Chaos Governance Cult WIP

### Chaos Governance Cult WIP

Categories
----------

1. Founding
2. Founding Date
3. Structure
4. God
5. Worship
6. Traits
7. Attire
8. Mission

Founding
--------

### Initial Set

You know when your planet was settled by humans, but how did they become Imperial humans? I.E. ones who worship the God-Emperor and obey his bureaucracy, that's what counts as far as the Ecclesiarchy and Administratum are concerned. Everything has a start - how was your planet's cult founded?

**Saint's Followers**-3N -1S
If your planet's a shrine world dedicated to one of many imperial saints then I would hope it's obvious to you how this would come about. If not? Probably followers of the local big shot saint of your sector. <Either way, most prayer calls on them before the Emperor.>

**Living 'Saint'**
-3S -1T
The cult was founded and created by one who claims themselves a living saint and somehow managed to not be branded a heretic and placed on a pyre. <They've gotten themselves revered enormously, and most prayer uses them as an intercessor.> In case it's not obvious, they aren't actually a living saint.

**From Suffering**
-3N -1T -2N -2S
This cult came about through great suffering. What does that mean? It means people were suffering and formed this cult to distract themselves with something to have hope in. Worshiping the god of hope would've been a better Idea in my ever-changing opinion.

**Light Bringers**
-3K -1S -3T -1N
This cult started when the Imperium first came with their missionaries to convert the world, with a shockingly low number of threats and purges towards those who weren't instantly willing to bow before their throne-bound tyrant.

**Holy Mission**
-2T -2S -3K -1T
Similar to the last one, but instead of some cult coming here exclusively to bring the emperor's light to the local populace they also came with a most 'holy' mission, like recovering a toothbrush that was once used by Vulkan.

**Altered Religion**
-3N -1T
Instead of entirely destroying the unique religion and culture of this world the Imperium chose to only pervert the 'leader' of its pantheon into the emperor. Going to be hard to make such an act look natural to the Imperium.

**Forceful Creation**
-3K -1N
In standard Imperium fashion, a group of zealots found the world's original religion repulsive and razed everything and everyone that had to do with it in any (And not so)meaningful way to the ground, including any records on said religion.

**Expanding Family**
-3S -1N
A cult that started from a single family's individual belief will start to slowly expand recruiting like-minded and loyal people to its beliefs. Cults like these are some of the more.. difficult ones to give the initial nudge towards chaos to, but as soon as you give the nudge they nearly instantly fall head first into following us true gods.

### Second Follow-Up Set

K
+2K -2N *Angelic Evangelism*
+2K -2S *From Vengeance*
+2K -2T Forceful Creation
N
+2N -2K Altered Religion
+2N -2S *Up From the Roots*
+2N -2T From Suffering
S
+2S -2K Expanding Family
+2S -2N Living 'Saint'
+2S -2T Saint's Followers
T
+2T -2K Light Bringers
+2T -2N *Knightly Daze* & Holy Mission
+2T -2S *Starfarers*
+0 *Bland Orthodoxy*

**Angelic Evangelism** (v2)
+2K -2N
An extended campaign by multiple companies of an astartes chapter left a lasting impression on the PDF and priests of this world. By the time they left, sermons sounded much more like their chapter cult than standard doctrine, and they still do to this day.

**Bland Orthodoxy**+0
Nothing particularly special is going on with your local churches of the Ecclesiarchy. You worship the Emperor in more or less the standard prescribed manner. Your rites would be recognized on most worlds. You get few investigations for heresy or heterodoxy.

**Up From the Roots**+2N -2S
This particular sect wasn't invented by the nobles and off-world cardinals, it came from the battered working class, telling tales of how the Emperor loves them all and appreciates everything they do. The clergy still haven't totally gotten control over their myth-making but they're pretty loyal so it's allowed.

**From Vengeance**+2K -2S
Great loss and destruction came to the world, from xenos or daemons or rebels, and in the wake of the war, the people banded together in rage and channeled it into faith, preaching that the Emperor would punish those who harmed them.

**Starfarers**+2T -2S
The people who brought this cult to your world were voidborn, and spread the strange mystic faith of those who travel through the Warp regularly to the planet, from being settled there or crewing space stations and broadcasting vox prayers to the surface.

### Founding Date

Some planets lived for blissful millennia before anyone tried to extract a tithe or execute them as heretics. Some had the pathetic missionaries as the first humans to touch down on the soil. Which kind were your world?

**Just Now**+1K +1T
Whether by the sword, by rhetoric, or by some convincing miracles real or fake, your planet is still in the process of converting from its prior local beliefs to the Imperial Creed. Expect light tithes, but a lot of Sororitas and Firebrands poking around to ensure the conversions are sincere.

**Off the Boat**+1N +1S
The ships that first settled your world were loaded with believers, and the society they built was Emperor-worshipers from the start. Doesn't *have* to mean you were settled after M30, the Word Bearers crushed one of these worlds right after they paid us a visit. 47-16 had been worshiping him for centuries before the Great Crusade.

**Wave of Faith**+1K +1N
The Imperial Cult came to this world centuries at least after its human settlement, during one of the great early waves of religious expansion in the Imperium. Whether it came in the Rebirth after the Heresy, the Forging of the Adeptus Ministorum, or the Thorian Age of Redemption, it arrived forcefully.

**Last Lineage**+1S +1T
The last family of governors? They got the position by converting the planet to Emperor-worship, only a millennium or so ago. Either with proselytizing, or by clearing out a xenos or Chaos cult that had taken over. Good news is there's a power vacuum in the local church; bad news is they won't like the change.

