Animal Cults... (the good and the bad...)

[Stormonu]

There's a race of gnome-sized creatures in Creature Collection or Creature Collection 2 that worship the Blood Kraken and have the ability to summon it, if in numbers. Unfortunately, I'm away from my books, and can't recall their name.

Would a dragon count? In my last campaign, I had an orc tribe that worshipped a green dragon; one of the PCs was a half-orc druid who'd been their high priest. He had a psuedodragon as his animal companion; the thing stayed invisible and talked via telepathy and everyone though the half-orc was nuts talking to his "dragon god".

 

[Aeolius]

There's a race of gnome-sized creatures in Creature Collection or Creature Collection 2 that worship the Blood Kraken and have the ability to summon it, if in numbers.

Sounds a bit too much like Butt-Kraken, to me But I'm known for Kraken-Wise.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Epic fail: The Denomination of the Deity Duck

First one I would seriously consider would be raptors - as in birds of prey, not dinosaurs. Different sects within the cult follow the ideals of different birds. Those of the owl tend to act at night using stealth. Falcons observe from on high and attack using lightining-fast strikes. Ospreys are sailor cultists.

 

[Set]

Snakes, sharks, eagles, wolves, hyenas, vultures, spiders, wasps, lions, tigers, crocodiles, etc. all seem like appropriate animal cults.

 

[frankthedm]

Squid...

Envision a cult whose fledgling recruits must brave swimming in a school of Humboldt squid, during the night of the full moon. Others might be required to track down the leviathan who recently dined upon a kraken, to rescue its beak from a glob of ambergris.

Envision the cult members wielding tentacle-whips, adorning their bodies with tattoos reminiscent of the battle scars on sperm whales, and drinking ceremonial inkwine.

Change that from "squid" to "kraken," and I'm definitely stealing this whole idea for a future campaign.

img256.imageshack.us/img256/1286/kulttlefish.png
img41.imageshack.us/img41/518/squidplain.png
img218.imageshack.us/img218/6278/squidfancy.png
img687.imageshack.us/img687/5705/timetogetkraken.png

 

[Scribble]

Change that from "squid" to "kraken," and I'm definitely stealing this whole idea for a future campaign.

What about a cult that can turn squids INTO Kraken??? (Is the plural of Kraken Kraken or Krakens? Probably not Kraki.)

 

[Aeolius]

img256.imageshack.us/img256/1286/kulttlefish.png

and a few more:

Octomen and the Cephalinoid

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It's a cult that appears to be a Kraken cult ... but they're really worshipping Cthulu!

Other ideas -- any cult where you have a lycanthropic version is a good choice, as you can have a were-whatever running the show (wolf, bear, rat, lion, bat, velociraptor, etc).

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

a few others with precedent:

cat
cave bear
giant ape
great sand worm

 

[Celebrim]

I've always used rat cultists in the past.

The original inspiration was watching some PBS program back in the 80's and learning about these: Rat Kings

In the minds of a young DM, this of course immediately became 'Giant Rat Kings', and quickly thereafter I came up with the concept that the rats in such a situation shared a mental connection and from that point it was an easy jump to pooling their hit points.

After doing a write up for such a creature, it led me to imagine the most powerful creature of its type possible under my monster entry (16 bodies, maximum hit points, diseased, psionic), which led to the concept of Sormkortek, The King of Rats. And this naturally led to sewer dwelling cults of were-rat priests surrounded by carpets of red eyed hungry rats.