Cannibal Cults

The cannibal cults first started eating people as a reaction to the growing power of the necromancers, after all an eaten body cannot be raised. They eat the undead to stop them from being re-raised and reused by the necroswampers even when defeated. They also eat the undead for nourishment, as they live where almost nothing can grow.

Their capitol is Dawns Gate, and is built inside a crater of a meteor that crashed there around the age of dawn. The Cannibal Cultists worship the rock as a part of Eiph's flesh that was much closer to his soul when it was still in the ground.

#### Religion

The Cannibal Cultists believe that everything used to be one god, named Eiph. There used to be no sun, or stars, or any life except for Eiph. Eiph was the world, and the world was his skin. There was nothing but his skin on the land, which was the rock. Everything that is in the land and the sky now was deep inside Eiph. Epih, after pondering his existence for countless ages, Eiph realized that his purpose in life was to kill himself. To do this, he first cut his skin with his many hands. From those cuts his blue blood came forth, and it flowed and became the ocean. While bleeding out, Eiph relaized that he would engulf his skin in blood if he did not do something. So he took his many hands and from his back gouged out a great chunk of his flesh. He pushed his flesh up into the sky, so that his blood would not engulf it. This became the land. The rivers are his blood that leaked out through his flesh, and the mountains are his fingers that elevated the land. After bleeding until all of his blood ran out of his body, he realized that he could not die until his soul was removed from its resting place, the khret. Through the flesh that he tore away from his body, he dug deeper into the center of his self, and all of the flesh from his body that he removed to reach his soul he flung from his being, and it became the moon. After clearing a path, Eiph reached inside to the deepest part of himself, and brought out his soul. In a final effort to die he grabbed his soul with his many hands and flung it from his body. His soul was flung far from his body, and became the sun. At long last Eiph did die.

However, when he flung his soul away, he pireced it with his many hands. Instead of lying dormant in the sky, the sun started to bleed. Fragments of Eiph soul flew away, and some went off into space to create stars. Others touched the earth that Eiph made. The ground, knowing the pieces of soul to belong to itself, tried to reabsorb it. But it was not the complete soul of Eiph, and so the land could not fully integrate it into itself. However the fragment of Eiph's soul did find a home in the dirt. It nestled into the ground, and from it came the first humans. These humans, who had no way to sustain themselves, quickly died, and the fragment of Eiph's soul that they housed borrowed deeper into the earth, and gave life to the first animals and plants. They have only the smallest fragment of Eiph's soul however, and because of that cannot live or think like a human or other mortal.

Soon enough however more fragments of his soul nestled into the earth, and from it sprouted not only humans, but the other races as well. Thus, the world as we know it was created.

The Cultists believe that the a mortal body is a Khret for Eiph's soul. By living, a person slowly burns out the soul fragment until they die. This process is stalled by eating food, which contains the tiniest bit of Eiph's soul. However, this only forestalls a persons inevitable death. Each body has a fragment of Eiph's soul, and by eating a body, you also consume the soul fragment that they carry.

When alive, the human imprints them self upon the soul fragment, and if they are eaten and the soul is transferred, bits and pieces of the dead mortals survive in the new body. They are no longer alive, but the eater can remember, very faintly, their life. The Cultists believe that the soul rests on in the body of those who ate them, and so it has become practice to eat family members as a way of remembrance and connection. When a person who has eaten many people die however, only their soul and a little extra gets transferred when the body is eaten. The remaining soul fragments decompose with the body into the earth.

By eating a person you consume their soul fragment, and by doing so extend your own life. The heads of the cult do this to extend their own life far past normal human standards. These cult leaders are usually elders who get to eat the majority of a family member when they die. Due to their age and the knowledge of many lives that they carry, these elders are viewed as wise men and women who help lead the cult.

When one has many souls inside of them, they start to exhibit traits of Eiph's power. This develops into magical abilities, from casting to superhuman powers.

If someone dies and is not eaten, the soul decomposes with the body and dissipates into the earth.

Because the process of gaining Eiph's blessed power sally involves killing good and holy mortals of his faith, there has been development keeping the soul whole when consumed. By eating the body whole while it is alive, the two bodies merge into one. The soul however stays intact, and the two people now have the power of someone that has eaten two whole soul fragments. This process is difficult, as the person must be eaten whole and alive until they are fully broken down and consumed by the eater, which can take several days. Magic to transform the bodies help, but if something goes wrong it can prove to be fatal to both the consumer and the consume. This process is called god eating among the cultists. If the god eating goes well, then two whole minds inhabit one body with the power of two full soul fragments. This does also cause mental and physical issues. The most common side effect is that extra limbs develop and the person starts to talk and interact with themselves, but other things can happen as well. This process can be repeated with more bodies, but the side effects of god eating start to become bigger and bigger until you are left with a blob of limbs and heads, with many voices calling out with no rhyme or reason.

The cultist believe that the undead have no soul. Zombies, ghasts, skeletons, and other such creatures have been simply reanimated using foul demon magic. They are eaten as a food source and to make sure they cannot be raised again. Creatures like vampires are unholy beings, which consume the Eiph's soul fragments through blood because they have no soul themselves. This is seen as a terrible fate to the cultists, who would rather have their soul be shared among their loved one then feasted on by a demonic beast.

People who commit terrible crimes are not eaten, and are usually fed to pigs or other livestock to make the animals soul richer, but not carry the imprint of the person when the animal is killed and eaten.