The Cult of Uriel
Oooh... Cults are cool. Evil cults that promote Celestial sacrifice to their downed lost Prince who has been given sort of a post-mortem 'Godhood' is even cooler. Sticking it somewhere in my game would be the coolest.
I'm not sure if it was the meetings, or all the ponderings on the Marches today, or what. Probably both, maybe neither. I've been reading a combination of Nieztsche, Jung, IN rules and the Bible lately, and it's sort of playing havoc with my brain.
Genre:
In Nomine Backwards/Dark In Nomine
Suggested Play Group:
Preferably angels, while I think about it, but any will fit the bill.
Source of Inspiration:
Too much caffeine and a really big eyestrain headache.
Oh, and I really dig insane Malakim. Not Fallen Malakim, that's a little too cliche' for me. Everyone is doing Fallen Malakim this week. But a really deep dark clinging insane psychosis is lots of fun. That sparks some interest.
Background:
Your Superior told you not to go play in the Far Marches. He told you it was dangerous. He told you it was _bad_. He told you that sometimes young Celestials go out and never come back. He told you that the Ethereals were bad, were jealous, and liked to kill young Celestials for fun.
Your Superior lied.
"In the name of the Purifier, the Cleanser, and the Holy Ghost. Exaudi orationem meam: ad te monis caro veniet. Amen."
"Amen."
They huddled around the altar, clinging together for acceptance, each other reinforcing their collective psychosis. It is almost as if they all share one broken mind between them, as their eyes flash darkly against the sliver glinting of the armor. The chains rattle and the dark wings push against one another's body, closeness giving them comfort. Their heads bow in supplication, as they are humble before their one true God.
Your Superior is more afraid of what is out in the Far Marches then he would ever care to admit. Your Superior knows he helped the cause. Your Superior was there. Your Superior needs to cover it up, just like the rest. Your Superior no longer even admits to himself that the problem exists.
Your Superior is scared.
"Allow us to rejoice in the joining of the Pure with the Holy, as the Pure and the Holy have become the One. As He Himself did strike out among the unholy and the unrighteous with his sword, as He struck them down in blood and damnation, should we endevour to do the same. Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla Teste David cum Sibylla...."
The Ethereals are afraid, and they admit it. They know they are out there, stalking the Marches, cleansing with their dirtied blade. Too many have fallen to their ranks, and more fall still. But they are silent, for they have approached the Celestial realms before, and their pleas fall on deaf ears.
The Ethereals have already paid the price in blood.
"... confutatus maledictis flammis acribus addictis, voca me cum benedictis. I come to thee, kneeling in supplication, my Lord, my heart condemned to ashes, take me and mine into your care, and Purify us."
They bow their heads, and chant in unison, "Amen".
The near Marches are safe, they tell you, where both Blandine and Beleth can keep a watcful eye and constant vigilance. But even those of Nightmares feel a dark dreadful fear, the knowledge that somewhere out there they stalk, waiting to take some of their own, to Purify, to cleanse the world with their scouring madness. They watch the edges, and eye the dark winged forms that skulk in the shadows.
For every so often, another disappears from their ranks, unexplained.
"And I give to you, Lord Uriel, He whom has become One with the mighty Creator, He who whispers his words in the Symphony, I give to you one who is in need of your Purification. Take the Unclean, my Lord, and give to us righteousness. Spare us, O God, merciful Uriel, and give this unclean spirit peace."
"Amen."
The young Seraph twists and turns in his bounds, trying to escape the unavoidable. He lays over the altar, and his mouth opens in a soundless scream as the light glints off the holy dagger which plunges to his heart.
Purification in Blood.
The Cult of Purification:
In 745 A. D., the upper heavens opened for the last time, and Uriel was recalled into the waiting arms of God. Most of the Malakim who served the Archangel of Purity were able to accept that their Lord was wrong, and that he was gone from their presence forever. Most of the Malakim bowed their heads in shame, and learned the Words of new Bright Lords, those who were in the grace of God. Some even choose to follow Laurence, for, to all appearances, seemed to have come out of the cataclysm relatively intact. Or so everyone says.
