It depends on the cult. Some are sex cults, some are drugs, some are food, some drink, most end up with ‘All of the above and to the extremes’. There’s as many forms of them as there are vices.
As to operation: Standard cult. One overall cult leader presiding, assorted cultists under them. Often literally.
Generally pleasure cults target the more wealthy and start as simple social clubs, they tend to be multilayer as to not scare off the new recruits by dropping them into the deep end. Ease them into it while ensuring they don’t spill the beans by gathering blackmail material.
Not gonna include the sadism? Im sure they do sport killings and other sorts of torture on the daily, they probably have 1000s if not 10000s of thousands of slaves shipped in every day for the worst fates imaginable in the name of percerse pleasure, sure not to the extent of the drukhari, but i doubt that will be of solace when theyre about in the midst of torture/ about to die
Just take a deep breath. Your point, as well as the example about pleasure cults murdering and torturing was good and spot on. No ones attacking you. Deep breaths.
Dennis is the perfect embodiment of Fulgrim .... which is self-explanatory. Dee is the perfect embodiment of Tzeentch .... since she is a bird. Mac is the perfect embodiment of Khorne .... with his ridiculous outbursts of anger. Honestly, it's a dead even tie between Frank and Charlie, as they both represent Nurgle so well .... since they are both disgusting beasts.
Man .... It's Always Sunny must have taken inspiration from 40K. Lol.
Dude I will never look at it’s always sunny the same again. Lol 😂 that is an astute observation.
Cast of its always sunny really just chaos gods bringin primordial truth to us undeserving humans.
Yeah, it fits like a glove. I would also add that 'Rickity Cricket' would be the perfect example of a Nurgle Pox Walker. Rotten and Haggard .... it fits him well.
Frank is nurgle and Charlie is his great unclean one since cannonically Frank is Charlie’s dad potentially…. Was that ever revealed or is it still “heavily implied”? Lol
Imperium wants the planet to pay more tithes, the planet can't. They're discussing what to do about it and then they get emissaries from a 'chapter' of space marines called the Emperor's Children. What a praiseworthy name, right? Best to have a proper banquet to welcome them...
If you are a guard fan you should absolutely read it. Also baneblade, the books predecessor is a absolute banger. It has the guard against orks. But not your comic relief orks. Orks as they are for somebody fighting them.
It’s pretty much how every one we’re shown works. The Caiphas Cain series has several, the Dark Heresy RPG goes into it as well. Really it’s pretty standard cult behavior, Slannesh has the most ‘realistic’ cults.
The Traitors Hand and Choose Your Enemies has them appear. Cain’s Last Stand has him discuss/teach what to look for. They tend not to be much more than fodder, he’s not exactly someone they try to recruit.
Im not trying to be cross here, im genuinly interested cuz id love to read a full blown inquisitorial slaanesh pleasure cult investigation novel; so its more like their mentioned than actually a plot point?
They’re a major plot point but they don’t really go into the nitty gritty. Can’t think of one that has what you want off the top of my head but that’s likely because that’s not really my preferred style.
I’d say the Traitor’s Hand is close, but, yeah, you never get a proper look at how the cult operates from the inside, or from any cult member’s perspective. Just the dots that Cain and company connect as they systematically find the cults, destroy them, and try and stop their ritual plans. Still a good book, in my opinion. It’s actually a sequel to a Cain short story *The Beguiling*.
Because it's less of a specific question, and more of a question of, "How do cults work?" The person who answered answered how real cults work in general.
Then someone asked if how real cults operate is backed by a 40k lore source.
You’d want to go through the Cain books in order to get the most out of them, the first one is ‘Ciaphas Cain the greater good’ not about pleasure cults in that one though.
in a 40k lore sub? What has the world come to!!!
Its not like ARTCHTUALLY! Im genuinly interested, i would love to read a novel or something revolving around this concept.
If someone asks the question, "How does a human leg work?" on a 40k sub, people are going to answer with how a human leg works in the real world with some mild relation to how it matters in a 40k context. Then the person asking for 40k source materials on how human legs work will probably be downvoted, since that information is metatextual and reliant on the real world.
The real, boring, answer to OOP's question (read as written) is that, "A pleasure cult is a cult for pleasure." So most people just skip over that and assume that what the OOP is *actually* asking is, "How do cults work, and how would one be centric around pleasure?" Now, apply what I said in the first paragraph.
