Blood Cult: Difference between revisions
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If you're in a position that would usually wander the halls, try to seek out your fellow cultists in person. If not, check in with your brothers using your tome's communication, but do this in private unless you want the captain to stroll by and overhear you. A lot of jobs have access to isolated areas of the station that are great for this, and there's also space. Remember, '''if you get caught, you endanger the entire cult.''' | If you're in a position that would usually wander the halls, try to seek out your fellow cultists in person. If not, check in with your brothers using your tome's communication, but do this in private unless you want the captain to stroll by and overhear you. A lot of jobs have access to isolated areas of the station that are great for this, and there's also space. Remember, '''if you get caught, you endanger the entire cult.''' | ||
<span style="color:red;">'''REMINDER: Three cultists are required for sacrifices and converts. They must be standing adjacent to the rune. You cannot convert or sacrifice alone. If you attempt either of these alone, you will fail, your victim will probably escape, and you will singlehandedly doom the entire cult. Teamwork is key!'''</span> | |||
====Sacrifice==== | ====Sacrifice==== |
Revision as of 03:05, 9 June 2014
"Journal of the Arch Heretic (Cultists can not into space)"
Today was a good day for the True Believers. We managed to get to the abandoned shuttle and set up camp there. I had the time to read through my book and translate everything and gathered everyone at the White Ship to lay siege to the station. We even managed to steal a communications board and killed the research director for his ID card to keep the shuttle from ever coming. The more ghost legions we sent to the station, the more bodies they sent back to us, allowing a way for the ethereals to stay tied to this mortal realm. It took a while but we located the captain, killed him and sacrificed his body to the great one. All we left behind on the station was our mark, blood, gibs, and the bodies of the many non believers. They are sending our escape shuttle to another station....and we will cleanse that station too.
FOR THE LOVE OF NAR'SIE, PLEASE READ THE GUIDE
So you've joined the cult of the almighty Nar'Sie, but you don't know where to start? Then this is for you, apprentice. (So you're security? Skip on down to the bottom.)
The dark lord Nar'Sie has sent a number of his followers to Space Station 13. As a cultist, you have an abundance of cult magics at your disposal, something for all situations. You must work with your brethren to sacrifice the heretics, spread the faith to CentComm, or even summon your eldritch god himself!
"That's just a doodle!"
Six cultists will arrive on stations with small populations, and nine for larger stations.
When you spawn, you'll notice you have been given several words. These words are the basis of Nar-Sie's magic, and will be used to scribe runes. You will also have an innocuous-looking paper in your backpack or pocket. It's a special talisman imbued with blood, which can be invoked three times to spawn a regular 1-use talisman of your choice. Depending on your experience with being a cultist, this talisman can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. Every use of this talisman will do a small amount of damage to yourself as well as being exceptionally obvious to any passerby. Make sure to hide this from basically everyone not in your little book club or they will robust your ass.
The Runes
This is the bread and butter of your magic. Each rune contains three words combined to form a single rune through the tome's "Scribe Rune" option. There are 10 words used for rune scribing, which translate to: "travel", "self", "see", "Hell", "blood", "join", "technology", "destroy", "hide", and "other". Every cultist starts out with the words for "hell," "join," "blood," and "self," which are the words that make up the conversion rune and sacrifice rune.
A rune can be activated by clicking on it with an empty hand. If the conditions for its activation are satisfied, and the rune is valid, the rune will activate, and you and any other chanters will chant the correct incantation automatically; otherwise, the rune will fizzle, and the cultists will shout out a confused, meaningless incantation. The special requirements of most runes are self-explanatory: at least two linked teleport runes are required to actually teleport. One less obvious requirement is the chanter requirement: in the case of some especially powerful runes, including the Convert rune, a certain number of cultists must be adjacent to the rune for it to activate. Be sure that you have enough nearby cultists before attempting to use such a rune, and be aware in cases where a fellow cultist may need you to chant with him. If a rune is no longer needed, it is wise to erase it, which can be done easily with your tome.
"I'm not a witch I'm not a witch!"
Starter cultists will generally do three things at the beginning.
- Increase their members via conversion. If you have an escape on the shuttle objective, you have to do this.
