by Chris Williams & Sandy Petersen

withShannon Appel, Kerie Campbell,

Jacqueline Clegg, Scott Clegg, Phil Frances,Keith Herber, Susan Hutchinson, Lynn Willis

Additional Material by Scott David Aniolowski,

Larry DiTillio, Jeff Okamoto, Kevin A. Ross

Art by Raymond Bayless, Paul Carrick, Jason Eckhardt,

Steve Gallacci, Earl Geier, Andy Hopp, Kevin Ramos,

Mark Roland, Carolyn Schultz-Savoy

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Chaosium is Lynn Willis, Charlie Krank,Dustin Wright, Fergie & various odd critters

2004

Fifth Edition

20 – To the Gate of Deeper Slumber

The following essay takes a close look at Randolph Carter’s epic Dream-Quest. It provides anintroductory overview of many of the people, places, and things which are examined in detaillater in the book. Important uses of terms are listed in a bold font, once per page, to increaseclarity. This essay is not meant to be just a retelling of the story The Dream-Quest ofUnknown Kadath. There are portions of this essay which will gloss over or omit certainevents. The reader is encouraged to find and read the stories upon which this essay is based. Afull listing appears in the bibliography of this book.

In his dreams, Randolph Carter had seen a city more marvelous than any he had everknown. He prayed to the gods to reveal to him the way to this city, but his visions

stopped. He resolved to seek out the gods in their abode high atop Kadath and confrontthem with his petition. Thus began perhaps the greatest quest ever undertaken by one ofEarth’s dreamers. Randolph Carter was a young man, and had traveled somewhat in theDreamlands. The journey he was about to undertake would take him to almost every cor-ner of that fanciful realm in his search for Kadath, the home of the gods.

Like so many other Earthly dreamers, Carter entered the Dreamlands by descendingthe Seventy Steps of Lighter Slumber to the Cavern of Flame. Here Carter sought theguidance of the two priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah. Nasht and Kaman-Thah are thehigh priests of the Great Ones, or the Elder Ones, as the gods of the Dreamlands are var-iously known. Although they are only priests, they are sometimes worshiped in theDreamlands as gods themselves. They reside in their cavern-temple and act to protectmen’s dreams from the nightmares which inhabit the Dreamlands, to keep humanityfrom despoiling the lands of fancy, and to serve as a conduit for prayers which are mis-takenly directed to them.

Nasht and Kaman-Thah are very knowledgeable regarding the Dreamlands, but theyare not known to leave their cavern-temple. They are generally helpful to dreamers seek-ing entrance to the Dreamlands, but dreamers are advised to be respectful when dealingwith these two. They are fully capable of defending themselves should the need arise. Nocreature of nightmare would dare approach their abode, for the presence of a flaming pil-lar keeps them away. In the direst of emergencies the priests may evoke the Elder Godsthemselves for protection. If this should become necessary the pillar will come to life andsmite any foe who should menace its priests.

Carter passed by the priests, and journeyed onward. Leading down from the cavernare seven hundred steps which lead to the Gate of Deeper Slumber. Dreamers

whom Nasht and Kaman-Thah do not refuse will be allowed to descend these steps andenter the Dreamlands. This gate opens into the eastern portion of the Enchanted Wood.

This wood is the primary home of the zoogs. Zoogs are small, brown, rodent-likecreatures with a small cluster of tentacles at the end of their snouts. They are very curi-ous creatures and wander over much of the Dreamlands collecting secrets which theythen tell to each other over their hearth fires as entertainment. This means that they areexcellent sources of information concerning most of the Dreamlands. The trick is gettingthe information out of them. They also seem capable of entering the Waking World, forthe Enchanted Wood is known to intersect with it at no fewer than two points. Further,they are able to, from time to time, slip past Nasht and Kaman-Thah and enter men’sdreams. Why they should wish to do so is a mystery.

