There are always those who live in opposition to virtue. Whether out of selfishnesh, a desire to rebel against the order of society, or disdain for "lesser beings", there is no end of people who live a live full of vice. While for the most part these people are not evil and instead simply indulging their desires, there are the occasional who actively devote a significant part of their existence to imposing their will upon others.
In doing so, these individuals often seek out sources of power with which to enable further such excesses. One such source of power is access to others with power of their own. Thus, across the
City-States Region, there is a loose and shadowy network of those who work towards one of several goals, including opposition to the church of
The Virtues, leveraging their power in society to allow them to deeply indulge in excess, and to collect more and more power into their hands.
The Seven Vices
As a direct counterpart to
The Virtues, there are seven recognized "Deep Vices" that the Order of the Virtues describes. Where the Virtues are taught as the keys to living a good life, the Vices are considered to be paths through which one might suffer from a wasted life full of selfishness and despair. It is not taught that any individual can avoid all vice throughout their life, but rather that succumbing to an obsession with or dependence upon one or many of them will lead the individual to great individual loss and disservice to their family and community.
The Vices (and their opposite number within the Virtues) are described as follows:
- Cravenness (the opposite to Courage) - acting without the fortitude to stand up for one's truth
- Disrespect (the opposite to Respect) - treating others without regard for their own needs
- Deception (the opposite to Integrity) - living with lies and disregard for vow or promise
- Ignorance (the opposite to Wisdom) - choosing active disregard for knowledge and learning
- Disloyalty (opposite to Loyalty) - leaving aside those who have given you their word
- Dominance (opposite to Benevolence) - treating those weaker than onesself with disdain and mistreatment
- Falseness (the opposite to Honor) - not caring that actions reflect one's true self, acting to hide true character
The Cult
To be clear, simply suffering from ignorance or treating others with disrespect does not lead one down a path of debauchery or rebelling against society. An individual's failings to live up to the examples set within the Virtues does not make them evil nor does it indicate that they will become so. The Vices, within the teachings of the Virtues, are cautionary warnings to not let one's self become too lost within a life that ignores others.
There do exist, however, individuals who do choose to live with such disregard, who choose to reject the teachings of the virtues that they turn to the Vices as an example. These people see the Virtues as limitations, as guardrails put into place to protect "lesser beings" who cannot handle the reins of power. Selfish and power-hungry beings who view simple tenets such as Respect and Integrity as meant to protect the weak from their betters.
What draws individuals into the Cult of the Vices, then, is a desire to gain and to demonstrate power over others. They work together to leverage power and wealth to take advantage of those who live according to the qualities celebrated by the Virtues. They promote ignorance, celebrate disloyalty, and live with a false face to hide the actions they take behind closed doors. They do not even treat
each other with respect, instead constantly jockeying for position within the loose web of power that connects them.
What They Do
Much of the Cult's activities are extremely mundane. Back-office business deals or manipulation of city nobles. They also secretly in gatherings in which they may indulge in demonstrative exercises of power over others. Parties where servants are subjected to torture while on display, for instance, or where prisoners are forced to fight for the excitement of onlookers. Captured priests of the Virtues forced to undergo humiliating experiences meant to damage or destroy their faith.
But the cult also holds an even darker side to it. As the higher echelons of the cult are obsessed with power, they have very little resistance to the removal of those who stand in the way of their acquisition of more. Murder is not unheard of, and kidnapping, blackmail, and bribery are all common. While other individuals across the City-States will perform such deeds, members of the cult do so systematically and occasionally with coordination between members.
The Cult will even seek out dark magics - magic which exists as a counterpart to that taught by the Virtues, which the
Mages approve entirely of - to further their plans. One of the most vile magics they can perform will create
Viceborn: a pure incarnation of the vices called into the world to perform the most evil of acts.
Goals of the Cult
The cult is not exactly a strongly-organized organization. It has a loose hierarchy within it that is built around the relative power levels of the individual members. It does not have an overarching goal that it wishes to complete; there is no "grand evil plan". Instead, it exists to allow for the aggrandizement of its members, who enjoy being part of a "secret society" that exists in the shadows of the City-States' laws and virtue. Each cult member might have their own "grand" designs which they try to put into motion through the manipulation or leveraging of other members, and they certainly all have a tendency towards conspiracy.
But to Cult as a whole is not designed to take over the City-States or to cause the downfall of
The Virtues. It exists entirely to allow the powerful (or those who wish to be so) to exercise their power in a way that escapes consequences for their actions. It is a group of selfish people who think they are entitled to take advantage of the weak, and their actions through the cult help them do so.
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