Cult of the World Maker - Factions & Adversaries
Header Image: Princes of the Apocalypse, 2015 Wizards of the Coast
This post provides information on the Cult of the World Maker, a cult dedicated to the primordial known as Mudanco from the world of Talia. This cult, though, can exist in any world where beings of elemental might have once touched upon it. If there are no primordials in your setting, then Mudanco can be a powerful deity of evil elemental might, someone who controls not only earth and fire but wind and water as well.
Introduction
Mudanco, the World Maker, is a powerful primordial whose power is as chaotic as the elemental maelstrom that exists at the edges of the elemental planes. They are one of the very rare primordials whose power doesn’t come from a single element but all of them. With this might, Mudanco was feared by not just primordials, but by the gods as well for the primordial could make or destroy worlds in the void between worlds, causing galactic-sized devastation with a whim. It wasn’t long before Mudanco had made enemies with the gods, and even a few primordials. When Mudanco tried to destroy the world of Talia, attempting to wipe the infestation that they thought that mortal creatures were, the gods pushed back and locked Mudanco away in a prison of the primordial's own making. This prison was to be a curse to the primordial, they could see the mortals scurrying about their world, touching it, corrupting it, changing it to fit a mortal’s whim while Mudanco was unable to stop them.
Princes of the Apocalypse, 2015 Wizards of the Coast
History
Mudanco’s power over rock, water, fire, and wind allowed them to create a world within the material plane, causing earth and fire to form in the black void of space. Slowly they introduced new elements, first wrapping the world in air followed by huge gouts of water. When it saw a world drowned in the seas, it caused the earth to rise, creating continents, islands, lakes, and rivers. As Mudanco worked, slowly the world came alive as the gods began experimenting with life, creating plants, mortals, animals, and more to live on this world.
Mudanco cared little for such life, seeing it as a nuisance to their designs for the world. The mortals would cut into the mountains they formed, the animals would swim through the oceans they had poured. They were changing the shape of the world Mudanco was attempting to craft perfectly, and so the primordial would send waves to wipe away port cities or cause rockslides to seal off mortal-made entrances into the mountains. Natural disasters washed across the world, and yet still the living creatures persisted. This caused Mudanco no lack of grief, it was their vision that created the world and these pests sent by the gods were ruining the perfection of the world.
In retaliation, Mudanco began destroying the world, causing mountains to rise, deserts to form, ocean waves to swallow the world. If they couldn't have their world, none would. The gods wouldn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, stand for such acts against their worshipers. If all the mortals were removed from the world, then the god’s worship would become non-existent and they would lose a sizeable amount of their power. Acting together, the gods fought Mudanco, leading their armies against the legions of elemental creatures that Mudanco formed, as well as a few minor primordials that joined on both sides. While no one knows just how long this war lasted, or how many may have died by the end of it all, the gods ultimately won. They were unable to fully destroy Mudanco, as the primordial was quite clever and tied its essence into the world. If the primordial were destroyed, so would be the world that the gods were fighting so hard to save. Instead, the gods were forced to place Mudanco in a prison that the primordial had made, the very earth itself. Sealing the primordial away, with powerful runes and magic to ensure that Mudanco would never escape, they then turned their attention back to the battered and bruised world, slowly attempting to repair it.
Mudanco was only the first elemental that the gods had to fight, only the first evil entity that they had to remove from power. Mudanco’s conflict, while largely forgotten in the minds and stories of all mortals, is still fresh in the mind of the gods who ended up having to kill or imprison dozens of primordials who sought to release Mudanco to help shape the world anew. Luckily for the gods, where they hid Mudanco’s prison is still knowledge only they hold. They are confident that they can continue to keep the prison a secret, especially as even evil deities need living mortals to worship them.
Cult of the World Maker
Monster Manual 3, 2010 WotC
The cult has been formed, destroyed, reformed, and destroyed over thousands of years. Often the cult would be destroyed by bands of adventurers or clerics sent by their gods to keep the prison of Mudanco secured, only for a dozen years to pass before the cult appeared in a new location, the same goals as their predecessor. They are singularly focused, hoping to release Mudanco and bring about a new change to the world that sees them as the rulers of Mudanco’s vision.
The newest iteration of the cult is led by Lleucu Eleri (SHAY-ki eh-LEH-ri), a duergar woman who claims to have visions of Mudanco in dark subterranean stone. Much of the cult keeps their identities secret, seeking to avoid the divine attention of gods while they continue their perilous work. There are many within the cult that own and operate small mining operations, burrowing into the very rock of Talia, hoping to find the prison where Mudanco resides. To help pay for their expensive mining operations, they sell the gems and ore they dig up, presenting themselves as legal businesses.
While many of Mudanco’s cults focus on the power of rock, as they hope it might help them find the prison buried somewhere in the world, there are plenty who are gifted in corrupting air or manipulating the forces of fire and water.
