Cultists are greatly versatile enemies: just slap some devotion to the BBEG on them and you've got swarms of nameless baddies that deserve no sympathy to throw at the party. However, you can only run so many campaigns with cultists as the main body of enemies before they can get stale. After the Cult of the Dragon, FOUR cults of Elemental Evil, and a cult for every archdevil and demon prince in the lower planes, what are some alternatives to the robed zealots that could make for interesting mooks for a campaign?
I'll start with an idea: A clan of giants (could be any kind, but lets say fire) is willing to help an archdevil because they believe that once the archdevil is in power it will help them change the Ordning and put fire giants on top. Though a fire giant has a CR of 9, this opens up opportunities for the DM to send lesser threats associated with them and their habitats: Azers, elementals, ogres with fire-based abilities, and a whole bunch of environmental hazards to keep the party busy until they can face the bigger threats, mixed in with occasional devils to remind the party of the real threat.
I'm DMing my first ever campaign now, and cultists feature prominently, so I've been thinking about alternatives myself to keep the play fresh and exciting.
I'm kinda mixing in two different approaches. One is to feature entirely unrelated threats and sidequests. Sure, this cult thing is a super big deal, the primary antagonistic faction of the campaign, but it's not the only thing going wrong with the world or the local setting. Out here on the frontier, a local child lord may be receiving bad advice from conniving advisors looking to increase their own power. Two peoples are beginning to rile themselves up, and a diplomatic approach may be needed before violence erupts. Word from the mountains is that entire tribes of goblinoids are swearing fealty to a hill giant, and doesn't that just bode ill for the region. So on and so forth. I'd like to populate the world with options, so that the players' decisions can carry more weight. What if they don't bring peace between the two peoples, and their war leads to divided resistance against a swarm of goblinoids? They don't have to literally be everywhere at once, or dealing with every little problem personally, but what they do choose to do or not do will have an impact.
The other approach is to make the cultists more than just anonymous men and women in robes, conducting dark rituals. They have the gold to hire mercenary brigands. Their influence is insidious and deep-rooted, who knows who belongs among the rich or the poor. The fiend upon which they focus is a powerful patron, perhaps enough to have clerics or paladins devoted to him and channeling his power, not just warlocks and rogues. They're also not an army of obedient ants. Each of them joined the cult because of something, perhaps a promise of power or a promise of release. Perhaps they were forced, perhaps the cult is all they've ever known. There's no messianic figure at the top dictating every deed and action, but a host of authoritative figures with their own individuality and plans beyond their shared goals. They can be competitive for the fiend's favor, striving to be the better servant, or perhaps even openly acting against each other.
And I'm threading the two together where it makes sense. Perhaps one of those young lord's advisors has a dark connection!
The players just dealt with one outlying arm of the cult, those discarded by the bulk of the cult. As other branches explored options to further their plans that took them away from the local region, this element remained behind to continue researching a dead-end approach. Tomorrow, they'll get to read their leader's notes, where able, and finally catch a glimpse at just what sort of threat this cult poses. And then they'll have to choose. Stay behind and continue to mop up the issues facing the local region, or head out to uncover further cultist plots. Both options will have their pluses and minuses.
Cultists are no mindless zombies. Most of them might be misguided "normal people" that have other motivations and fears and are not willing to madly charge you with wide eyes and a dagger. Just take a look historical events: > Christian missionaries might have been seen as cultists by the indigenous people in Africa or America (=> how are cultists different to e.g. the clergy of the party's cleric or druid circle?) > *** members are racists, but they still have their own families at home they care about. (=> what happens when cultists find out, the big bad they are following is demanding them to sacrifice their children or sell them into slavery) > The NSDAP party in Germany offers ideas of "stability, wealth patriotism" after the Depression in the early 1930s (=> the cultists keep the streets of a town safe with patrols, the citizens will like that and want to join their cult for more benefits from them)
In the campaign I am currently playing in, we also have to deal with an evil cult (they want raise or release some sort big bad demon and are sacrificing humans for that. For them killing children and newborns is speeding up the process of the awakening, so more and more kids start missing). They had pretty much replaced the local city guard with cult mercenaries in one town, who ran a strict "law and order" policy. People in town were happy, the bandits and thieves were gone and they supported the cult mercenaries. Well, until we as players found evidence of the blood sacrifices. The town's folk began to rally against them and some mercenaries, not knowing what the chief cultists were doing every fortnight had doubts about their loyalty)
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Cultists are greatly versatile enemies: just slap some devotion to the BBEG on them and you've got swarms of nameless baddies that deserve no sympathy to throw at the party. However, you can only run so many campaigns with cultists as the main body of enemies before they can get stale. After the Cult of the Dragon, FOUR cults of Elemental Evil, and a cult for every archdevil and demon prince in the lower planes, what are some alternatives to the robed zealots that could make for interesting mooks for a campaign?
