My final post in this series, covering the spatial relationship between my worlds and a more in depth look at the different religious groups that give Warhammer 40K texture. Since satire has been forgotten and "grim darkness" can only get you so far. It's more or a generally summery, so people don't need to go back and read each individual post.
The Emperor’s Divine Spectre
A cult founded on Chirob. It stems from the mystic experiences felt by miners
as they prayed deep underground in the cold and dark. Spread across the
subsector by the yet unrecognised Saint Arzarimus, a Charterist who found
common experiences during the long transit through the void of space.
A form of Theistic Mysticism, the adherents for a personal
communion with the ever-present Emperor, allowing the Emperor’s presence to
enter their bodies and bring their own souls closer to his divinity. With the
eventual goal of uniting within his power and glory upon death. Common EDS, as
found on Kastor’s Folly as well as Chirob, was Cataphatic, building elaborate
cathedrals, painting murals, singing and other accepted Imperial Doctrine paraphernalia
to emphasis and convey the feelings of communion and the eventual fate of their
souls.
Chirob tended to have external murals. Aiming to proselytize
the other sects found on the planet, with missionary work mostly directed to
Chirona, where they have made great strides in recruiting Kastor’s Folly
refugees to a few allied noble houses and hive strongholds.
Like many Hive-Worlds, Kastor’s Folly is home to nomadic
cultures which eke out a living in the wastes beyond the hive-cities. Such
nomads live as Feral Worlders do, engaged in a constant struggle against the
elements and each other. However, they remain adherents of the Imperial Cult.
Due to thousands of years of feuding and cultural division, they do not
recognise the Bishop except as the Ecclesiarchy’s representative. They preferred
their own Deacons who support any and all secular violence. Their common
communion is via Introvertive meditation
by enwrapping themselves in a cloak and retreating into the warm depths of
sleep.
Bawahayat is home to the Mataknecht racial type. Who as a whole practise the communion with the Emperor with light-refracting crystals. Which are the primary means of survival on their airless surface. Allowing each person to receive a survivable fraction of the directed spirit.
Befitting Agsuit’s greater social controls, the sect has transformed into a rejuvenating force, where personal communion as a higher step than shared communion. The Emperor’s spirit is called by the Priest Caste during massed prayers, with their holy songs, to those who have done the holy work. Entering each participants soul and filling it, possibly beyond the bounds of their bodies. Overseer and Serf prayers are held simultaneously, but on opposing sides of the manor wall. Both aiming to achieve salvation. It is not uncommon for participants to experience uncontrollable sounds and motions.
More archaic personal communion is a requirement of Priestly education. Where they imbue certain rare plants and expand their conscious to be more receptive to the Emperor. Those who seek to continue this personal communion, rather than the social role of priests are entered into the Monastery of Northpoint Mountain. Carving much of Agsuit’s high northern mountains into interlocking silos, cloisters and hermitages.
Holy Body Sect
A monistic form of mysticism where the adherents seek to
embody and, in some cases, begin a transformation into a more holy being in the
aspect of the Emperor. It emerged from within the ships of the great Rogue
Trader Kastor, during his charting and colonisation of the sub-sector. The beliefs
seek to balance an apophatic and cataphatic understanding of the Emperor, rejecting
that which is not clean and divine while undertaking processes which refine the
body into a better aspect. Becoming more holy and hence better people.
The greatest centres of the Holy Body sect are on Chirona,
where they are split into numerous subsects based on the whims of the billions
who dwell there. Statues and images of the Emperor and particularly close saints
are prevalent, as the population seeks to emulate them. The most common form by
weight is called Alchemic Holy Body, where the process of living a holy life
and eating the holy refined stuff of the Imperium brings forth changes in the
mind, and sometimes the body. Announcements of stigmata are common occurrences in
the broadcasts and those who do are marked for skull-enshrinement.
Purity rites are common, usually a simple circling of the
food with the finger. Such rites grow with greater frequency on Tryphobeta,
where refined food must be kept free from the dust. There, the focus of correct
actions and ascension to a higher form dovetail with the practise of the
Tech-Priests. And among the Techno-Tribes, there is a conscious choice to ascend
in body or mind first. Representing a commitment to allying with a Tech-Priest
Refinery-Monastery or a Administratum Taxation-Seminary.
