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cult-of-a-buttercup · 3 months ago

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Headcanons of the Old Faith: Anura

Darkwood

Narinder’s Faith

Anchordeep

Silk Cradle

CW: Mention of eating disorders (Worshipping Paragraph)

Festivals:

Anura, in comparison to Darkwood, is far more strict: festivals are very few and rituals are more organized and spread out the year, if held at all. Festivals are often held individually in different villages, after being announced by Heket.

Near fall, there’s festivals dedicated to the many wines and beers created during prior years. Drinkhouses are open for a whole week, selling the best concoctions of each village. Followers often travel amongst different villages to see what kind of things every village sells, and many have their own signature drinks. When the week finishes, there’s a few days for everyone to recover before going back to normal.

With their harvests being a central part of their culture, there are also festivals held during the beginning of spring and the end of fall. They focus on preparing for the arrival of the first few crops in spring, or the uprooting of old plants at the end of fall. When a crop was specially successful, some followers like to keep the plant in a pot, as a way to commemorate the hard work of that season.

Rituals:

Heket’s followers have great feasts at the end of fall: the preparations can take all of summer and spring and then a whole week to a month to actually celebrate. It all depends on how well the harvest goes. Non-official feasts can be held among families, small villages, while the official one is held in Anura’s main village, or- if you’re lucky enough- Heket’s most loyal followers in the comforts of her temple. As common as feasts are amongst Heket’s following, fasting is also a ritual officially held in Anura, mainly during winter when food is scarce.

Hard work is also one of the pillars of Anura’s society: working for days without a break is also a common ritual held by Heket, often right after she speeds the growing of crops during summer or spring, or when there’s a festivity to be held amongst the Old Faith’s lands so any decorations and structures are built in the shortest time possible. Most followers gloat about all the work they got done during this time, but healers dislike it due to it causing an overflow of injured or exhausted followers.

Weddings and funerals in Anura are scarce- not because not many people celebrate them, but rather because Heket dislikes them. She considers weddings a waste of time, and whenever a follower asks she sends them away with their partner to Anchordeep with enough gold so they get everything done quickly. Funerals remind her of Narinder, so even mentioning one will get you squashed unless you run away quickly. Followers hold small ceremonies on their own, often having to bribe a high priest to have it officiated- if not, they add their dead to the massive funerals from Darkwood, and ask to go on a missionary mission to cover up their travel.

Worshipping:

The followers of Heket can worship her in one of two ways- embracing hunger, or fearing it.

Spending days at a time fasting and praying, giving a meal to someone as a refusal to eat and gifting one’s harvest to a neighbor are ways of embracing hunger and appreciating Heket’s power. Meanwhile, thanking for a well deserved meal, praying for harvests to be fruitful or following the recipes made by the bishop for ordinary meals are ways of showing Heket a fearful respect for starvation.

Eating disorders, due to the nature of the food related worshiping, are not an unfamiliar setting- if a follower is showing symptoms of suffering such, or explains they have suffered eating disorders before and prefer to keep their worshiping outside of food related customs, they are advised to instead focus on harvests and prayers to keep eating habits as stable as possible.

Clothing:

Being mainly workers, farmers and cooks their clothes aren’t all too posh- anything that can protect them well enough from the different climates of the seasons and from any hazards their jobs could involve. Their clothes are usually ragged, either in the way to break or sewn together quickly. Using jewelry is frowned upon, usually seen as an act of vanity or carelessness since it could affect the way one works. Any jewelry a follower of Anura has is only displayed during feasts.

Amongst cultists:

Heket’s followers are often stern and hardworking by nature, leaving traits like shyness and small talk to be seen as lesser. There isn’t a lot of closeness between followers that aren’t from the same family, but at the same time they don’t usually get into petty drama. Indifference is more common than friendliness even then.

Being the followers who focus the most on work, there is plenty to go around: farmers, worshippers, blacksmiths and cooks are the most common, while things like writers, spellcasters and artists are somewhat frowned upon for not being “useful”. Healers are especially hated, since anyone who has to go there feels either insulted for having to waste time worrying about their body or ashamed for having an accident in their workline. Both lead to followers letting out frustrations on the healers.

Outside of Anura, followers of Heket are deemed as the best workers of the Old Faith, and are often sent as missionaries by Heket to help with cooking and harvest seasons of other lands. They are also considered some of the most prideful, since they know how good they are when getting things done in time, while also being considered the less educated from their lack of writings and art.

