Quotes: “The stars all speak the names. They call on us to listen.”
Background: The inner circle of the cult has seen an influx of younger members over the years as the Teacher’s influence begins to spread beyond the house on Martense Street. The gentrification of the neighborhood coupled with the recent economic downturn has also improved the cult’s ability to draw in more youthful adherents.
Description: Men and a few women in their late 20s and early 30s. Usually dressed fashionably and in black.
Storytelling Hints: These Astral Lodge cultists are very excited that the secret Teacher has returned from his mystical sojourn amongst the black stars. Soon he will reveal his secret power and remake the order of the universe. The cultists are infused with hyper-active energy and they become wild-eyed when confronted by a threat to their lodge.
Concept: Loyal Hands of the Cult
Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2; Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2; Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Composure 2
Skills: Academics 2, Computer 3, Empathy 3, Firearms 3, Larceny 2 (Security Systems), Occult (Relics) 3, Persuasion 2, Stealth (Shadowing) 3, Streetwise 2, Weaponry 3
Merits: Allies (Occult) 2, Cult Status 3, Deceived Cultist, Resources 2
Willpower: 4 Morality: 5
Virtue: Faith (Loyalty) Vice: Greed (Power Mad) Initiative: 5
Defense: 3 Speed: 12 Size: 5
Weapons/Attacks:
Type Damage Dice Pool Pistol 2(L) 6
Sword 2(L) 7
Armor: 0 or 1/1 (If expecting a fight, cultists will wear body armor or tactical vests bought online)
Health: 7
The Astral Lodge of Sublime Revelations
127 The Merits of Martense
The house on Martense is a tomb and the brethren of the Astral Lodge are a tribal cult. While the tomb is limited in temporal space, the ancient stones and reliquary objects that compromise and fill its lower levels confer some of the benefits detailed below, such as the house’s auspicious geometry and radiant replenishment of the Ren Pillar. The peril that is generated by the house’s curse is only felt by those who take a genuine interest in the house and begin to research its history or investigate it directly. As the curse takes hold, bad luck plagues the curious as if the stars had become set against them. The curio possessed by the meret is a gem-encrusted ring sought by a cabal of mortal sorcerers. The Merciful One has subtly infiltrated this group with her cultists over the years, as they’ve discussed handing the ring over to them in exchange for occult favors.
The relics collectively known as the Heart Stones make up significant portions of the tomb’s cellar floor. When properly activated by a Deceived, these relics open a vista within their mind’s eye, allowing them to gaze upon the ancient sky that hung over Irem. These stars burn bright with hunger and prophecy.
The House on Martense (Tomb) A nice little house in Flatbush.
Benefits: Geometry 3, Peril 3 (Curse), Endowments 9 (Obscure, Curio, Radiant Ren).
The Astral Lodge of Sublime Revelations (Tribal Cult) Although a few cultists have gleaned some mystical powers from their association with the Astral Lodge and its allies, the vast majority of them are city dwellers who have found something to believe in that satisfies their longing for mystery and magic.
Benefits: Reach 3, Grasp 5; Blasé, Obedient, Ritualistic.
The Heart Stones (Relic ●●●●●)
These seven stones look to be made of a smooth, blue-gray granite embedded with particulates of quartz and feldspar. For centuries they have laid in the stone cellar floor underneath the house on Martense. Through the years more then one caretaker has spent long hours in the dark, marveling at how the stones seem to shine even when no light is present — an infectious glow that impregnates the darkness with star-like motes even when the eyes are closed.
Benefits: Once per story, a Deceived may meditate amongst the stones. If the stones are properly understood, the ancient stars reveal themselves to the supplicant. Every 12 hours of meditation, the supplicant makes a Wits + Occult roll which is contested by the Storyteller rolling five dice and secretly recording the accumulated successes.
The supplicant may stop meditating on the Heart Stones at anytime, but after 72 hours he can no longer accumulate any additional successes. If less than 10 successes are acquired, his time with the Heart Stones reveals nothing. If 10 or more successes are gathered, the supplicant heals one aggravated wound and loses a single derangement of his choice. If 20 or more successes are garnered, the supplicant gains the above benefits, regains all spent Willpower points, and gains one dot of Sekhem. If 30 or more successes are gathered, the supplicant can forgo all of the above benefits and instead allow the stars to reveal a lost secret. This usually manifests as an enhancement to an Attribute or a supernatural power that lasts the rest of the story, but sometimes dread stars will rise above the dead City of Pillars and reveal truths best left forgotten.
From the darkness of becoming I return to the light of absence. Without hands, I have ended all things. My conviction is this. I have eaten love and wrenched the eyes of knowing from the sun god’s golden skull. I have inhaled the black vapor of meaning absolute and sent it back into the storm of chaos. Beyond these acts, there is a stainless ocean — I am its keeper and herald.
Through ages of despair and aeons of new hells, my feet are stone as I tread forever upon the ashes of wisdom.
There is a garden, I have known, that is filled with the scents of life and death conjoined. No discrimination can separate them, no matter the pedigree or refinement of discernment. Be-neath the cool soil of this verdant grove are dogs of fire that smolder with a fury that nothing can contain but the muzzle of truth. The garden’s flowers are a bladed rampart that their hate-fire cannot overcome. The essence of mystery and the labyrinths of meaning are the only way by which these destroyers are held back, the only fashion by which their bestial thunder does not beat upon beauty’s finely crafted back. Yet, the garden is cold. Until its fruits are taken up with purpose, the beast-flames are one’s only warmth beneath the freezing rain of scrutiny and night.
When I breathe, it is both flame and flower. As my tongue licks free the flesh of your delusion, so does my breath lay fresh petals upon your naked eyes. My teachings shake all pillars and siphon armies from all causes, for what are the
edicts of Judges when there is no knot of rheto-ric I cannot untie with a pass of the sage’s flail?
All this they knew, as did their priests. But my fear and subjugation, they never received, for who has trod the shores of the void that hides within this endless life, if it is not I?
To the garden, I was carried on the backs of adders that had been slain for their poison, each one carved from golden-starred lapis.
Upon arriving at the threshold, I was broken like a stone from which jewels are harvested;
each piece sent crawling in its own direction, driven by the sorrow of division, for what truth can run upon one leg? It was by the wish of wholeness that lotuses were spawned from the mouths of cobras and upon their grandeur my palanquin was set. As a king, I beckon from the in-between and feed my brood the fragrant honey of the knowledge perilous.
To my number I am the Father of Unmeaning, He Who Breaks the Flail and Crook, who passes judgment upon the formless things that cannot be judged and the highest sovereign of matter alike. I am no savage hammer, but a wind that brings doubt and perishes the foundations of even the most firmly built temple. And from you, my children, no thing can ever be hidden.
I am the Thousand Eyes in One, the Void-in-Hand,
I am Neshebsut, I am.