Watching Cecil B.

Watching Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments yesterday (the Charlton Heston version) while paging through the Quick Start got me thinking about how well the movie’s second act could be adapted to the game.

You’ve got a Skovlan cult of the Nameless God infiltrating Duskwall. Some members of the cult are true believers, hoping to restore the True Faith to the Skovlan dockworkers and stewards who have suffered long in bondage. Of course, some members of the cult are agents provocateur, sent to destabilize the Empire and forestall Imperial predations on the Rigid Isle. And some of the cultists see the opportunity to avenge wrongs, fleece the gullible, and smash a few windows.

Arrayed against them? Well, you’ve got the established Imperial religions: the Weeping Lady, the Church of the Ecstasy of Flesh, the Path of Echoes. The Guilds won’t tolerate a religion that preaches casting off one’s shackles; the Bluecoats won’t stand for one that preaches civil disobedience.

And the local Skovlans won’t roll over and show their bellies, either. Some are skeptical from having been promised “a deliverer” for generations; some have grown comfortable with the little power they have and won’t risk it.

Tomorrow night is the Luminal Feast, a high holy day in the Church of the Weeping Lady, when three great braziers in the belfries of the Church illuminate a night full of celebration and games. Of course, the date of the Luminal Feast was changed to its current date three hundred years ago, in order to supplant the Vigil of the Burning Brand, a day sacred to the Nameless God.

The Cult’s first score: steal or destroy the three braziers before the night of the Luminal Feast.

Speak Not Our God’s Name!