The fertility cult is secretly a death cult

>The fertility cult is secretly a death cult

>The cycle of life and death isn't the same cult

Nature and Society need death to remain healthy. Perhaps the discovery of true immortality will be the death of civilization?

No. You will be just dead.

>they don't actively kill people
>they just really really like death
>their clerics fill the same role as undead-smiters

>the death cult actually provides end-of-life counseling and manages the equivalent of a retirement home
>to preserve the sanctity of death, they dislike ending lives before its their "time" to die

>when infant mortality or abortion occurs, the fertility/death cult sees it as an omen, a unification of birth and death.
>they mummify the dead would-be child and store it in a tomb.
>there are now tens of thousands of stillborn children and fetuses in that tomb
>their spirits, if ever roused, would be a terrible force to reckon with
>the fertility/death cult make frequent pilgrimage to this Tomb of the Unborn for visions and guidance

>the death cult is secretly a fertility cult

>What were the Eleusinian mysteries?

I have to admit, it strikes me as unwise to go to a crowd of actual babies when you're looking for advice.

Have you tried wailing?
What about pooping, did pooping help?
Okay...
And you tried taking a nap, right?
Okay
So
What I want you to do is take a really deep breath while I whack you on the back as hard as I can!

> The Death God likes the moment when a suitable creature dies.
> He wants things to keep dying.
> How and when the life ends doesn't matter in the long run. Only that it does.
> So he encourages new lives to be created so that those lives will end and please him.
> He also encourages hygiene, improved agriculture, etc because it leads to higher populations and thus more things dying each year.
> The only effort he puts into the death part is making sure nobody becomes immortal.

>the fertility/death cult make frequent pilgrimage to this Tomb of the Unborn for visions and guidance

I liked everything except this. I'd rather it that the priests go there to soothe the spirits.

>tfw babysitting zombies

>I liked everything except this. I'd rather it that the priests go there to soothe the spirits.

That does sound better, actually.. Another idea I had was to have them simply venerate the unborn.

>Implying any child would advocate taking a nap

No kid likes sleeping when they could be doing more fun things. Like vomiting. Lots and lots and lots of vomiting.

The priests of this cult must wear burp cloths as part of their garb. Don't want that ghost baby vomit to get on your actual robes.

>The fertility cult is secretly a death cult

m8, jokes aside, isn't only like >1% of their funding for abortions?

plot twist

conspiracy of an inner circle within the cult

they just like getting high on the fungus you ritually decompose dead worshippers with

Pretty much. Most of the time they're trying to provide info, meds, and stuff to prevent it getting to abortions.

What if the undead babies are amazing mediums for ghosts? Caretakers could listen to confessions or important lost lore. But obviously not all ghosts are pleasant, and the priests also fill the role of ghost hunters and exorcists.

If the setting has any conniptions with sin, perhaps ghost babies would be one of the few kinds of sinless undead and therefor not dangerous to interact with.
I'm tired of edgy demonic babies.

Either that, or to soothe the spirits who died 'before their time'.

You could almost do both. A child that died naturally, by sickness or stillbirth, would be a sinless spirit, a safe undead with no ties to the living realm, but a child who died unnaturally, by accident or murder, whereas sinless, has a particular fear, anger or envy lingering in their souls. Those are the souls that need to be soothed with prayer and ritual. Not exorcised or banished to the underworld, but calmed and lulled to rest in their tombs. You can't really reconcile with the spirit of a dead child, whose soul is only semi-formed, un-matured and boundless. They haven't time to become anything, they're just plain, unbound souls, but tinged with negativity. And that, if left not looked after, can become dangerous.

>the fertility cult that's actually a death cult is actually a reincarnation cult
>they store the souls of the deceased and implant them into stillborns
>a mother that dies giving birth to a stillborn has her soul transferred to the child

>>Throwing pigglets into holes
>>drug experimentation
>>what happend in Eleusys stays in Eleusys, otherwise you are dead
The old greeks were awesome

makes sense, cant get people killed if nobody is born, gotta stop all this celibacy nonsense and have people get busy making babies

Who would've fucking thought?

>The local order of Pelor has been strangely infused with a local pagan religion, as the new religion spreads through the lines of the church of Pelor, some of the priestesses begin to question their place in the new rituals

Coathangers don't cost THAT much, after all.

What does "pagan" mean in this context? In D&D all the organized religions are weird polytheistic monolatrists and only Christian in random trappings.

We'll assume it just means a local, unrecognized cult in comparison to a larger, more established church in question.

Sounds like you had trash-tier babies.

She could always be lying, but my mom always says when I was super little I'd just sing to myself and drive my hot wheels around my crib when I woke up.

>The fertility/death cult that's secretly a death/fertility cult is actually just a party that got way out of hand and just keeps going

The guy who hosted the thing is just horrible at telling people it's time to leave. He a little tired of it by now, but thinks it's pretty cool at least that all these new people are leaving money so he can keep the food and drink coming. He is a little confused about why they're all bowing to him though.