Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 282 - Cults

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

Are your players tired of generic hooded villains who just want to be evil for the sake of it? Let’s dive deep into the mechanics of cults, exploring how to craft antagonists that are active, isolationist (or even well-integrated), and genuinely dangerous. Discover how to transform faceless goons into compelling, campaign-level threats that will keep your players guessing—and maybe even looking over their shoulders.   #rpg #ttrpg #dnd #pathfinder #gmtips #cults Resources: Buy Me a Coffee! - ko-fi.com/taking20podcast www.taking20podcast.com  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/taking20podcast  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/taking20podcast  Episode 150 - Rovagug - https://www.taking20podcast.com/e/ep-150-rovagug/  Cult Generator:  https://old.reddit.com/r/rpg_generators/comments/1vk05gi/new_generator_secret_society_cults_and/

This week on the Taking 20 podcast. Cults will often have a derogatory term for those who aren't members of the cult or worse, people who leave it. They are called the ignorati, the unworthy, the wanderers. They will speak derisively about these people as if they have no value since they are no longer in the no, in the cult. Thank you so much for listening to the Taking 20 podcast, episode 282. An episode sponsored by user Grumpy Geek, giving GM some tips for using cults, as antagonists. I want to thank this week's sponsor,

wheat. Yes, that wonderful plant that makes bread. I can't stand being in a field of wheat. It turns out that wheat gives me a migraine. If you like this podcast, please follow, like, subscribe, and take a few seconds to comment on an episode. Every time you do, it feeds back into this

whatever mythical algorithm and increases the chance that someone else who would enjoy the podcast can find it. So, if you take a few seconds to do so, thank you. you so much. This episode comes courtesy of Grumpy Geek on my coffee, k0-fi.com slash Taking20 Podcast. They submitted the idea of weeks ago,

I'm just now getting around to it. My apologies for the delay. Your game, it's been going for a while. The PCs have been on the trail of a string of mysterious disappearances and murders. They finally reach a torchlit cave outside of town, and there are five mysterious figures in dark red robes. surrounding a floating, glowing stone, and they chant in some strange language none of you understand. At the edge of the torchlight, there are a dozen more people in gray robes.

Their heads bowed, chanting along with the leaders. As the party prepares to charge in to disrupt the ceremony, there's a hand on one of your shoulders and someone whispers your name. You look over and see your guild leader? His prayer interrupted and he stares at you in disbelief. Malakash, I didn't know you were a true believer. This simple job of breaking up a dark cult just got a lot more complicated. Today we're talking about cults and why they sometimes work and sometimes don't work as antagonists and how GMs can run them as antagonists for the party. Let me begin by saying to figure out how to use cults in a fantasy world,

I may use analogies from Earth simply because that's where all of us live, I think. we'll be discussing psychology, language of cults in a fantasy world, but may use earth situations as analogies to help an understanding. Cults, especially high-control cults, have caused very real harm to people in the past and present. My goal is purely to look at the mechanics of how and why these organizations operate so we can make more realistic versions of them in our games. In no way do I mean to offend anyone, make light of anyone's experiences, or target any specific groups.

This is a heavy, heavy topic, and if it is sensitive for you, please feel free to sit this episode out and take care of yourself. I would love to hear your thoughts, though, in the comments or directly from you, feedback at taking20 podcast.com. As I started to put the episode together, by the way, I recognize that the hardest question to answer needs to be defined first. How do you define a cult?

It's a trap to say that cults are easy to define. in a fantasy world because in most fantasy RPGs the gods are demonstrably real. They take active roles of the world. They have temples with regular, widely understood displays of power. They hand out spells to certain

worshippers. You can go to the temple and get healing, blessings, curses on your enemy for coins here and there. If there is a deity that grants boons and spells, it can't be a cult, right? Well, not necessarily. In certain

areas of the world, worship of evil deities may be considered cultish by the local larger region, the powers that be. So I'm going to paint with a very broad brush here so we can move on. Cults can be whatever you need them to be in your game world. Hell, in a mostly evil world, the worship of a good deity could be considered a cult. The local populace would think it's unusual or weird. Worship as evil deities or something like that, that can't be a defining figure of what a cult is. But cults do have a few things in common. Sure, you live in a town where Sarah and Ray

is the most popular goddess that's worshipped. You might get a visit from the high cleric asking why you left the church. You might get some sideways glances from people still going to that church, but that's probably going to be about it. You could always move away and people may never know and your leaving would probably soon be forgotten

by those in your old hometown. Leaving a cult, though, could result in you're being branded a pariah called an unbeliever or unclean by the local populace, maybe even prevented from purchasing goods and services of the local town. You might lose access to your family or friends or home as you're cast out from those who quote-unquote still believe. So a common feature of cults is isolation, sometimes physical, but definitely societal. cults tended to create an us versus them mentality where outsiders are viewed as threats, corrupt, ignorant, or anathema to the group at large. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to stop there, by the way.

