Blood Cult: Difference between revisions

The dark lord Nar'Sie has sent a number of his followers -- specifically, six cultists, for stations with small populations, or nine for larger stations. 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 CentComm, or even summon your eldritch god himself!

When you first spawn on the station, you'll notice you have been given several words. These words are the basis of Nar-Sie's magic, and will be used to scribe runes. You will also have a paper imbued with blood in their backpack or pocket. It's a special talisman, 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.

|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 covers, 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 very 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 uses your noted words to draw runes with your blood. Every rune requires three known words in the tome's notes, and when you have noted all the words for a rune, it will appear as an option in this menu. 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, to copy notes by smacking another tone, and to robust heretics -- each hit with a tome does 5 to 25 brute damage. Tomes can also pull what ghosts a cultist can find into the material plane, making them visible and audible to mortals.

|Same thing as the tome's communication, in disposable paper form. This is more or less obsolete now that the tome lets you communicate, but it has its uses.  

|A talisman which allows its user to transport himself instantaneously to a teleport rune with the same final word. Because using this talisman requires the cultists' knowing the word 'Travel', it is not immediately useful.

|Summons a soulstone, which can trap the souls of dead/in limbo mobs (doesn't work on humans who left their body.) When captured they will become a trapped shade, which can be released out of its jail or used on a construct shell.

|You summon a shell. This shell cannot be picked up, but you can fill it with a trapped soul in a soulstone to create a [[construct]]: either an Artificer, Juggernaut or Wraith.

|The first rune that you are likely to use. 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. '''Three cultists are required around a convert rune for it to work!'''

!''hell, blood, join

|The sacrifice rune is used to gain favour of your God by sacrificing different living things to it, such as monkeys and humans. As a reward, Nar'Sie will grant you the translation of one of the rune words, possibly one you already know. You can sacrifice dead bodies and monkeys alone, but to sacrifice a living human or your target, you need to have 3 cultists chanting by the rune. Sacrificing a living human is very likely to yield a positive result for you.

|This rune requires three cultists standing around it before you are able to use it. When invoked, it instantly deals 51 brute damage and 51 burn to all non cultists that can see the rune. There is even a 5 percent chance that those inflicted by the rune will be gibbed. However, cultists in range of the rune will take 15 damage, with no additional effect if more than 3 cultists chant the rune. Also, as a potential bonus (Or negative effect), any rune that is visible from the blood boil rune (including the blood boil rune) has a 10 percent chance of exploding.

|While just having a henchman cultist is useful, he will be of much more help if he has an arcane tome to create more runes. This rune simply summons a new arcane tome. Always have one hidden somewhere so that you can get a new tome in case you lose your current one.

Nar-Sie might also request his followers sacrifice a heretic on the station, usually a member of Security or Command. The process is the same, and your god will reward you with more wrods

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 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 suddenly 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, so don't let that happen.

* '''[[Chain of Command#Heads of Staff|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.

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, assuming the cult hasn't already rushed to convert you. 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.