One of the oldest tropes in Call of Cthulhu history is that of “The Cult”. These sometimes vast, and sometimes intense small groupings have plotted to bring about our own destruction through the forces of the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones since time immemorial, or at least since the early eighties.

Typically in these scenarios the cults in question are of a type that are familiar to everyone (long flowing cloaks, ritualistic daggers, sacrificial bowls, leather masks, etc.). Those types of cults are great, we all love them. But what if we alter the typical cult to be more in line with the kind of groups that we are more likely to encounter in our own everyday lives?

Think of the groups that we might run into on the street or hear about on the TV news, the political activists, the hate groups, the local Pilates group, Iron Man participants, avid cyclists, long distance runners, and tabletop gamers. You know, the kind of people that are fanatical about their particular hobbies regardless of what it might be.

Definition of a Cult

For the course of this essay it will be important to determine what we consider to be a cult in the terms of a Lovecraftian game. I imagine that there are several separate definitions of a cult that will be important to us1.

Cult

…a small informal group lacking a definite authority structure, somewhat spontaneous in its development (although often possessing a somewhat charismatic leader or group of leaders), transitory, somewhat mystical and individualistically oriented, and deriving its inspiration and ideology from outside the predominant religious culture.(pg.2, 1)

certain manipulative and authoritarian groups which allegedly employ mind control and pose a threat to mental health are universally labeled cults. These groups are usually: (1) authoritarian in their leadership; (2) communal and totalistic in their organization; (3) aggressive in their proselytizing; (4) systematic in their programs; (5) relatively new and unfamiliar in the United States; and (6) middle class in their clientele.(pg.4, 1)

of, for, or attracting a group of devotees(2)

intense interest in and devotion to a person, idea, or activity(3)

a group of like-minded people gathered together to share in a common idea or activity, sometimes to hide unusual religious ideas best kept from the public.(4)

The first definition is more along the lines of the classic socio-religious definition of a cult in academia prior to the negative rise of cults in popular culture during the 70s-90s. The second is a newer definition from the 80s that has a decisive negative connotation associated with it, and is the flashy style of academic definition that captured the Media’s attention in the 80s merging the ideas “mind control” and cults into one frightening coterminous norm.

The next two definitions are more modern and are only partial definitions pulled from each source. But both describe what we are looking for and provides some basis for my final definition by yours truly. Here I am attempting, in an albeit ham-fisted manner, to combine multiple ideas into one for the terms of our little sideline of Lovecraftian gaming.

With this final definition of a cult in mind, I think it is safe that we can proceed.

Delta Green’s Army of the Third Eye

If there is a game out today that has capitalized on the idea of making groups of like-minded people into antagonistic cults then it has to be Delta Green. I suppose because of the time-frame that the game was originally set it, coupled with the overt political and propagandist themes within the book meant that they had to break down this barrier more-so than any other iteration of a Lovecraftian Game. And while there are many such examples the one that might fit best for our discussion is the Army of the Third Eye.

The Army, to all outward appearances, is a group of Luddites concerned over the amount of technology that has penetrated the British government in the mid-90’s. The struck out with massive hits against the Establishment with murders, kidnappings, and bombings at one point forcing more resources to be spent locally to find and capture them, than were being spent for the war effort against the IRA.

The SAS were sent in to finally capture the leaders of the group, which they did and were subsequently found insane and put into mental institutions.

The truth behind the group starts with the American student Lee Coleman. He was infected by a Shan, and managed to exorcise it through a tricky self-trepanation allowing sunlight to kill the otherworldly parasite. Coleman then began recruiting other infected and the Army was born. After recruiting a neurosurgeon to perform the trepanations their membership swelled and the need for violence ended, they changed tactics and stayed mostly to the shadows.

But they continued to turn important shan-hosts to their side. The SAS attempted a bait operation with a newly infected shan-host, but ultimately failed. Coleman along with three other committed suicide rather than be captured. The Army is still active today and stays to the shadows quietly disinfecting members of the British Establishment while being continually hunted.

As defined in our fourth definition above, we can now place the Army of the Third Eye as a cult, one working against the way we would normally imagine one working, against the Lovecraftian threat instead of for it, but a cult none-the-less.

Physical Activity Cults

How many of us know people that are avid cyclists, or long distance runners? How about cross-fit enthusiasts? Have you walked in on a group of them talking amongst themselves only to know that you well and truly don’t belong? Any of these types of groups or enthusiasts can be turned into a cult for use in a scenario. Remember, we only need them to be of a like-mind outwardly.