Cults as antagonists should be isolationist and make it difficult to leave, maybe even short of death. Those two traits alone give you a wide variety of types of cults that you could run. Are the local populist true believers who will do anything for their beliefs, including die at the hands of the of the PCs who are trying to interfere? Or are they tragic victims who maybe want to leave the cult but are unable to do so for financial or maybe societal reasons? Or it could be anything in between those two extremes. There are a lot of cults in D&D and Pathfinder, the cult of the dragon, worshippers of Rovagug and countless others, but many times they aren't very satisfying as antagonists for your game. I think the single biggest reason why

cults fail or at least fall flat in our RPGs, is that they have absolutely no reason to exist. If your cult is just a collection of generic bad guys who wake up every morning deciding to be evil for the sake of being evil, your players are going to see right through it. It feels artificial. It feels like a video game mob spawn, not a living part of a world. For example, in Galerian, Rovagug is a creature that wants to consume all of creation, including the gods. A host of gods, good and evil, worked together to craft a prison for it. Lure it into that prison to be locked away

for all of eternity. Where is that prison, by the way? It's at the center of Galerian, the middle of the planet, where the core normally would be. I did an episode on Rovaggard, by the way, episode number 150. There'll be a link in the description

or if you're listening on YouTube, there'll be a card in the corner. Go give that a listen if you really want to know more about the rough beast or the unmaker. I love Rovogarting. Why in the hell, though, would anyone want to worship a monster that wants to destroy everything?

What's to be gained? Without an understanding of the cult, then the cult falls flat, empty. Feels like it's just there as a convenient foil to the PCs. To fix this, your cult needs a purpose. People don't join cults because they want to wear itchy robes and get stabbed by player characters. They join because the cult, offers them something the surrounding society does not. Think about the area the cult's operating in.

Is it plagued by extreme poverty? The cult might be the only group passing out hot meals, guaranteeing a roof over people's heads. Are the local authorities corrupt and abusive? The cult might offer a sense of justice, community, or physical protection for people that join it. Your cult needs a pitch. It needs to fill a gap in the RPG world.

When your players finally corner a low-level cultist, the NPC shouldn't sound like a cartoon villain. They should sound like someone who genuinely believes they found something that they desperately needed and they're not getting from the local authorities. And that's part of the interesting features we could discuss, the old bait and switch. They didn't know they were joining a group that's trying to end the world. They thought they were getting a discount at Buckees.

Editor Jeremy here, by the way, is for the first. For those who don't know, Buckees is a convenience store chain that is spreading in the U.S. It's known for its large number of gas pumps, wide variety of merchandise, and food options. Now, I'm not saying Buckees is a cult, but that giant smiling beaver is pretty charismatic and people do make 100-mile pilgrimages to one of the locations and emerge wearing the beaver's face on their, like, pajama bottoms. I will say that I don't think that Buckees is trying to destroy the world, but that brisket sandwich may make me overlook my concerns if that's their goal.

I better leave Buckees behind before I get sued. They joined this group for a promise of healing, help with their crops, justice for loved ones, and get roped into the more dangerous stuff down the line. So the cult needs a purpose or a goal. The members shouldn't just be hanging out in that cave waiting for a group of adventurers to come up and kick their teeth in. A good antagonistic cult is an active moving threat. what are they trying to achieve? And more importantly, why does it have to happen right now?

