What is Abyssal Mother Cult

Abyssal Mother cult is a cult that primary worship 'Abyssal Star' or known as Silja Astralis Xylia and protect the abyss itself. They're responsible for maintaining a balance of the 'gate way' as the ocean itself is a direct connect to the cosmos as well as maintaining and nurturing the ocean and creature in it. Or to view it other way they're controlling a way in and a way out as well as the planet lifeline itself. Silja herself is also responsible for creating a vortex that act as 'gate way' so she do need someone to look after it.

How it was found?

Once Silja learn about the concept of Religion, She put her knowledge to use and experiment. There were a cult created by Abyssal Star prior to the Abyssal mother cult.

However that long forgotten cult is more about seeing how fast it can indoctrinate and recruit a new member by any mean necessary by centering herself as a center of worship and faith and have put little effort into actual belief system. However it grew at alarming rate to the point it become a threat and results in a collapse.

With a new knowledge in mind, The Abyssal Star try again and form a Abyssal Mother cult as both pet project and a personal hobby. Silja purposefully target a small rural costal village and slowly spread her influence and bless them with abundance and plentiful resource until the villager start to worship her by themselves and she start teaching from there.

Theism Type of the religion

- Dystheism-Henothesism

Silja teach all her followers about the other existing deity but to be in Abyssal Mother is to believe and worship in Silja. But Silja herself did not claim to be better than other and she's not always 'good' or 'evil' and pretty much said it upfront that she's doing this whole cult thing out of self interests.

Deity(s)

Since it's incorporate in the teaching that there are many eldritch and god-like being all over the universe. Silja did not forbid her follower to worship another one but they must choose to worship Silja as primary or Major deity. And as long as it doesn't conflict with core belief they're free to choose to worship more deity or not.

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Major Beliefs

- 1. They view themselves as a void that need fulfillment Their body as a vessel to indulge in outside world pleasure

- 2. They believe in keeping 'balance' while taking part or indulge in life as much as possible. The earthly pleasure is not a sin but a celebration of the creation. Encourage to be greedy, be gluttonous as long as it benefit you and other you care about. Do what you must to make you indulge in life and make what you care about flourish. If you get more, other should get more. If other around you get hurt, you will get hurt.

- 3. Do not lie Reality is a sacred and one must face and respect it, Do not distort

- 4. They actually don't believe in afterlife nor heaven. All members except one that has pledge to be a 'sister', will get consume by Silja herself when the time comes or let the water consume them. They believe they're giving back to Silja by become her nourishment so to make Silja keep going and giving new life and in return they become a part of her. Or they're giving back to the water to be a nourishment for other life form.

- 5.The Water, Air and Star is an aspect of called 'The Gate Way'
The Gate Way itself is a delicate living portal that act as a fine-line between material plane and the cosmos itself. It open during the Monsoon season. All sort of life form could visit, invade, travel between one and another easily if they know how. The Gate Way must remain in the Abyssal Mother possession and under it care to preserve it.

The Core rules

This is the core rules that everyone following the Abyssal Mother must follow. The 'sister' will have more rules than the rest due to the role require more obedience and dedication. A key context, Abysm is refer to the 'mind, psych and ego' of a person. Vessel mean the body. Surface is refer to the outside world.

1. ✦ Do not lie, Do not distorted your own reality and others unless given permission to do so
Unless it's given a permission or consent to lie or distort the reality do not do it. Reality is a sacred and one must face and respect it.
2. ✦ Indulge in life and be embraced in death. All members is encourage to participate in life and indulge in earthly pleasure there is no such a thing as immoral desire. To live to the fullest is to worship and once return to the Abyss you will be embrace
3. ✦ The Abysm is ever expanding and it hunger is endless, Do not let it consume you
Everything exist in balance, However balance is different for many thing. Do what it take to keep everything in check. Make your own hunger be beneficial.

Ethics

In summary, Abyssal mother encourage you to live to the fullest and embrace your need and self-serving nature so long as it's both beneficial for you and other you care about and you don't lie your way to it. It's fine to do so, Abyssal Mother cult believe as long as you're happy, it's benefit for those who you care about and you have mean and a way to accept responsibility for it then go for it. Life is not fair and you don't need to be if you want to.

