Religious Groups on Luhtla

BARD PAPER: DANI7000

Cults of Lucifer

by Lewis Roberts

Phos/Skotos

Divine Guidance

Phos' Will

Natural Philosophy Society

The Society is less a religion, and more, as its name suggests, a group dedicated to espousing a philosophy. They believe that magic is real, and they can cast spells. They try to cast spells that will help the RC overcome its problems. They have seven small chapter houses across Lucifer, and a major house in the capital. The local members gather at their house every seventh day. Each chapter house gathers on a different day of the week, so that one of the chapter house is always active. At their meetings members teach each other the magic principals that they know, and decide which spells the Chapter house will work on casting. Most spells take many weeks of preparations, and involve gathering many different exotic substances. Finally when a spell is ready to be cast, the group travels to the Mother house, and casts it there. The Mother house is centered on the intersection of several powerful Ley Lines, so any spells cast there are much more effective.

Blipdooppop

Blipdooppop is an Elder God. She existed long before the Ancients, and will exist long after humanity has ceased to be. She is awesomely powerful, and demands that all intelligent beings worship her. The Ancients refused, and she destroyed them. Before they died though they were able to use some arcane technology to lock Blipdooppop in another dimension where she is unable to help her followers. Her believers are split into two camps, those who seek to free her and those which seek to prevent this. Those who wish to free her, believe that she will grant them eternal life,and domain over the rest of the humans, when she conquers the universe. The others also believe that she is destined to conquer the universe, but wish to prolong it to a time when they are long dead. The two groups do agree that the Hiver are her most dedicated servants. This causes the Hivers a great deal of confusion, when strange humans come up and ask how they can help serve the Great One. The Hivers act very confused.

Cult of the Star

The Cult believes that their guru, Seala Borgun, is the avatar of the Divine Spirit. As such her word is law, and they follow here every wish and command. Unfortunately for her followers Seala is quite mad. She has them do absurd things, which they happily do. She once had a hundred of her followers dressing animal costumes and dance up and down the main thoroughfare of the capital.

Anelimism

Anelimism is not an organized religion that believes in a divine being that must be worshipped, rather it is a philosophy, that guides its followers through life. Anelimism says spirits inhabit all objects. Objects are represented both on the material plane and on the spirit plane. The followers of Anelimism respect those spirits and always ask their permission before destroying an object. The destruction of an object also destroys the spirit. The followers are saddened by any destruction, and take great join the creation of new objects. All objects have a spirit part, even crude objects such as roads, buildings, and vehicles. The Anelimists treasure skills such as painting, sculpture, woodworking, Anelimists occasionally will ask favors of the spirits, such as asking the spirit of a car to continue working until the supplicant is home safely. The supplicant will then later make an offering to the spirit.

Church of Stellar Divinity

Before the Collapse, the group was actively seeking to locate a working copy of the mythical star trigger. With such a device, they could destroy entire stars, and help Lutala's star, Amicron, win supremacy.

One possible adventure plot is for the Church to fly in to an enemy star system and fire canisters of radioactive waste in to a star. They realize this won't destroy the star, but feel that it might weaken the star enough so Amicron might take advantage of its momentary weakness.

The Church also wants to make a device in which they could actually enter the atmosphere of the star and commune directly with Amicron. For a possible design see the Sundiver by David Brin.

Polytheistic Cult

The Angar worship a pantheon of gods. They believe that nature is a mirror of the gods. Reality reflects the nature of the gods. If one of the gods was to die or be changed, reality would also be changed. Many of the faithful believe that Tulko, god of Voyages, died and this caused the collapse. Now that the RC is rebuilding society, they believe a new god has emerged and is helping restart voyages among the stars. This new god's image, shows a sixfold symmetry, much like a hiver does.

Academy of the Mind

The Academy believes that they can teach anyone to be a psychic. They detest the term psion, saying that it reeks of Imperial propaganda. They use many crystals, pyramids, and weird herbs in their lessons. They don't try to teach telekinitic arts, or others that have a definite impaction the material world, rather they teach empathy, fortune telling and the use of mental powers to offset illness. (ie. things that can't be proven not to have worked) The Academy is 130 years old.The Imperials, carefully investigated the group, and determined that they were frauds, and harmless. The Academy claimed to have used mind control on the Imperial Inquisitors.

Disciples of the Bright Way

They are generally not dangerous, but their disturbing practice of shooting up drugs and staring out of an open porthole into J-space during the week of a jump means that most captains will refuse to allow them on board under any circumstances.

However, the Disciples will pay an *obscene* amount of money for passage on a ship, and since they don't care about bodily comforts they are quite happy to bunk two to a stateroom under middle passage conditions, and pay up to Cr25,000 each for their 'pilgrimage'.

The Disciples also own a number of ships that they use for their own pilgrimages; these are generally decrepit old Scout/Couriers or Free Traders that have been roughly remodelled to hold dozens of whacked-out weirdos in bunk/flop-house style accommodation. These ships have a disturbing number of portholes and viewports.

(The above group is based on the fact that looking directly at jumpspace will cause insanity. This is an unofficial rule.)

Church of the Ancients

The Church recognizes that the Ancients also took and genetically engineered Terran wolves, into Vargr. The Church honors and accepts the Vargr as fellow sapiens on the path towards enlightenment. Droyne were also known to be servants to the Ancients, and the Church accepts them also.

Church members seek to enlighten themselves through meditation. They often use replicas of Ancient artifacts in their meditations. The Church is favorably disposed to the RC, and believes that it can help enlighten the rest of humanity. The Church often sponsors missions to recover known and suspected Ancient artifacts.