The current Marian cults in Hell are the result of a clever idea that did not quite unfold properly, at least from the point of views of its creators; while still deemed a success, it is not entirely an unmitigated one. There have been worrisome developments and vague danger signs from the very beginning, and some suspect that the rate of both is currently increasing. The debate continues.
Hell has always had to deal with a central problem;
put quite simply, they are outnumbered by their slaves and prey by at least ten
thousand to one. Individually, one
demon can easily destroy one human. A
hundred humans - all of whom were sufficiently evil to deserve damnation - is a
different issue. Granted, if the
Princes worked in unison they could probably depopulate Hell of damned souls,
but that would be a last-ditch effort, and mere slave revolts are beneath their
dignity. Unfortunately, it is not
beneath their dignity to punish those who allow slave revolts to occur. It then follows that the medium-to-upper
ranks of Hell's organization have a vested interest in maintaining at least
rudimentary social control over the mass of damned souls that are their
responsibilities. Traditionally, this
has been done via collective punishment, Quislings, unfortunate examples and
the channeling of rebellious energies into controllable outlets.
Thus, the Marian Cult. Once the corporeal version grew popular, some nameless Servitor
of the Game was quick to see the possible advantages; it would have the ring of
familiarity to it for a good proportion of Hell's population and could be
plugged into an existing framework of belief.
Also, allowing it to exist without utter annihilation might also have a
cowing effect on those damned souls who were not members of Abrahamic
religions; after all, if the Christian Mary was strong enough to spread her
message in the face of Hell's displeasure and, say, Krishna was not, what does
that say about Krishna, or his worshippers?
The Cult was developed along fairly straightforward
lines: its message was extremely simple.
You deserved this; shut up and pray to the Virgin Mary, and maybe she'll
get your undeserved soul out of Hell.
Maybe. She's already spending a
lot of effort protecting her cult's holy places, just because she loves
everybody, even evil little monsters like you, who don't deserve it. If you want to show that you're less
undeserving than your fellow damned souls, kick in some Essence every so often
to your priest - that'll show that you're on the right path. So will doing what the priest says, because
he or she's much more likely to know what Mary wants you to do. Just remember that you're damned and that
you're never going to earn your salvation.
The above was and is never explicitly spelled out,
obviously, but the ethos permeates the entire 'theology' of the Infernal Marian
Cult. It's explicitly designed to be
useless in making its adherents better people, reinforces the message that they
are effectively helpless and gives ambitious souls a place where they can
manage to get a scrap or two of power over those even less unfortunate than
them. Naturally, the Essence gathered
by the Cults mostly goes to those demons fortunate enough to have oversight
over individual sects; for that matter, putting all the potential troublemakers
in place has numerous applications, especially in the field of applied faction
politics. Generally speaking, the Cult
has worked out quite well...
...but there have been some complications.
The Infernal Marian Cult has one characteristic
about it that causes headaches: it's not centralized. Princes who liked the idea set up their own versions, pointedly
ignoring any 'suggestion' that the Game be allowed to do it for them, and they
actively discourage cross-connections.
This makes it difficult for the Game to determine if a particular sect
is developing abnormally, as there is no standard for normalcy to act as a
baseline. This further means that if a third
group is influencing Cultists, it's often not discovered until after the
explosions start.
There is also the problem of the damned souls
themselves. Generally speaking, those
who see through the false front of the cult are cunning enough to recognize
that playing along will pay off, however marginally. But there's always somebody who'll want more, and nine times out
of ten their clever plan involved creating 'secret' Cult sects. Not all of them get ferreted out afterwards;
if Hell had the resources to police every block and slave pen they wouldn't
need things like the Marian Cult. Some
of those groups have been around for a while: their motivations, beliefs
and plans are unknown, but unlikely to be palatable. Or even vaguely sane.
And then there's the Host - particularly the very
devout, very Christian Archangel of the Sword. Laurence may not be especially solicitous of what happens to
those who damned themselves to Hell, but he tends to take insults to the Mother
of God extremely personally. This means
that angels who are especially solicitous of the Damned usually can
count on the Commander's assistance if their plans happen to incorporate the
humiliation or outright destruction of those who oversee the Marian Cult. At least, that's the theory to explain the
annoying recurrence of a certain theme in Hell; every so often a particular
cult shifts focus to something more clearly Divine, slips its leash to the
numberless warrens of Hell and fights a brief, yet violent guerrilla war until
its members vanish, supposedly to Heaven.
Obviously, this is a ploy by the Host to embarrass a particular demon or
faction and raise unreasoning hope in the Damned. All reports and testimony must be seen in that light,
particularly the ones that claim that these mini-revolts are generally 'led' by
a middle-aged human woman with a blue cloak and an incredibly annoyed look on
her face. It's obviously a ploy of the
Host.
The possibility that the Virgin Mary might actually exist and might have an opinion is, of course, inconceivable...