Mag Cultists

Introduction

There are some Fragments who have abandoned their Timelines - or who never had any - in pursuit of the Magnitude Fragments: the most supreme beings, powerful repositories of magic, quite literally in many senses gods. As they are not a unified group, there are many individual sects: some worshipping certain Mags, others a pantheon, some with rituals, others with merely minor prayers... their scope is endless and varied. But, collectively, they are known as Mag cultists - worshippers of the divine shapes.

This page will only detail large sects or organized groups, as there are too many minor varieties of Mag cultists to properly catalogue them all.


Structured Cults

The Hive

The largest of the structured cults by sheer population, the Hive - sometimes the "Hivemind" - is dedicated, wholly and utterly, to its founder and patron god, Shestiugolnik. It is comprised of millions of Timelines under his command and guidance, united in their communal work together as a multi-Timeline society, sharing a mental space and, aptly, a hivemind.

Individuals within the Hive retain their identities and lives, but gain the knowledge of the entire Hive and can call upon its limitless resources, supplied partially by Shestiugolnik himself. Though formal worship of him is technically disallowed, many within the Hive consider him a benevolent living god, and the COR officially considers it a Mag cult.

Induction into the Hive must be consensual; Shestiugolnik will visit new potential Timelines to interview its populace and leaders and posit the idea of joining his fold. He provides materially for the Hive and serves as the center pin keeping its hivemind together through his magic. His stated goal is to help unify Timelines into a complete post-scarcity society that eradicates physical needs and allows for its members to elevate themselves mentally into a more complex and concrete form of self and group. The Hive itself values community and cooperation, and practices a form of socialism among themselves.

The Hive's main hub is Timeline KJ-204, the original Timeline of its second-in-command Mellonia KJ-204. It is densely-packed with buildings and halls between them, and has a staggering population of sixteen billion alone - only a fraction of the Hive overall, most of whose populace lives within their Timeline of origins.

Fragments, however, are expressly forbidden from joining the Hive - only Gladar and those below them on the God Spectrum are permitted to be inducted. Some Fragments that admire his ethics and agree with his ideals do work alongside him, though without being part of the hivemind.

MelloniaUriel E-784
Mellonia, second-in-command / Uriel E-784, Shestiugolnik's sole personal guard

The Diamond Collective

Though smaller than the Hive, the Diamond Collective is nevertheless considered its main "rival" and the other major Mag cult that most will have heard of. Spanning approximately three thousand Timelines, it is headed and managed by Dijamant himself, who visits the hub world of XJD-9054 to receive reports on the member-Timelines' health and any requests they have for him. He personally visits Timelines that request his presence and performs miracles as needed and directed, but is otherwise more hands-off than Shestiugolnik in the Hive.

The Collective values self-sufficiency, independence, ambition, and adamancy. Contrasted to the Hive, which places community above the individual, the Collective sees the individual and their desires as the center of each person's life, and encourages its members to grow as people and push themselves to grab the opportunities they desire.

Its headquarters is an enormous castle and courtyard floating in voidspace, but connected to XJD-9054 through a winding path within a pine forest. The mortal and Gladar populace of XJD-9054 may visit the Castle at any time and request something from the appointed managers of the Collective there, who govern the entire cult whenever Dijamant is not present.

Despite its status as a major Mag cult, the Collective is disallowed from proselytizing - members who wish to join must approach Dijamant of their own free will and request to be inducted. Many believe this is a result of some unknown altercation between Dijamant and the Magnitude Fragments' leader, Pyatiugolnik, who removed a number of Timelines from the Collective millennia ago.

RohmidenAllocer E-784
Rohmiden, secretary-in-command / Allocer E-784, talented Magnitude Fragment resonator

Worshippers of the Lily of the Sands

Less-known than the other primary Mag cults, the Worshippers are centralized in a series of Timelines owned and governed by Prizma, who has a vested interest in 'random chance' and 'butterfly effects'. The Worshippers themselves are a small group of desert temple priests within Timeline MIX-120123, who personally serve him and manage the Timeline - the only one he does not regularly reset to try again with another random seed.

They are dedicated and well-known to the mortals of MIX-120123, and can be visited by any person who wishes to speak to them, Prizma, or seek a blessing of some sort. They help present Prizma with a list of tasks that need accomplished with his skills, or alternatively pamper him with fanning and the bests of the harvests.

Most are Immortals, with a few lesser gods among their number. They occasionally train new apprentices, but are rarely in need of more hands. Despite not being Fragments, they have a complete understanding of the nature of reality and Timelines, and are well-versed in knowledge of the other Mag Frags due to information shared by Prizma.

Erthos
Erthos, high priest

Friends of Affine

The Friends are the newest major Mag cult - though they are tiny and news of their existence has not spread throughout Frag culture yet. Formed by former warmonger Ometeotl after he met a previously-undiscovered-Mag, Affine, the Friends maintain the idea of Mags being above and wiser than their lesser contemporaries, and seek to follow Affine's guidance - whatever that may be. Ometeotl himself is firm in the idea that whatever pitiful actions Frags deluded themselves into thinking mattered paled in comparison to the Mags' mysterious machinations.

