Andromeda Mindlight

### Relatives

AML Jr. (biological child; deceased), Saatvik [last name unknown] (father), Bhanavi [last name unknown] (mother)

### Occupation

Ruler of Espritlux, false prophet, 24/7 hottie

### Eye color

Dark brown pre-amethyst consumption. Post-amethyst consumption, right eye is purple.

## Pre-Cult

### Early life

Andromeda grew up in an upper-middle-class family for the first few years of their life, born to parents Bhavani and Saatvik (last names unknown). They grew up in an atheist household.

In their teenage years, their mother Bhavani got a promotion, putting the family in the upper class bracket. During these formative years, Andromeda was entirely spoiled. They were unschooled but took an interest in theology as a main focus in education. They also took up an interest in hair dye.

On their 18th birthday, they moved out of their parents' house. They lived alone for a while. During this time alone, they came to the conclusion that they were non-binary, but they were undecided on changing their name yet.

While their family was very accepting of them in every aspect, they grew up surrounded by elitist ideals. They learned from a young age that they were superior to others.

## During the cult/post-cult

### The inciting incident

One day, at around age 19, while mining, Andromeda stumbled into a large amethyst geode. Due to family predispositions that they were unaware of, they immediately felt the strong, negative effects of the amethysts. They paused, immediately being flooded with auditory hallucinations, and they collapsed on the ground. The hallucinations they heard consisted of things such as what to change their name to, as well as repetitive declarations of them being god, of them needing to take back as much of the crystals as possible, of them needing to spread their beliefs with the world.

Upon exiting the cave, now with a handful of amethyst and nothing else, they collapsed outside, processing the events. Upon coming to the conclusion that this must have been a sign from the universe that they deserved to be worshiped, seeing the declarations of godhood as somewhat metaphorical.

### Early cult activity

Very quickly, via charisma and charm, they amassed a small but loyal following. Starting out small, the Mindlight was originally a mindfulness group where subtle messages of their superiority were sprinkled throughout. During this time, anonymity was a very small concern of theirs.

Originally, cult rituals involved meditation and story sharing, and not much else. Furthermore, Andromeda would oftentimes engage as well.

Quickly, they noticed that there was a spot of land unclaimed by any countries, and that they could, in all technicality, claim it as their own and gain more credibility. They went through the excruciating process and soon owned a very small country, Espritlux. Upon this, privacy and anonymity became a bit of a bigger concern for them.

With some firm encouragement they managed to convince their followers to move to Espritlux and establish homes.

Soon, the Mindlight gained media coverage, and that brought upon new followers. Originally, Andromeda was credited with helping many people with mental health struggles, and the Mindlight was an often recommended group to join, with the only catch being that you had to become an Espritlux citizen, something that was originally relatively easy.

### General cult business pre-war

Around age 20, they had amassed a large following and enough citizens to consider branching out with the rituals of the cult as well as expanding their land. Generally, they could buy unwanted and unused land off of neighboring countries, and without an army yet, this was their only option.

With their new power over people, they began to try more methods to gain traction. They frequently housed the homeless, with the only exchange being to work in Espritlux and join the Mindlight. Along with this, they began to slowly teach their citizens and followers vaguely religious ideas, instilling the idea of them being a powerful figure, and having the key to things otherworldly in nature. This would very quickly spiral into them hinting towards being a god and eventually outright declaring it.

Up until they were 22, they remained less physically violent than mentally violent. However, one day during one of their sermons (at the time called pep talks), they kept getting interrupted. They took the person by the collar and threw them to the ground, screaming at them to shut up. This was the start of their physical violence, and lined up perfectly with the start of their amethyst consumption. Due to this sudden bout of violence, many followers grew intimidated by and scared of Andromeda, which only served to please them. They had the power over people that they craved, and fear was the perfect medium for it.

They slowly grew more and more violent towards their followers, incorporating pain into rituals, namely burning, as it left a mark most times. This is where the introduction of candles began, both as lighting and within rituals.

Eventually they switched the name of their pep talks to be called sermons, based on the Christian term. This was to emphasize their godhood, as well as give an excuse to be less uplifting. Along with this, they began to talk about darker topics, and even started to mock their followers.

Over the span of a couple months, they became extremely cruel, threatening anyone who wanted to leave with an eternity of suffering. They'd also often beat those who tried to leave, and made any attempt at escape nearly impossible.

At age 23, after beginning to create an army, there started talk of another nearby country--Mons Inanis--potentially declaring war. Andromeda tried to assure their followers that it wasn't anything to worry about, but they knew that with the threat of war overhead they needed to amp up security, instate stricter rules and laws, and with the added stress they grew almost twice as violent as usual, leading to a few counts of murder.

### General cult business during the war

Eventually, Mons Inanis declared war against Espritlux, leaving Andromeda to completely wing everything. Amidst bomb threats they also had to give sermons, as well as adopting new responsibilities as people began to finally view them as god, and managing the very quickly spreading amethyst consumption. Due to this increasing stress, they very soon turned to drugs as a vice. They also became more and more paranoid, from the anxiety of war, as well as the drugs, but namely from the amethyst consumption.

At one point, a follower of theirs chose to sacrificially kill someone else for good luck, which gave Andromeda an idea to incorporate more slaughter. This led to public execution sites being established. This also opened them up for more violence, all of which they reveled in.

As the cult began to take in refugees with the sole price of converting, as well as the typical housing the homeless nonsense, Andromeda began to grow obsessed with power. They started to send out their followers to convert others, spread the word, and even convert others by force.

They also developed a low stress tolerance, leading them to snap at anyone who spoke against them. Despite this, they kept up a charismatic energy about them, aiming to be likable when calm at the very least, although snapping at and berating anyone who stepped out of line.

At around age 25, they realized just how cruel they could get with the position of power they had. They picked up exercise around this time to have a physical advantage, although with their habits it's no surprise that it took a lot of effort to build any muscle. They began to get plain abusive after several months, oftentimes beating followers as punishments, taking all of their anger and stress out on them. Soon they even began to lie about rules their followers had supposedly broken just for an excuse. This extreme violence became something they indulged in daily, and they even began to involve their personal beliefs about the world (such as their belief that disabled people are subhuman, their beliefs about gay and trans people being unnatural, their beliefs about women being inferior, and several other highly bigoted stances). This stayed steady for the rest of their time being the leader of the Mindlight, with occasional, very subtle increases and decreases in violence here and there.

When they were 29, they discovered that, via their army they could "smuggle in" prostitution services from neighboring countries, which started out as a way to relieve stress and loneliness, and spiraled quickly into what's comparable to a sex addiction.

Things stayed relatively the same for the next thirteen years, with less major changes to their life.

### End of war/post-war

Nearing the end of the war, Andromeda arranged with the leaders of Mons Inanis to call off the war, but publicly frame it as a loss for Espritlux. This was a strategy planned out by Andromeda, so that they could fake their death, fake loss, and not have to deal with any of the responsibilities anymore, knowing that no matter how good it felt to be worshiped, that was too much for them to handle with the state they were in. With the assistance of several Mons Inanis officials, Andromeda faked their death at age 42, but with nowhere to go next, they ended up retreating to a cave, where they slowly lost their mind.