TThhee DDrreeaamm--QQuueesstt ooffRRaannddoollpphh CCaarrtteerrA travelogue of the Dreamlands,introducing and examining many

of the people and placesfound therein.

Zoogs are carnivorous, and many an unwary dreamer has entered the EnchantedWood and never emerged. Zoogs are intelligent creatures and have a society of their own.They gather together in small communities which, if they were inhabited by men, wouldbe called villages.

Although they are capable of manipulating small objects with their forepaws they donot use weapons or have a written language. Zoogs are capable of understanding some ofthe language of mankind as spoken in the Dreamlands, but they also have their owntongue, which can be best described as a kind of fluttering sound. Some dreamers, likeRandolph Carter, have learned this language and even made treaties with the Zoogs. Thezoogs harbor a great deal of resentment toward the cats of Ulthar owing to their recentmilitary defeat at the paws of the cats.

AA fter consulting with the zoogs, Carter headed westward toward the Skai RiverValley and the town of Ulthar. With him, he took a gourd of the zoogs’ best moon

wine, and a small escort of furtive and curious zoogs.

The River Skai has its headwaters in the high valley of Mynanthra, which liesbetween the peaks of Lerion and Dlareth. After descending from the high valley, the riverwinds its way through the fertile valley which bears its name. Along its banks are thetowns of Nir, Ulthar, Hatheg, and a number of smaller farming communities. Togetherthis area is the Kingdom of the Skai. Each of the towns is run by a burgomaster and acouncil of burgesses. The three towns are free to make their own laws and govern theirown affairs, but they are all under the rule of the King of the Skai.

The King of the Skai is not a true King, as is King Kuranes of Celephaïs. The Kingof the Skai is primarily an administrative office which oversees the collection of taxes forthe good of the whole region, and he may make decisions which affect the region as awhole. Taxes are used to maintain militias, enforce laws, and provide against times offamine or drought. The King can also, as did King Pnil of Ulthar, muster the armedforces of the Valley if necessary. Although not a true king, the King of the Skai is accord-ed the same respect as are other kings. The Skai River Valley is counted as one of the SixKingdoms—the other five being Ilek-Vad, Ooth-Nargai and Serannian, the Kingdom ofOukranos, the Khalifate of Cuppar-Nombo, and the Principalities of Kled—althoughsome of the other kings consider the King of the Skai to be the “poor relation” in thefamily of kings.

The King of the Skai is chosen from among the burgomasters, who in turn are cho-sen from the burgesses. Each king reigns for life, and upon his passing the burgesses ofall three towns convene in Ulthar at the Temple of the Elder Ones. They then decidewhich of the three burgomasters will be the next king. Once chosen, the king is crownedby Atal the High Priest of the temple. He then chooses where he will hold his court.Traditionally, a king will locate his court in the town of which he was recently burgo-master, but he may choose to locate his court anywhere within the Valley of the Skai.

TT raveling through the Kingdom of the Skai, Carter soon came to the town of Nir.After crossing the Skai River via Nir’s great stone bridge, he entered the town of

Ulthar. Picking his way through the cats that filled the streets, Carter sought out Atal,said to know more about the Great Ones than any other.

In a flower-festooned shrine atop the Temple of the Elder Ones resides the HighPriest Atal. Atal has lived in Ulthar since he was a child and, at over 300 years old, is stillvery keen of mind and memory. He is a kindly soul who is helpful to dreamers engagedin worthy endeavors, and knows a great deal about all the Dreamlands, including muchwhich is secret. He spoke with Lothron the Necromancer, the only man ever to enter andreturn from ‘Ygiroth, and wrote down what Lothron saw there before his strange disap-pearance. He is also the only man in the Dreamlands to have deciphered the glowingglyphs in the Fourth Book of D’harsis.