Imagine a group of long distance runners that uses the shared exhaustion of thousands of marathon runners to fuel a ritual that they can complete while running? Or a swim team that prays to Dagon while lapping the pool (those more penitent doing more and more laps).

These types of groups are great because many of us have encountered them in real life. Almost every little town in the country has the fitness nuts that inspire awe at their dedication and a bit of guilt at our lack thereof. Perhaps it isn’t all dedication to fitness? Perhaps the benefit they gain from their fixated past-time allows them to access some magic of their chosen deity.

Again, the idea here is to remove ourselves from the standard trope of the robe and dagger wielding cultist, insane beyond all measure, and replace them with something more likely to be encountered in everyday life.

Specifically, I was inspired to imagine a Peloton-like cult that would somehow harness the combined exertion, suffering, of its various members to perform some cultish ritual.

Benefit Societies

This example is less of a stretch in some ways and more-so in others. According to [Wikipedia][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_society] a benefit society is,

… a society, an organization or a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief from sundry difficulties. Such organizations may be formally organized with charters and established customs, or may arise ad hoc to meet unique needs of a particular time and place. Many major financial institutions existing today, particularly some insurance companies, mutual savings banks, and credit unions, trace their origins back to benefit societies, as can many modern fraternal organizations and fraternal orders which are now viewed as being primarily social; the modern legal system essentially requires all such organizations of appreciable size to incorporate as one of these forms or another to continue to exist on an ongoing basis.(5)

This comprises of a rather large group of organizations to play with but for now let’s just focus on two, fraternal orders and their more popular offshoots fraternal benefit societies.

Fraternal Orders

Fraternal orders are typically organizations of people banded together for various different reason, be they religious or secular, and on even footing. The best known of these will undoubtedly be the Freemasons, Odd Fellows, and numerous student organizations (Greek fraternities and sororities).

Some of these have the trope that we attempting to escape fully built-in, for example the Freemasons. In fact I would argue that these types of fraternal orders are the basis for some of the cults that we see today in Call of Cthulhu2. They have a ritualized worship at a set place of worship or temple, they are led by a revolving door of leaders at each lodge, they are secretive by nature, and they tend to pull other like-minded people into their groups that are looking for that same bit of ritual, secrecy and fancy dress (whatever their motives). They tick a lot of the boxes on our cult definition check list.

Other examples might include mainstream religious fraternal orders such as the Benedictines or the Order of Augustinian Recollects, both wholly separate from the internal structures of the Roman Catholic Church, but still heavily rooted in that religion. What better place to hide a cult than within the very religion that historically is the one to snuff you out?

Student Fraternities

So why bring fraternal orders into the mix at all then, you may be asking? Well because they are not all so ritualized as the Masons are. Let’s look for a second at Greek fraternities and sororities that are present on almost every campus in the nation. Or as I like to imagine them, Cultist 101.

The modern Greek frat and sorority systems at colleges and universities across the globe are essentially cultists training grounds for any other more traditional tropey cult. Through their hazing, pranks, forced internal rule systems, etc. they are able to see what individuals would fit best into a group of demented cultists. Students that are already young and impressionable are being formed to perform ridiculous tasks without question, while still under the extreme stress of upholding academic excellence.

I would suggest that these are exactly the types of people that any modern cult would want, and here they are all in one place with potentially thousands to choose from. In this instance you could almost imagine the lauded Alumni Associations to be the cult proper patiently molding the newcomers into the types of cultists that they need.

Given the institutionalized discrimination and misogyny that has built into the Greek system over the past century. “Fraternities represented an enticing paradox: they were sanctioned spaces where underage people could do illegal things.”(6) The exclusivity of the system and the enticing possibility to work against the status quo, yet still within the confines of social mores means that fraternities and sororities are breeding grounds for potential cultist cultivation, sure it might be a more conservative model of what we normally deem a cultist with their $150,000 a year educations and good-old-boy systems made real, but fertile picking grounds for sure.

Fraternal Benefit Societies

There is a long history of traditional fraternal orders within the United States morphing into an insurance company in order to provide their members with aid in times of need, for example the Woodmen of the World or the Gleaner Life Insurance Society. Just like the afore mentioned Fraternal Orders, these started in the same means, but instead took a different path so as the US tax code is concerned. They provide their members with financial and insurance programs just as any other global financial or insurance company might.

