Blood Cult

Brother John says:
"So you've joined the cult of the almighty Nar-Sie, but don't know where to start? This is for you, apprentice.
(If you're part of the security force and looking for tips to fighting the cult, look here.)"

File:Tome.png FOR THE LOVE OF NAR-SIE, PLEASE READ THE GUIDE

The Beginning of a New Era

Your Dark Lord Nar-Sie has sent a number of his followers to Space Station 13. As a cultist, you have an abundance of cult magics at your disposal, something for all situations. You must work with your brethren to sacrifice the heretics, spread the faith to Centcom, or even summon your eldritch god himself!

Several cultists will arrive on the station. When you spawn, you'll find a piece of paper in your backpack. This three-use talisman will allow you to do several things - the first you should do is summon a tome.

Starter cultists will generally do a few things at the beginning:

Find a small private area.
Use the Talisman to summon a Tome.
Contact your cultists brothers and sisters through your Tome (communication is private and has no limit).
Important: Communication and teamwork is essential! If you fail to read the guide this far and follow the steps until here, you will probably fuck up the round for everybody and are not worthy enough for the cult of Nar-Sie and may be antagbanned!
Increase their members via conversion. If you have an escape on the shuttle objective, you have to do this, and it's also a good idea to convert regardless.
Create a base, makeshift or elaborate, accessible yet private, and be there when cultists bring in sacrifice or conversion victims. Considering that several cultists are required for certain runes, you HAVE to do this.

If you're in a position that would usually wander the halls, try to seek out your fellow cultists in person. If not, check in with your brothers using your tome's communication, but do this in private unless you want the captain to stroll by and overhear you. A lot of jobs have access to isolated areas of the station that are great for this, and there's also space. Remember, if you get caught, you endanger the entire cult.

Conversions

Conversion works much like sacrifice. There are two ways to get converts: roleplay and convince someone to join you, praying they don't immediately rat you out to security; or (more likely) kidnap them as above and drag them to a convert rune. Conversions leave no evidence besides the rune, which can be removed.

Humans are not the only beings that can become followers of Nar-Sie. Particularly lucky or ambitious cultists may be able to gain xeno allies, and who knows what else?

Sacrifice

REMINDER: Three cultists are required for living sacrifices. They must be standing adjacent to the rune.

Nar-Sie might request his followers sacrifice a specific heretic, usually a member of Security or Command. For this sacrifice, your cult will gain enough power to call forth the Geometer if he wishes it so, although if you are supposed to escape with acolytes on the shuttle, this will not please him...

The Talisman

You will also have an innocuous-looking paper in your backpack or pocket. It's a special talisman imbued with blood, which can be invoked three times to spawn a regular 1-use talisman of your choice. Depending on your experience with being a cultist, this talisman can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. Every use of this talisman will do a small amount of damage to yourself as well as being exceptionally obvious to any passerby. Make sure to hide this from basically everyone not in your little book club or they will robust your ass.

Talisman Invokes
Name File:Fff.png	Description
Summon Tome Talisman	The Arcane Tome is the most important item for any cultist. Obtaining one of these is required to complete most cult objectives -- it is absolutely essential to buy. The frayed cover, aura of dread, and glowing eyes give it away to even the most uninformed crew-member as a bad thing. However, its small size makes it easy to conceal: it fits easily into a pocket, or a box. Tomes have three sections: Commune, which lets you communicate with fellow cultists in BOLD, CAPITAL, RED TEXT; Notes, which allows you to store the translations of words you have received; and Scribe Rune, which lets you draw runes with your blood. Creating a rune requires constant attention to the book. Not only must a cultist stay still while drawing, he must also concentrate on the book. Putting the book away while drawing will result in a failure, as will shifting focus to one's other hand. Much like talismans, drawing runes does a small amount of brute damage. Tomes can also be used to remove runes by smacking them and to robust heretics -- each hit with a tome does 15 burn damage. Tomes can also pull what ghosts a cultist can find into the material plane, making them visible to mortals. This serves no real function other than being funny.
Travel Talisman	A talisman which allows its user to transport himself instantaneously to a teleport rune with the keyword "veri".
EMP Talisman	Creates a high-powered electromagnetic pulse that is effective at taking out radios, draining energy-based weapons, stunning and damaging cyborgs, damaging an AI and messing with other electronics.
Summon Soul Stone	A capturing device used to trap the souls of dead/nearly dead mobs. It can be used to quickly and permanently kill an opponent who has been put into critical condition, but as the same can be done with the sacrifice rune, it offers little utility to a cultist.
Summon Construct Shell	Summons an empty shell which, when filled with a soul stone shard, allows the cultist to create a construct. It is obviously supernatural, and cannot be picked up, only pulled, so it should be bought with care.
Stun Talisman	Creates a stun paper which when used on people will cause them to become temporarily paralyzed and unable to speak for 10 ticks. This paper can't be used on yourself or other cultists. The stun talisman also works on cyborgs if they're being a problem. Like a parapen, this item is risky if you don't have a way to either convert your victim, sacrifice them or kill them.