From the Enchanted Wood to Ulthar — 21

22 — On the Cats of Ulthar

Atal was a boy when the Ulthar burgesses passed the town law forbidding the killingof cats. This law was passed after an unfortunate incident involving a terrible old couplewho lived in Ulthar and a group of wanderers known as the Dark People, who used tovisit Ulthar every year. The burgesses of the time consulted Barzai the Wise, who was verylearned in the ways of the gods. As Atal grew older he became the apprentice of Barzai,and began to learn what he could of the gods from him. When Barzai, in his pride,thought to climb Mount Hatheg-Kla in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the gods as theydanced atop that peak, Atal went with him. Only Atal returned from the trip telling thatBarzai had been dragged screaming into the sky by the Other Gods, who are known towatch over the Great Ones.

Afterward Atal came into possession of the Book of Barzai, which is filled with all theknowledge Barzai accumulated over his life. Atal still has this tome but is reluctant toallow others to see it, for it was the knowledge within that drove Barzai to scale Hatheg-Kla. Despite his great fondness for his former mentor, Atal has never been persuaded topray for the soul of his lost comrade. He knows that such prayers would be in vain.

The temple library also contains copies of the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the SevenCryptical Books of Hsan. Atal is happy to allow visitors to consult these tomes, but he isvery tight-lipped with information which he considers to be dangerous. However, Atalcan be plied with strong drink to reveal that which he would not otherwise say.

Randolph Carter used the wine of the zoogs to loosen Atal’s tongue, and learned ofthe face carved on the southern slope of Mt. Ngranek on the island of Oriab.

Carter knew that the gods often took the shape of men in order to move among them,and to mate with beautiful women. He believed that if he could determine what the fea-tures of the gods were, then by looking for an area where those features were commonamong the residents he would have found an area close to the home of the gods: Kadathin the Cold Wastes.

As Carter left Atal’s presence, he noted that his escort of curious zoogs had finallydisappeared. Most strangely, the cats of Ulthar were licking their chops and cleaningthemselves.

Cats in the Dreamlands are not simply pets or wild animals as they are in the WakingWorld. Cats, much like the zoogs, have their own society. Ulthar is the center of cat soci-ety, but they have no single leader. Rather each town is treated as its own clan, and eachhas a patriarch of its cats. These old cats are wise creatures who have served for long yearsin the armies of the cats and are now too old or wounded to continue to serve in the field.They have settled down and brought their experiences of the wide Dreamlands home tohelp guide the younger cats as they grow. The patriarch of Celephaïs, a dignified Maltese,is the wisest of all the patriarchs, and has lived for over 250 years.

All cats must serve for a period of time in the armies of their kind, but there is no setperiod of time that a hitch must last. One campaign in the field is usually the minimumrequirement, but it may last as long as the individual cat desires.

Cats have their own language, which they have taught to select humans on occasion.Cats are capable of moving between the Waking World and the Dreamlands, just as aremen. Cats are wise enough to know better than to try and enter the Dreamlands physi-cally, however. The fact that cats can enter the Dreamlands in the same way as humandreamers means that they can keep track of how dreamers behave in the Waking World.Only investigators who are known to be kind to cats in the Waking World and theDreamlands will gain the confidence of these creatures and can learn their tongue. It is agreat honor to be befriended by the Dreamlands’ cats, for they know much of theDreamlands and are strong allies.

When the new moon rises over Ulthar, all the cats become curiously absent. It isrumored by the town’s residents that this is because the cats travel to the moon to frol-ic and cavort. This is in fact the case. Individual cats are quite capable of leaping off of

From Ulthar to Dylath-Leen — 23

the rooftops of houses and landing on the moon. If a great number of cats all make theleap as a group, they are even capable of taking dreamers with them, both to and fromthe moon.

Cats can be found throughout the length and breadth of the Dreamlands except forthe cold northern lands near Inquanok. The cats say it is because the folk of that landhave a certain unearthliness to them, and that the land holds certain shadows which nocat can endure. These shadows are not the sort which can be seen by men; they are cre-ated by that which lies restlessly sleeping beneath the House of the Worm near Vornai onthe Plain of Kaar. No cats may be found in these lands, which is a great cause of sadnessamong its residents.

