The Cult of Sanguinax
Sanguinax
Sanguinax — a blood god whose name first surfaced in Session 4 during the search for Reginald. A cult operating in and around Newhaven worshipped this deity, conducting rituals that required relocation when discovered.
The Cult
The cult operated from a hidden basement beneath a house in the Newhaven area, discovered by Twiggy during a scouting mission. Key details:
- All identified cultists were human
- At least forty people passed through the operation over the course of a single week, per informant Barthak
- A woman at the house attempted to poison the party
- The cult possessed items of magical significance, including a gem that radiated magic and a lockbox that burst with energy when forced open
Malgora
High Order Malgora was the cult's identified leader — or at least the authority who signed the evacuation order. Their letter, recovered in Session 5, directed the cult to abandon their compromised hideout and regroup at the Ruins of Kathas Castle:
"The fools are sniffing at our heels. Our sanctuary is lost — their torches have lit us up, their blades tasted our kin. We flee east, to the Ruins of Kathas Castle, where the old stones are. The ritual must go on."
The sign-off — "your word is blood" — suggested a formal hierarchy within the cult.
By Session 10, the party's objective had shifted to killing Malgora and retrieving the head — the theory being that the blood magic bound within the corpse will reveal who Malgora really is, suggesting the identity may not be what it appears. Malgora's ritual at the Ruins of Kathas Castle was believed to be one to two nights away.
The Diary
Malgora's personal diary was recovered from the inner circle's rooms in Session 11. It documents, thoroughly, a slow descent into madness — and returns repeatedly to drawings of an orb. What the orb is, and whether it caused the madness or merely accompanied it, remains unknown.
Malgora was found at the top of the tower in Session 12, alongside the orb itself.
The Orb
Sanguinax's orb was waiting with Malgora at the top of the tower in Session 12 — the object the diary's drawings had been circling all along.
The End of the Cult
The cult's lower levels held a failed vessel, sustained by blood pumps imbued with blood magic. The party destroyed the pumps; the vessel died with them. With Malgora and the orb reached at the top of the tower, the Cult of Sanguinax was destroyed in Session 12, and the ruins came down behind the party.
Scale of the Operation
A map taken from the inner circle's rooms in Session 11 — now carried by Gauthak — showed the cult to be a large operation, with people from multiple areas involved. Whatever the party has been fighting since Session 4, it is not a single hideout's worth of cultists.
Barthak
Barthak served as the party's primary source of intelligence on cult operations. He was described as a "weak man" and provided information under unclear circumstances. He confirmed the scale of the operation and the human-only composition of the cult before being killed — the details of his death unrecorded.
Timeline
| Session | Event |
|---|---|
| Session 4 | Cult basement discovered; Sanguinax named; Reginald rescued |
| Session 5 | Malgora's letter found; Barthak killed; party crosses river east |
| Session 6 | Assault on cult compound fails; party retreats to Newhaven |
| Session 10 | Ritual timeline confirmed (1-2 nights); party sets out to kill Malgora and retrieve the head |
| Session 11 | Encampment infiltrated; Blood Elemental killed; map and Malgora's diary recovered |
| Session 12 | Blood pumps destroyed; failed vessel killed; Malgora and Sanguinax's orb reached; the cult destroyed |
Blood god Sanguinax was mentioned 👀