What is your favorite evil cult?

[Herobizkit]

Asmodeus is always cool, mostly because not all of his cultists have to be Evil, per se. From the Wikipedia page:

Typical rhetoric from worshippers of Asmodeus will discuss "promoting personal excellence and independence," "taking care of one's own affairs" and "ridding oneself of weakness". Sometimes one will hear of "ascending to godhood", or "no gods, no masters". When harming innocents, their actions are discussed as "providing motivation to succeed". Most often, ritual practices are deeply secretive and not publicly discussed. Most followers will not publicly admit their worship of Asmodeus, as that would compromise their potential bargaining position for greater power over non-followers.

I can picture a whole school of Lawful Neutral Monks, for example, ridding themselves of weakness via meditation and martial arts.

Set is just nifty because anything Egyptian is pretty cool, specially when you start throwing in naga and yuan-ti cultists. If you're looking for more "kill the bad guys" type of cults, this works well.

... Same as Lolth. Although she's been done to death, it always feels good to kill Drow and Drow can also be conniving on the RP side of things, especially when you consider alliances with other Underdark creatures.

 

[ZethVorador]

Cult of Asmodeus was fun for me to do as a DM. They were highly influential individuals in whatever city they resided in. The disciples of Asmodeus PrC helped a lot with this and some general Google searching on knowledge for Asmodeus and the Disciples helped a lot.

 

[YourSwordIsMine]

Tharizdun

no contest

 

[Bluenose]

That would be the Thanatar cult, which I converted from it's original Glorantha existence to my homebrewed D&D setting. Because removing your enemies heads and using them as a source of spells, knowledge and dinner conversation rarely fails to shock people when they encounter it.

 

[Jester David]

I need to introduce an evil cult to be used as antagonists. I'm interested in a cult of an existing D&D god.

What was your favorite cult of a deity and why?

Mod Note: Real world reference removed. Not that I don't agree with it, but it really shouldn't be here. Sorry. ~Umbran


Okay, in a Ravenloft game I invented a cult I'm fond of.
They were identified by two triangles tattooed on the palm of the hand and known as the "Cult of the Eye". They had various psychic powers and evil intentions.
The idea being, if you held your hand fingers down the triangles looked like eyes, and the fingers tentacles. This was because the cult was tied to Mind Flayers (for the tone of Cthulhu cults).
The twist being that the cult was not run by illithids, but a man who had captured an illithid and was syphoning it's brain fluids to inject into himself to gain psychic powers.

 

[SkidAce]

The twist being that the cult was not run by illithids, but a man who had captured an illithid and was syphoning it's brain fluids to inject into himself to gain psychic powers.

Oh I think after a few more sips of brain fluid, and a few bothersome growths, the cult may eventually find itself run by an illithid. Perhaps not the man's original intent...

 

[Remus Lupin]

Yeah, another vote for Tharizdun here. Plenty left to be done with that concept, and lots of back story to work with.

 

[howandwhy99]

I don't believe in Vecna as a deity in Greyhawk, yet I do love the evil cult I use devoted to him.

But it's hard to beat Tharizdun

 

[Particle_Man]

Tharizdun? Wow, I'd forgotten about that one . . .

 

[Nylanfs]

No Politics. Thanks. -Lwaxy