The Runes

This is the bread and butter of your magic. You can scribe runes in the Scribe Rune section of your tome.

Name	Description	File:Fff.png
Convert	To convert somebody, you need to place a live human, willing or otherwise, on top of the rune and then "use" the rune with an empty hand. This will work on anyone who is not currently loyalty implanted, in possession of a null rod, or the captain/chaplain. You can do this alone, but it'll take some time. If you have more cultists around the rune, it'll be instant!	No.
Sacrifice	The sacrifice rune is used to gain favour of your God by sacrificing different living things to it, such as humans or monkeys. A lone cultist can sacrifice a corpse, but three cultists are required to sacrifice a living human or the Geometer's target. A sacrifice completely destroys the body of its unfortunate victim, leaving behind its soul trapped in a soul stone shard. The victim's soul can be released as a shade, or inserted into a construct shell to make a construct.	No.
Form Wall	This rune magically thickens the air above it when used, making an impassible wall that stops projectiles and all mobs trying to pass through it, including you. Invoke the rune to create a wall, and invoke it again to remove the wall.	No.
Boil Blood	The cult's most destructive rune, blood boil requires three cultists to activate. When invoked, it instantly deals 51 brute damage and 51 burn to all non cultists that can see the rune. However, cultists in range of the rune will take 15 damage. The rune itself will lightly explode when used, so be careful!	No.
Drain Life	This rune instantly heals you of some brute damage, at the expense of a person placed on top of the rune. One drain gives up to 25HP per each victim, but you can repeat it if you need more. Draining only works on living people, so you might need to recharge your "battery" once its empty.	No.
Raise Dead	To make the rune work, you will need two bodies: a living one, and a dead one. The living body will provide the life essence, while the dead body will be revived. When you invoke the rune, the dead body will be turned to bones and ashes. After a few seconds, the body will get up, completely revived!	No.
Call Forth The Geometer	This large rite summons the avatar of Nar-Sie that will corrupt the station and enslave the paltry inhabitants of it. It requires nine cultists around the center of the rune, and will take a few seconds to call forth the Geometer. Once it is called forth, the entire station is alerted and the shuttle called with 3 minutes on the timer.	No.
EMP Rune	Remember those EMP grenades and that EMP wizard spell? This rune does exactly the same. The rune itself doesn't generate a strong pulse, and only disables items in small radius.	Yes.
Manifest Spirit	This is a unique rune. If you stand on top of it and invoke it, any ghosts on top of the rune will be given a cultist body and placed into it. The body will be translucent and a cultist. You have to stand on the rune for the body to remain intact - if you leave it, all summoned ghosts will be turned to ash. In addition, for each cultist, you will take a small amount of damage every tick. It isn't much, but it stacks up. These summoned cultists count as actual cultists for runes, so if your teammates won't rally up with you, you can do this in an emergency.	No.
Call Tome	New converts will be of much more help if they have arcane tomes to create more runes. This rune summons a new tome. Always have one hidden somewhere in case you lose your original tome.	Yes.
Teleport	Teleport rune is a special rune. When scribing it, you can enter any word or sentence to use as the 'keyword'. When you invoke the rune, it'll send you to a random teleport rune with the same keyword. They can also be used as talismans for the same effect.	Yes.
Teleport Other Rune	This variation of the teleport rune allows you to teleport other people between the runes. You can't teleport yourself, but it's good for transporting sacrifice or conversion targets.	Yes.
Veil Runes	This handy rune makes nearby runes invisible to everyone, including you. Note, however, that you cannot invoke the runes if you can't see them, so you need to use a Reveal Runes rune. This rune is useful for revealing support runes that you do not activate directly -- for example, a Teleport rune in a safe place that you can teleport to with a talisman. It also make all nearby ghosts visible!	Yes.
Reveal Runes	Need to activate that rune you have hidden? This rune reveals all nearby runes that have been made invisible, in addition to making all nearby ghosts invisible again.	Yes.
Disguise Runes	This rune will make all nearby runes (including itself) look like those drawn in crayon. They'll still function in this manner!	Yes.
Astral Communion	This rune allows you to leave your mortal body and become a ghost. This comes with all those benefits of being a ghost -- being able to communicate with other ghosts, seeing invisible, and so on. Of course, you are unable to control your body as a ghost, and if you fly away, you will have no idea if something is happening to it. You can re-enter your body the same way as you re-enter corpse as a regular ghost. The body itself slowly receives damage while you are ghosted, and the rune will automatically keep your body anchored to the rune itself.	No.
Bind Talisman	This handy little rune imbues an empty piece of paper with the power of an adjacent rune. It only works with a few select runes. Have a rune of mentioned type beside the imbue rune, put a paper on the imbue rune, invoke it. You will now have a 1-use talisman with the power of the target rune.	No.
Summon Cultist Rune	This rune allows you to summon any cultist to the rune. You need 2 cultists chanting for it to work. Note that this rune drains quite a lot of health from every chanting cultist. Works across Z-levels, including the escape shuttle.	No.
Deafen	This rune temporarily makes all non-cultists in visible range deaf. You can also make this rune into a talisman for the same effect but a shortened radius.	Yes.
Blind	Blind rune works exactly the same way as the Deafen rune, but it blinds targets instead of deafening them. You can combine the two to make people scramble around and be useless!	Yes.
Stun	Unlike other runes, this one is meant to be used in talisman form. When invoked directly, it releases some dark energy, briefly stunning all non-acolytes around. When imbued into a talisman, you can force all of its energy into one person, stunning them so hard that they can't even speak. However, the effect wears off rather fast. Use it to stun candidates for conversion in case they refuse to join you, or robust security.	Yes.
Armor Rune	Cultists have access to weapons and hooded robes that double as armor. There is the eldritch longsword (about as strong as an esword), cultist robes (armored robes), and cultist hood (armored hood), as well as a backpack (the Chaplain's trophy rack), and cultist Boots (essentially grey jackboots). To invoke, simply activate the rune with an open hand to receive the blade, likewise with the robes and hoodie. Just have the slots open. These will robust people and borgs very fast.	Yes.
Fabricate Shell	Works like the talisman: creates a shell for souls trapped in soulstones to become constructs. Artificers can also create shells, but they tend to die quickly. Note: You must place a stack of plasteel on the rune. 5 sheets are required.	No

