Religion of Evil/Playing With

Basic Trope: A dark religion devoted to an evil entity that makes no effort to hide its true intentions.

• Straight: The dark Cult of Azaaroth wears black cloaks and spills the blood of virgins in tribute to their dark god.
• Exaggerated: The Cult of Azaaroth builds a giant skull-shaped temple on the side of an active volcano and considers baby-eating to be a sacred rite.
  • The Cult of Azaaroth literally worship the concept of evil, wanting to ensure it's victory.
• Justified: Azaaroth is a malevolent God of Evil worshipped by the Evil Empire and has no need to disguise his true intentions.
  • Alternately, the religion was originally imagined by panicked Moral Guardians, and was taken up by an oppressed minority as a method of rebelling. (See also: Satanism.)
  • Azaaroth is merely an excuse. The members are simply trying to make their evil seem meaningful and holy.
• Inverted: The Path of Inspiration, who wear shiny white robes but are no less evil than their counterparts.
  • The black-cloaked priests with the skull masks are actually decent folk.
  • The Saintly Church and the morally pure examples of the Church Militant.
• Subverted: The Cult of Azaaroth seem to be scary black-robed cultists, but instead turn out to be death-worshippers who wish to ease the suffering of the living.
• Double Subverted: ...but their method of ending all suffering is an Ancient Conspiracy to extinguish all life.
• Parodied: The evil cult of Azaaroth goes door-to-door handing out pamphlets and seeking converts to their evil cause.
• Deconstructed: The "evil cult" and the Most Popular Religion that fight them are actually two denominations of the same religion that worship the same god in different ways. Each side sees themselves striving for good and fighting evil...
  • The Cult of Azaaroth began as a brutal, vicious, bloodthirsty religion... but since Azaaroth is nowhere to be seen, the religion eventually goes mainstream and, to attract converts, slowly turns into a Lighter and Softer version of itself. Red wine substitutes for blood, unpleasant tenets are explained away as complex metaphors or swept under the rug, sacrifices are replaced by plays in which nobody actually gets hurt, and the few traditionalists who still bother with skulls at all use ceramic ones instead instead of the real deal.
• Reconstructed: ...and then one side starts using "spiritually pure" Child Soldiers as magically enhanced Tyke Bomb armies.
• Zig Zagged: The Cult of Azaaroth seem to be scary cultists. But they have good intentions. But they achieve their good goals via torture and human sacrifice. But it turns out the "torture" is really Training from Hell, allowing the "sacrifice victims" to voluntarily Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. But when they get there, they're conscripted into a war of angels vs demons-- and both sides claim to be the angels.
• Averted: Evil deities have no worshippers at all, or else there are no devil deities in the universe.
• Enforced: The work is an Author Tract against religion.
• Lampshaded: "Are these guys even trying to hide their balls-out villainy? How are they getting converts?"
• Invoked: A Chaotic Evil Immature Hedonist starts a cult of excess and wanton cruelty, the better to partake of these himself and attract like-minded allies.
• Defied: An evil cult starts operating in an area, but the locals quickly take note and just as quickly extirpate it from the land.
• Discussed: "You remember the rhyme - 'If cloaked all in red, just aim for the head'? The Darklight priests only wear red."
• Conversed: "All those skulls on that temple had to come from somewhere; you'd think someone would have noticed and, you know, asked them to leave some for the rest of us."

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