Lands of Tyranny
Day 1 of The Philosopher, Year 414
Lilith
Symbol: Flower Crown
Goddess of Fertility, Femininity, Beauty, Motherhood, Blood bonds
Lilith is amongst the best known of the old gods, and is revered as the great mother, origin of all human and animal life.
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Many worshippers of the old gods believe that Lilith is the spouse of Balthasar and the mother of Ilmarin and Twyll.
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In her shrines she is usually presented as a beautiful nude woman with horns, a flower crown and often with a baby in her arms.
Within the empire however Liliths worship is outlawed as is that of all old gods. Her cult is seen as obscene, unchaste and against the word of the three.
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As such her worship has garnered a reputation of being performed by prostitutes, adulterers, and rapists. And many people within the empire also believe that her worshippers are unclean and spread diseases through uncouth acts.
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And as all those that commit heresy within the empire, any worshipper of Lilith may find themselves being reeducated in a monastery of the three, or burnt at the stake for their heresy.
However despite this, on some roads that lead through Meadows travelers can sometimes still find Lilithian shrines even within the empire. And even though the army tears them down whenever they are found. They are usually adorned with flowers, idols of nude women, and red silk, showing that within the villages still many people hold at least some faith towards the old goddess.
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It is even rumored that some of the Knights of the Order of the Rose still worship Lilith, and that some of these shrines are maintained secretly by some of these travelling knights.
Liliths worship before the empire was focused on sexual freedom and health. Her cults were often lead by old women, that taught young women about their bodies, about sex, and about children and childbirth. Among the most prominent festivities within the Lilithian belief is that of the meadow maidens. An annual ritual on the first day of summer. Just before the sun would rise the young women that had come of age the year before, would leave their homes in the nude and be led into the flower rich meadows away from the eyes of the men.
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There they would spend the day picking flowers and adorning themselves with flower crowns and belts, while the old women would teach them all they needed to know about sex, marriage, and childbirth. These teachings also included knowledge about contraceptives methods, and about joyful sex.
Men within the Lilithian faith are as well taught about their responsibilities towards their children and wives, although very few men ever worship her.
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In some parts of the world, her faith also celebrates homosexual relationships, and many homosexual men will find refuge within lilithian cults.
One particular cult is based mostly on a deviant interpretation or at least extremization of one of the aspects of the goddess.
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Their cultists, true addicts to pleasure, promote sexual freedom to a new level, where the only purpose of existence is abandonment to sexual fulfillment.
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Their members often would approach someone they deem particularly interesting and drug them with aphrodisiacs, starting with low doses, and slowly increasing them so that their victims would not be able to attribute their change to a drug. While in some other cases, they would simply pump their preys with the strongest drugs available, making them ache to satisfy a painful lack of stimulation. In any case, once their victim would be 'captured' in this bottomless well of searching for more, they would be slowly introduced to the rest of the mysteries of the cult, and often asked to donate part if not all of their riches, as well as to start prostituting themselves, since earning through sex would be seen as part of their 'sexual liberation'...but of course, their earnings would mostly go to the ones in charge of the cult, while the prostitute would keep only what was necessary for them to live.
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Indeed, some of the high ranking members of the cult have little interest in sex, or at least, are not drowning so deep into theses deadly and bottomless quicksands of lust, interested instead in power and riches.
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The cult itself and its mechanics are however unknown to externals, and the organization remains rather impermeable to infiltrations due to the drugged state of most of its initiates, and even the rare times a cell is indeed discovered by the Tribunal, their members would still not know anything of what would be going on, only interested in one thing.
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Authors: Maya, Mojito, Rashan