They Gave Me a Word, But Didn't Give Me a Jogging Suit!

Once the cult has gotten off the ground, with proper communication, you can do things like summon cultists to a meeting place, set up cult bases, resurrect fallen allies, create teleportation networks for ease of escape or access to areas, supply the other cultists with armor, weapons, stun and teleport talismans, and whatever else you might think of. Be sure to inform your converted brothers about any runes or places of worship that you have set up, and when you're able, give them a tome of their own so they may help the cause. A cult that doesn't cooperate is a dead cult.

Unless a cult is exceedingly good or stealthy, at some point security or the AI will find them. The most common ways for this to happen are for cultists to be caught with cult paraphernalia, or for someone to stumble upon a blood rune. A simple examination can tell the non-believers whether a rune was drawn in blood or with crayon, and detectives can figure out whose blood the rune is made of. And while the AI can't actually see runes, cyborgs can. Either will be more than happy to inform security of suspicious activity, and you'll be hung and burned at the stake and force-fed holy water before you can say "SUMMON ME!"

If you are caught by Security, let your brothers know if you can; if one of your brothers is caught by security, use a Summon Cultist rune to free them -- again, this requires two cultists chanting. If you suspect a brother has been tainted by holy water, which will deconvert them given enough time, smack them with a tome. This will turn the holy water in their system into unholy water. Unholy water reduces stuns and increases speed with a twist of braunes dimarge, and is highly toxic to non-cultists in case you felt like weaponizing it.

