbert died by suicide in 1979, so the accusations kind of grew into “news” over the next year or so, Jaffe’s Mazes and Monsters (book) was published 1981, and BADD was founded in 1982. My own perspective is that the general, nonspecific disapproval of D&D, “it’s bad for your kids,” developed later, after the movie in 1984, but regions definitely differ so there’s no reason to state a cut-off.
This post really grabbed me. I feel like in my reading and watching I’m always getting pulled in by the potentiality of the cult concept, even in its laziest and tropiest form, but finding it stupid and empty in execution when the story lays its cards on the table.
In roleplaying, I’ve played cults in a couple of games, to varying degrees of success. One was in the Sorcerer game I wrote about lo these two years ago at . Sam was playing toward a gorgeous and singular notion of faith. His Sorcerer was a kid who’d recently graduated from high school (funny how these themes resonate when placed in proximity to younger protagonists). He had a spiritual and artistic practice that he shared with a small group of friends, facilitated by a Demon. (I remember vividly the archangels they’d charcoaled onto the walls of the abandoned factory office where they met for visionary experiences).
As things fell out, the Demon rebelled and hit Sam’s sorcerer with a monstrously effective Taint. When he came to, he discovered that his Demon had perverted his spiritual practice into the most stereotypical cult I could devise — identical white clothing, communal living for purposes of conformity not fellowship, expanding acquisition of real estate wherein they could exert better control over residents, and continuous “outreach” to psychologically and economically vulnerable potential converts.
I took a perverse pleasure in driving home that if the Demon provided access to any profounder truths, it would be through the agency of Sam’s Sorcerer. Left to its own devices, it would endlessly reproduce the most boring possible stereotypes. I remember feeling proud of how the “lazy trope” came alive in my listening to Sam’s thoughtful and deeply felt content.
The second one was, appropriately enough, “real” 1978 Runequest. I wrote about it a bit here . There were multiple cults in the situation, most of them representing “the root of culture” for the fictional society (and one really, really evil take on Thanatar that I’m still proud of, even though we never directly witnessed its actions). I think I played these pretty well, and I will always remember Sam and Robin (then Avid)’s PCs creating a nascent youth counter-culture, right there in play, when it became clear the adults’ customs weren’t remotely adequate to their childrens’ needs.
Looking back on prep and the first few sessions, I remember being hugely excited about the witchy, nomadic Air cult that envisioned their culture as continuous schism and reformation. I had a ton of weird material banked, including magical practices grounded in texts that were basically Athenian tragedies left over from an extinct urban society.
However, as play developed, I think I hit the mark better with the members of the stoic and sedentary Earth cult. I just did a better job of nailing down their motivations and worldview into playable fictional components, and play as a result was full of wonderful little decisions that felt like inevitable discoveries (like the Earth cultists dressing and styling their children in a unisex-to-slightly-masculine manner, out of a superstition that the strongly femme-coded, witchy nomads would kidnap/adopt a child who appeared too feminine).
With the Air cultists, I never got a sufficiently firm grip on how individual characters operated, and as a result at least a few stupid and empty stereotypes — forbidden contact with shadowy forces! they just want CHAOS, man! — made their way into play.
Wait … a really, really evil take on Thanatar? Already the high-water mark for evil as textually presented?
I call for a post to commemorate this although I am entirely unsure that I want to know.
I didn’t make any changes to the Cults of Terror text, but in this particular situation the elements therein emerged really, really bleak.
I added a couple jolts of weirdness to the map. One was a lone Thanatar Rune-Priest in a grass hut in the forested wilderness, served by a rotting zombie. I thought that at some point in the distant past the cult may have had higher numbers and more social organization, but that at this time in this particular area anyone serious about Thanatar-worship would basically have to be a guerilla in an army of one.
I was playing with a tentative “best practice” for this game, that the general population is quite small. Even a successful cult was likely to be made up of a single Rune-Priest/Rune-Lord and a handful of Initiates as the core of social and magical power, with the real weight the cult could throw around primarily coming from its laypeople (many of whom weren’t interested in advancing past the laity). This meant that all the cults were very invested in the player-characters, because all of these Rune-Priests were constantly searching for able successors to initiate into the inner circles so the cult could continue.
This also meant that the Thanatar Rune-Priest was in a more extreme but still fairly similar situation to the other cult leaders of needing a pupil. As it fell out, the PC’s first foray into the wilderness brought them within the Thanatar-worshipper’s zone of influence, and the resultant POW rolls meant that their friend, an NPC a couple of years younger than them, was kidnapped by the Thanatar priest and his zombie while fishing.
I made a point in my prep (particularly when weeks or months went by) to solidify what the Rune-Priest and his unwilling student were up to. There was enough potential overlap that almost every session could have led to the PCs crossing paths with their friend, his new master, or both, and I wanted to make sure that if that happened I had a strong foundation for how to play them.
The Thanatar priest worked to make his apprentice a witness and then an accomplice to murder and zombification, and also used his background religion against him, convincing him that these acts would permanently sever him from the grace of the Earth gods he grew up worshipping. His end game for the apprentice was probably ‘graduating’ to Rune-Priest by making a head of the master so he could continue psychologically manipulating into undeath (and, come to think of it, his own “parent in Thanatar” was probably right there, jibbering eternally on his belt, as well).
I didn’t verbalize any of this material (though there were several moments where a different decision or die roll would have brought the player characters face to face with it), but it hugely informed my spoken play throughout, particularly of the devastation the child’s disappearance wreaked on his father back home.