#cult of the lamb #cotl #tw eating disorders #cw eating disorders #tw ed #cw ed #cotl headcanons #headcanons #cotl Anura #anura #cult of the lamb anura #cotl heket #heket #cult of the lamb heket #bishop heket

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saltysaltdog · 4 months ago

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This is a really fun theory!!

There's toooonnnss to the idea that Heket despises menticide mushrooms, as apparently the Mushroomos get killed every time they go to Anura and they aren't found there naturally. I theorised this was because their species may have been created by Narinder, but it makes more sense for them to be caused by eating too much menticide mushrooms that were themselves created by a god that became at odds with Heket.

The reason for them being at odds is pretty obvious in the name: Menticide is brain washing. While not an issue in most realms, as Heket has a lot of mushrooms in her domain presumably used for food, another edible mushroom that brainwashes her followers to follow a different god the more they eat it would be catastrophic. Especially if, as we see with Sozo, they are very addictive if repeatedly eaten.

This means Heket has to wage a war against those mushrooms in her own domain, perhaps only finding out someone's been critically infected when they turn into a Mushroomo. Who then drop more mushrooms upon their death instead of meat.

This is potentially the real crux of the issue, as both the mushrooms that are safe for her followers to consume and menticide ones rely on a host body to propagate themselves more effectively. And a menticide infection can remain undiagnosed until the follower is chopped up or turns.

-This is under the assumption that the sacrifices tied to the big mushroom are consumed by the mushroom, then consumed by people later. But even for direct cannibalism this would be an issue, and may be why they rely on the big mushrooms to begin with, if it can kill the mentacide mushrooms and rend them safe to eat-

Thus, the old god doesn't need to be "Alive" to be a problem. The menticide mushrooms are a problem all on their own. This is exacerbated by Heket's domain being Famine, and so some of her followers could get desperate enough to eat the menticide despite the risks. This would go against Heket's teachings and thus why mushroomos are considered heretics.

I think you're right that menticide mushrooms are used for decor inside the moveable area more than other mushrooms, as seen by the 😌 faces and spots they seem to faintly have. That being said, in the background we do get towering brown mushrooms with candles inside them. And in resource rooms you can find mushrooms used as storage houses, so I don't think normal mushrooms are particularly sacred so much as there are better uses for them (like food)

That being said, the other reason why menticide mushrooms may be used aside from dislike is simply practicality. Unlike Heket's giant sacrifice mushrooms, menticide can actually just grow in the ground with a bit of fertiliser. This makes removing them from her lands tough as they are easier to farm and have use as building materials.

That being said, I think that's as far as it goes. To be infected you have to consume the mushroom, and while I think the eye pattern is cool, I think the birch trees are a bit of a red herring.

We can see from Sozo that menticide mushroom addiction can be cured by forcing the individual through withdrawal for long enough (though due to his long time infected he still drops mushrooms upon death.) From Sozo's deep knowledge of mushrooms from being Dr sozonius, we also know there's a safe way to consume menticide mushrooms in the brainwashing ritual. Here, there can be an argument made for the dead god's influence as perhaps its only because we are cool with sozo and thus the old god mushroom that the ritual doesn't turn our followers against us. But I think the time of the old god's have passed, as Chemach and the old gold loving tree, although they don't like when we transgress against them, can't actually do anything to us.

Under Sozo's influence, even though they were originally the ones pushing for infecting new people, the mushroomos have regained sanity, and actually dislike Sozo's quest for menticide. Perhaps like Sozonius, they forgot what they were like when addicted and that's what's causing the big rift between them. But it means that there is a "cure" even once someone has gone beyond the point of getting their original body back. The fact that Sozo resurrected when planted goes to show that he is now the master of the menticide mushroom, regardless of who came before. And I don't think he's stronger than Heket.

Thus I think if Heket's having issues, it's because of her own inability to stop getting high off mushrooms rather than the mushrooms being a plague upon her land.

Going back to the trees, I think they are aspen trees, which are very similar to mushrooms!

Clearly a mushroom. /j

Aspen trees can have huge forests that are all genetically identical trees. This is because aspen trees can share a root system and sprouts new shoots that grow into a full tree if allowed. This is similar to a mushroom, which can have deep roots in the earth so even if you pick a mushroom, another spouts in the same place. This means aspen can be one of the largest organisms on the planet, but not only that, because of this ability we may have the "same" tree growing more of itself for over a thousand years, even when considered dormant, so long as the root system is intact the tree can grow again and again. This makes it a perfect fit for Anura.