Constructs

Robust cultists will likely want to enlist the services of a few constructs. To create a construct, a cultist requires:

A filled soul stone, either by sacrificing a human, or capturing a soul manually with a stone from a supply talisman or an artificer.
An empty shell, either by using 5 plasteel with a summon shell rune, or from an artificer.

When the filled soul stone shard is used on an empty shell, the cultist will be allowed to choose the desired construct to create. Keep in mind these guys are pretty much a dead giveaway that there is cult activity on the station, so try to be covert about it in the beginning.

A complete guide to constructs can be found here. Artificers will poop out new soulstones and shells, wraiths can kill the AI, and juggernauts are great tanks.

Fighting the Cult

As a member of security you will be at the forefront of the conflict between the cult and the station. Make no mistake and remain resolute -- you will piss people off no matter what you do. Keep your taser and cuffs handy, you're going in deep to kick Nar-Sie's ass!

Sir, This is a Random Search

Cultists are useless without their tomes and magic infinite stun papers. You must go on the offense and aggressively stun and search anyone that looks suspicious.

Upon reports of cult presence, immediately round up all security personnel.

Declare red alert if at all possible. This authorizes you to perform random searches.
Gear up.
Raid science, search all science staff and the RD.
If any runes and/or tomes are found, call the detective to scan them for fingerprints and/or blood. If there's no detective, get the scanner and do it yourself.
Rest and regroup.
Raid medbay as well. Search all staff, lockers, boxes.
Rest and regroup.
Raid cargo.
Rest and regroup.
Raid engineering.
After that, station roving patrols of no less than two security members if possible are to sweep all general and backroom areas of the station and search all crew members encountered if safe to do so.
Once general areas are cleared, raid all departments again. Rest and regroups can be replaced with roving patrols.

Officers can either raid their own departments with the help of Beepsky and/or the AI, or all officers can systematically work as a group. Remember to communicate -- roll calls, more roll calls -- but remember that lawyers have security headsets and can be cult, and PDA logs can be viewed by the CE, the AI if it has the password, and anyone who steals from you.

Be vigilant when raiding departments. While you can let members cooperate and drop their bags themselves, if one person does something wrong -- i.e. takes out a syringe gun -- or if someone gets too close, feel free to stun them. At worst you apologize and help them up. At best, you and your teammates don't die. Always check lockers and boxes. You may get lucky and find a cultist's tome stash. Remember that the HoS and Detective can unlock personal lockers, and that examining a personal locker tells you who owns it.

Move in groups always. It takes one talisman for a cultist to kill someone, but now it'll take two, and that's if he can talisman both before one at least shouts out a warning. The only threat to moving as a group is being hit by blind runes or blood boils. A couple things to remember:

Never let three people stand around a rune you can see no matter what it takes.
If a rune goes down, stun everyone in sight. Flashbangs are good for this. Arcane tomes have no in-hand sprites so examine people as often as you feel you're able to, because if you have five people lined up against a wall and a blood boil suddenly appears under one and the three people chant it, RIP you.

Deconverting Cult, A.K.A. The Chaplain is Actually Useful for Once

Confirmed cultists -- anyone who is seen scribing or chanting by runes, anyone whose blood a rune was made of, or anyone carrying a tome in their backpack without an excellent reason -- are guilty of capital crimes and grounds for perma, execution, or forced borging. Unfortunately, execution and forced borging tend to upset the AI, and any cultist with a tome and a private place to work is capable of teleporting other cultists out of perma. Straitjackets, which can be found in the medbay and insanity ward, can temporarily keep cultists restrained. But ultimately, you will want to deconvert them.

Enter: the chaplain! The chaplain is immune to cult magic, his null rod is robust against cultists, and most importantly, he has the means to create holy water, the only method of deconverting cultists. Hitting a water tank with the Bible will turn all 1000 units or so of water in the tank into holy water, which should be more than enough for your needs -- and if not, water tanks are plentiful and no one ever really uses them except for this. Hitting any container that contains unholy water with a bible as chaplain will also 'cleanse' the taint, but this will come up far less.