Led to the Cult
There are a wide variety of ways that people have found their way to the cult, though most rarely do so willingly. With Mudanco being imprisoned under thousands of tons of stone and magic, forced to wait out its days until the end of the multiverse itself, they have found weaknesses in the prison. The gods who built the prison wanted Mudanco to suffer and gaze upon the mortals who walk the world, forcing the primordial to witness its failure every day. To this end, Mudanco has a strange view of the world. It can’t see the elements themselves but can peer through the haze of magic that entraps it and see mortal lives passing before it. The gods, when they first built the prison, didn’t think Mudanco would have any way of influencing life, as primordials had only ever interacted with elemental matter, not the souls of living creatures.
Trapped for thousands of years, Mudanco was forced to use their only access to the world as the means of their freedom. While they are restricted as to how they interact with their followers, they can splinter their form, sending their foul elemental essence into creatures still forming in the womb. These mortals are called many names like elemental-kin, geniekin, jann, or genasi; though they are formed from Mudanco’s interference, not from having ancestors from the elemental planes.
Bestiary 2, 2020 Paizo Publishing
These ‘children’ are created as an extension of Mudanco and are said to be cursed with a horrendous vision of a life imprisoned. Some of these children run from Mudanco’s calling, others fight it, and others seek the primordial, devoting their life to the release of Mudanco. While many are often tainted with elemental earth, as Mudanco finds that that is the easiest resonance due to being trapped beneath earth and cut off from all other elements, there are others corrupted by the other elements. In total, about 50% of all touched by Mudanco are given power over earth, while the other half is evenly divided among the other elements.
Not everyone who follows Mudanco is a child of the primordial. Some claim to see Mudanco’s presence around them, knowing that it was that primordial that shaped the coastlines, raised the mountains, and more. They think that worshiping that specific deity is far better than wasting their time having faith in gods who haven’t done anything for mortals but still demand their blind loyalty, faith, and worship. Others have been promised power over others, that when Mudanco is free and reshapes the world, they’ll be the ones with power instead of the ones having power held over them. Some are simply looking for somewhere to belong or get swept up by the cult, forced to work the mines that dig deeper searching for a prison that may never be found.
Goals
The cult is hoping to unleash Mudanco and allow the primordial to reshape the world. Mudanco is supposedly going to begin a new world order where primordial and elements are set above the beliefs of the gods. Many of Mudanco’s followers aren’t happy with the current order of gods and temples overseeing their flock, but rather wish to destroy belief and impose the raw existence of power. They dislike the off-hands approach of the gods or simply think that the gods aren’t worthy of worship just because they happen to be powerful creatures.
While they are working towards this goal, they see themselves as priests of a new age. They will be the ones who will guide all others to properly worship the primordials and to realize that the elements that make up the world are evidence of their power.
Scripture
Mudanco Holy Symbol of a Lightning Bolt Breaking A World, Stephen Bandstra
While many might call this a cult, the leaders would declare they are a religion. They get labeled the Cult of the World Maker, but they prefer to call themselves Elements of Mudanco. They claim that there is no difference between what they do and what others do. That they are only labeled a cult because they happen to be smaller than established churches and that a church devoted to a good-aligned deity is just as much a cult as they are. They recognize that they are the underdogs and that being labeled as a cult is simply those in power trying to stay in power and keep Mudanco imprisoned.
Shape Us Like the Stone and Wind,
Split Us Like the Flame and Water,
Make Us Anew, For We Are But Clay.
-common prayer to Mudanco
Just as deities have their scriptures, so do the Elements of Mudanco. Titled Chains Of Earth: Testaments of the Imprisoned, this scripture recites the history of various groups as well as the locations of dug and explored sites where Mudanco was thought to be. This book is often made of sheets of different types of paper bound into magically prepared shale, each one is unique in its formation and, if different groups meet, they exchange their notes of where they and their predecessors have dug. At this point, each will update their copy of the scriptures, carefully adding the new information to their collection of where their members have dug in search of the prison.
The scripture also contains information that Mudanco has passed to their followers, how best to shape clay and earthworks, how to route and dam rivers, turn deserts into lush grasslands, and other knowledge on how to affect physical change in the world they reside in. For some, this awakens a magical gift within them, gifting them the ability to control elements, all to further the goals of Mudanco.
Corruption
While the Elements of Mudanco go to great pains to show that their worship of Mudanco is not violent or grotesque to newcomers to the faith, there is no denying that Mudanco is an evil primordial. Mudanco’s wrath is legendary, and the scriptures even warn that if the members of the cult affect too much change or damage to the landscape, beyond what Mudanco wishes, their very bodies may become petrified from Mudanco’s wrath. Even though the primordial is imprisoned, those who have sworn their lives to the deity can still be affected by its immense power.