However, Ometeotl does find the other cults somewhat distasteful - embroiled in mortal conflict rather than overarching ways to actually reduce suffering or improve the world genuinely. As such, he has turned to the youthful Affine as a moral compass, and the Friends serve as companionship and devoted followers as Affine develops into a proper god. They make no presumptions about what that path may be, as they are mere Frags in his shadow, of course.

They are secretive and difficult to find, closer to a small brotherhood than a religion.

Ometeotl
Ometeotl, first friend

Attendants of the Osculamdere Pavilion

Conflicting information asserts that the Pavilion may or may not exist. Its location has never been definitively proven or found by the COR despite efforts, but enough disparate eyewitnesses with corrobating accounts exist to lend credence to it being real.

Supposedly, it is a series of large pavilions in voidspace surrounded by flowing waterfalls and decorated with comforts, attended only by a cherished few cultists. They are the dedicated followers of Kolo, and indeed the hiding place of most of the Fragments Blessed by him. It was founded by a particular "Ovy", who does exist in COR records as the first known Fragment with a Kolo Blessing.

Strangely, most of the individuals who have stumbled upon the Pavilion do not resonate with Kolo's concepts, but with Dijamant's.

Ovy
Ovy, blessed founder

Four Winds

The Four Winds are a centralized cult that worships the quadrilateral Mags: Kvadrat, Pravougaonik, Dijamant, Prizma, and Trapetsiya. They associate these Mags with the cardinal directions, seasons, and types of weather, and have numerous rituals and festivals dedicated to these expansive concepts. They do not typically call upon their favored Mags for power or help, but rather see them as structural gods whose conceptual ideals should be revered and lived by. Their headquarters is in a pocket Timeline and is accessible to COR operatives, who are encouraged to visit and meditate or partake in festivals.

Kvadrat is associated with spring and the Westernly breeze, Pravougaonik is summer and South, Trapetsiya is autumn and East, and Dijamant is winter and North. Prizma, the core parallelogram, is considered to be a lack of wind and is highly associated with the random month Amaridan. The balance of all five figures is central to Winds ideology, and they must be respected in turn and in equal to each other - favoring one or spurning another invites imbalance and rejection.

Though they are small, their general politeness and warm reception given to visitors has left most Frags with a highly positive impression, and Winds cultists are often seen as activists pushing for more general acceptance and decriminalization of Mag cultism.


Unstructured Cults

Great Grand Stellated Cell

The Great Grand Stellated Cell is a small and dispersed cult, though fierce in their beliefs. The central tenent of GGSC is that all the Magnitude Fragments are worthy of equal worship, and all information regarding them must be preserved at all costs. Incredible archivists, they are nevertheless extremely difficult to find and often jealously guard their findings from the COR's Mag Researchers, making the sharing of information near-impossible.

They oft look down upon the other cults for focusing on only a single Mag. Notably, they also venerate Mag fusions and are said to have the most extensive records regarding known fusions stored in one of their library hub-worlds, whose location is equally obscured.

The cult is so scattered that many members are not aware of each other's locations, presences, or identities. To walk the path of the GGSC is to be alone in worship and life, but united in a powerful foundation that unites any two members, should they cross one another's way.

Acolytes of the Night

The acolytes are a disjointed group of cultists who worship the Mags Polumesec of crescents, and Zvezda of stars. Though these two Mags are often considered easy to resonate with and a good starting pick for invokers to learn the art, the Acolytes believe them to be highly powerful and generous in "allowing" Fragments to so easily tap into their conceptual wavelength.

Acolytes often only operate during dusk or nighttime, and are highly secretive of their invocations and methods - making them difficult to reach or communicate to. Their society is close-knit but not centralized, instead meeting together in abandoned Timelines to discuss new methods of contacting their patrons, new enchantments, and barter for Blessed artifacts that have been touched by the two Mags.

The COR is most commonly in contact with an Acolyte known as Misya, who is occasionally commissioned for powerful enchanted scrolls. She is tight-lipped about the other Acolytes, however.

Misya
Misya, well-known acolyte

Advocates of the Edgeless

Edgeless followers worship and admire the "rounded" Magnitude Fragment shapes: Kolo, Polukrug, Ellipsa, Suza, Srce, Chetyrekhlistnik, and Polumesec. They consider rounded shapes to be the most basal structures of the Mags and the foundation upon all other shapes are made, which therefore means they contain the most power and are deserving of the most worship.

Advocates are talented invokers, but believe that the Mags are eldritch and unknowable beings - invoking them too many times draws unwanted attention and could result in destruction of the self. Instead, exchanging resonations is more common: offering ones' own blood which resonates with one of the rounded shapes for a packet of power from a different shape whose skills align more closely with what the cultist wishes to temporarily accomplish. Only the highest-ranked members of the cult invoke the Mags they resonate with, and are often the ones to offer their blood to lesser members to accomplish exchange rituals.

They are notoriously hostile to outsiders and one must be invited in to a supposedly-elaborate blood ritual to join. The COR considers them somewhat dangerous due to their shadow-workings and pursuit of magic, and often offers sizeable rewards for information regarding the Advocates' activities or whereabouts.

They heavily dislike the Acolytes of the Night, seeing the other cult as sullying Polumesec's concepts by lumping him in with a sharp shape, Zvezda. Capture of Acolytes and bloodletting of them supposedly occurs, but the COR has no evidence of this due to both cults' relative secrecy.