The Red Cult

The Red Cult is a shadowy organization that hides behind the scenes of Urnu-Arrak. When the peninsula was young, it's native residents worshipped a malevolent and merciless god that demanded sacrifice and war in return for crops and prosperity. After a majority of the native population went missing, settlers resettled the town and reclaimed much of the ruin that was left in the wake of whatever happened. Husks, lost souls, perhaps those sacrificed to the Blood God, stalk the desert wastes preying on the souls still living among the sands. While most remnants of the religion are gone, the Red Temple and its chambers are still standing tall in the center of the city.

Origins:
Before the modern-day settlers arrived on the Peninsula of Urnu-Arrak it was home to a thriving native population that lived in tunnels dug underneath the sands. During the day, it was practically impossible to leave the tunnels due to the extreme heat of the desert. The natives worshipped the Sun God, a god that brought good will and demanded no sacrifices and instead only ritual prayer. Worship of the sun god continued until one day the Prophet Nabiin discovered a dusty tome called 'Liber Sanguinis" that described the practices of this new religion and the power it would give you. He began to practice his religion in secret for most of his life and as he did more and more joined him until most of the cities residents had stopped worshipping the Sun God. Perhaps by divine interference or by some otherworldy power the citizens of the city awoke one day to discover that the sun had turned blood red. Seeing this as a sign from his true god, Nabiin and his followers overtook the rest of the city and began practicing the religion in daylight. This day in the history of Urnu-Arrak is known as the day of the Red Sun.

An Excerpt from the book can be found here:

Liber Sanguinis

Blood for the Blood God!

by  The Red Follower In this wrethed wilderness I raise up my voice that you may hear: Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong! Open your eyes that you may see, Oh men of mildewed minds! For I snad forth to challenge the wisdom of the Sun God, a being whom you called "holy".

I dip my forefinger in the watery blood of your impotent, mad redeemer and write over his bloated brow; The TRUE prince of evil - the king of the slaves! I break away from all conventions that do not lead to my earthly pleasure and happiness!

I gaze into the glassy eyes of your insipid Sun God, and pluck him by his rotten tongue; I uplift Blood God's broad-axe, and split open his worm-eaten skull! I blast out the miserable contents of his pitiful sermons and laugh with sardonic wrath!

Behold his pallid, impotent corpse hanging on the crucifix, his fetid flesh eaten by the crabs! Too long the dead hand has been permitted to sterilize our lives! To long right and wrong have been inverted by the false prophet!

"Love one another" it has been said is the supreme law, but what power made it so? Upon what authority does the gospel of love rest? Why should I not hate instead - if I "love" others does that not place me at their mercy? Are we not all predatory animals by instinct?

Give blow for blow, scorn for scorn, doom for doom! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth! Make yourself a Terror to your adversary! Blessed are the strong for they shall inherit this world, cursed are the weak for they shall inherit the yoke!

Blood for the Blood God! Kill before you're killed! Do not plow! Reap and devour! Embrace the Beast that lies sleeping within you, sharpen your fangs and talon! Scream Blood God's name when they tear apart your enemies! After all, there is only one truth. Hunger.

To Hunger--to yearn for flesh and blood, to seek it out and find it at every turn. That is the way of the blood god, that is the way that he teaches, nay, the way he preaches to the masses, those who are their strongest selves by relying on what makes them strong--their blood.

Practices:
While the religion is mostly gone now, some of their practices are still inscribed into the walls of the monuments they left behind.


 * 1) Wake up every day to a new sun, killed at the end of its reign and reborn a disciple of the Blood God. Followers believed that the red of the sunset symbolized the day of the red sun and as a reminder they would wake up every day at dawn to memorialize it.
 * 2) The strong outlive the weak, and the strong are most deserving of the Blood God's love. Those unfit to live shall be buried while they breath to please the Blood God's hunger. Ritual sacrifice in the society at the time was an incredibly common thing; and babies who were weak, small, or sickly at birth were buried in the tower behind the temple. The bamboo stalks there are the remnants of their souls on the material plane, according to some scholars.
 * 3) The strongest among us shall lead our people to new heights. Those who are willing to become our leader must do battle to the death so that they might prove themselves most worthy of the blood gods love. If you wanted to become emperor, you had to fight everyone else who wanted to become emperor in a tournament to the death.
 * 4) Death does not excuse you from your worship, bury yourself with a vial of your blood and you shall rise again as a holy warrior of the Blood God's conquest. Some people think that the highest priests of the Red Cult could perform necromantic rituals to bring back souls from the dead as unfeeling Husks that would fight in the nations army. Tales of the undead army of the Geshemi people terrified some towns into packing up and leaving before the armies of the Blood God even arrived.
 * 5) Upon the day of the Red Sun, all the followers of his holy must make a pilgrimage to the Red Temple and draw blood at the altar so that the Blood God may taste the bounty of his power. Every time the sun would go red, which was once per year, every follower of the Blood God had to bring their blood to the temple and draw it in the altar as a sign of devotion to the holy god.