While generally peaceful, the cats are usually involved in some sort of conflict withtheir various enemies which include the zoogs, the moonbeasts who inhabit the dark sideof the moon, the strange cats from Saturn who sometimes also come to Earth’s moonand who are allied with the moonbeasts, the chimeras of the deserts beyond distant Gak,and the red-footed wamps who frequent the cemeteries of the Dreamlands. Of all theseenemies, the only one which the cats truly fear are the cats from Saturn.

Currently the cats have an uneasy peace with the zoogs, owing to their holding ofhostages taken from the various zoog noble houses after a preemptive assault on the zoogsin the Enchanted Wood. This assault came as a result of Randolph Carter overhearingthe zoogs planning to attack the cats, in retaliation for the cats having eaten the youngzoogs who followed Carter into Ulthar. The hostages are being held in the Temple ofCats. Furthermore, the zoogs must make a tribute of grouse, quail, and pheasants to thecats in recognition of the cat’s victory.

By caravan, Randolph Carter traveled to Dylath-Leen. For six days he rode thesmooth road that runs alongside the Skai River, passing fishing villages and green

countryside along the way. Here, he hoped to take a ship to Baharna, a port just two day’szebra ride from Mt. Ngranak on the isle of Oriab.

Dylath-Leen is the greatest port in the Dreamlands. Ships from every land berththere, including many thought to be from beyond the Earth.

Among those ships thought not to originate on Earth are the black galleys. Theseships have three banks of oars which move both vigorously and accurately, enabling themto move most swiftly across the seas. What manner of crew they may have belowdecks isa matter of great speculation—for whenever one of these ships puts into port, only ahandful of merchants come ashore to trade for gold and for slaves, which they purchaseby the pound. However, given the disturbing nature of the merchants themselves, per-haps it is best that the crews remain unseen. The stench which the black galleys bringwith them is enough to spread through the entire city, causing every shop and householdto burn strong incense and thag-weed to ward off the odor. Were it not for the fact thatthese ships bear cargoes of rubies unlike any to be found in the Dreamlands, they wouldundoubtedly not be tolerated in Dylath-Leen. As it stands, the fact that Dylath-Leen hasanything at all to do with these ships has given the city something of an ill reputationamong the people of the Skai River Valley.

What little is known of the merchants is that they have a very unnatural appearanceto them; their mouths are too wide for any wholesome men, and their shoes are mostcurious—the shortest slippers that anyone has ever seen, as if the wearers walked on theirtoes. Worst of all is the uncouth fashion in which their turbans are humped up in twospots in the front, just above their foreheads. The clothes that they wear are made of thefinest silks, embroidered with shocking designs which are well not to stare at for too long.Their speech is a hushed and furtive sort of whisper which makes one feel that they areconstantly plotting something.

The Other Gods have many agents moving among the Dreamlands. Some are fullyhuman and others are not. They all eagerly work, hoping to gain the favor of

1Cults of Freeport

sinister secrets of the city of adventure

Design: Steve Darlington, Jody Macgregor, Robert J. Schwalb, Dan White, and Chris Williams

Editing: Scott Haring Development: Robert J. Schwalb Proofreading: Tim Emerick

Art Direction and Graphic Design: Hal Mangold

Cover Art: Tyshan Carey Cartography: Andy Law, Sean MacDonald

Interior Art: Toren “Macbin” Atkinson, Nick Greenwood, David Griffith, Danila Guida, Britt Martin, Michael Phillippi, Mike Vilardi

Publisher and Freeport Creator: Chris Pramas

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Cults of Freeport is © 2007 Green Ronin Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Reference to other copyrighted material in no way constitutes a challenge to the respective copyright

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Chapter VII The Society of the Velvet Whip

