Conch Cult

A strange and uncomfortable religion revolved around listening to the sounds of shells.

Structure

Guardians

Five independent factions serve around a single personality who lives in colourful rags along the painted beaches with many followers and fellow priests.

Acolytes

Followers of the guardians who service at their personal pleasure. They are always the most veteran members of the cultists and exert direct control over the followers in the guardian's absence.

Followers

These are more than likely the touring foreign visitors or locals exploring away from the beach communes and choose to stay on from a period of time for the minimalist lifestyle. Followers at this level of integration are free the leave and come back as they please or disentangle themselves entirely with on consequences.

Assets

Hidden Grottoes

There are rumoured stashes of treasure hidden away in secrete grottoes owned by guardians and for whom his acolytes protect with their lives.

Conque

Also known as a "seashell horn" or "shell trumpet"; these are a natural death whistle made from conchs to sound the daily schedules as mandated by the cult guardian.

History

Seizing Eeat

There have been various preexisting beach religions throughout the times the painted tribes have existed. The Conch Cult came into prominence when they subsumed other groups and wrestled control of Eeat's ruins from Gaioor city state for two consecutive seasons.

Gaioor Barrage

The first barrage from Gaioor struck Southern Siparia where was once the operational base of the Conch Cult. The resultant devastation succeeded in its intent of removing their upper hierarchy but also radicalized those remaining against the yatei for all time. Which inturn convinced future kolarchs to continue with what worked before.

Territories

Painted Beaches

It is named for the painted tribes who live along the shores to extract the slugs, snails and fungi that secrete multiple discharges into the beach which colours the sand in a myriad of dark colours that stream along the waves.
The beach's seacoast is also home to several seasonal explosions of luminous algae that beat against the rock shield in glowing blue, green, red and orange waves. The algaes and their colours are the most valuable exports the painted tribes have to trade due to the high demand to make glowing dyes and limited time available to harvest. Some might skim the flooded surface on a boat to be the first to collect their prize, but it is just as prized to pick the teeth between the shield for the algae that washed ashore.

Military

Sharkmen

The shock troops trained and painted as ferocious sharks to intimidate the close melee fighters on land and sea.

Mersmen

Squads of specialized saboteurs and infiltrators unpainted and unadorned to be the fastest swimmers of any military order.

Raymen

Deep divers trained and painted to hide under the waves for long periods to capsize and ambush.

Foreign Relations

Gaioor

Hatred of Gaioor is preached every so often by the leaders to those who would listen.

Mist Shores

There is also contention with sects of the cult trying to hop over and spread into Mist, with little success.

Trade & Transport

Dye Waves

While it is harrowing and ill-advised to be on or near the shores during a flood event; once the Floodlands have been flooded, is then when it is most optimal to trade the farthest per economic output.
It is named for the slugs, snails and painted tribes who live along the painted shores that produce a multitude of its famous dyes. This trade route is nominally regulated by the Painted House but as they are further away, it falls to the Cults to control the flow of goods.

Divine Origins

Cloud Country

Ideas regarding the conch cults' practices have their basis in the cloud clans' imperial cult and the even earlier Kean cult of the foggy cloud clan.

Mist Immigrants

These cultists are not a group known for record keeping, but the first preachers are thought to have been from a branch of the Imperial Cult operating in misty shores, then later exiled to the beach for heresy.

Worship

Members use chanting to relax the mind, when upset or are generally having a difficult time and focus the group’s energy infront the cult leader or his image.

Political Influence & Intrigue

Painted House

Through their followers, the cults have formed an informal faction within the painted house to resist the calls for peace with Gaioor.

Highwatch

Many former cultists moved on to join the border guards and have carried snippets of their experiences with them. When they speak and socialize with their fellow guardsmen, they encourage them to vacation on the beach.

Alternate Names
Beach Cult

Type

Religious, Cult

Capital

Painted Beaches

Demonym

Conchous

Parent Organization

Corn Court

Location

Painted Beaches

Related Professions

• Murtana

Neighboring Nations

• Oztomecintli

Related Items

• Eye Plates

Related Ethnicities

• Painted Tribes

Means and Reasons for Recruitment