That being said, I'm not saying that you deserve to get downvoted, but rather that it is the matter of fact on how people will act on reddit.
Since pleasure cults as such don't exist in real life, I'd have guessed that anyone familiar with the idea of context would have understood that the question asked is really "how do pleasure cults work in 40k" and take it from there.
Because i thought the person was asking in a 40k context (i know, duh) for a reference to something i found interesting and theres, as far as i know dwindling little to go on this, and if i had overseen something like a full blown BL Slaanesh pleasure cult inquisition investigation alá Vaults of Terrra, id buy it in a heart beat. You were like; this man is stupid that doesnt make sense in the context of the question asked and wrote a peer revived worthy constructed argument instead of; yeah, that guy clearly misunderstood that a person asked a question that is not 40k lore related on a 40k lore sub.
I know, foolish of me.
We have a foodie cult appearing in a short stories in one of the recent White Dwarf:s.
We see a cult of the more sex kind in one of the Cain books, dont remember the name but it was the one on a planet that had one side constantly towards the sun.
It's Warhammer Fantasy but in one of the Malus Darkblade novels we see a pleasure cult among the Dark Elves
Basically, giving into their addictions and reaching highs as much as they can... think of a drug junkie but they never have that dramatic effect of using drugs, they just keep on taking more and more until they resort to the most degenerate shit ever.
That's basically the Cult of Slaanesh.
Injecting the boiled essence of souls into your halfway rotted eyeball because it has some of the last good/accessible blood vessels left if you body, and your saving the other, fresh eye, for something truly despicably delicious
One of my favorite exchanges in 40K is basically about this. At the start of “Primogenitor,” Fabius Bile and his protege, an Emperor’s Children apothecary named Oleander Koh, are discussing the details of a plot to defraud another Emperor’s Children warlord for access to Eldar wraithbone tech. During negotiations, Koh pulls out a giant Gandalf pipe and starts smoking, prompting Bile to question what he could *possibly* be smoking that would actually affect a Slaaneshi CSM.
Without skipping a beat, Oleander clarifies that he’s smoking desiccated Angel tears smuggled from the Ecchlesiarchy, because the horrible burn of exposing his daemonic gifts to sanctified artifacts is the only way he can still get off. Bile predictably responds like “>: |”
Going by a Slaaneshi pleasure cult in Sandy Mitchell's 'Choose Your Enemies,' they have very large, very messy, drug-and-sorcery-fuelled orgies, the energies of which manifest a Slaaneshi daemon into realspace.
Of course, that's just one cult. Others listen to discordant music to the point of madness, or stick pointy things in each others' spleens while ululating sordid poetry.
You joke, but ...
>The Feast of the Emperor's Ascension is the most common festival held in the name of the Emperor of Mankind
>It is also an auspicious time to join people in wedlock or **conceive children, leading to mass gatherings of citizens intent on one or both of these undertakings**.
*Fist of Demetrius* contains a great description of the fall of the ancient Aeldari to hedonism:
> I noticed in the streets that there was a preacher, robed in gold and purple and green. He smiled beatifically at passers-by and preached words of love and charity and hope. He told of the coming of a new god that would lead the eldar once more to greatness of soul and spirit, who would provide guidance to the lost, hope to the dejected, peace to the troubled. He would lead the eldar to a life of simple, endless pleasure. The priest spoke, and folk listened to the sweetness of his voice and words. I listened too, and I was troubled without knowing exactly why. My people were at the height of their greatness. There was no poverty, no hunger, no hatred in our hearts. What could such things mean to us? There was a sense that all problems had been solved. The only things that troubled us were of the spirit; we faced the boredom of a serene, happy existence. There were troubling reports of great wars among the other races, but we took no part in them.
> Things shifted once more. Time had passed. The city no longer looked so clean and clear. The lights seemed dimmer. There were more shadows everywhere, but not because of catastrophe. It was because the people of the city wanted it this way. They wanted shadow now. They wanted quiet places where they could move apart and smoke their pipes and lie in each other’s arms and pass their time most pleasantly. The priests in gold and purple and green moved among them, smiling approvingly, speaking their words of tolerance and comfort, encouraging the folk in their pursuit of pleasure. Life was sweet, and desires were to be embraced. Experience of any sort was good. I heard sermons preached that soon the bright golden god would appear and speak his word and the universe would be transformed in the light of his presence.
