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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 231811" data-attributes="member: 3146">Don't have the evil cult pretending to be good or helpful. Don't even have them playing up fears of some kind of scapegoat. This isn't the Nazi party or the communist party or some new dictator in Rome. This is an evil religion that exists to bring its adherants power and its god the suffering it craves.Instead, have it offer the city prosperity (as long as the sacrifices continue, the dark god will defeat the city's enemies. Special enemies might demand special sacrifices (the king's firstborn son or something like that) but people get used to that kind of thing).Also, have the cult offer protection from disease. ("If we neglect our sacrifices, the dark god will strike us with a terrible disease.") Perhaps for the appropriate sacrifices (newborn children are the customary one--there's plenty of them. . . especially considering how the god is worshipped--see below)Then have the worship of the god involve temple prostitution.There wouldn't be any need for the priesthood or the god to pretend to be anything other than what they were. They wouldn't pretend to even be remotely interested in matters of morals. ("That kind of stuff is for philosophers and other useless busybodies.") Still, if that were the system, people would follow it. They did for thousands of years in the ancient middle east, Persia, South America, Greece, ancient Europe, etc.</blockquote>