What with the football and the rugby, I haven't done much Hammerstein! work (much less played) during the past few weeks. Luckily, I couldn't care less about Wimbledon or the Olympics, so...
In the meantime, I'll post up a short snippet from the world of Hammerstein! This was inspired by 1) a misreading of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, 2) Torquemada and Termight from Nemesis the Warlock in 2000AD, 4) a miserable melange of real bigotry throughout history, mostly via fiction such as Q (by 'Luther Blisset', which deals with the horrors of the Reformation), and, unashamedly, Horrible Histories on CBBC, and 4) the lost opportunity in WFRP1e to make the Gods of Law as big a threat to humanity as the Gods of Chaos (mixed in, of course, with traces of Moorcockian fantasy - I'm currently [re]reading the Elric stories in the 'ultimate fantasy' collection).
Not quite a Dyson Logos dungeon... but maybe location in a heroquest-style journey into the otherworld for PC bigots.
The Arch Bigot and the Cult of Divine Form
Opalt Kakanka is the current Arch-Bigot, head of the Cult of Divine Form. The Cult of Divine Form believes that the Gods of Law created every object in its perfect form, and that all actually existing forms are deviations from this perfection. They seek to eradicate these imperfections, beginning with the most grievous and offensive. In their eschatology, those who have been ‘true servants’ to the Gods of Law will regain their perfection at the Ordering. Being a ‘true servant’ requires good works. Which tend to involve a lot of killing.
The Cult of Divine Form is based in the Citadel of Utherland. Utherland was once a lively metropolis, and the Arch-Bigot was just one of several theological viziers to the Duke. However, the fallout from the explosive destruction of the magical Tower of Heroes allowed the Arch-Bigot to seize power. The people of Utherland suddenly found themselves on the edge of the newly formed Weirderlands, and the zeal with which the Bigots opposed the mutants and monsters won much support. The people of Utherland were perhaps not expecting the city to be razed to the ground and reorganised in a perfect geometric form, nor to the harsh laws that limit men and women to one mode of dress – a bare cassock – or one hairstyle – a bowl cut. But such is life and survival on the edge of the Weirderlands.
Cult of Divine Form
Virtues: Intolerant, Vengeful, Chaste, Suspicious
Cult Skills: Lore (Divine Form), Insight, Perception
Folk Magic: Detect Mutant, Fanaticism, Light
Divine Magic: Call Angel, and all the common spells: Consecrate, Create Blessed Item, Dismiss Magic, Divination, Excommunicate, Exorcism, Extension, Find Mutant, Mindlink, Soul Sight, Spirit Block, Spiritual Journey.
Call Angel
Magnitude 1, Permanent, Progressive
This spell summons and binds to the service of the caster an Angel from the Courts of the Gods of Law, of a power dependant on the Magnitude of the spell.
1 = Cherub, 2 = Lawspeaker, 3 = Lawbringer, and 4 = Demon of Law (for more details on Angels see Chapter XZ Bestiary).
The Angel stays under the control of the priest until it is killed or the Call Angel spell is dispelled.
To be successfully cast, this spell requires that the priest has the means to create a channel to the Courts of the Gods of Law. The body of an executed criminal is the usual focus for this channel. Cherubs can be summoned with nothing more than the teeth of a condemned man. Summoning a Lawspeaker requires a severed hand, while a severed head is needed to call a Lawbringer. Demons of Law require that the whole body of a recently executed criminal is available as a doorway between the planes, while at higher magnitudes ever larger Demons of Law, even the Named Ones, can be called (and bound) with the use of exponentially greater numbers of the condemned.
The Cult of Divine Form is based in the Citadel of Utherland. Utherland was once a lively metropolis, and the Arch-Bigot was just one of several theological viziers to the Duke. However, the fallout from the explosive destruction of the magical Tower of Heroes allowed the Arch-Bigot to seize power. The people of Utherland suddenly found themselves on the edge of the newly formed Weirderlands, and the zeal with which the Bigots opposed the mutants and monsters won much support. The people of Utherland were perhaps not expecting the city to be razed to the ground and reorganised in a perfect geometric form, nor to the harsh laws that limit men and women to one mode of dress – a bare cassock – or one hairstyle – a bowl cut. But such is life and survival on the edge of the Weirderlands.
Cult of Divine Form
Virtues: Intolerant, Vengeful, Chaste, Suspicious
Cult Skills: Lore (Divine Form), Insight, Perception
Folk Magic: Detect Mutant, Fanaticism, Light
Divine Magic: Call Angel, and all the common spells: Consecrate, Create Blessed Item, Dismiss Magic, Divination, Excommunicate, Exorcism, Extension, Find Mutant, Mindlink, Soul Sight, Spirit Block, Spiritual Journey.
Call Angel
Magnitude 1, Permanent, Progressive
This spell summons and binds to the service of the caster an Angel from the Courts of the Gods of Law, of a power dependant on the Magnitude of the spell.
1 = Cherub, 2 = Lawspeaker, 3 = Lawbringer, and 4 = Demon of Law (for more details on Angels see Chapter XZ Bestiary).
The Angel stays under the control of the priest until it is killed or the Call Angel spell is dispelled.
To be successfully cast, this spell requires that the priest has the means to create a channel to the Courts of the Gods of Law. The body of an executed criminal is the usual focus for this channel. Cherubs can be summoned with nothing more than the teeth of a condemned man. Summoning a Lawspeaker requires a severed hand, while a severed head is needed to call a Lawbringer. Demons of Law require that the whole body of a recently executed criminal is available as a doorway between the planes, while at higher magnitudes ever larger Demons of Law, even the Named Ones, can be called (and bound) with the use of exponentially greater numbers of the condemned.
The spell Call Angel is simply the OpenQuest Call Elemental spell reskinned ever so slightly.
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