An extreme interpretation is found on Nazgool. Due to the
high number of mutants, the human population enshrined within the Nine Capitans
and the Moon are fanatical about purity. There can be no taint to their food or
actions, even bodily functions are to be done in accordance with the local
scriptures. Less the taint of the process begin a slow but inevitable
corruption of their souls.
Such beliefs are almost mirrored chirally in the mutant
workforce. With a variant sect, which pertains to the redemptive power of
consuming blessed food and so in a way, reducing the taint of mutation which
has built up in their bodies. The less mutated the purer the soul. In fact,
some of the eastern sects believe they are incarnating as the Emperor upon
Nazgool, as they continue to reduce their radiation levels through strictly apophatic
and naturalistic contemplation of a perfect world without mutations.
Four or Three Holy Ministries Sect
This is probably the oldest and possibly the most orthodox
of the sects of the Imperial Cult. Coming from the more established regions of
the wider sector before Kastor even set forth on his journey. This sect holds
that the structure of the Imperium itself is a reflection of the will of the
Emperor and he acts through leaders and bureaucracy. All subjects ultimately guided
by the visible hand. This Panentheistic and extrovertive worship naturally
glorifies imperial governance wherever it goes and no world where it resides
has seen fit to ban it for that reason.
The exact combination of entities that should be worshiped for
primacy vary and the vital difference between three and four spheres of the
Emperor’s guidance is the difference between consigning a holy aspect to ignominy
or elevating the undeserving.
Aspects of the Emperor’s Will are: The Ecclesiarchy, first among equals. The Administratum, which receives most of the support, the Planetary Nobility, which encompass the Defence Forces and the Imperial Guard as a collective leaders and defenders of humanity. And the Navy, which also includes the Charterist ships which ferry life-sustaining goods. This is frequently a flashpoint of debate, as the Charterists are constituents of everywhere, nowhere and are seen as freakish voidborn as well.
On Sandaaina, the allocation of divine authority is passed
down via the Holy Writ. The document from on high, which lays down the quotas
and processes to govern the world, the manna. This empowers the local system incarnation
of the Navy and Nobility (the Fullholders), who receive twice as much manna. And
the working subholders as a devolved extension of the Administratum. Their
souls only given mercy through the Ecclesiarchy for their toil.
The acquisition of manna in turn is equal parts mastery of one’s
own soul and achieving greater prominence in a chain that rises to the Emperor.
Greatly hastening many conflicts where power can be usurped or shared.
Vito especially holds the Ecclesiarchy is esteem as a Cardinal World, the local Administratum is all but an extension of the Imperial Cult. Even so, a Cardinal World remains a centre for pilgrims regardless of sect, filling neighbourhoods while they while away the times to reach steps of the Primate Palace, he who is closer to the Emperor than anyone else within the sub-sector. Interestingly, the local variation of the Four Holy Ministries sect holds the conditions on Vito-Aqua to be a physical embodiment of punishment. With convict labour signed over to the Tech-Priests to be made into servitors. The Tech-Priests do not appreciate the comparisons.
For the Three Holy Ministries, war-torn Ajax has long supplanted its veneration of the Nobility with the Space Marines. Not least because the Fire Unicorns recruit from the planet’s fighting and mining pits. Similarly, the veneration of the Navy ahs also been folded into the Administratum. Ajaxians seeing the defensive aspect taken over by the Space Marines as the holy sword of the Emperor and the Chartists as extensions of the bureaucracy.
On Four, the veneration of the Nobility and the Administratum
are the same because Four has never seen any major interstellar conflict. Just
violence befitting a human world of it’s status, lead by and for the appointed leaders
for the purpose of securing more favourable outcomes amid the record-keeping.
The barren nature of the world has kept the Chartists in mind as the dominate
image of a holy vessel as well. Surprisingly, a number of people from Four
dwell on Chirob. Bringing with them their three devotions.