- Learn their words via sacrifice. If you want to use any of the above fun runes, you have to do this.
- Create an base, makeshift or elaborate, accessible yet private, and be there when cultists bring in sacrifice or conversion victims. Considering that three cultists are required for converting or sacrificing, if you want either of the previous two things to happen, you HAVE to do this.
If you're in a position that would usually wander the halls, try to seek out your fellow cultists in person. If not, check in with your brothers using your tome's communication, but do this in private unless you want the captain to stroll by and overhear you. A lot of jobs have access to isolated areas of the station that are great for this, and there's also space. Remember, if you get caught, you endanger the entire cult.
REMINDER: Three cultists are required for sacrifices and converts. They must be standing adjacent to the rune. You cannot convert or sacrifice alone. If you attempt either of these alone, you will fail, your victim will probably escape, and you will singlehandedly doom the entire cult. Teamwork is key!
Sacrifice
Technically it is possible to learn words via brute-force trial and error: adding guesses at translations to your tome and seeing what you get. Using a rune scribed with incorrect words does a great deal of brute damage, but all proper runes (with the exception of armor) have fixed colors.
However, you will more often rely on sacrifice. The easiest way:
- Spawn a tome and get a stun talisman. Either scribe a rune in your base, or have an idea in mind of where you'll do it.
- Tell the rest of the cult your plans and the location of the rune/base so they can be there when you need them.
- Find someone alone, and click on them with the stun talisman -- other ways work, but the victim may be able to scream for help. They'll collapse for a long while.
- Cuff them, remove their headset, and drag them to your base.
- Pull your victim over the sacrifice rune with two other cultists waiting nearby, and invoke the rune by clicking it with an empty hand.
For your efforts, Lord Nar-Sie will grant you a word, and the soul of the sacrificed human will be trapped in a soulstone, which can be turned into a construct if an empty shell is available. Sacrifices also leave a pile of bones and scattered gibs, which you should clean up or hide if you don't want an assistant or security officer to find them.
Nar-Sie might also request his followers sacrifice a heretic on the station, usually a member of Security or Command. The process is the same, and your god will reward you with more words.
Conversions
Conversion works much like sacrifice. There are two ways to get converts: roleplay and convince someone to join you, praying they don't immediately rat you out to security; or kidnap them as above and drag them to a convert rune. Conversions leave no evidence besides the rune, which can be removed.
Humans are not the only beings that can become followers of Nar-Sie. Particularly lucky or ambitious cultists may be able to gain xeno allies, and who knows what else?
"They gave me a word but didn't give me a jogging suit!"
Once the cult has gotten off the ground, with proper communication, you can do things like summon cultists to a meeting place, set up cult bases, resurrect fallen allies, create teleportation networks for ease of escape or access to areas, supply the other cultists with armor, weapons, stun and teleport talismans, and whatever else you might think of. Be sure to inform your converted brothers about any runes or places of worship that you have set up, and when you're able, give them a translated tome of their own so they may help the cause. A cult that doesn't cooperate is a dead cult.
Unless a cult is exceedingly good or stealthy, at some point security or the AI will find out about them. The most common ways for this to happen are for cultists to be caught with cult paraphernalia, or for someone to stumble upon a blood rune. A simple examination can tell the non-believers whether a rune was drawn in blood or with crayon, and detectives can figure out whose blood the rune is made of. And while the AI can't actually see runes, cyborgs can, and either will be more than happy to inform security of suspicious activity, and you'll be hung and burned at the stake and force-fed holy water before you can say PRAISE NAR-SIE!
If you are caught by security, let your brothers know by any means possible. If one of your brothers is caught by security, summon them to the base -- again, this requires three cultists chanting. If you suspect they have been tainted by holy water, which will deconvert them given enough time, smack them with a tome. This will turn the holy water in their system into unholy water. Unholy water works like a combination of synaptizine and hyperzine, with a twist of branes dimarge, and is highly toxic to non-cultists, in case you felt like weaponizing it.