In a somewhat contradictory nature, Abyssal Mother cult did not forbid you to manipulate or outwitted someone else. You just have to find a way to do that while being truthful. Nor is it wrong to take what you need by force (But it's heavily discourage and it's seen as not beneficial to the whole group) Yet the teaching is encourage for their member to be both greedy while making it better for everyone else around them. It's more beneficial to be 'good' in the long run after all.

Taboo

- Usage of hallucinogens
is ban in Abyssal Mother cult and strictly forbidden for The Sisters to use (As they're a bunch of Psionics user so i think getting too high might be very dangerous to them lmao)

- Addiction. Addiction of all kind is consider a taboo. As it's seen as a form of 'Greedy and gluttonous that no longer beneficial'

- Offering hand to help anyone that get into the trouble by 'greed that no longer beneficial'
aka you make a mess, you deal with the consequence. For example if one of the member is very greedy to the point they take something from someone else by force and the original owner is here to beat them up then you can't help them. They must deal with the consequence of their own action unless if you think the benefit out weight the risk. The only exception to this rule is addicts which other member are allow to help.

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Practices

There is no prayers in the Abyssal Mother cult.
Instead each member is require to have a token that represent Silja, The Abyssal Star to carry with them daily. It can be any item that reflect Silja in each member mind. These item when any person become a 'sister' then it will an item that use as medium and a weapon to connect between Silja and that person. These item will help Silja being connect to them for both Sister and non-sister member alike.

Place of worship

Abyssal Mother has two place of worship.

1. An altar in every house. It can be anything and any design so long as it could represent the Abyss. A common item in or use as Altar is the Chalice, Mug, Bowl and alike. (As long as it can pour and hold water in then it's acceptable basically-)

2. The Sanctum. Think of it as like a temple with 2 section. The outer Sanctum is for typical use and allow for everyone to enter and use it as they please. The inner Sanctum however reserved for only The sisters and Silja and they're often under the water.

Rituals

There are several rituals but there are notable 2 rituals

1. Cycle of the week

For everyone , Weekly (Sun,Mon and Tuesday) there is a Sunday and Monday ritual that require each person to decide to give and take on either Sunday or Monday. For example Person 1 on Sunday choose to be giver and they will prepare what they have been asked for, On Monday they will be the one given what they themselves as other for. Person 2 may do the opposite day. But everyone must participate once they have enter adulthood. One Tuesday each person will post what they seek and what they can offer in return. This was done to encourage for member to voice their need and not shy away from asking for them in exchange of giving the same to other. Silja themselves is exempt from this Rituals due to personal reason (not wanting her behavior to come off as prefer one over another)

2. Rites of Passage

A member of Abyssal Mother can enter Rites of Passage twice. A first one take place on Monsoon/Rainy Season so each 'branch' of the cult will operate or celebrate the rites of passage differently. This is belief that during Monsoon or Rainy season is where the sky and the ocean connect to each other the most.

1st Rite of Passage is for joining and/or becoming adult. Each person who is to participate in Rites of Passage must prepare themselves at least a month in advance.

Anyone who participate for the first time, Be in joining the cult or coming of age is require to
- 1 Living among the member at least 30 days (Doesn't need to be 30 constructive days)
- 2 Study the scripture
- 3 Participate in at least one religion's activities with the current member
- 4. Bring second most important item to be bless and Another object to be use as representative token of Silja

2nd Rite of Passage is for when one is ready to become a 'Sister' permanently connect to Silja and Ascend beyond their mortality and mortal form. The Detail of this 2nd rite of passage is perform directly by Silja and forbid to record or witness such a ritual for anyone who is not a 'sister' But the detail and consequence of it can be record.

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Symbols, Clergy and Hierarchy

- Symbols = Monsoon, Portal, 3 circles

- Clergy = 'Sisters' regardless of gender or sex, The Clergy are known as Voidtress but commonly refer to or address as 'Sister' among the believer. Voidtress and Sisters are use to describe anyone in any gender as long as they're Clergy within AbyssalMother

- Hierarchy of Voidtress

is fairly simple which consists only of '3 rank'. Although in reality it's more of a 'type' rather than a rank. And are indicated by a growth stage of 'whisperer' a extraterrestrial organism that live inside the Voidtress. Similair to the 'dragon tongue' of Silja. The Whisperer act as the same. Replacing host tongue with itself as well as adjusting their body to be similar to Silja And it become a connector that open for the Psionics power. Without the 'Whisperer' it become almost impossible.