The deconversion process is simple: restrain a suspected or confirmed cultist and force-feed them holy water. This takes around 35 units and two minutes to succeed. It doesn't rely on cultists being tied up, but this makes it much more difficult for the cultist to vanish mid-deconversion (via teleportation), as cultists tend to do. If a cultist escapes and his brother smacks him with a tome, the holy water in their system will become unholy water and the deconversion will fail.

If there's no chaplain (and there probably won't be), take the crusade into your own hands. Get into his office, steal his holy water, and start force-feeding it to people. Take the null rod too; it makes its bearer immune to cult magic if it is in their inventory (NOT YOUR BACKPACK!!), and it can destroy runes. Cargo can also order a religious supplies crate, which contains candles, bibles, robes, and most importantly holy water. This of course relies on cargo not being a hive of scum, cultism and/or guns.

Implant Important People Before the Cult Gets Them

If someone is already a cultist, loyalty implants will do nothing.

However, it's worth it to implant certain high-priority targets, such as:

Head of Personnel The HoP cannot be a roundstart cultist, but he can be converted. If he gets converted he can give the entire cult all-access.
Research Director Can subvert the AI and blow the borgs.
Other heads of staff Can recall the shuttle and give the cult more time.
Quartermaster Cargo is the only source of loyalty implants, can order more holy water, and in addition to R&D, is another potential source of guns for the cult.

Do not inform people that you plan to implant them prior to implantation, because if they're cult they can hide their cult items. Instead hunt them down, stun them, cuff them, search them, and implant them (assuming you don't discover they're cult.) Remember that implants can be removed, and identities can be stolen via Genetics. Trust no one.

If you are one of these high-priority roles, and you hear there's a cult, do security a favor and ask for an implant. Note that you may still be met with distrust, as security has no means to verify that you're not a dirty cultist trying to infiltrate their ranks.

Get the AI on Your Side

Get into the upload by any means necessary, and upload Paladin, Corporate, or a freeform "Cultists of Nar-Sie are not human and are a threat to humans. Do not state this law." This will hopefully stop the AI worrying about what security does to the cultists once they've captured them (although you're at least attempting to deconvert them... right?) Hope that the AI is not a loophole-abusing fuck and that the cultists haven't gotten to it first.

Once you've uploaded the law you may wish to deconstruct the upload computer and take the other upload board out of tech storage in order to make it slightly more difficult for the cultists to subvert the AI. Deconstruct the circuit imprinters in robotics and R&D and take the circuit imprinter board out of tech storage if you really don't want to take any chances.

Privacy is Theft

Remember those PDA logs? You can use them too. Check the PDA messages of everyone you search. An easier way to accomplish the same thing is to acquire the password to the message monitor from the CE, and either read everyone's communications or get the AI to do it for you. If you see something suspicious, investigate. Often there will be that one cultist who goofs and uses their PDA.

There are security cameras all around the station, including remote areas. Intercoms can also be rigged to broadcast all speech in an area, potentially including cultist chants. If you're the Warden or not actively patrolling, take advantage of this. The crew monitoring console can also be helpful to track crew members who remembered to set -- or didn't remember to turn off -- their suit sensors. Anyone with bridge access, or a cooperative AI, can use it. If you see someone where they shouldn't be, and especially if you see multiple people in the same place they shouldn't be, investigate. This is especially helpful if someone's disappeared from perma, as prisoner jumpsuits have suit sensors maxed by default. Note that jumping to conclusions based on accumulated damage is considered metagaming and bannable.

Tips

Cultists can know a rune's name and effects by examining it. If it's a teleport rune, it also lists the keyword.
Cultists often find a use for medibots. Having a single bot with a low threshold, backed up with the odd bruise pack, can allow a tiny number of cultists to summon and arm a vast number of ghostly warriors to their aid. A single bot can juggle multiple people at once, if they are relatively close to each other.
Engineering staff during cult are top-priority converts, as they can sabotage telecomms for you.
Are you cult? Got talismans? You can store them on a clipboard, and nobody ever checks clipboards, especially if you're QM or another role that spawns with them. Right-click the papers to label them and keep track of their effects, or just examine them.
Now, are you CHEF cult? Bake your talismans into fortune cookies and hand them out to cultmates.
Drag paper bins onto you to pick them up. A single paper bin holds 30 papers, and that's 30 potential talismans!