The denizens of the night aren’t the only creatures of which Ustalav’s people spread fearful whispers. In ancient meeting places and secret chapels congregate the initiates of forgotten orders and strange religions, members of secretive factions whose manipulations shape events to their own enigmatic, avaricious, or apocalyptic ends.
The Old Cults
Mad Fanatics of Unnamable Gods
Alignment: CE
Headquarters: Carrion Hill, Illmarsh, others
Leader: Varied
Places of fundamental wrongness taint certain corners of Ustalav. There the sanity of existence wears thin, and through imperceptible tears in reality things mortals hardly dare imagine seek to slake unnamable hungers. At these weak places congregate the dark scholars, doombringers, and lunatics known collectively as the Old Cults, raising their chants like the debauched Kellid tribes of the bloody past, worshiping god-things with names like Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, and Yog-Sothoth, as well as lesser-known entities that ageless writings refer to as the King in Yellow, Mhar Massif, Tychilarius, and the Shining Son. These cultists rarely trust their allies, much less the fanatics of other inscrutable forces, making the Old Cults a general title for a host of mad agendas. Several insane factions seek out ancient gates and thin places through which they might commune with their impossible masters, and the menhirs of Vieland, the rank swamps of the Graidmere, the dead town of Scrawny Crossing, the village of Illmarsh, and the city of Carrion Hill number among the brightest beacons to these insane servants.
Sczarni
Wandering Thieves and Fortune-Seekers
Alignment: CN
Headquarters: None
Leader: Varied family leaders
While the majority of Ustalav’s Varisian population forsook the ancient, wandering culture of their people, such stagnant lives could never suit the notorious Sczarni. Although these endlessly roaming clans of tinkerers, charlatans, and thieves might sometimes camp near towns or squat in derelict city blocks, the road is their true home, and they openly mock their settled cousins, whom they view as cowardly, broken, or “legless.” Sczarni often earn their reputations as pickpockets and cheats, but rarely intentionally harm their marks. Most view their capers as lessons in wariness, without inherent malice. Should they perceive some insult, though, be it real or imagined, their criminal sense of honor demands recompense in equal turn, with slander, violence, kidnapping, or theft. Despite the disorganization of the widely traveling clans, the Sczarni cling to a united tradition of legends, oral histories, and mysterious magic, and many still practice the Harrow readings and other fortune-telling practices of their ancestors.
The Whispering Way
True Life Begins with Undeath
Alignment: CE
Headquarters: Renchurch
Leader: Contested
The ages-old cult of undeath flourishes in Ustalav. Many of the morbid society of undead obsessed magicusers, servants of Urgathoa, and maniacs plot their routes to immortality and the death of the world from the haunted monastery of Renchurch, short miles from the Whispering Tyrant’s prison-throne of Gallowspire. Yet, throughout the rest of Ustalav, the servants of the Whispering Way slip through the night, robbing graves to fuel necromantic experiments, seeding the worship of Urgathoa and the promise of undying power in fertile soil, and seeking the tools to resurrect their fallen champion, Tar-Baphon. Disorganization afflicts the Whispering Way, though, as mortal cult leaders, rising morbid savants, and the undying lieutenants of the Whispering Tyrant all vie for mastery and seek to pursue their vision of the end of the world.