A T2K Encounter idea
 

Around the turn of the century (and now, too), many Christians believed that the end of days and Armageddon was coming.

How many of these people would be wandering around after the Twilight War thinking that they were the "left behind?" That they might as well commit any evil act, since they were obviously judged to be unworthy? Or thinking that they needed to be as good as possible so that God might decide to take them up after all? Or even more deadly -- those who believe that they weren't actually left behind, but that they were only temporarily left on earth to be God's soldiers, and that they had to kill anyone they felt were infidels? How many doomsday prophets would be wandering around, perhaps with hundreds of followers as nuts as he or she is?

Might be an interesting encounter, especially in the US and Latin America, where such beliefs are especially common.

Agreed. I think you'd encounter quite a few "millenial" religious groups (i.e. cults) in the Twilight World, especially in the new world and possibly parts of Africa as well. There's already the inaptly named Lord's Resistance Army (or something like that) in Rwanda- apparently quite a group of brutal psychopaths. Not sure how Islam deals with this sort of thing.

I like this idea so much that I'm going to pirate it for The Blood Cross in New England. Thanks, Paul!

Webstral

Exactly the purpose of this board. Wherever he is, Kato's proud of you!

You could make it even more interesting, with a rumor going around that a bearded young man able to perform miracles has been sighted here and there in the world...

I actually used that for Year of the Zombie. Created an encounter group called the 'Razors'... They'd go from survivor community to survivor community. And 'judge' them, and if they didn't fit their extremely narrow view of the bible, they'd attack their defenses and allow the hordes of zombies following them in. if you want to know what kind of ideology they practiced... look at Phelps and his westboro cult to get the perfect picture of these monsters.

I am pretty sure that T2k would have someone claiming to be the 12th Imam.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...imam-mahdi.htm
(wow I can use FAS/globalsecurity for religious studies now)

And I guess in India, someone would be claiming to be the reincarnation of the Buddha.

Or, for irony -- rival factions having armed confrontations over who is the real reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.

With the Hindu and Buddhist concept of a cyclical universe, I don't think that apocalyptical furor would be quite the issue it is with the monotheistic religions. Of course, I'm no expert in the subject and anything is possible, especially in times of great stress and strain.

It might be interesting to have the war start on 21 December 2012...

My money's on the Guatemalan army then.

Why not...
 

start your very own cult....

I was thinking about this today and I reckon a lot of people would be a trifle nuts at least in a post-apocalyptic world.

An idea I am working on for an NPC is that he's quite cheerful as he thinks that he is already dead and in Purgatory. When he gets killed he will go straight to Heaven! He won't deliberately try to get killed as that would be contrary to God's plan.

ya don't need the end of the world for schism. Matter off fact you could use competing spiritual leaders for plenty of religious (or non for that matter).....it's been a while since the last anti-pop for instance.

However if ya really want to use end times fervor and hindu/buddhist/toist ect ect. The easiest thing is to have the rise of a new sect, some sort of fusion with other religious traditions or just a radical reinterpretation.
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