The Slaving Lords, or Cult of the Slave, believe that by gaining adherents they will increase the cult’s control over the deity [spirit] himself. Their magickal power is a product of their control and manipulation of the deity.
The Slaving Cult was founded during the early days of the Eschlatli Empire, when tensions were still high between Maetah and Chlendi ethnic groups. The cult began as an offshoot of the Thedine faith who sought to understand the Chlendi cosmology. They joined the ethnic struggle of their brethren against conversion, but quickly lost ground as the Chlendi pantheon began to dominate. They were primarily sorcerors and mystics, whose devotion kept them in the good graces of the Clan of the Black Earth. Once their attention turned towards a target, they found their incantations could counter and control divine forces.
While the cult is generally feared and distrusted, the are primarily known in the south for inciting labor riots and disrupting the slave trade. In the north, they have long fought a guerilla struggle against the Argaevaligne government.
Dispersed cohort of mystics who believe the way to truth, understanding, and immortality is through the consumption of human flesh and organ. Often mistaken (or coinciding!) for rumoured cults of true ghuls that lurk beneath the oldest cities the the Rhiat.
There are two doors to the Way of the Flesh: being born again and communion. Those that are born again are termed the anpiscis. The rebirth is the process of death. When one dies from ghuls feeding, it is likely they will be born again. It is a painful and traumatic process. It is never desired by the victim, and rarely intended by the Ghul. The process takes seven days after the victims death, the victim becomes cognizent, but can not act, move, or speak. Thus the new anpiscis will often awaken in a morgue, during funerary preparation, or during the funeral. The most traumatic can be when the awakening comes after the burial. Many anpisci lose their sanity from the awakening and claw or chew themselves to oblivion, even before their second life begins.
The path of communion is less traumatic, but more depraved. It is the creation of true ghouls, or their proper term ghul. It results from a steady, continuous diet on solely human flesh and blood. Many of the grotesque and repellant characterisitics of the ghul occur from frequent flesh consumption, as in the case of cannibals and deranged serial killers.
Why flesh and blood? It is traditional, and written in the holy books, that flesh and blood are essential to eternal life. But the flesh must be infused with prana or the of the empyreal realm, which is what sustains the body for eternity. For this same, reason, spiritual people and mystics are preferred food sources.
The hermetic ideas of correspondence apply to the Ghul. Effects are obtained through consumptia the act of eating particular body parts. The eyes bring memories, the brain knowledge, the muscles and sinews strength and resistence, the genetilia passion and virility.