While Heket could have seen it as another invasive mushroom, I doubt it. It's just too valuable. Anura is kind of like if Africa had a land bridge to France, but specifically the plains of north west Africa, (because that's the type of giraffe represented as best as I can tell. While it can be very lush and experience monsoons, that particular region is close to the Sahera desert, making it pretty dry. )

There's not too many other trees depicted there, aside from some thinner brush-like ones, making the Aspen the only hardwood in her domain. It would be essential for making fires along with as a building material, etc. But it's gotten pretty rare. The reason for this is basically Heket missing the forest for the trees (lol). Aspens need light to grow and with so many mushrooms there is no light for them to access and grow. As soon as Heket is defeated however, and they need to eat all the mushrooms, the aspens get light and start growing again. Many mushrooms need trees to grow, not only from the shade they produce, but the actual trees themselves, meaning Heket's reliance on her corpse mushrooms may have been what was leading to the decay in her realm suppressing biodiversity. A theme we see most clearly in Leshy's domain, and explicitly stated by Haro.

With Leshy Purged we see his flowers, which have grown more monstrous, but more importantly, have the red eye symbols on the white petal skull flower, while others have grown literal eyes.

(Pic below from mysupercoolfrisk blr 's Post which I'm having a hard time finding here [x])

I've been mainly using in game content, but eyes are central symbols in cotl, present nearly everywhere and are on every door you see. Eyes are a symbol of divine power, and if the extra ones Heket has on her head in her super form counted, then so would every witness basically.

Eyes are also used very often as a glyph in the cotl language used by the people in world. With several varieties available. Heket's decision to use multiple dripping-looking eyes may be related again to the Aspen trees in her domain, as certain varieties can create very clear looking eye knots in the wood. Alternatively it could be because the witness in her domain has them, indicating something but whose meaning has been lost, and she's copying them.

But in promotional artwork eyes are everywhere, including the moon.

Ichor however, as a symbol of godhood, drips all over those with divinity, symbolising overwhelming power. Our lamb doesn't get ichor yet, but their eyes flow over with power too. As such, Heket might be creating a new glyph, saying her wrath will be overwhelming if you dare try to harm whatever has the dripping eye symbol upon it. Ichor also harms whoever comes in contact with it, excluding the person who made it, and as the crowns are alive as their own entities trying to assert control over their hosts, they're the most obvious symbol of the corruption of power, or power that is beyond the control of its wielder, again, emphasising the decay and lack of growth with the bishops.

That brings us to part three.

I think it's understandable that Heket has frog skeletons in her domain, as all the minibosses, and most of the common enemies in her domain are, and literally the entire name of her realm is basically just "Frogs", but fancy.

(Unrelated)

But I think there's a better story to be had here, as out of all of the bishops only Heket is named after an Egyptian frog goddess. The goddess of childbirth, yes, but its not hard to pull out the scope of reproduction to being about plant reproduction and thus: food. You could argue that Heket is the only one of her siblings that may have been created to be a god and not have supplanted one.

There's lots of fun to be had about what may have happened to her that she found a new family in the other bishops rather than potentially her original pantheon, and that potentially her "gruesome"(so said by Kallamar) temple decor is simply her trying to honor, or perhaps humiliate, her old pantheon and their traditions. Etc etc. But I'm off topic.

I can't discount mushroom plagues, only that the bones still existing show that they were not fully turned by mentacide mushrooms. Meaning they may have just gone crazy and needed to be put down by her. Which seems way more brutal.

In any case, I don't think the mushrooms would kill Heket, but this is still really fun to think about her having addiction issues in her domain. This was really fun to think about!

Theories surrounding how the mushrooms in Anura are not the creation of Heket

In my comic series Fairy ring, I mentioned that the Menticide Mushrooms are not the creation of Heket, and the main storyline is associated to this setting. Although you could look at it as an feature in an alternative universe, I do believe that this may be how things unravel in the official game... (It may be disproven. After all, it's just a non-canon theory.)

Prof 1: The Serpent's Tablet

The Serpent is a key character that only appeared in the DLC in the form of "offering the truth to the Lamb". They are mentioned to be the greatest fanatics in the BGM and the comment of the Five Bishops, they worship and defend the Great Ones, which refers to the Gods who created the world in COTL, and tries to unearth their past.

In their fifth tablet, the Serpent documented that they discovered a place with a Godly skull, with small mushrooms that have spots like eyes around it.

(Shamura made their debut in the seventh tablet.)

This could be referring to Sozo's place in the realm of Anura, where there is a giant skull.

In the background, there are birch trees with red eyes.

