Light Worldbuilding: Weird religious sect and cursed skeletons

Lackofname

Explorer
I might have the demon from the original zealots be trapped in the ziggurat. Maybe there is a block of ice-like material made of 'moon' dust and that is why on nights of new moons the skeletons can rise from the power that binds him becoming weakened. Now, the PCs need to figure out how to free the demon and then sent it back to its home plane.
Oh man that's lovely. This really fits the setting's work, too.

Unfortunately the other bits don't. The pyramid is in a newly discovered continent, which the PCs are there to explore. The pilgrims are showing up to the new continent (after the PCs) to practice their wacky ways in peace. And I fully want them to be separate.
 
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Lackofname

Explorer
Because religion (and religion-adjacent things) will vary so widely game to game, table to table? It's hard to say what sort of beliefs are plausible if we don't know what exists?
Then just assume anything is plausible. I'm intentionally not putting limitations on the exercise--to not curtail creativity, to not provide a wall of text, and because no limitations actually makes sense with the setting I'm making.

Although it's funny you say plausible, because the "less" plausible, the better. Like I said, they're odd, and that certainly can encompass that feeling of hearing someone's belief and it's so out there that you just don't think it's likely. Like the "Alien mothership is coming on February 2nd of 2022, and we are preparing for their arrival".
 

I'm interested in the PCs encountering a fairly odd religious sect or cult as a benign roleplay encounter/setting color. The point is that they're harmless but still odd enough to give the players pause. For instance, I'm thinking of having them be nudists.
They believe in Chirality, that all significant things come in at least two versions, which are fundamentally different. This is most noticeable in their maxim that "Left is Lucky, Right is Regretable." They will prefer the leftmost of a pair, to turn left rather than right, to use their left hands as their primary hands (most of them are naturally right-handed, but view this as a thing to be overcome), and so on. This worldview can be applied to almost anything, and elevates a distinction that is unimportant to most beings to a guiding principle of the universe. They worship a commonplace god, but in a left-handed version.
 





Voadam

Legend
Peculiar Pilgrims
I'm interested in the PCs encountering a fairly odd religious sect or cult as a benign roleplay encounter/setting color. The point is that they're harmless but still odd enough to give the players pause. For instance, I'm thinking of having them be nudists.

What I need is the details of whatever they actually believe. What is their cult about?

The thoughts that come up here for a not dark nudist cult are (1) hippy druidism, be natural and in tune with nature, not exploiting Mother Earth, (2) good lycanthropes, werebears who follow the tao of Pooh and are in search of their religious sacrament, honey, and (3) skyclad witchcraft themes.
 

Lackofname

Explorer
The thoughts that come up here for a not dark nudist cult are (1) hippy druidism, be natural and in tune with nature, not exploiting Mother Earth, (2) good lycanthropes, werebears who follow the tao of Pooh and are in search of their religious sacrament, honey, and (3) skyclad witchcraft themes.
1 would be good if the campaign wasn't about discovering actual druidic magic and nature spirits that are contained in one part of the world. The hippy druidism is a bit too coincidental (sort of like the collision of the real world crystal psychic chakra types winding up visiting the place with aggressive psionics).

3 is interesting. In a fantasy setting you don't see a lot of things like that in terms of casting magic (altho now that I think about it, such practices could work for Ritual magic as opposed to battle magic). But what it suddenly brings to mind to me is the magical equivalent of martial arts to monastic traditions. That is, a philosophy about magic; the moral use of it, the role of it in the universe, etc. Magic could be treated as a living, breathing universal force ala Karma, and so magic is not a tool to be used to fulfill whims, and using it for violence is a pollution--killing someone with a fireball is the proverbial butterfly causing a hurricane, except the hurricane is undead.
 

Voadam

Legend
3 is interesting. In a fantasy setting you don't see a lot of things like that in terms of casting magic (altho now that I think about it, such practices could work for Ritual magic as opposed to battle magic). But what it suddenly brings to mind to me is the magical equivalent of martial arts to monastic traditions. That is, a philosophy about magic; the moral use of it, the role of it in the universe, etc. Magic could be treated as a living, breathing universal force ala Karma, and so magic is not a tool to be used to fulfill whims, and using it for violence is a pollution--killing someone with a fireball is the proverbial butterfly causing a hurricane, except the hurricane is undead.

You could go with some of the associated concepts, "as above so below", "negativity rebounds three times as strong" and so forth.

The Scarred Lands OGL D&D setting had arcane magic generate heat, so half naked sorceresses in the pulpy sword and sorcery setting were mechanically appropriate to reinforce the trope.
 

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