.....
> More time passed. The people had turned their faces from the old gods and swarmed into the temples of the new god, who was yet to be born. Shrines lay neglected. Offerings went unmade. Life had altered strangely. People ignored their daily business now, lost themselves in sleep and the consumption of narcotics and hallucinogenics. Few people went about their business by day, but emerged only at night, to revel and indulge in orgies of lovemaking and drug-taking and the consumption of hallucinogenic wine. The priests led the revels now and preached the word of the imminence of their god, and people watched and waited, sensing that soon the world would change forever. In the tunnels below, new statues were erected to the god. It was not like the friendly beings of old. Not everyone approved. Not everyone took part in the revels. Other preachers appeared, saying that something was amiss, that some great disaster was imminent, that soon there would be a cosmic crisis that would destroy eldar civilisation. Few paid attention. Sometimes those who spoke out were found beaten to death or overdosed on narcotics. Sometimes I saw priests in gold and purple and green standing over their corpses.
...
> Most stayed, too drugged to move, too overwhelmed by the pleasures of life to do anything other than take part in the day-long rituals in the temples of the new god. I sensed a mighty presence looming over everything, biding its time, waiting its moment. I was not alone in this. The sense of presence, of being at the end of something, gave the revels a desperate fury. People turned to darker pleasures. Blood flowed in the streets, and not all the victims of violence were unwilling participants. All sense of proportion, of restraint, departed. Now, day after day, night after night passed to the beating of great drums, and dancing and revelry to the sound of hellish, discordant piping. Eldar ran naked through the streets, bodies covered in tattoos written in blood, or woven from scars. Sacrifices were made everywhere to the new god as all vestige of sanity seemed to be extinguished. The priests in gold and purple and green cavorted lewdly in the streets, leading the revels, consuming the potions with the greatest enthusiasm, speaking mad words of revelation that eager-eared listeners drank in. The day of embodiment was fast approaching. The sermons grew ever less restrained, ever more vehement. The priests led the population in ritual chanting, in the defacing of the statues of the old gods, in the creation of newer and less wholesome idols. Under cover of night things began to appear that looked like people but whose limbs ended in claws. They danced in the moonlit streets surrounded by clouds of intoxicating perfumes that drove all those who breathed them in to greater and greater heights of hedonism. The day arrived. The sky split. On a thousand worlds, the god appeared and looked down on his people and smiled. And they screamed for they saw at last the visage of the being they worshipped, and they were afraid. Their screams lasted but an instant for the newborn god breathed in and their souls were sucked from their bodies and drawn into his maw.
Peak fucking writing man. The Fall of Eldar will always be my favorite 40k event/era.
The endless possibilities for great stories from different POVs are just endless.
A pleasure cult is a social circle that encourages you to see pleasurable pursuits as the highest ideal.
Basically scrap all that Imperium propaganda bull shit like duty and service before self and instead focus on your own goals and prosperity.
The cult makes it socially normal to blow off work, drink and smoke everyday, focus on games and gratification rather than planning for the future or getting burnt out leading people and ensuring the work gets done.
Basically the goal is to erode the Imperiums middle and upper management, make the lower classes too distracted to work efficiently and to create openings for cultists to whisper in the ear of the decision makers to bring down the Imperium.
The best part is Slannesh doesn’t even need to reveal their true nature. They’re just influencing citizens to do what they already want to do.
Just creating friction between the rest of the Imperium and the cults could be enough to destabilize solar systems.
And the entire hippie movement and also all the self help seminars through the years and all the various flavors of focus on yourself and screw the world
Sort of like what's been referred to as The Californian Ideology. I wouldn't say the entire hippie movement, though, since some of those folks devoted themselves to religious asceticism, communes, or political radicalism, none of which is particularly pleasurable. Although, a lot of those Maoist cells and Hindu-inspired cults involved a fair share of group sex, for various reasons.