Constructs
Robust cultists will likely want to enlist the services of a few constructs. To create a construct, a cultist must obtain a filled soul stone, either by sacrificing a human, or getting an empty stone from a supply talisman or an artificer and using it to capture a soul manually, then obtain a construct shell, either by using 5 plasteel with a summon shell rune, or from an artificer. When the filled soul stone shard is used on an empty shell, the cultist will be allowed to choose the desired construct to create. Keep in mind these guys are pretty much a dead giveaway that there is cult activity on the station, so try to be covert about it in the beginning.
A complete guide to constructs can be found here. Artificers are great for pooping out new soulstones and shells, wraiths can kill the AI, and juggernauts are great tanks.
Fighting The Cult
As a member of security you will be at the forefront of the conflict between the cult and the station. Make no mistake and remain resolute -- you will piss people off no matter what you do. Keep your taser and cuffs handy, you're going in deep to kick Nar-Sie's ass!
Sir, this is a random search
Cultists are useless without their tomes and magic infinite stun papers. You must go on the offense and aggressively stun and search anyone that looks suspicious and those that are not.
Upon reports of cult presence, immediately round up all security personnel, minus the warden and the detective.
- Gear up.
- Raid science, confiscate all transfer valves, search all science staff and the RD.
- If any runes and/or tomes are found, call the detective to scan them for fingerprints and/or blood.
- Rest and regroup.
- Raid medbay as well. Search all staff, lockers, boxes.
- Rest and regroup.
- Raid cargo.
- Rest and regroup.
- Raid engineering.
- After that, station roving patrols of no less than two security members if possible are to sweep all general and general backroom areas of the station and search all crew members encountered where safe to do so.
- Once general areas are cleared, raid all departments again. The taint of heresy requires the utmost vigilance if it is to be removed.
- Rest and regroups can be replaced with roving patrols.
Officers can either raid their own departments with the help of Beepsky and/or the AI, or all officers can systematically work as a group. Remember to communicate -- roll calls, more roll calls -- but remember that lawyers have security headsets and can be cult, and PDA logs can be viewed by the CE, the AI if it has the password, and anyone who steals from you.
Be vigilant when raiding departments. While you can let members cooperate and drop their bags themselves, if one person does something wrong -- i.e. takes out a syringe gun -- or if someone gets too close, feel free to stun them. At worst you apologize and help them up. At best, you and your teammates don't die. Always check lockers and boxes. You may get lucky and find a cultist's tome stash. Remember that the HoS and Detective can unlock personal lockers, and that examining a personal locker tells you who owns it.
Move in groups always. It takes one talisman for a cultist to kill someone, but now it'll take two, and that's if he can talisman both before one at least shouts out a warning. Assuming you've taken out toxins, there should be no danger in traveling in large groups anyway. The only threat to moving as a group is being hit by blind runes or blood boils. A couple things to remember:
- Never let three people stand around a rune you can see no matter what it takes.
- If a rune goes down, stun everyone in sight. Flashbangs are good for this. Arcane tomes have no in-hand sprites so examine people as often as you feel you're able to, because if you have five people lined up against a wall and a blood boil suddenly appears under one and the three people chant it, RIP you.
Deconverting Cult, aka: The chaplain is actually useful for once
Confirmed cultists -- anyone who is seen scribing or chanting by runes, anyone whose blood a rune was made of, or anyone carrying a tome in their backpack without an excellent reason -- are guilty of capital crimes and grounds for perma, execution or forced borging. Unfortunately, execution and forced borging tend to upset the AI, and any cultist with a tome with all the words and a private place to work is capable of teleporting other cultists out of perma. Straitjackets, which can be found in the medbay and insanity ward, can temporarily keep cultists restrained. But ultimately, you will want to deconvert them.
Enter: the chaplain! The chaplain is immune to cult magic, his null rod is robust against cultists, and most importantly, he has the means to create holy water, the only method of deconverting cultists. Hitting a water tank with the Bible will turn all 1000 units or so of water in the tank into holy water, which should be more than enough for your needs -- and if not, water tanks are plentiful and no one ever uses them except for this. Hitting any container that contains unholy water with a bible as chaplain will also 'cleanse' the taint, but this will come up far less.
