Firstborn Children

Firstborn Children during a baptism ceremony in their cathedral.

The **Firstborn Children** or **FBC**, and sometimes known as simply **Adriel's followers**, is a religious movement funded by Adriel.

## Creation

After Adriel goes out of his prison in the Necropolis, many people all over the world join a new cult around him. They call themselves the Firstborn Children or FBC. They resort to intense proselytism to recruit new members through the distribution of flyers and preaching. However, it seems that the most effective method for recruitment is to call for wraith demons taking control of people. It is not known how many of the believers are possessed and how many have joined the cult by free will. Another method is Adriel's apparent performance of miracles, such as controlling plagues, causing people to join the cult after witnessing such actions.

## Locations

The main religious building for the FBC is Adriel's cathedral, built with Arq-Tech funds. The FBC also occupies churches that used to belong to the Catholic Church. Members can also pray in any location such as an open field, and usually gather around an FBC cross designed to convert their prayers into energy directed to the Cathedral through conductive infrastructures.

## Ideology

The FBC are a fundamentalist cult organized around the shared belief that Adriel is a Messianic being come to deliver mankind from evil. Many of their leading members, including Kristian Schaefer, envision their organization as a bridge between the spiritual and scientific worlds, exemplified by Adriel's existence as a simultaneously spiritual and material being. They are fervently and violently anti-Catholic, and are presumably hostile to most other religions, faiths, and belief systems, including agnosticism and atheism.

## Rituals

FBC prayers are very simple as it only requires gathering around an FBC cross and chanting together "Adriel" repeatedly on various tones. Worshipers can stand or lay on the floor while praying. Rituals also include a form of baptism of children and adults, where the baptized person becomes possessed by a demon. Predication by priests includes repeating "Praise Adriel", with the audience repeating after them.

## Ranks

* Priests: they are in charge of predication and religious ceremonies such as baptism.
* Monks: they are usually praying inside the cathedral, wearing a black habit with a cowl covering their head, and they have good fighting skills.
* Guards: they protect the entrances of the cathedral and can also patrol in the streets nearby, wearing military uniforms.

## Members

* Adriel (leader)
* Father Vincent (temporarily)
* Kristian Schaefer
* Matteo Russo
* Cardinal Rossi
* Cardinal William Foster
* Brother Griffin
* Lilith

## Enemies

* The Samaritans
* The Order of the Cruciform Sword
* The Warrior Nun
* Warrior Sisters
* Francesco Duretti / Catholic Church
* Jillian Salvius
* Michael Salvius

## Criticism

Michael Salvius criticized several times the Firstborn Children when he was in Switzerland and wanted to expose their religion as a fraud. He considered their members as brainwashed and dangerous. He called them "an army of deluded angel groupies", "creepy, leaflet-wielding zealots", a "scam religion" and a "crypto-fascist religious formation". He also called one of them "a soldier for evil". He said Adriel was a "con artist". When Beatrice wondered how Adriel could have inspired such devotion so quickly, he said that people are desperate to believe in magic,
especially magic they can see.

Pope Duretti was also very critical of Adriel's new cult. He called him "a lying madman", "a fraud", "a showman" and "a charlatan" who has blinded many people with his tricks. He was unimpressed by his actions and called him a false prophet whose influence was a threat to traditional religions. He said he might be "a devil, a demon, an aberration" and said he was a "corrupt entity". In Adriel's cathedral, he publicly called him a "fraud, liar, devil" using "trickery and fear" to deceive people.