Local Others
On Subprodey and Trypobeta, the Cult Mechanicus remains strong
and orthodox. Even if they consider Subprodey and then Trypobeta to be the third
and fourth most important worlds in the Imperium after Mars and Terra. Updates
from Mars emerging with regular if outdated speed and dutifully included in the
worship process. Yet on Subprodey, the pointless make-work is slowly pushing
the menial to adopt the Biological Machine Movement. A Tech-Heresy that
proclaims the body is a machine and so requires repairs and downtime as well.
On Tryphobeta, the Dust Khans are both the main source of local recruitment and
the biggest danger. Far too many Tech-Priests will merge their duties with
maintaining their tribe’s equipment, even as their tribe raid Mechanicus facilities
and each other.
Worse heresies include the Vac-Scavs of Eytry, where
abandoned workers have lived in relative peace as a low-tier space
civilisation. Repairing by rote the machines, until Subprodey’s need for
mineral has forced them into conflict.
On Nazgool, the Tech-Priests refuse to leave their
radiation-sealed shelters. Leaving it to the mutant cult of the Pure Machine. A
monastically order which delivers demonstration-sermons in the name of Saint
Khamool, an acolyte who fled into the wilderness in the early days when
mutations were just starting to be detected as a widespread issue. Their
control of the domestic bio-fuel makes them indispensable, even for the human nobility.
They believe in replacing mutated body parts with cybernetics to maintain
purity of form. While the sermons are highly specific, enough general knowledge
has accumulated in heretical codices to give the limited middle-class an
esoteric knowledge of mechanics and sciences.
Ajax’s transformation from Mining World to War World has
changed their religious practises probably permanently. Esoteric warcults of
the dead have emerged, venerating warbands for their deed and martyrs. With
every family having a serving member and many families having lost one or two
relatives already, fatalistic memorials take over all previous traditions. Any pretence
the planetary nobility had as a lesser sword of the Emperor beside the Space
Marines is gone and replaced by such warcults.
Increasingly the clergy and people and being split between
two new sects; the syncretic Cult of the Rhinoceros in Saint’s Rest and the
traditional Three Holy Ministries in Beceen. Beceen is seen as more liberal in
that it tolerates a degree of artistic endeavour in its iconography and so has
been condemned as decadent. Forming a new ideology from a negative as more
radical clergy move to its camp. Bishop Torquemada Phalan makes no secret his
desire to purge the Ajaxian race of all deviance.
The Cult of the Rhinoceros was not founded by him, but he
has done the most to interpret and spread it. It combines the Flaming Unicorn
Chapter, whose rigid approach to
duty as a Iron Hand successor chapter goes well with the ancient insistence on
mining quota. First a mystery cult for pit fighters not chosen for the chapter.
The Rhinoceros is the Unicorn: pure, mystical, stubborn and aggressive, it’s
mind too small for doubt or questions. The Rhinoceros sacrificed itself to mark
Humankind’s passage to the stars. For it was the steed the Emperor rode from
the Garden of Life and led the way by ascension via holy human-mediated death.
All should follow the Rhinoceros, to obey as a dead body obeys and Live for
Death. For there is nothing but death for all mankind except the Emperor upon
the Golden Throne.
The war has also given rise to the esoteric practises of the
southern Tigmamanukans. A people unified by the revelatory theistic dream visions.
Where the Emperor divines his intentions through dreams, mediated by the Bird.
A legendary living angel, like a cherub but with no arms and hard lips. Which
flies by the Emperor’s authority alone and not technology.
Which civitates depends on the Bird’s name: Quetzal – Rocky
Garden, Sarimanok – Sun City or Uqar – Goodtown. The increasing familiarity of
these practises as the Feaykin synchronize with the warcults has marked the
Tigmamanukans for the purge. The holy warriors of the Cult of the Rhinoceros, Guetre,
cannot have rivals.
While Four is a Three Holy Ministries world, it is filled
with a variety of local practises aimed at ensuring good fortune and appeasing the
dead. Both beyond and who inhabit the shafts and galleries. As the traditional
power structure breaks down, these practises are coming to the forefront for
each of the diverse people and regions in the darkness.