Maybe they're trying to summon a forgotten deity, overthrow the local baron, or hoard all the town's silver for some massive ritual. Whatever it is, that goal needs to put them in direct, urgent conflict with the world around them. Give, I mean, giving the cult a ticking clock and suddenly those faceless goons aren't just speed bumps anymore. they are a desperate, dangerous time bomb that the PCs need to diffuse quickly by any means necessary. Bad cults are just faceless goons and colored robes, anyone just like the other. They all have the same stats, and it gives the PCs no qualms about murdering them by the Baker's Dozen. But imagine if it's not just some faceless NPC cultist, but mid-battle the PCs recognized one of them as the local tavern owner, local Viscount, their butler. Now it personalizes the stakes and makes the PCs realize that

anyone could be a believer, even those they interact with regularly on a daily basis, or maybe even those they trust with their lives. They may even know in their heart of hearts that what they believe and what the cult is trying to accomplish is wrong. But to leave on their own volition, even if they could, see earlier discussion about cults being difficult to leave, they would have to be strong enough to admit that for the past days, weeks, months, whatever, they were conned, duped, bamboozled, baited into joining a group, and that they were wrong. Some of them would rather die than come face to face with that harsh, stark reality that they were conned or fooled. Some cultists can have a tragic justification for not leaving.

For example, maybe leaving the cult would mean that they were wrong, and everything that they gave up to join was in vain. No, no, it has to be real. Otherwise, they sacrificed my child for nothing. See? Now the cult just became a lot more interesting. It's not goon number 336. It's Maria from accounting who gave up her family and friends,

maybe even her own child, to support this cult that she originally joined for a brisket discount. Okay, far reaching, but you see where I'm going here. Colts need to have a public face and cults need to have a purpose in your game. Colts also have a unique way of speaking to one another and about the world around them. While researching this episode, by the way, I went down a couple of deep rabbit holes about cults and how they operate and that kind of thing. And I found a fascinating video by linguist Amanda Montel based on her book cultish. I'll put a link to the video I watched in description.

It is a fascinating discussion of cults and their phraseology. They have their own terms that reinforces staying in the cult. In that video, by the way, and I'm definitely oversimplifying this, please go watch it. Cult use cliches, catchy, easy-to-remember phrases that shut down outside challenges to beliefs. Deniers are but shadows, or doubt is the fruit of the unworthy. These phrases sound profound, especially at first of those who remembers the cult, but the phrases really actually mean nothing if you break them down in the clear-like, of not being brainwashed.

The purposes of these phrases include reinforcing membership of the group and identifying those who are outside of it. Speaking of phrases, by the way, cults will often have a derogatory term for those who aren't members of the cult, or worse, people who leave it. They are called the ignorati, the unworthy, the wanderers. They will speak derisively about these people

as if they have no value since they are no longer in the no, in the cult, in the group, what have you. Lastly, about words, before I move on, cults will often avoid using certain words or even replace them with others. They won't say that a member died, but they were transformed. Or to quote the movie Logan's Run, they were renewed. Stealing from non-members, for example, may not even be called theft. It's called reclamation.

In extreme examples where cults of Cthulhu and other deities warp the flesh of the believers, they may buy in more and more. They will say that the aberrant, horrible-looking version of themselves that they get transformed into with tentacles for arms and weeping blood for hair is their true self shining through for the lessors to witness. I've been using evil cults a lot, but for clarity, cults aren't always blood sacrifices and virgins strapped to stones. Sometimes they are psychologically manipulative, destruction of the mind, the ego, the self is their focus. They are simple manipulators, whether through magical spells or simple charisma that changes a follower's beliefs to align with those of the cult as a whole. Something I just thought of while recording this would be a direct statement that it is powerful to belong to something bigger than yourself. Being a member of a group, even if it's a destructive cult, can have its allure because there's a built-in acceptance and commonality there.

God, I do not have time to peel this onion right now, and it's a topic I'm going to leave to you to explore. But people may be afraid to leave a cult and be willing to commit depraved, desperate acts just to feel like that they're part of a collective. So you've designed a cult for your game that uses charismatic manipulation to accomplish its purpose. You've decided who from the local area are publicly or privately members of this cult. The nickel question is, how do you reveal the cult to the PCs? In short, my tip is that cult should be revealed slowly and in stages. Don't just dump all the information about the cult at once so that the PCs discover it all in one session. That leads to a less than satisfactory gaming experience and definitely not an optimal way to use a cult in your game.

Cults usually have, I'm going to call them tears. And the best way to reveal them is via those tears. So let's assume this is a cult of demon worshippers. and the worship of this particular demon is illegal in this area of the world. This cult may have a public-facing aspect I'll call Tier 1. The public-facing entity could even be a legitimate company or provide beneficial services similar to the way gangster Al Capone had soup kitchens during the Great Depression.