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Torn from her home dimension by the destruction of the Valossan Empire, Lowyatar is the Mistress of Pain. Dedicated to

teaching the intelligent beings of the world the sublime joys of inflicting and enduring agony, she seeks to seduce rather than force. Driven underground by various religious inquisitions, her followers have formed the Society of the Velvet Whip to perpetuate her ways and teachings, and spread the word to the faithful. Operating in secret, the Society lures those who already have a taste for the delights Lowyatar has to offer, and to show them how much more pain there is to enjoy. When the numbers of the faithful have swelled to legion and they have pleased their Mistress with their devotions, then she will reveal her grand design unto them; and even the gods will know what it is to feel pain.

lowYaTar: The bringer of PainfUl delighTs

Far from the temperate environs of the Serpent’s Teeth, there lies a harsh and frozen land. It is a land of dark and brooding forests, wind-swept tundra, and ice-capped mountains. Bleak are the people of this realm, and bleaker still are their gods. Gods of ice and fire, thunder and blood. Not lightly are they prayed to, for their blessings are oft-disguised curses.

From these savage peoples comes Lowyatar—daughter of the Goddess of Death and The All Father. Born of the

primal forces of Life and Death, she stands between the two. Filled with the indifference of her father for his creations and the hunger of her mother for their souls, Lowyatar was told by her father that Life was his gift to men, and what they did with it was up to them. She was told by her mother Life was full of pain and suffering, and she would relieve them of that through Death. Lowyatar reasoned if Life was a gift, it was something to be savored and enjoyed, and the only difference between Life and the oblivion of Death was pain and suffering. Therefore, to truly revel in Life, one must revel in pain and suffering, and to enjoy and savor such things was the highest form of existence. Men, she observed, seemed not to know this.

She would teach them.Lowyatar appears as a beautiful woman with flowing

pale blonde hair, piercing ice blue eyes, and a curvaceous, athletic body with long limbs. Her garb varies, depending upon her whim and the effect she wishes to have upon those she “graces” with her presence. Sometimes she wears a diaphanous gauze-like gown of gossamer, and other times she is clad in skin-tight leather.

dogma

Lowyatar teaches her adherents the joys of pain: the elation of inflicting it, and the ecstasy of receiving it.

- ChaPTer Vii -The soCieTY of The

VelVeT whiP

“The daughter of blind Tuoni,Fairest of Uko’s children,Worst of all the death-land women,Is lovely and cruel Lowyatar.Delighting in Her cruelties,Inflicting Her cruel delights,From the fields of sin and sorrow,Unto the world of mortal flesh.Cringe, Oh Man,Ask not Her blessings,Nor seek you Her sight,Long you for Her caresses,Yearning for Her touch.Strong the hand which wields Her lash,Stronger still, the back which endures it.”

—Excerpt from T he Fragments of Midgard

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Pain, she teaches, is a delicacy that must be savored, and like a fine wine, if indulged too much, the senses become dulled. Suffering must be tempered with mercy—capriciously—to better kindle the subject’s hope and increase his anguish. Man is afraid of pain. He must be coaxed to it, seduced to its dark embrace. Therefore, Lowyatar teaches her worshipers to act alluringly, to seek out those things in life man most covets and hold them before his eyes: wealth, power, the pleasures of the flesh. Draw your subject to pain’s dark embrace. Make him yearn for it, ache for it, beg for it. Dole out torment and suffering to those who desire it as well as to those who deserve it, or those would be hurt most by it. But remember, punishment becomes meaningless if the punisher knows no restraint. Relentless cruelty only serves to turn all people against you.

Pain is a test, but it endows the worthy and the faithful with strength of spirit and true pleasure. Fire, ice, and the lash: these are the tools of bodily suffering. Properly administered, they never fail the devout.