The Three Holy Ministries remain strong in Khis where they
first began to preach. Finding themselves increasingly tied to the government
and wondering where the text of the Emperor can justify revolution. Also, in
Khis is the Cult of the Garden Emperor in Shaft-City Stan. The Emperor tends
the garden of souls, pruning the unjust and the failures and encouraging the
growth of the righteous, until their time has come to achieve their harvest,
their foretold destiny. The Emperor is patient, just, firm and not arbitrary.
To grow is to live in hope for a greater purpose, a good life that will come to
those who are righteous. The gardeners emphasise this with the cultivation of
fungi and even in rumoured greenhouses peaking into the surface, actual green
plants. This food source makes them very popular even if little trickles down
in the form of the Gren Pea Communion.
Azappo had a culture of shamans, Emperor-Talkers were able
to communicate with his might spirit so long as they wore their sacred masks
which imbued them with the smallest fragment on his attention and knowledge.
But now they turn to more traditional rites. They turn to the Imperial Creed
and the philosophical nature of what is a true human being. The First Ministry
is not the Administrative, the People of Four are, and the Az are The True
People.
“He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium, for whom a thousand
souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh eaten. Human blood and
human flesh – the stuff of which the Imperium is made.”
Though not yet a Chaos Cult, an Inquisition would disagree
that the Cannibal Cults of the Az People believe in a correct Emperor. Who
condones the rule of the strong over the weak, who revel in the power and the
pomp for the fear and subjugation it inflicts and who profess the desire to
torture and consume the bodies of those they deem lesser. To fuel their holy
cause of insuring Mankind’s survival in their lightless universe.
The raiding clans of Tip have taken a somewhat fatalistic
approach. Having been nearly destroyed as a general thorn in the side of all
others. They can retain their dignity of not eating bodies but normal corpse-starch.
Seeing themselves as being scoured by the Emperor to remove the weak and
impious.
The Network of Lund remains conventional. But has increasingly
seen an uptick in a syncretic faith brought by saviour Fran Warpmaster. He
likes to portray himself as the chosen Man-Angel of the Emperor, who promises need
for success and flexibility of traditions. Focusing on the problems of now over
the problems of the future.
The Gelapknech of Bawahayat dwell underground with enormous
fungal worms. They practise a few cults about the Emperor being the source of
light and the Emperor speaking not just for or through Humanity but the worms
as well. This is maybe within the tolerances of the Ecclesiarchy/Adeptus
Ministorum for the Imperial Cult, though some of the Mataknecht think the later
may need to be checked. As the Emporer speaks for the holy human form and only
at a stretch should cover terran animals, let alone xenos. An attempt to
request a synod on the matter from Vito has gone nowhere, due to more important
matters.
Inspired by the crusade which cleansed the wider sector,
Vito Secundus has long cultivated its own holy warriors. But given the distance
to ship girls off to the sector core where the orders reside, it has turned to
the fringe. Rapturous eunuch cults are long prospered, seeking their “future
martyrdom” as Saint Porpus achieved in full. Though remaining functional and
influential within the bureaucracy. Mindful of an adverse sector synod that
eunuchs under arms are still men. Female hustreks possess the same loophole and
are assumed to be even more devoted to the Ecclesiarchy and the Archbishop than
Sisters must be.
While there are bands of eunuch warriors, they must remain
outside the structure and so naturally form their own semi-sanctioned militias
with their own authority. Leading to occasional clashes when local priests and
organisations become intertwined with their radical influence.
The Annajmites of Hidden are Chaos worshipers and proud of
it. Choosing to turn their backs on the god cult and worship the powers which reflect
the nature of the universe and the soul. The dominate witch-cult was the Will
to Power, they served as a counterbalance to authority, enforcing the law of
Centre Poitn by breaking the power of the habitat nobility. Freeing those unjustly bound, breaking the
staid natures of the nobility and practising the disturbing relief rites of the
four primal emotions, to relieve stress of the people.
These rituals were important, for without it, people would
be tempted to summon warp entities, and that would be invoking self-destruction.
Yet Witch-Cults have their own heretics, who embrace power over lesser people but
also seek to rule as the Imperium does, a Stark Side of Chaos. A natural ally
of Imperial authority.