The soup kitchens boosted Capone's reputation. Meanwhile, crimes were being committed behind the scenes and the kitchens served as potential recruitment centers for his crime organization. This demon-worshipping cult, you know what, let's make it dark, operates an animal shelter in the region of the world that is overrun with pets, too many pets for the local populace to support. The shelter promises to ship some surplus pets to other areas of the continent where they can be adopted.

At least that's the message they give the public. The public utilizes the free service when their pets, whether mundane or magical, have offspring. This charity takes the extra animals off their hands, maybe even pays them for the pets, making the family a little money and allowing the family to reduce the number of mouths they need to feed. In reality, maybe the cult is performing animal sacrifices or something similarly nefarious. The PCs meet Velvet Moon, the proprietess of the Bark House Shelter who recruits the PCs to travel to a nearby town to establish connections with the locals to give the shelter another possible place to ship pets to.

What's interesting is that the people working at the false front may not even know they're supporting this nefarious organization in the background. They're just trying to accomplish the mission of the company that's the false front. Feeding people, operating thrift stores, taking care of animals, what have you. They even may be blissfully unaware of what's going on. Meanwhile, behind the false front, there's a group of initiates, low-level grunts in the cult who know some of the purposes of the cult, but they aren't in the inner circle. These could be managers like Velvet Moon who knows that the contacts the PC make in the next town

will be recruited into the worship of the demon who demands animal sacrifice. This tier two of cult members knows maybe some of the nefarious things being done. Maybe they're thugs, maybe they're evil, or have committed so much to the cause that to even get this low level, they can't bear the thought of losing

what they've given up to join the organization. When revealing this tier to the players, by the way, the goal is to give them just, maybe just a touch of paranoia. It's great to have someone the PCs know and trust be revealed to be part of the cult at this Tier 2 level. The PCs have worked with Velvet Moon for months, saving puppies and kittens and baby gelatinous cubes and whatever. They're being sent to the farm upstate to live out the rest of their lives, right? The puppies, by the way, not the PCs. There's not a farm upstate where the PCs get to run and frolic with their friends all day. Anyway, a tier two person may help run that false front and be the perceived leader of to the outside world.

Behind this tier two, though, are the true believers. These are the people who know a lot of the nefarious crap going on and they're okay with it. They participate in whatever crimes the cult is perpetrating, whatever is needed. They know the false front is just that and both actively deceive and recruit potential non-believers to the cult. In a pyramid, these Tier 3 believers may even be handlers or leaders over multiple Tier 2 individuals or groups. And then finally, there's the inner circle. Those who benefit the most may even harbor secrets the true believers don't even know about. And they are the most committed to the cult.

They are manipulative, possibly charismatic, higher level, definitely dangerous. These inner circle members may directly control dozens and, indirectly control hundreds of followers that are willing to do whatever they command, even die, should it be necessary. All this to say is that I have some tips if you want to use cults as your antagonistic organization in your campaign. First off, as I mentioned, cults should be revealed slowly and likely in stages. At first, they think maybe the kidnappings are the work of a deranged individual

who spouts nonsense phrases about the maw that swallows all. They find the person, put them in jail, and that's that, right? Oh, right. Job well done, everybody. We're done. Wrong. Maybe a few nights later, there's a murder with a message scrawled into the victim's blood that the maw is coming or the maw sees your sins. Something that gives a hint that maybe it wasn't just that one crazy person.

They'll go back to the prison because they want to interview them, but they aren't available. They've broken out. They were murdered or something similar. Was the second murder just a copycat killing? Or is there something much bigger going on? Signs point them to a tavern at the edge of town where they meet the family who owns and operates it. They mention that they might have heard strange things in the night

and their herd of cows have been acting really strangely when the sun goes down. The party agrees to guard the herd and fend-offs. Maybe it's a strangely aggressive attack by wolves. Upon examining the bodies, they see the wolves are mutated. Their eyes and snouts just aren't quite right, enlarged in asymmetric ways or teeth just too big for their mouths. Sorry, I've actually been playing a lot of call of Cthulhu lately. Those kinds of descriptions are fresh in my mind. The family thanks the PCs for their help, and maybe here's where you drop a linguistic hint.

