Cult of the Devourer
The Cult of the Devourer is a widespread organization active in many solar systems, including the Pact Worlds system, and with a membership spanning multiple species. It seeks to bring down civilisation, and more broadly existence itself, in the name of its patron deity, the Devourer.12
Goals
The Devourer promises to thoroughly unmake all that is, not just the future but also the past, not just the Material Plane but the entire Great Beyond. This is exactly what its cultists desire: the grief stricken can make it that their past tragedies never happened, and the guilty can avoid Pharasma's judgement with the afterlife removed. Priests disagree on whether this existence would be replaced with a new one, but all are in accord that the current existence is beyond recovery and must be completely erased.1
Organisation
The Cult of the Devourer has no central authority, leader, headquarters, or formal hierarchy. Instead, cultists operate in small groups known as cells, which can have from two to thousands of members and often operate from hidden bases, occasionally mobile ones like asteroids or starships. Most cells are small, and larger ones tend to be fused from many by a powerful leader or servant of the Devourer. Cells try to maintain contact with others to coordinate attacks, but violent disagreements are common, both within a cell itself or between different cells, causing them to fracture into smaller cells.2
Each cell is divided into two choirs: the wall breakers, who operate publicly (usually in the form of fighting battles), and the hidden ones, whose membership is secret, sometimes having to pass as law-abiding citizens. Different cells can be divided into broad sects, based on their operating methods and similarities in belief. Cells might drift from sect to sect, and rarely bother to devise or promote their doctrine.2
Cultists with the battle prowess and cunning sufficient to survive long and cause significant destruction become leader figures known as longteeth, whom others respect and obey. In most cases, longteeth are drawn either primarily from the hidden ones or from both choirs, and only cells that act as warbands have primarily wall breaker longteeth. Cells that are too large for the longteeth to oversee often have intermediaries between them and rank-and-file cultists, known as fangs. Above all are the atrocites, the Devourer's supernatural agents who often lead specific cells, combine them into vast hordes, and frequently visit the largest, most successful cells. They are the only authority that average cultists will follow without question, and many great successes have been traced to an atrocite's arrival.2
Hidden one choir
Hidden ones hide in society and pose as ordinary citizens, keeping their allegiance secret from even their families as they work to bring about the apocalypse. A few common types are:
- Maws, the primary recruiters of the Cult of the Devourer. They extensively look out for potential candidates among the downtrodden, the insane, the angry and the suffering, and use psychological techniques to convert them to the Devourer's faith, usually involving offering them a helping hand and giving them a sense of acceptance and agency, sometimes with the help of magic or drugs. Failed converts are sometimes kept as contacts, but more often than not suffer unfortunate 'accidents' before they could blow the maw's cover.2
- Plague bringers, who infiltrate society and seek to weaken it through sabotage to prepare for an attack. Some accomplish this by researching to improve diseases before spreading them, while others infect infospheres with computer viruses.2
- Silent cannibals, who maintain a deep cover while gathering information. The term cannibal is metaphorical (as these silent cannibals are members of societies they need to destroy), some take it literally and become serial killers, as very few Devourer cultists can live a spy's quiet life and assuage their violence without committing a murder every now and then.2
Wall breaker choir
Wall breakers do not bother to hide their allegiance to the Devourer. Many of them embrace self-mutilation, in order to further their god's nihilism.2
- Composers, the rarest type of cultists, who spend every moment scheming and contemplating how to spread maximum destruction, and are often obeyed by fellow cultists but only so far as they view the composer's schemes as the best way to bring about destruction. Composers are also likely to explain their devotion to the Devourer in writing, making them influential despite their small numbers.2
- Degenerators, who possess the logistical skills needed to keep a cult running. As creating or repairing things can be interpreted as heretical according to the Devourer's teachings, degenerators do not view their actions as such, but consider themselves to be creating 'degenerate' versions of items and people as they decorate equipment, install weapon fusions or perform surgery on fellow cultists.2
- Frenzied, the archetypical, crazy, murderous Devourer cultist according to popular perception. Many suffer from mental disorders, while others have lost all sense of right and wrong through trauma, drug use or religious devotion. While most frenzied are mindless killing machines, some can be surprisingly methodical as they work to bring about destruction.2
Sects
A few broad, informal sects of the Cult of the Devourer are:
- Blood Door cells, who are motivated by the example of the Blood Scourge, a powerful mystic-turned-atrocite. Blood Door cells are mobile and seek to claim as many lives as possible (which they call forcing the victim 'through the Blood Door') to sacrifice to the Devourer and increase its power, believing that once the death toll reaches a critical threshold, a portal will be opened so the Devourer could begin a final extermination.2
- Feaster cells, who seek to bring about complete, irrevocable destruction, which often requires them to act differently from others. As a result, in battle, they prefer to take the time to slit an injured foe's throat instead of focusing on those still fighting, as there is no recovery from total destruction. Many Feasters are cannibals, eating their foes as a form of destruction.2
- Nightmare cells, inspired by a book called The Darkest Night. According to it, society will collapse if its members do not see its safety and value. Nightmare cells try to spread discontent, fear and misery, eventually destroying society's perceived worth and causing a societal breakdown. Most of their members are hidden ones, with the rare wall breaker recruited for suicide missions. Their plans often take decades to fully unravel.2
In the Pact Worlds system
According to the Cult of the Devourer's oral legends, the atrocite known as the Twinned Echo was responsible for spreading the Devourer's worship in the Golarion system sometime during the Gap.3
References
Paizo Inc. published a major article on the Cult of the Devourer in Temple of the Twelve.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 . Core Rulebook, 496. Paizo Inc., 2017
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 . “The Cult of the Devourer” in Temple of the Twelve, 46–49. Paizo Inc., 2017
- ↑ . “Continuing the Campaign” in Empire of Bones, 40. Paizo Inc., 2018