However outside of the circle of the sisters and other members. Voidtress are easily recognizable by how much they covered their face. While the general cult population already known that The sisters or Voidress has already ascended from mortal hood. They rarely see any Voidtress beside 'The pale one'

1. The Pale one

Often seen as lowest form of Hierarchy because it's the first stage of Whisperer growth. The sisters that blessed by The Whisperer of Silja all start by becoming The Pale one. They're the sisters or Voidtress.

- The Pale one doesn't require to wear the mask. They are often seen interacting with the community due to their retain most of the original appearance. Save for the Whisperer inside that have yet to fully replace host's tongue with itself and some 'scale' on their body. Within the Pale one state, Host can manipulate and control the whisperer at will.

- (If you have trouble imagine, They look like a typical vampire with pale skin or if they're furry then their fur or scale become pale as well. They have shark-teeth, Scale or some trait of the aquatic animal can also be seen in their design. For example if based on Shark they might have external gill, If based on Isopod they will have some sort of exo-skeleton)
- They act as a preacher for the community and responsible for reporting to The Luminous one


2.The Cold one The second in the hierarchy of Voidtress is the most common one. Voidtress that become the cold one meaning

- the whisperer already take over and replace itself as a tongue and it response with the host subconsciousness and primal need. Making lower part of their face, entire upper torso become semi-transparent. And they get a feature of what type of aquatic creature they based on. Most likely already gain long tails if they have any.

- Their uniform on the surface require them to wear either a mask covering upper or lower half of their face. And they only allow to appear at night time.

- They're the one that tend to AbyssalMother sanctum

3. The Luminous one

Seen as the highest Hierarchy of the Voidtress. They've become a demi-god-like entity and their original form is mutated or completely change from the original look or a complete twisted fusion of their original look and their aquatic creature that they based on. Also they RARELY outside but when they do they wear full face covering mask.

- As the name Suggest, They have develop bioluminescence and The Whisperer has fully fusion with the host and becoming extra 'limbs' that is not seen on their aquatic creature that they based on (common form of appearance is maw tail) for example The Luminous one that is based on Whale may grow extra limbs making them able to walk on land, Or Octopus that grow exo-skeletal armor etc. These extra limbs are 'sapience' being as it's originate from the Whisperer who have develop a mind of it own. Each Luminous one can choose to teach whisperer a native tongue to make them able to communicate with other or not.

- They're the one responsible for writing and reviewing the scripture, Teaching The Pale one and oversee the general population and well being

- They answer to Silja call directly.

Religions coexist and conflicts

- Generally speaking The Abyssal Mother cult is friendly to non believer and other religion who believe in Polytheism regardless if they want to recognized Silja as a proper god/deity or not. And they may often help other out and allow other cult to perches in Abyssal Mother community during a specific holiday. However they're openly wary or have negative biased toward Monotheism religion or cults and see them as 'ignorance' but they do welcome to try to perch their religion at the same holiday. The reason for this is because AbyssalMother teach the reality is more than just one and ever expanding (But also because Silja personal reason is they want to learn-)

- Currently there are no openly 'conflicts' or war with outsider or inside due to Silja strict 'population control' Not really like limit or birth control but more so about limiting outsider who can become member of the Abyssal Mother. She's also carefully control the relationship between the cult and outside world to maintain a stability and making it not too big nor too 'dangerous'.

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Ladies, Gentlemen and nonbinary folk, I spend 10 hours work on this lore just for me to design the outfit and just draw porn lmao but it's a fun exceirse. It has been a while that I do a world building despite constantly drawing my own character. I will not be thinking about logistic or in dept detail on how silja is controling population or something like that! There's 100% something i need to refine more but at this point i just want to make it exist first and I fix it later from here!

Ok but how big is the cult? I think I want to keep it at only one two or on village for now. So that the number of the 'sisters' is limited because ALL of them are considered as Silja pet and oh my if they have 100 of them I think it would be too much to handle x'D

Also I did not think of speicfic name of the scripture. My brain power run out 😫 Also zero idea if it actually sound like something that exist or not. If it was that is unintentional. I studying about cult is my special interests so there might be something that I've just dig from my brain that I use as my idea.