The Kult of Death is an unusual religions. Unlike may others it does not offer an explanation of the universe. A glimpse of the mind of god or even a promise of an after life.
It has only one tenet:
A good life begets a good death.
The teachings are this: People who are good, who follow the accepted behaviour
of the church, pay their tithes to it, work hard and bring up their families
to believe the same, will be rewarded by a quick and painless death when their
time comes.
That's it.
Followers of the religion are typically down towners form whom basic healthcare,
let alone LAD, is a distant and unreachable dream and for whom a painful death
(either from disease or homicide) is all to real a future.
The tithe they pay is either 10% of their income (if they are one of the fortunate
few to have a job) or by spending 20% of their waking time working for the church:
building new meeting halls, assisting fellow believers, or going out into the
communities to find other lost souls.
A small number of followers chose to dedicate their lives to the Kult and become
Deliverers (priests). They are taught the ways of death, which mostly consist
of ending people's lives painlessly (the reward they guarantee to the followers).
As the 'accepted behaviour' part of the beliefs have never been defined, such
people find themselves in the powerful position of being able to dictate the
'correct' way to live to their followers- most of whom are too scared of the
alternative to go against them.
The K.O.D. have been quietly growing in Mort for a while. As they encourage
people to work hard and make no trouble SLA has turned a blind eye to them.
Besides they are of no interest to anyone important because anyone important
can afford Karma and LAD and thus have nothing to fear from 'death' any way.
They have bigger fish to fry.
Unforunately things are about to take a turn for the troublesome.
A recent death amongst the priesthood has allowed a young and inexperienced man, with dangerous ideas and not enough sense to keep his mouth shut, to arise to a position of power: Deliverer Maxwell Java. He has looked upon the tenet and come to one blinding conclusion:
A good life begets a good death
Therefore a bad life equals a bad death
So how evil must you be to have no death at all?
And thus one small deliverer with a flock of maybe 80 people, ill-equipped and untrained, has been set against the might of Slayer, Intruder and all the necanthropes.
There are a number of possible BPNs arising from this:
The basic "go-in-there-and-wipe-them-out" one.
80 down towners armed with sharp kitchen knives, CAF weapons and the odd spud
thrower. They are on their own territory, but they are out to make a point.
Their deaths are assured, but it will be a good death. And that may well
unnerve even the most experienced of SLA ops.
A silver BPN to cover the heretics and thus discourage others from following
this dangerous lead. Even if this is not given to your squad there will be coverage.
They will ask for lots of hand to hand because "Hey they are not much of
an opponent and it will look better."
Also a grey to infiltrate the KOD elsewhere in Mort, to see if this was an isolated occurrence or something more wide spread. More of this later.
However there is the potential for this growing to something more problematical.
There will be news coverage of the initial attack. And. although there is going
to be a massacre, one thing will become all too apparent: even as they die,
the followers of the KOD are in a state of ecstasy. They almost throw themselves
on the swords of the attackers, crying out how theirs is a good death, and a
reward for their ultimate sacrifice in the name of their beliefs.
Millions are going to see this footage. Its going out live; no chance to cut
or edit.
Millions in Down Town are going to see this.
KOD has its martyrs.
The grey squads will soon realises that something is going on. There is a schism in the KOD between the old church, who do not agree with the radical view point and realises how dangerous it is, and a rapidly swelling under current of 'new believers' who are arriving every day at the meeting halls. Unless something is done very quickly the old deliverers will be run out of their own church by the radicals inspired by advert so usefully provided by SLA themselves.
The tales will spread through Down Town like wild fire: KOD is right. A good death is better than a bad life under the rulership of people so evil that are not even permitted any death - let alone a good one.
Honestly I have no idea how to resolve this one.
It's your WOP but suggestions would be appreciated.
Sue.
Developers notes: The Kult of Death are originally from
T13 a game system I designed with a few friends in university and which survives
in part as Tellus Imperium in Shattered Realities. The WOP and T13 were very
similar, both being dark industrial distopias and it was the arrival on the
selves of SLA which killed any attempts to publish T13 in its original form
(basically Nightfall beat us to it by about three months)
As with all the T13 stuff the concept of intellectual copyright is problematical
as the people involved have drifted off. However as I do have agreement to use
Tellus Imperium as part of Shattered Realities, and the concept of K.O.D. is
pretty loose so I'm using it any way.
If any of the old T13 developers want to argue the point they can just get off
their backsides and answer my mails. But, given their current silence, I doubt
any of them will object. And a concept this cute deserves life.