The Cult of Zeb: A Study of Gluttony and Corruption (auf englisch)
From the Compendium of The Cacodemonic, penned in the early years of the Age of the Papacy by Brother Aldric of Libornes.
The Cult of Zeb has persisted since the first peoples, its vile traditions rooted in service to Lord of the Flies, Devourer of Lands, and Manifest Gluttony; Beelzebub, Prince of Hell. Like all demonic cults, they seek to desecrate and mock the Divine creation and destroy all that is sacred. Legends abound of their plagues and locust swarms, of their perverse hunger that drives them to devour human flesh and craft garments from the skin of their victims.
"A man may fall into gluttony once and repent. A man may indulge twice and suffer. But the third time, his soul is lost, swallowed whole by the maw of Zeb. He will hunger, yet never be filled. He will feast, yet never taste. Such is the fate of those who make an altar of their own bellies." — St. Gregorius, On the Fate of the Damned
Who is Zeb?
Zeb is a diminutive for Beelzebub, a name used by the common man, as uttering the true name of this Prince of Hell in full is considered neither decent, sound or safe. According to St. Gregorius, Beelzebub was once known as the Lord Angel of Abundance, residing at the high table of the Divine, before being allured and corrupted by the Deceiver.
Zeb´s presence among us is perhaps most commonly manifested by the living embodiment of gluttony, the maggot. Rising from the depths, these vectors of Zeb's deadly sin crawl, slither and devour all living things before being transformed into the pests that, on unnatural wings, carry their master's corruption ever wider throughout the lands.
And quite fittingly, this graphic, earthy manifestation of Beelzebub´s will and desire has been amplified, idolized, and worshipped by his followers, The Cult of Zeb. In the deepest reaches of their strongholds, huge, megalithic manifestations of the maggot champion the halls, no doubt idolized and worshipped by the cult's followers.
Who Are the Cultists?
"They are gaunt as though starved, their flesh a sickly grey, clothed in scraps of leather stitched from unholy sources. But their mouths—oh, their mouths!— too large, their teeth too many, and their gaze is one of endless hunger." — St. Gregorius, On the Fate of the Damned
Most cultists were once human, but it is difficult to say how much of their humanity remains. Corruption warps both body and mind, feeding on their sins until only hunger remains.
They are drawn by promises of power and eternal life as revenants of the Nightmire. While their ranks favor the selfish and cruel, even the common and unassuming may fall prey to their influence. No caste, no wealth and no loyalty protect one from their call. The Cult of Zeb is indiscriminate in its recruitment—man and woman, beggar and noble, criminal and soldier alike.
Only the most devout and disciplined can endure the corruption of Gluttony and eventually join the eternal legions of Hell.
"Gluttony is not merely indulgence of the flesh, but the consumption of all things sacred—our virtues, our faith, our humanity. To resist is to temper one’s soul as steel in the forge." — St. Gregorius, On Temptation and Vice
Practices and Rituals of the Cult of Zeb
"To partake in their feast is to partake in damnation. For every morsel consumed, a soul is lost. Beware, for their hunger knows no end, and those who dine with demons soon find themselves the next course." — Brother Aldric of Libornes, On the Wickedness of the Flesh
The Cult of Zeb is a horror beyond mortal comprehension, consumed by endless feasting and destruction. Whatever they cannot devour, they defile.
During the Age of the Ancients, as mankind learned to farm and store food under the caring gaze of Demira, Beelzebub’s followers found new ways to corrupt. They tainted the harvests, spreading disease and decay. They poisoned wells, conjured swarms of locusts, and spread famine across the land, reveling in the suffering it caused and drawing power from the rot they created.
Their deep lairs reek of decay, filled with paraphernalia of their grotesque rituals. In some places, like the Contageum, they breed monstrous boars, training them for war and slaughter. Into others, they bring captured innocents and broken cultists, imprisoning them in stone sarcophagi or oubliettes and force-feeding them to unnatural limits. Once their bodies are swollen beyond recognition, they are sacrificed—consumed in monstrous feasts. Their flayed skin is tanned into leather, a gruesome tribute to their insatiable hunger.
Some of their lairs can only be described as maggot hives, where the cultists string their victims up alive and infect them with thousands of their lords’ favorite creatures. And yet other locations such as the place known as The Reflection of Holastri seem more eerily serene and focused on sharpening the minds of cultists who have survived the weight of the cravings suffused in them by their diabolical masters.
Throughout, their halls are adorned with vile frescoes depicting their atrocities, ancient dwellings long since crumbled into decadence, for when Demira gifted her spirit to mankind, she stripped the earthly power from Beelzebub’s grasp, casting his followers into darkness forevermore. Trapped in their own corruption, they have never advanced, only lingering in the decayed ruins of what they once had.
But it was then that Demira gathered and raised her spirit, drew in all her power of divinity, and with her life's spark burning with the intensity of the sun, if only for a fleeting moment, she cursed the three and their followers to eternal suffering; Starvation for the gluttonous, perpetual dissatisfaction for the greedy and uncontrolled relentless anger for the wrathful. And when she had named the three princes, she fell, cold and seemingly lifeless, never to rise again.
— The Gyronomicon, Giraud´s expository on the Redeemers, pg.22
A World Beyond Redemption
"There are evils that tempt, evils that whisper, and evils that deceive. But Gluttony does not seduce—it consumes. It is a fire that cannot be sated, a wound that never heals. To let it fester is to watch the world be devoured, piece by piece." — Archpriest Theodoric of Anatolia, Sermons Against the Abyss
The Cult of Zeb exists only outside the Pax Dei, in lands where Gluttony reigns unchecked and where the eye of the Divine cannot reach. They are hunger-given form, an unstoppable force of consumption that devours everything on its path.
The faithful must remain ever vigilant, for their corruption spreads unseen, lurking wherever hunger and excess take hold.
As long as there are those who crave without restraint, the Cult of Zeb will endure.
"A man’s soul is not lost in a single bite, nor in the first indulgence. It is in the second, the third, the hundredth until one no longer remembers what it means to be sated. Beware the path of Zeb, for it is lined with feasts, yet leads only to famine everlasting." — St. Gregorius, On the Fate of the Damned