In addition, Mudanco is closely attuned to the Negative Energy Plane, relishing in the power of the elements of ash, dust, salt, and vacuum. When Mudanco destroys something, it is through the power of entropy, the dissolution of matter, and obliteration of the elements that make it. Few in the cult realize just how closely aligned Mudanco is to those forces, but many believe that it is because Mudanco is so closely tied to it that it could create the world from the black void that makes up the night sky. How else would Mudanco know how to craft something in the empty expanse of vacuum? Perhaps, some theorize, Mudanco only created the world merely to watch it break apart.
Adventure Hooks
The Cult of the World Maker is constantly scouring different places, they know that Mudanco is trapped in stone, they just don’t know where. Many believe that Mudanco is trapped at the very center of the world, and so they enter the dark subterranean tunnels, never seeing sunlight again as they scour the dark lands below.
Breaking the Seals
Princes of the Apocalypse, 2015 Wizards of the Coast
Kay Janele is a secret priestess of Mudanco and is the owner of Gorgon’s Stoneworks, a mining company operating deep in the Spine mountain range. She thinks that her company has stumbled upon Mudanco’s prison, a great door made of some strange dark stone that her mining tools refuse to cut into. Her allies within the cult are not so sure about Kay’s claims and think that what her company stumbled across is the tomb for a great dwarven lord or aberrant creature best left alone. Kay isn’t deterred though and has decided to send out for adventurers to dispel the magical seals on the tomb and clear it out of any monsters they might find.
While the party of adventurers may not realize the cult is at work here, Kay acts as the worried owner of a mining operation and claims that monsters are lurking behind the magically guarded door. She wants the party to go down there, break the magical seals on the door, enter the tomb (or prison), and clear it free of monsters. If it is indeed the prison of Mudanco, Kay wishes to use the party as the first sacrifice to the primordial.
Lost Children
Earth elementals have been attacking a city, destroying homes and buildings, ripping and tearing up the farmland, and more. A party of adventurers is called to put a stop to these elementals before they can completely obliterate the village. In the process of fighting the elementals, the party stumbles across a nearby cell of the cult who have opened a portal to the Plane of Earth, hoping to trick a suitably powerful elemental through and forcing the earth elemental into a life of servitude in digging tunnels and moving rock and stone for them.
Stone Brides
A medusa, Lord Amadi, has taken control of a sect of the Cult of the World Maker by his sheer personality and powerful connection to stone and earth. He has turned their attention to attacking a nearby village, stealing women from the village, and bringing them to him so that he may transform them into a statue of stone. Once he petrifies them with a glance, he gets to work on a ritual to transform the statues into stone golems that he can try and seduce. Many in the cult are getting tired of Lord Amadi, seeing him as losing focus on their great purpose of setting free Mudanco. To this end, they have contacted a band of adventurers to destroy a medusa afflicting the town and destroy the stone brides that Lord Amadi has made.
Example Stat Blocks
Three stat blocks are provided below for some of Mudanco’s champions. In addition, they are often found surrounded by elementals, aberrant beings they have captured from the Dark Below, as well as druids that wish to return the land to Mudanco.
Chthonic Priest
The priests of Mudanco are all gifted with the power over elements, corrupting and changing it as needed. Some of the most powerful of the priests can tap into the divine power of the gods and cast powerful spells of healing and elemental magic. The lay-priests of Mudanco are more restricted in that they have a more supernatural relationship to the elements, simply calling on the elements and forcing them to do as they will without the help of divine power.
They are often found in large groups of slaves as they begin digging through the solid rock of the Dark Below. They oversee large-scale mining operations, selling what ore and precious gems they can find to help fund their operations. Many priests operate largely incognito, hoping to avoid the divine attention of the gods so that they can release their primordials and have surprise on their side for the inevitable battles to come.
Fists of Mudanco
Warriors of the elements, these individuals have mastered the elements by attuning themselves completely to them. They are warriors and monks of the primordials and their physical forms have taken on unique traits of their preferred elements. Those who focus on earth can rot the world around them and strike out with fists of stone, while others might wield fire, water, wind, or any other element of their choice.
These monks can be found wandering the underground tunnels as they seek artifacts, elementals, and, ultimately, the prison of Mudanco. They are not unreasonable individuals, though they are singularly focused and care little for surface dwellers or the inhabitants of the subterranean lands. Of all the cultists, their physical form is augmented the most as many have rock-like skin, hair that burns like fire, or water coursing through their veins. This transformation happens as they close their mind and focus on enlightenment, pushing themselves to the purest form of an element.
Stoneshaper
Those who have spent their life scouring the stone often have a special understanding of it. They can use this understanding to magically control the stone, shaping it to their will to aid in their search for Mudanco. They are often seen as quite special in the cult, as they are highly valued for their ability to quickly move vast amounts of stone in a minute that would take a team of slaves hours or days to accomplish.
Stoneshapers are also valued for their ability to cause others to sink into stone, a tactic used by the cult for punishment and torture. If they think someone is hiding information from them, they can quickly cause them to sink into the stone, restraining them in a stony prison. At this point, they can ask their questions, using the power of crushing stone if the imprisoned creature refuses to answer them.
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