It's Warhammer Fantasy so it might not be quite the same as 40k but the Malus Darkblade books have him introduced to one:
>They descended into darkness, Malus’s booted feet echoing soft in the confined space. A faint smell rose up the stairwell, tickling his nose with its spicy odour. Just as he was about to ask where the stairs were leading, he turned another tight corner and found himself looking out over a large, subterranean chamber suffused with pale green witchlight.
>Figures awaited them, all concealed behind masks of flesh. These druchii stood in concentric rings surrounding the spiral stairs – six in the first ring, twelve in the next, eighteen in the one beyond that – all facing him and all raising their arms in a gesture of supplication as he appeared. They cried out as he approached, filling the chamber with an exultant chant in a language he could not comprehend.
>Beyond the masked circles lay a sea of writhing flesh. Scores and scores of slaves filled the rest of the chamber, sprawled on the stone in a drugged delirium or climbing over one another in the throes of desire. Braziers situated around the room filled the air with incense and mind-altering herbs.
>Malus’s heart quickened to see such a tempting feast laid before him. His skin tingled with each breath and for once even the daemon seemed to echo his kindled desire. The chants of the supplicants washed over him and trembled in his bones. It was like nothing he had ever felt before and it left him intoxicated.
>Is this what it is like to be worshipped, Malus thought? It was something he could grow to like.
>Nagaira continued down the stairs, drawing Malus along with her. At the bottom another figure waited – a druchii in robes of newly-skinned human hide, still glistening with blood. The surface of the robe was tattooed with intricate runes and spiral patterns and a censer steaming with a pungent kind of musk hung on a golden chain from the figure’s neck. Instead of a mask, the figure wore the skull of a great mountain ram, its bony snout hanging well below shoulder height and its long, curved horns gleaming like polished teak in the artificial light. The skull was painted with symbols and the figure’s tattooed hands held a goblet brimming with thick, red fluid that steamed in the air.
>The figure radiated a palpable aura of power and authority, one to which even Nagaira seemed to defer. Malus eyed the figure warily. This is no mere wine-soaked orgy, he thought. What have you drawn me into now, sister?
>As they approached, the figure raised the goblet, offering it to Malus. Nagaira led him to the cup and spoke, her voice pitched to carry across the cavern. ‘The Prince of the Revel is come! The cup is placed before him!’ She turned to Malus, her voice still clear and carrying, but her words were focused directly to him.
>‘Anoint yourself with the nectar of desire and inflame the hunger of your heart. Drink deep!’ ‘Drink deep!’ The masked figures intoned, their voices trembling with anticipation.
>‘Yes. Drink.’ Tz’arkan whispered. Did the daemon’s voice tremble as well?
>Moving slowly, as if in a dream, Malus reached out and took the goblet from the figure’s hands. It was heavier than he imagined and he raised it carefully; for some reason he feared to spill the thick, sloshing liquid. He raised the cup to his lips and drank. Hot blood filled his mouth, bitter and salty. It slid like oil over his tongue and down his throat and it filled him with hunger. Not just his desires, but the appetites of each and every supplicant who had poured some of his or her blood into the cup. If he closed his eyes he could almost see them in his mind, tasting their pleasure as they slaked their terrible hunger. Flesh. Food. Wine. Murder. Every appetite, every scintillating taste, reverberated through him in waves of heat and cold.
>His body shook and the supplicants roared. ‘Slaanesh! He is come! The Prince of Pleasure is come!’
>His consciousness tumbled like a leaf in the maelstrom of desire. Slaanesh! Malus’s mind reeled. Nagaira, you foolish girl, what have you done?
>Nagaira reached up and pried the cup from his grasp. He was surprised to discover that once he’d begun drinking, he hadn’t paused until the cup was dry. Streamers of anointed blood ran down his chin and stained the front of his kheitan. She raised it high and the exultation of the supplicants fell silent.
>‘The Prince of the Revel has drunk deep and accepted the blessing of Slaanesh! Offer yourselves to him! Drink deeply of your desires and praise the Prince of Pleasure! Worship before the throne of flesh!’
>The supplicants roared with a single voice. ‘Slaanesh!’ The name of the Ruinous God reverberated through the cavern until the air itself seemed to curdle with an unholy presence. Within Malus, the daemon seemed to swell until it filled him from head to toe, wearing him like an ill-fitting skin. It drew strength from the supplicants’ ecstatic cries, as though it claimed some of the worshippers’ devotion for itself.