Some found themselves lost, broken, wandering the Marches without a home. They were unable to accept that their Lord was wrong, and they were abandoned forever by the cold glare of Heaven. A few continued the Rite of Purification, ridding the Far Marches of the creatures of Myth long after their Lord was gone. This was slow, as their ranks were sorely diminished and those who did not truly believe set out to follow new paths.
Those few loyal Malakim began, slowly, to rationalize the turn of events. If Archangel Uriel was recalled to God, was he not now a part of God himself? And was he not, possibly at one time, God personified upon the Earth in the form of an Archangel, since he like the Maker was Pure? Is it not possible that God had chosen that time to recall Uriel, who had existed from the beginning and would to the end, and to reunite him with Himself, the Symphony, and become as God? Would he not become part of the Godhead - the Purifier, the Cleanser, and the Holy Spirit? If so, wasn't Uriel right all along, and the other Archangels wrong from the very beginning? Were they dirtied by politics and their own shortsightedness?
They banded together deep in the Far Marches, and continued to pursue the Ethereals they originally set about destroying. Cut off from Heaven and their ideals shattered, the lost Malakim huddled together and began to tell their own version of the tales. Uriel had been pure as he himself had embodied Purity, and all others were unclean. The Archangels who had condemned their Lord were thrown into the light of heretical heresay, and they cultivated a dark hate for Heaven. They built an ideology which formed Uriel into God, a post-mortem Godhead which they worshipped in thrown together sermans and half-baked rites.
When some of the founding members of the Cult of Purification wavered in the new strict code of ethics, enforced by unrealistic Malakim ideals, and questioned the rites, they were quickly dismissed as dirtied by those of the Celestial realm and were set upon en masse to be put to the sword. Soon it was realized that the Angels who came to convince the Malakim to return to the fold were simply tricking them. Those Angels were not invited to go to God! They were unclean, and the only way to purify them is to send them on to the upper heavens, the only way they know how. And so the Cult did.
When the Ethereals had wisened up to the stalking of the Malakim, they made themselves scarce and hid in the shadows of Beleth's Tower. Word spread quickly of the mad Malakim, and those who could hide themselves away did so. For the Cult of Purification made short work of the Ethereals it captured.
But the Cult had little interest, in the end, in the Ethereals. They were found to be unclean long before, and are now an uninteresting target for nothing more then sport. The Cult has more interest in Celestials, and purifying them. They see it as a slow method to purify all of heaven, and destroy the heretical stain left by Uriel's condemnation. But the only way to truly purify a Celestial is to send them up to the Uriel-As-God to be cleansed. And the only way to do that is to kill them.
In their eyes Uriel has become as God, raised in post-mortem Godhood, and he will only be appeased through the cleansing of the righteous. And that can only be through death.
Your Superior:
Your Superior knows all about the Cult of Purification. Regardless if you are a demon or an angel, your Superior knows. And they aren't telling you.
For the Demon Princes, it's a black stain on their untarnished record, a point which can be picked out of their long history of righteousness and used as a point of consternation, a weakness. See what your perfect justice has brought you? Pain! And they laugh.
For the Archangels, it is an unspoken horror, a mistake best left alone, cleaned up later. They tell their servitors that entering the Far Marches is dangerous at best and deadly at worst. Why, there are big bad Ethereals out there. They don't mention, they don't tell. And soon, all will be forgotten, for time heals all wounds.
Maybe they tell you to stay out of the Marches. Or maybe you work for Beleth, and she sends you there to study them. To take some notes. Maybe you can inspire a few humans down below... or maybe she's already been doing that all along.
The Lords of Dream watch the Cult with detacted interest. They know they are out there. Sometimes they study their progress, and sometimes they simply evade. There are some things best kept to themselves, after all.
Politics:
Blandine watches in disgust, and Beleth watches in interest. Dominic studies their methods, and Laurence turns away, pretending they never existed. Michael, in private in the dark of night, silently plots their destruction. Novalis mourns their downfall, while David questions their concept of Purity. Yves smiles quietly to himself and says nothing on the topic.
And Kronos laughs. Even Fate comes to the purest of the pure.
- Em, Balseraph Captain of the Game, Demon of IN Backwards
Back to the INC Mainpage.
Back to the Adventures page.
Elizabeth McCoy <arcangel@prismnet.com>
Archangel of Archives