**Eras of Growth**
+1K +1S
This world was converted in the early years of the Imperium, between the Horus Heresy and the Age of Apostasy. It's had plenty of time to get used to the Emperor, have its local peculiarities drift toward orthodoxy, and develop its own schisms and local saints and power politics.

**Eras of Loss**
+1N +1T
The Imperial Cult arrived here only a couple millennia ago, after the Thorian Reformation. It's been a few dozen generations, but it's still a fairly new branch, shaped enormously by whatever they believed before, and whatever particular things the first missionaries on the planet believed.

### Structure

small cells

local independent congregations

secret cells

planetary jurisdiction

dense hierarchy

competing hierarchies

religious civil wars

### God

local god equated with Emperor

local pantheon headed by Emperor

local pantheon separate from Emperor entirely

personal saint or preacher idolized

xenos worshipped in person, running things

xenos worshiped in absentia from ruins

Chaos, openly

Chaos, misunderstood
see the Judges of the Tablets of Lorgar

philosophical that places things above worship
could be old-style

Astartes chapter cult imitators

Mechanicus worship

### Worship

**Death, Blood, More Death**+2K -2N
This cult believes the most holy way to serve the Emperor is to kill His enemies from the shadows, and take it into their own hands to decide who those are. Most are fascinated with blood and bladed weapons, and they're frequently cannibals and blood-drinkers.

**Visions! Omens! Hallucinations! Miracles!**
+2S -2N
No worship ceremony of this cult is complete without achieving holy prophetic visions and intense spiritual experiences, and if that means they need to handle venomous snakes or dose the air and wine with hallucinogenic chemicals that's just the Emperor's will made manifest.

**Intemperate Temperance**
+2N -2S
These ones believe that true service to and understanding of the Emperor can only be achieved by intense ascetic self-denial and periods of isolation, sometimes to the point of 'holy' hallucinations. Saves on feeding them, but not great for productivity.

**Monk See, Monk Do**
+2N -2T
The surest path to salvation and holiness is to precisely imitate the lives and deeds of those who were definitely holy, or at least this part of the church believes that. Most either have a single patron like the Macharians or have many each congregant chooses from.

**Twirling Towards Freedom**
+2S -2T
Religious worship in this part of the church includes long periods of dance in groups, whether spinning like dervishes or more complex movement to unending music. They consider it holy meditation and a trance that brings them closer to the Emperor.

**Testify!**
+2N -2K
A large part of this sect's regular sermons is public, personal declarations of faith, ways the Emperor has affected their lives, or their failings and ways they'll better serve Him later. It's all very communal and brings even more pressure than the fear of the priests.

**In The End Was The Word**
+2T -2S
This sect worship by copying. They constantly reread and duplicate scriptures, memorizing them and then copying more. How much they care about doing anything with those copies varies, but usually they distribute them, locally or to other worlds.

**Mortuary Pyramid**
+2K -2S
Every member of this sect who dies has their bones lovingly preserved, to be displayed in their chapels (especially the skulls) and otherwise kept near and treasured. Wearing your grandmother's ribcage is extremely respectful.

**The Most Holy Game**
+2K -2T
It is an important part of religious observance among this cult to hunt among the criminals, sinners, and mutants of the world to cull those who have offended the Emperor. In warbands, cult-gangs, or semi-official militia, they enforce their doctrine with flame and blade.

**Our Bodies As Tools**+2T -2N
Whether by augmetics, by growth stims or mental enhancements, or by exposing themselves to psychic phenomena, this cult believes in making themselves stronger and more powerful, the better to be able to serve the Emperor properly. High heresy risk, usually.

**The Emperor's Peace**+2T -2K
This cult considers it a holy duty to minister to the poor and sickly, giving amateur medical care (not necessarily effective) and administering painless death to those who are unsalvageable or judged too corrupt to be saved.

**Press The Flesh**
+2S -2K
Getting outright sex into Imperial religious ceremonies is too far-out to pass a sniff test in anything publicly known, but ceremonies of prolonged, heated close physical contact in congregations small or large can get surprisingly close before the Firebrands come burning.



### Traits

Lethean Calvinist condemnation (+N -S)

Secretive mystery cult (+T -N)

Redemptionist concealment (+K -T/N)

**The Witch-King**Pro-Psyker +2T -2K
The greatest psyker of all time sits on the Golden Throne, so how can it be right to ostracize his lesser cousins? That's these people's logic, at least, and they venerate all Sanctioned Psykers and encourage members to seek their own psychic potential. The golden bastard would have approved while he was alive, less so these days.

Anti-Psyker (+K -T)

Pro-Authority (+N -T)

Anti-Authority (+T -?)

Anti-Mutant (+S -T)

Mutant-Tolerant (+T -?)

**Eternal Crusade**
+2K -2N
Most of the Imperium are weaklings who believe in things like 'declaring victory' or 'holding back advances to solidify gains.' This sect think that's ridiculous, unacceptable cowardice in the eyes of the Emperor. When you conquer to the edge of the Sector, conquer another, or the same one again if necessary.

**Confederation Extremists**
+2N -2S
The doctrine here is much more extreme than Sebastian Thor's Confederation of Light reformers. They take humility and asceticism to such an extreme Slaanesh *almost* appreciates it. It's sinful not to subsist on corpse starch and water, or to take credit for anything you achieved, no matter how righteous.

**Temple Tendency**
+2S -2N
The Temple of the Savior Emperor founded the Ecclesiarchy, and believed that wealth should accumulate to the church, and faith should be rewarded with power and wealth. To a degree considered extremely heretical, and have you *seen* the Ecclesiarchy churches? It's absurd. Anyway, you have some here.

+S -K

+N -K

+K -S

+T -S

dupe +N -S

dupe +T -?

### Attire, Mission