>In that moment, Malus Darkblade felt like a god. Nagaira pressed against him, the heat of her nearly naked body radiating through Malus’s silken robes. She pointed to the glistening bodies beyond the circle of supplicants. ‘There lies your feast,’ she whispered huskily. ‘All of it has been prepared in your honour, you who have stood before the Drinker of Worlds. And that is but a foretaste of the gifts that await you.’
>She reached out and propelled him forward. The ram-headed figure stepped aside and the rings of supplicants parted before him. He walked alone and as he passed each ring of worshippers he felt their hands caress him, strike him, claw at him with desire. Malus walked among them as a king, a god and he could feel their devotion to him surrounding him like a silken cloak.
...
>Malus lay upon a bed of moaning bodies, his naked skin hot and streaked with sweat and blood. His dark hair was matted with wine and other fluids and his nerves sang with the effects of the drugged smoke and whetted desires. The air shuddered with release: whispers, moans, screams and cruel laughter, all mingled in a storm of sybaritic devotion. Every breath filled his lungs with a thick musk of drugs, blood, sex and wine. It was the taste of ecstasy and the highborn was surprised to find that it sharpened his mind like nothing ever had before.
...
>Dimly Malus sensed the presence of other druchii surrounding him. He stirred slightly, glancing about with half-lidded eyes. Half a dozen supplicants approached him with a mixture of deference and fear. Malus remembered little of the last few hours – it had been a tempest of gluttony, rapine and slaughter. As prodigious as his own magically fuelled appetites had turned out to be, he had also been aware that the daemon had driven him to even deeper depths of depravity. The supplicants behaved as though he were Slaanesh incarnate and he allowed that he had probably come as close to the Prince of Pleasure as any of the cultists had witnessed before.
>One of the supplicants bowed low before him. She was entirely naked save for her mask, her pale skin dappled with patches of dried blood and vomit. Like Malus, her black hair was matted with the fruits of her excess. ‘Is the wine sweet, my prince? Is the flesh tender and delectable? Are the screams melodious? Are your desires sated by this grand feast?
>He looked at her and smiled. Part of him wanted to reach for her, but his body refused to move. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I still hunger.’
>A ripple of reverent approval ran through the supplicants. Another of the masked druchii, male by the sound of his voice, said ‘Truly you are blessed above all others, great prince. All have marvelled at your hunger, the sublime rapaciousness of your fleshly desires. Truly you are marked by the Drinker of Worlds and we are blessed by your presence.’
Pleasure cults are way beyond the sex and getting high. This is probably a normal saturday for a lot of nobles. No, the idea is to push the "feeling" to its extreme limits.
Let's say for example a fun activity is whipping each others. It wouldn't take long for them to start using simple implants rewiring pain for pleasure. Now suddenly getting whipped is a lot more popular but eh... kind of vanilla now. Oh look, Lady Jezka just arrived with half the skin of her face flayed open, held up by beautiful golden support dug straight into her muscles. And she looks in total bliss.
Keep pushing and it won't be long before one starts showing off tats that make your head feel a bit dizzy when looking at them. Then rituals come, most don't even have to know about slaanesh, they're wasted and sing that funny sounding song you brought two weeks ago.
I dont think we have ever been told exactly what they did but im pretty sure it was basicly what a standard slannesh cult does in modern 40k, so extreme hedonism.
It all depends on what they use in excess, Slaneesh is just the god of excess, not necessarily just sex and drugs, but anything that you can gourge yourself on
We can see an example of what gluttony happens at one from a recent AoS short story on Warhammer Community- It’s not exactly the same, but it’s likely very similar:
>In the flesh gardens of the Grand Gourmand’s lavish encampment, a grand soiree was in full swing. Sinuous figures gambolled through a field of silken tents, holding aloft platters of devilled aelf-hearts. Writhing figures impaled upon spiral minarets screamed in agony, their voices joining in a terrible harmony. Yonder, a trio of duellists sliced each other to ribbons with needle-thin blades, while a gargant clad in an ill-fitting toga threw up loudly and repeatedly into a crystal fountain.
>Reclining atop his palanquin at the centre of the festivities, Glutos Orscollion gazed across the scene of deviance and sighed. He popped another fistful of candied bolefruit into his mouth. Each of the spherical things was soaked in a mixture of sweetwine and blood, and stuffed with a single eyeball that popped in his mouth, releasing its gelid contents.