But the highest forms of cruelty, the subtlest forms of suffering can only be drawn out by understanding your subject. Guile, subterfuge, and knowledge: these are the tools of mental suffering. Only the most dedicated worshipers truly master these arts and they please Lowyatar most.

riTes & riTUals

Lowyatar’s followers don’t pray to their goddess. They demonstrate their devotion to their divine Mistress’ teachings by engaging in them. Members are expected to partake of the delights at the Crimson Weal at least once a week (although the services are free for Society members), but may attend as often as they like. The closest the Society comes to an actual worship session falls on the night of every full moon. All the members gather in the main hall of the Weal. The assembled group removes all clothes and dons simple masks, so everyone appears much the same as everyone else. After a brief invocation to Lowyatar, the lights are dimmed and the group falls upon itself in a revelry of abandon in which all members—including the leadership—are equal, and each may use or be used as he or she desires.

Each year, on the anniversary of the emancipation of the Mazin slaves, the cult gathers for a reading from the Book of the Nine Tales of the Cat. This annual event is also followed by an orgy of painful delights as described above. For some time after Leanna assumed the position of Mistress, this observance was forgone due to the cult’s lack of access to their copy of the Book. It has since been resumed, with the readings becoming recitations of passages from Gulimar’s memory.

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CUlT hisTorYAmong some scholars, it’s believed that the known

world is formed from many and disparate planes, gathered up by the Primal God Yig in his bid to create a new reality, to bring order to the chaotic soup of creation. Evidence of Yig’s hunger and conquest can be found throughout the legendary lands of the Freeport world, from such far-flung lands as Hamanuptra, to the mysterious isles where the power of the mind rivals the arcane masters of the Continent. One by one, these worlds, these realities, gave up a portion of themselves to appease the snake-god, and through it, a great many and diverse peoples came together in this patchwork realm.

Of the many planes touched by Yig’s scales, a distant realm known as Midgard, a world formed by the will of the All Father, proved to be resilient to Yig’s demands. As Yig slithered through the primordial soup of creation, his coils wound around the All Father’s realm, where Yig became known as the Midgard Serpent. The two gods struggled long and hard over the plane, but affairs stood in balance for eons, at least until the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign summoned the Unspeakable One.

With the shattering of the minds of the serpent folk and the destruction of Valossa, Yig was wracked with incalculable pain. In his agony, his coils tightened around Midgard, and crushed the realm into fragments that were swept away into the myriad realities of the universe. Buffeted by the destruction of her home realm, and stunned by the death throes of her parents, Lowyatar clung to one of these fragments like a mariner to a piece of his wrecked ship. Eventually, her fragment of Midgard came to rest near the shores of the World of Freeport, and she dragged herself into a new world full of life awaiting her teachings.

Slowly she reached out to the beings of this new world and found that they were very much like those of Midgard, afraid of, yet easily seduced to her ways. As she roamed across the face of her new home, she encountered the azhar. Perhaps due to the efreet blood running in their veins, she found the Kizmiri to be fertile ground for her seeds of wisdom. To her high priest, Ahamed ibn Hassim ibn Alhazred, she dictated the tenets of her faith that Alhazred compiled into the dreaded book, the Felomelonicon.

Alhazred himself was killed during the First War of the Southern Sea, and his work was supposedly lost. But a few years later Torquemada Aristede, a scholar from Tagmata, published a work known as the Book of The Nine Tales of the Cat—his translation of the Felomelonicon from the azhari tongue into the more common vernacular of humanity.

Aristede’s origins are clouded in mystery, as no record of his existence can be found prior to the publication of this work. It is widely assumed he was a scholar who fled the Inquisition of Hexworth for safer climates to the south. Unfortunately, his work was quickly deemed to be one of darkness by the church of Tagmata. All known copies of his book were seized, and used to fuel the pyre on which he was burned alive by the servants of light.

But the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, and adherents of Lowyatar went underground and formed a secret cult: the Society of the Velvet Whip. They perpetuate the worship and teachings of Lowyatar. Rumors long persisted of surviving copies of the Book of The Nine Tales, but if any survived the flames, they were well hidden from both the priests of Tagmata and the Inquisitors of Hexworth.