I'll start with an idea: A clan of giants (could be any kind, but lets say fire) is willing to help an archdevil because they believe that once the archdevil is in power it will help them change the Ordning and put fire giants on top. Though a fire giant has a CR of 9, this opens up opportunities for the DM to send lesser threats associated with them and their habitats: Azers, elementals, ogres with fire-based abilities, and a whole bunch of environmental hazards to keep the party busy until they can face the bigger threats, mixed in with occasional devils to remind the party of the real threat.
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ModeratorI'm DMing my first ever campaign now, and cultists feature prominently, so I've been thinking about alternatives myself to keep the play fresh and exciting.
I'm kinda mixing in two different approaches. One is to feature entirely unrelated threats and sidequests. Sure, this cult thing is a super big deal, the primary antagonistic faction of the campaign, but it's not the only thing going wrong with the world or the local setting. Out here on the frontier, a local child lord may be receiving bad advice from conniving advisors looking to increase their own power. Two peoples are beginning to rile themselves up, and a diplomatic approach may be needed before violence erupts. Word from the mountains is that entire tribes of goblinoids are swearing fealty to a hill giant, and doesn't that just bode ill for the region. So on and so forth. I'd like to populate the world with options, so that the players' decisions can carry more weight. What if they don't bring peace between the two peoples, and their war leads to divided resistance against a swarm of goblinoids? They don't have to literally be everywhere at once, or dealing with every little problem personally, but what they do choose to do or not do will have an impact.
The other approach is to make the cultists more than just anonymous men and women in robes, conducting dark rituals. They have the gold to hire mercenary brigands. Their influence is insidious and deep-rooted, who knows who belongs among the rich or the poor. The fiend upon which they focus is a powerful patron, perhaps enough to have clerics or paladins devoted to him and channeling his power, not just warlocks and rogues. They're also not an army of obedient ants. Each of them joined the cult because of something, perhaps a promise of power or a promise of release. Perhaps they were forced, perhaps the cult is all they've ever known. There's no messianic figure at the top dictating every deed and action, but a host of authoritative figures with their own individuality and plans beyond their shared goals. They can be competitive for the fiend's favor, striving to be the better servant, or perhaps even openly acting against each other.
And I'm threading the two together where it makes sense. Perhaps one of those young lord's advisors has a dark connection!
The players just dealt with one outlying arm of the cult, those discarded by the bulk of the cult. As other branches explored options to further their plans that took them away from the local region, this element remained behind to continue researching a dead-end approach. Tomorrow, they'll get to read their leader's notes, where able, and finally catch a glimpse at just what sort of threat this cult poses. And then they'll have to choose. Stay behind and continue to mop up the issues facing the local region, or head out to uncover further cultist plots. Both options will have their pluses and minuses.
Cultists are no mindless zombies. Most of them might be misguided "normal people" that have other motivations and fears and are not willing to madly charge you with wide eyes and a dagger. Just take a look historical events:
> Christian missionaries might have been seen as cultists by the indigenous people in Africa or America (=> how are cultists different to e.g. the clergy of the party's cleric or druid circle?)
> *** members are racists, but they still have their own families at home they care about. (=> what happens when cultists find out, the big bad they are following is demanding them to sacrifice their children or sell them into slavery)
> The NSDAP party in Germany offers ideas of "stability, wealth patriotism" after the Depression in the early 1930s (=> the cultists keep the streets of a town safe with patrols, the citizens will like that and want to join their cult for more benefits from them)
In the campaign I am currently playing in, we also have to deal with an evil cult (they want raise or release some sort big bad demon and are sacrificing humans for that. For them killing children and newborns is speeding up the process of the awakening, so more and more kids start missing). They had pretty much replaced the local city guard with cult mercenaries in one town, who ran a strict "law and order" policy. People in town were happy, the bandits and thieves were gone and they supported the cult mercenaries. Well, until we as players found evidence of the blood sacrifices. The town's folk began to rally against them and some mercenaries, not knowing what the chief cultists were doing every fortnight had doubts about their loyalty)