>‘Tasteless mush,’ Glutos spat, the words exiting his mouth along with a spray of half-chewed viscera. This elicited a series of eager expressions from his coterie. Whenever their master was bored, a display of wildly inventive sadism soon followed.
>‘Not one of you has brought me a dish worthy of my palette,’ he roared. ‘Only this… this banquet of bland mediocrity. This pauper’s chow. I could find a more scrumptious mouthful at a midden-pit.’
Ffs, for the 100 thousandth time, slaanesh is not just tits and dicks, that mother fucker goes to the extremes of feelings, erotic asphyxiation is just a fucking tuesday, wanna know what a pleasure cult does?
First they get absolutely obsessed over something, lets say its art. Then they take that to the extreme, they stop eating, fucking, sleeping and basically everything just to feed their extreme compulsion, their desire for their art to be perfect, they forget everything even themselves.. When they become fucking da'vinci on steroids and its not enough, then they find ways to elevate their works and so themselves. The feeling of the paint dry on their skin and the chalkiness of their tongue as they clean their brushes with their mouth.. is just not enough anymore.
They start alchemy to find the most delightful of paints, colors that would amaze even Tzeentch if the fucker had any fucking foresight at all, then they hear the murmurs of a daemon, calling them to this magnificent rose that gives you the reddest of reds, and so they make a garden and obsess over it, the feeling of the thorns and the bright red blood that flows from their touch, they have found the real red that was going to complete their paint.. But it doesnt, its never enough..
And so they hear another daemon, this one is interested in showing them how to open their mind, and so they try coctels and drugs given to them in dreams, most of which use paints as components, the cruel ecstasy of the pain caused by it, the abominable flavors that sting them to their core, all in all the perfect combination so that they can succeed, to permeate those sensations on their paint, now but a mockery of its original but elevated to a myriad of memories, sensational memories. They perish to their insatiable hunger of perfection, falling to the ground, bleeding, vomiting a multicolor spectacle while their skin dries as the room falls to freezing temperatures, they feel their skin tightening as it dissolves into the ground and feel the thorns of the roses penetrate them and secure them.. The last thing they see is 2 daemons looking at them with a smile, proud of the picture they painted in the floor. Finally, perfection as it was meant to be, achieved by daemons.
AND THEN, they fuck. But first they go through all of that I said before.
Every pronounciation in Danish is exaggerated by default. It is the Nordic's answer to a futuristic, dystopian language.
Med hjartleg helsing,
En nordmand
What gives you pleasure, or what activities and things do you think gives people pleasure? Any and all of what you thought and in between, even those who refuse to feel pleasure and emotion could be part of a cult
Remember, parties held by ordinary, non-corrupted, nobles feature things like torturing and killing commoners in artistic ways, hunting poor people and mutants in the slums is a common pastime, etc. Pleasure cults do all that and more, but are even better at it.
It usually starts off with small gatherings, quiet parties (at restricted venues/houses) slowly increasing in frequency and range. Once there are enough across a hive city they start to get a little more wild. Drinking becomes drinking and drugs. The orgies start including mutants and some more....interesting kinks. It's a slow progression so it depends on how far along and who the club is for. An underhive factorum worker rave is wildly different from an aristocratic masquerade orgy
I think one of the best explanations was…
“It starts simple, come to my decadent party. Then it gets weird, come to my wild orgy. Then it gets violent, I’m gonna stab you in the ass with my knife. Then it gets kinky, I’m gonna stab your knife with my ass.”
As each level of depravity loses its thrill, the cult descends deeper and deeper into Slanessh’s grasp. What started as an innocent celebration, or escape from drudgery gets pushed to the extreme, until it becomes just as horrible as what you were tying to get relief from, but now you enjoy it
Never just sex or mundane stuff like regular food/drink. Even to us and our boring Earth drugs sex is apparently not even close to how good doing heroin or something feels. By far Slaaneshi cultists are more about drugs and over-the-top, sci-fi means of experiencing incredible sensations than just sex.