One of the Freeporters taken as a slave by the city-state of Mazin was Emmanuelle Telfer. Emmanuelle was sold to a cruel master and devotee of Lowyatar, Rosahn Kobahr. He subjected her to many cruelties, and ultimately seduced her to the dark joys of his mistress. As the Freeport-Mazin War was ending, Kobahr, also in hiding from the Hexworth Inquisition, entrusted all his knowledge to his former slave, now apprentice, Emmanuelle, and sent her home to Freeport with the rest of the freed slaves. As Emmanuelle sailed back to Freeport, the Inquisitors who had finally tracked him to his lair burned her master’s home. With her, Emmanuelle took what she thought to be the sole surviving copy of the Book of Nine Tales and the future of the Society.

Emmanuelle returned home to Freeport, but found it hard to return to normal life after her existence in Mazin. Her family, once a small but up and coming trade house of the Merchants’ Quarter, had been swallowed up by a rival house while her father had lent his ships to the war effort with Mazin. Penniless, she used her feminine wiles to reestablish herself in Freeport society by marrying one Victor St-Martin. After the birth of their daughter—Leanna—Victor died and left all his monies to Emmanuelle. She used a portion of her wealth to establish the Crimson Weal, a house catering to the more depraved desires of the patrons of Dreaming Street. Here, she slowly began to seek out new recruits for the Society, and to prepare Leanna to one day assume the mantle of leadership.

Now the cult survives on both the revenues of the St-Martin trading company and the profit generated by the Crimson Weal’s commercial front, and grows, slowly, under the watchful eye of Leanna. Emmanuelle passed away during the rule of Anton Drac, some 16 years ago. Her copy of the Book of The Nine Tales is now lost, as she did not pass along the secret of its resting place to her

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daughter and heir, Leanna, before her death. And so the cult forges ahead into the uncertain future, doing its very best to support and understand the grim teachings of their wicked goddess.

organizaTionThe Society is organized into a simple hierarchy with

three basic levels: the laity, the flagellants, and the Masters/Mistresses. Each level is subservient to those above it in all ways. Members are equal in rank to those of the same level, except at the top. There will always be both Master and Mistress, and one is always superior to the other. In Freeport, that would be the Mistress. Currently in Freeport, there are 50 members of the laity, ten flagellants, one Master, and one Mistress.

membershiP

Under the direction of Emmanuelle, the cult’s membership was primarily drawn from patrons of the Crimson Weal; members of Freeport’s well-to-do who were able to afford to go “slumming” in Scurvytown to satisfy their cravings for pain. Leanna has swelled the cult’s numbers by reaching out into Freeport to seek out like-minded folk to join.

The bulk of the members in the Society are still drawn from Freeport’s upper classes—rich from the Merchants’ or Eastern Districts, and powerful from the Old City. Not just the jaded elite of the city, but wizards and scholars whose researches would be censured by their peers have found a welcome home in the Society—vivisectionists, demonologists, and outcast priests.

Now more of the laity of the cult is being drawn from the masses of the city. Bloodsalt, in particular, has proven to be an area ripe for the plucking. Now known in the Society as Lowyatar’s Crucible, Bloodsalt typifies the teachings of Lowyatar in regards to life being full of pain and suffering, and those who can endure and, indeed, learn to savor these tests are worthy of Lowyatar’s favor.

sYmbols and signs

Originally, Lowyatar’s followers used a cat-o-nine-tails as their symbol, but as itl became too readily associated with the cult and only served to identify its members to the Inquisition and other cult enemies, the symbol has changed. Currently in vogue are symbols of cats—cat-shaped jewelry, patterns on clothes, tattoos, or cats themselves. As most members are either a “lash” or “back,” symbols are worn on one side or the other to denote which: right for “lash,” left for “back.”