The Cultists - Part 1 (Patreon)

As many of you likely know, I'm not just running one group through the Enemy Within campaign, I'm running two. The second group will play offline and is comprised of Chaos Cultists. The ramifications of this second group's actions will directly impact the game played by the streamed group.

The players for this second party have finished creating the characters (and even played a session!). And what a group they made!

We have four PCs (well, five, but I'll get to that). For their own reasons, each is convinced that the Empire is corrupt and that something has to be done to fix it. In our 2512IC, mutation is rising, witch burnings are commonplace, and the forests are growing ever darker and more dangerous. 

Fortunately, the Purple Hand has offered this party some answers to this ever-worsening situation.

Let's meet the first of that party.

SABINA
Slaver
The de facto leader of the cultist cell is Sabina, a 27-year-old Sylvanian with a troubled past.

The eldest daughter of shepherds from the haunted Warten Downs in Sylvania, Sabina manifested signs of witchery from an early age, with candles flickering into life of their own accord in her presence, and her eyes burning red when angry. Fearful of what this would mean for their precious daughter, Sabina's parents, the descendants of disenfranchised Sylvanian nobility, chose to raise their child far from others.

One autumn when Sabina's family was making its annual trip to Wartenhof to pay their taxes and sell surplus stock, a wandering Sigmarite priest encountered Sabina in the market. The ever-vigilant priest immediately recognised the signs of witchery trailing in Sabina's wake, so he moved to seize the cursed child. Sabina's parents tried to intercede and a conflict soon ensued. At the age of 9, Sabina witnessed her family be clapped in irons, tried for harbouring a witch, then sentenced to burning. Sabina was then carted to Altdorf, gagged and chained, to be assessed for the Colleges of Magic.

Sabina was there inducted into the Bright College and soon learned to hate everything the institution represented. She faced misogyny, cruelty, and bigotry. After years of practice and study, she was eventually deemed too weak at controlling magic to graduate, but too powerful with the Red Wind to ever be safe enough to leave the College. So, she was forced to become a Perpetual Apprentice. Sabina soon learned this meant she was little more than a College slave.

After two years of indignity at the hands of the College, Sabina escaped. With the intention of returning home to Sylvania, she initially headed south, but in her naivete she was captured by slavers and trafficked to Nuln. There she was sold to one Kastor Lieberung, a recently installed procurer for the Purple Hand. The young cultist was fascinated by the much older Sabina (our Kastor is just 21 at the start of play!) and the pair soon became lovers.

6 months later, Sabina was a fully inducted cultist of the Purple Hand, acting as one of Kastor's primary recruiters and also responsible for securing 'deserving' sacrifices for their cult. Usually, she captured the most wicked figures of oppression in the Empire, or those that denied that magic, Tzeentch's gift, was the birthright of humanity.

Just as she was growing comfortable in her new role, Beatha Ostrova, one of Kastor's other procurers, was captured by Witch Hunters and revealed Kastor Lieberung's identity under torture. Then, everything changed. Kastor went into hiding, and the entire Cult of the Purple Hand in Nuln went on high alert as generous bounties were posted and hunters dogged every street corner.

After several months of this, Sabina suggested that she and Kastor should flee. After a fraught escape where they were both almost captured on the road to Talabheim, they changed their planned destination and headed for Nuln.

There, Kastor made contact with the local Purple Hand cultists and continued to work as a 'Magister Impedimentae' - cult procurer. In turn, Sabina continued her work as Kastor's trafficker of living souls. But, perhaps because of the stress, or because of outside influences, their relationship soured. Within weeks, Kastor found himself a new beau closer to his age: one Magister Elyn Dreetz - a prodigy of the Amethyst College of magic and a member of the mysterious Cabal. And, at the start of play, Sabina hasn't seen Kastor for weeks.

So, Sabina is an ex-apprentice of the Bright College, a cultist of the Purple Hand, and a practiced trafficker of people - erm... a slaver.

That's Cultist number 1. Tomorrow we discuss Cultist two (and three - you'll see what I mean soon): Kristoff the Highwayman. Or should that be... Highwaymen?

More on that tomorrow!