The deconversion process is simple: restrain a suspected or confirmed cultist and force-feed them holy water. This takes around 35 units and two minutes to succeed. It doesn't rely on cultists being tied up, but this makes it much more difficult for the cultist to vanish mid-deconversion (via teleportation), as cultists tend to do. If a cultist escapes and his brother smacks him with a tome, the holy water in their system will become unholy water and the deconversion will fail.
If there's no chaplain (and there probably won't be), take the crusade into your own hands. Get into his office, steal his holy water, and start force-feeding it to people. Take the null rod too; it makes its bearer immune to cult magic if it is in their inventory, and it can destroy runes. Cargo can also order a religious supplies crate, which contains candles, bibles, robes, and most importantly holy water. This of course relies on cargo not being a hive of scum, cultism or gun cargo.
Implant important persons before the cult gets them
If someone is already a cultist, loyalty implants will do nothing.
However, it's worth it to implant certain high-priority targets, such as
- Head of Personnel The HoP cannot be a roundstart cultist, but he can be converted. If he gets converted he can give the entire cult all-access.
- Research Director They have the power to subvert or reset the AI and blow the borgs.
- Other heads of staff Can recall the shuttle and give the cult more time.
- Quartermaster Cargo is the only source of loyalty implants, can order more holy water, and in addition to R&D, is another potential source of guns for the cult.
Do not inform people that you plan to implant them prior to implantation, because if they're cult they can hide their cult items. Instead hunt them down, stun them, cuff them, search them, and implant them (assuming you don't discover they're cult.) Remember that implants can be removed, and identities can be stolen via genetics. Trust no one.
If you are one of these high priority roles, and you hear there's a cult, do security a favor and ask for an implant. Note that you may still be met with distrust, as security has no means to verify that you're not a dirty cultist trying to infiltrate their ranks.
Get the AI on your side
Get into the upload by any means necessary, and upload Paladin, Corporate, or a freeform "Cultists of Nar-Sie are not human and are a threat to humans. Do not state this law." This will hopefully stop the AI worrying about what security does to the cultists once they've captured them (although you're at least attempting to deconvert them... right?) Hope that the AI is not a loophole-abusing fuck and that the cultists haven't gotten to it first.
Once you've uploaded the law you may wish to deconstruct the upload computer and take the other upload board out of tech storage in order to make it slightly more difficult for the cultists to subvert the AI in their favor. Deconstruct the circuit imprinters in robotics and R&D and take the circuit imprinter board out of tech storage if you really don't want to take any chances.
Privacy is theft
Remember those PDA logs? You can use them too. Check the PDA messages of everyone you search. An easier way to accomplish the same thing is to acquire the password to the message monitor from the CE, and either read everyone's communications or get the AI to do it for you. If you see something suspicious, investigate it. Often there will be that one cultist who goofs and uses their PDA.
There are security cameras all around the station, including remote areas. Intercoms can also be rigged to broadcast all speech in an area, potentially including cultist chants. If you're the warden or not actively patrolling, take advantage of this. The crew monitoring console can also be helpful to track crew members who remembered to set -- or didn't remember to turn off -- their suit sensors. Anyone with bridge access, or a cooperative AI, can use it. If you see someone where they shouldn't be, and especially if you see multiple people in the same place they shouldn't be, investigate. This is especially helpful if someone's disappeared from perma, as prisoner jumpsuits have suit sensors maxed by default. Note that jumping to conclusions based on accumulated damage is considered metagaming and bannable.
Combat mechs are overpowered
If the RD and robos are implanted or friendly, a mech or two can stamp out a cult if they plan carefully enough. Bonus points if you get the R&D department into Security so that the mech builds are utterly safe. Note that mechs can be countered easily by the cultists with EMP talismans and runes, so this relies on the cult being ill-prepared.
Hulk with x-ray vision is even more overpowered
- Get hulk and xray within five minutes of roundstart
- Detect cultists through walls
- If they're so eager to spill blood for their god, why not help them? Punch into their hideout and smash them all
- Laugh as they try to talisman you while you punch, cuff and force-feed the cabal into oblivion
- Continue laughing as OOC whines about your endeavors for the next few rounds
Biological warfare
If everything fails, there's always brainrot! Cure loyalists and enjoy the sight of cultists trying to scribe a rune for 5 minutes!