Now imagine for a moment that an business sector that is almost universally hated, insurance, is at its heart run by cultists performing risk analyses on its members to determine who it can manipulate and influence, or who is more likely to be able to influence others. Subtly nudging personal economies and life choices to better themselves. Which to be fair, isn’t too far from the truth.

The difference is of course what is behind the curtain. A life insurance company manipulating people so that Glaaki’s will be executed is terrifying because he doesn’t need to turn tens of thousands into mindless zombies, they can just threaten to raise your rates.

Youth Organizations

Similar to the activities performed by the fraternities and sororities discussed earlier, youth organizations like the Boy & Girl Scouts might exist in some cases as a training ground for future cultists. But these are just easy examples, let’s look at some more uncommon ones.

The Friends of Nature is a group for young people hoping to foster an enjoyment of nature to a much wider community by providing “appropriate recreational and travel facilities”(7). Primarily based in Vienna, they have member houses in 45 countries and over 700 within Europe alone. They want to foster a commitment to sustainable development the world over and strive to provide young people with a place to play outside in ways to reduce the strain on the environment.

But really, they are a youth propaganda organization that is designed to influence the children of the world to better preserve the natural hunting grounds of Sub-Niggurath and her Dark Young. Some of the young members might even grow up to worship the Thousand-legged Goat in the Woods in their later years. And let’s rename our organization the Children of Nature.

This doesn’t mean the that Children of Nature is evil, they might be unwitting participants in a grander conspiracy run by a larger group of cults. But their adherence to fostering Mother Nature (Shubbie) above all else makes the group fall into our definition of a cult.

How do you present this to your players? I would imagine that you would do just the above, present them with full sincerity. They are what they are, but their members, the children and the older administrators, are a little too gung-ho for the group of Investigators. It wouldn’t be until decades of interactions and inter-organizational memos are analyzed that they could be outed as a potential threat the young of the world. But they should put the Investigators on edge enough for them to realize that another more active antagonist is also in the game.

The Friends of Nature were created in 1895 in Vienna and were subsequently banned by Hitler and the Nazi regime as a Social-Democrat student group, even if the members where under the age of ten. This would put them as a firm possibility for those wanting to run from the Berlin The Wicked City source book.

For something more up to date let’s consider the Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs of America. This group owns facilities nationwide that use to provide after-school programs for children instead of leaving them to get into trouble on their own. All in all, like the previous example it is an exemplary organization.

But what if one of the chapters were infiltrated by group of disaffected teens. They were left to their devices for too long before joining and have found some interesting information from this Ouija board. They didn’t realize that they were just talking with a bored Nyarlathotep until it was too late. Now it is like a Children of the Corn remake without the corn. I suppose it could have the corn if you set it in the Mid-West, but I digress.

The Investigators have noticed that odd things start happening only after school is let out, but before 7 p.m. They have to try and stop the little seance group without hurting them or the other kids and staff that are present.

Closing

Hopefully this will represent a list of ideas that can be expounded upon by Keepers to incorporate some more interesting cultist antagonists into their games. There is no reason to stick to the familiar, yet tired, vision of the simple insane cultist clothed in robes. Those cultists can still be useful, but hopefully by rethinking the ideas of what a cultist is in Call of Cthulhu we can provide for a more enjoyable game for our players.

Notes

1. In reality every Philosopher of Religion Professor seems to have a separate definition for a cult, so I’m cherry picking here, bear with me.  ↩
2. Really this would have to include groups like Thelema and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as well for this to be true, but I can’t tie those into a fraternal order regardless of how hard I try.  ↩
3. Richardson, James T. “Definitions of Cult: From Sociological–Technical to Popular–Negative.” Review of Religious Research 34, no. 4 (1993): 348–56. doi:10.2307/3511972.  ↩
4. Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, Copyright 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.  ↩
5. Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 Copyright HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014  ↩
6. KeeperMurph Just now…  ↩
7. “Benefit Society,” Wikipedia, accessed November 1, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_society  ↩
8. frat1  ↩
9. “Friends of Nature,” Wikipedia, accessed November 1, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FriendsofNature  ↩
10. “forest – blueberry plants on the hill” by Vilseskogen is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
11. “IMG_2223.JPG” by jsmjr is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 
12. “Peloton 2018” by Tim Tadder is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0