Something isn't quite right. The daughter says maw instead of teeth or snout. Later that night, the tavern is absolutely packed, but not lively. It's like the regulars are waiting for something, and you know behind the screen that something is for the PCs to leave so the cult meeting can start. The PCs observe people leaving in small group, heading various directions into the town. Could be completely harmless, or they could be going to do whatever it is the cult's doing around town, scouting future areas for bases, observing areas for possible victims, that type of thing. The PCs finally get a solid clue about a future attack, reports of people hanging around,

watching, not buying anything at the market. Then they fend off the attack and find a note about the meeting, which is located at, you guessed it, the tavern at the edge of town. They infiltrate the cult to discover that the family leads a group of worshippers of a demon who wants to consume the world, rovagug if you're on Galerian, and now the cult is revealed. But the question still remains. How do the PCs stop an organization that is dozen strong

might have the blessings of a destroyer God and contains members the PCs have trusted in the past. That is up to you, my beloved DMs out there, and however you want to use that cult you've just built for your game. This was a primitive and completely off-the-cuff example, and with a little thought and planning, you can put together an organization that serves as a campaign-level antagonist for the PCs. By the way, if you want some inspiration for cults,

it just so happens that a user on Reddit called Level Distrategor. distribution 46, created a secret society cult generator. I'll put a link in the description of the episode. It's actually really neat for coming up for ideas. Go check that generator out. Tip number two. Cults can be as easy or difficult to remove as you need them to be for your game. Here's what I mean. If your cult has multiple levels or tiers, if you remove one lieutenant or tier one or tier two or hierophant or whatever the low level controllers are called, there could be another one just ready to step in and take its place. Lots of people are climbers by nature and there's a power void they're going to try to rise to fill it. They may be worse or better at their

job, but they want that position anyway. So if you need a cult to be resilient, that's one way to handle it. There's always someone willing to step into the dead man's shoes and take over their leadership role. However, some cults are cults of personality, where it's the charisma of one person, one being that keeps the cult together at all. Once the leader is arrested or slain or leaves or what have you, the cult just falls apart. You know, the old cut the head off the snake and the body will die kind of thing.

So the entire adventure could revolve around finding out who the real leader is and sending them to prison or to meet the great Cthulhu in the sky, whatever it is for your campaign world. Tip number three on cults. Consider what would happen if the cult wasn't just a fringe group with weird beliefs operating in secret against the rule of law? What if that cult was integrated to the power of the local area? Government or business leaders can legitimize the cult's practices

either openly or covertly, or maybe they force the police to turn a blind eye to cult activities? That would make for a much different dynamic as the PCs are working not just against the cult, but may become wanted individuals for trying to root out the cult at all. Final tip, and I can't emphasize this enough. What makes a cult a great antagonist is the uncertainty. At low levels, sure, the party finds the low-level initiates

and with one controlling person who turns out to be barely above them in the cult, as you reveal more about the cult of the PCs, it should start to elicit uncertainty or maybe even full-on paranoia as they realize they don't know how far these tendrils spread, how integrated this cult is, who the followers are, and they all of a sudden realize that they're facing an opponent that is much more dangerous than they initially realized. Colts can be a lot of fun to run from behind the screen, as long as they're not just generic villains who all wear the same uniform and are indistinguishable from one another. Give the cult a purpose, give it tears, maybe even a legitimate front that most of the world knows about, and the secret organization operating behind the scenes.

Have the PCs know some of the members so they're surprised when they get the roster of cult members. Reveal the cult slowly and make the leaders charismatic, powerful, and dangerous. If you do all of that, I'd be willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it. Grumpy Geek, I hope this was interesting and enlightening, and I hope this answered the bell to the topic that you wanted to cover. Thank you so much for the topic idea. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any comments.

Thank you to everyone who listened. If you have topic ideas, send them to me. Ideally, with a donation to my coffee, K-O-dash-Fi.com slash taking-20 podcast, or you can email it to me. Feedback at taking20podcast.com. Or you can find me on social media. Links are down into the description.

Tune in next time when I'm going to go back to basics a little bit for my beloved DMs out there, when and how to say no to players. But before I go, I again want to thank our sponsor, Wheat. I tried to interview someone who grows wheat, but I couldn't find any. Turns out there were barley any to find. This has been episode 282, giving some tips about running cults.

My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 podcast is Copyright 2026 by Jeremy Shelley. The opinions or views expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the host. references to game system content are copyright their respective publishers.