This shape seems like the "all seeing eye", but there is one alteration: the line representing the eye crosses the lower eyelid by a great length. My friend adds that "this makes the eye resemble the shape of a mushroom".

(P.S. There are also different symbols of eyes in Kallamar and Leshy's realms, I also have theories surrounding them, but let's not get into it in this article.)

Although this shape is scattered across Anura, it seems that Heket may be trying to suppress it. Unlike Leshy, who directly mentioned that the chaotic flowers in his realm is not his creation, Heket did not mention whether she appears earlier or later than Menticide Mushrooms. But... since it already appeared by the time the Serpent is still alive, Heket probably should not be credited for the creation of these mushrooms.

Prof 2: backgrounds during the crusade

I don't know if the background assets would appear randomly and there are actually more backgrounds for one type of map, but let's assume that there are only one type of background for each type of room background.

In this case, there are actually changes in Anura for regular background and purged version. Last time I checked, Anchordeep seems to be the same in both forms. Darkwood may have changed a little. Please allow me to make further testing before reaching a final conclusion.

So, the first thing we see is the candles lit on small, white tree trunks. This may be Heket's attempt to suppress birch trees, which would be infested with mushrooms in the background.

If the trunks grow further, it would show signs of the same red eye-shapes. Furthermore, there are no complete birch trees in the game foreground. They are all chopped or suppressed.

Someone has to put the candles there. I don't think regular followers would dare to touch their beloved leaders' creations. Therefore, it may be the order of Heket towards diciples and followers to do so.

There is also a mushroom in the background with frog eggs atop. Other mushrooms do not have the same shape of red lines on it. The shape looks like an eye sewed together...

Next, let's look at one room that have changed in regular and purged versions ——the giant frog skull room.

First, let me ask you, have you seen giant spider, squid, or worm skulls in her siblings' realms? The answer is no, right? (There are giant skulls of other species, though)

Even if there are skulls or corpses of the same species of the Bishops, they are usually in simpler form.

But these giant frog skulls have exactly four eyes, something not even Heket's followers or disciples have.

It's as if the game is hinting at her demise, and Heket may be using these followers to predict how much time she had left due to the infection.

In addition, in the background, the purged version had visibly more birch trees and visibly more mushrooms grown out of these trees.(You may zoom-in to see the pictures above)

Due to her absence, no one is still suppressing the Great One. Therefore, the trees and mushrooms begin to grow wild.

The initial room for the crusade and the sacrificial room also changed. There are dense birch tree forest in the background in purged version of Anura. I forgot to take pictures, though. *cries

Prof 3: Heket's "tatoos"

The red eyes happened to grow around her wound, where it's assumed to be the weakest. Therefore, it would be more like an infection than fashion choice.

In addition, making tatoos around her wounds would be linked to painism. It's probably too painful.

The eye patterns also disappear when she is in purged form. Maybe the God no longer feels the need to infest and pester her because she is no longer in charge?

In purged form, the mushroom surrounding her statue also dies.

Also, her follower form seems to have healed from the infection. Or it may just be the creators being lazy and not adding details.

Prof 4: Heket never mentioned associations to Menticide Mushrooms in her conversations. The game let SOZO tell the lamb about it instead.

In addition, Heket got mad when the lamb handed her mushrooms after the indoctrination. Although we usually interpret it as her getting angry because lamb is being pitiful to her, it might also be that she hates these mushrooms? Maybe that still makes sense?

The game seems keen on making little word-plays. Like how Forneus mentioned "how can you say no to a God". Before the DLC, we just assumed that she ment Narinder. But eventually Shamura confessed that they were the one who took away the kittens. So the "God" was actually referring to them.

This may be the same for Heket's case?

I believe that prior to Narinder's betrayal, Heket was doing a good job suppressing the God under the instruction of Shamura. But … due to her injusry, she slowly faded and by the time Lamb appears, Anura is in such a worse state. Also, despite Kallamar and Leshy are also suppressing Gods in their realm, the madness in Anura does not mean that Heket is weak or anything. This God is the most active one, and has begun to be active long before Shamura was even born. It might be the hardest chore for the siblings, and healthy Heket was handling it just fine. So... bad kitty!!! Bad!!

Also, if this theory were to be true, then Narinder would be doing her a favor by killing her prior to her death from the fungus infection. Good job, kitty!

Ok that concludes my theory. If you have anything to prove or disprove it, feel free to tell me!!!

#cult of the lamb #cotl heket #cotl sozo #cotl analysis #cotl anura #add it to the list #love when a post makes me think even if i end up with more mundane conclusions #thanks for the post OP #cotl theories

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