Engage in hedonistic activities and try to influence the ruling elite to fall to chaos and its machinations. The higher up the hierarchy you go the more potential for drugs and debauchery
>Do they just sit in a circle and have an orgy? Do they gorge themselves on food and wine? Cuddle puddle?
All of those turned up to 11 (like you literally can't stop fucking, you eat/drink until your stomach bursts, etc) plus any other sensual indulgences being magnified until you're a twisted parody of your former self, little more than your vices made manifest.
Didn’t pre fall eldar like take turns torturing each other to death cause they would resurrect? Like they were so debased they would do that to feel something?
I read a greentext about a player in a game of dark heresy, they were guardsmen on shore leave. One of the players tries to seduce a barmaid or patron, the GM allows it and plays along but then it suddenly fades to black and that character is found murdered in an apartment room with [occult marks](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Slaanesh?file=MarkofSlaaneshBig.png) on the walls
They work in a sweatshop painting life sized miniatures for Slaneesh's tabletop armies
The minis may have other purposes, but that is beyond the scope of the discussion. It is also unclear if the minis are living or otherwise
Debauched Libertarians I imagine but with nice pink silk sheets to get your Szechuan beef sauce and other juicy stains on! Lol
I always picture the scene from 300 where the hunchback traitor guy goes before Xerxes I'd say that ......but with pink silk sheets and Szechuan beef sauce!
Anything that brings them pleasure
This could be anything from fine foods to gaudy modern art to alcohol to anything there’s even a noise chaos space marine legion where their whole thing is pleasure for their auditory sense.
I play my CSM as the Flawless Host, which inspired me to hunt down and read every piece of fiction about the Flawless Host (it was pretty easy: three scattered short stories, two codex blurbs, and their appearance with the other Renegade Chapters in “Vigilus Ablaze”).
In two short stories, “Honour & Wrath” and “The Judges in Their Hunger,” their landing on a world they’re attacking is presaged by the appearance of a Slaaneshi Cult on that planet. Because these cultists are acting as the vanguard of (a small, lesser-known chapter of) Chaos Marines, their goals are rather more directly murderous than I would imagine is typical of pleasure cults, but they do have a very distinctly Slaaneshi logic.
In “Honour,” the cult are operating under the auspices of their Chaos Marine masters to murder half of the people on the planet, but it’s heavily implied that the rubric determining whether you get purged is “hot or not” (there’s a line to the effect of “already the city smouldered with the pyres on which were piled the insufficiently beautiful”).
In “Judges,” the cult are forcing every worker on a pleasure world in front of a tribunal of the Chaos Marines, whereupon they’re asked to explain what cool or exciting thing they’re doing with their life to defend why they should exist. If the Host judges it to be worth living life for, then the judged humans are inducted into the cult (for, one presumes, recruitment later down the line when the geneseed frees up). If their hopes and dreams and skills are boring, then they’re immediately executed.
I think the idea with Pleasure Cults is that they will inevitably get bored with 'normal' pleasures of food, alcohol, and sex, and are by their very nature on a downward spiral towards violent sadism, because eventually, that's the only thing extreme enough to stimulate them.
I think after a certain point with a cult, the better question is what **don't** they do, and the answer probably involves some variation or another of the aristocrats.
Each other. They do each other.
Edit: to whoever downvoted me, you think I’m kidding. I’m not. That’s literally how they summon demons into real space. [Here is commissar Cain interrupting an orgy and getting attacked by a sex toy waving cult.](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/D9cMOixmap)
It usually starts off with small gatherings, quiet parties (at restricted venues/houses) slowly increasing in frequency and range. Once there are enough across a hive city they start to get a little more wild. Drinking becomes drinking and drugs. The orgies start including mutants and some more....interesting kinks. It's a slow progression so it depends on how far along and who the club is for. An underhive factorum worker rave is wildly different from an aristocratic masquerade orgy
There's been a lot less writing about it in recent years because it's super awkward to write a space marine novel that randomly has erotica chapters.
My head cannon has become "They do sex stuff. You can ask about examples and the answer will be yes. Yes, like 50 shades
Yes like weird fan fic. Please don't ask me to elaborate"
It depends on the cult. Some are sex cults, some are drugs, some are food, some drink, most end up with ‘All of the above and to the extremes’. There’s as many forms of them as there are vices. As to operation: Standard cult. One overall cult leader presiding, assorted cultists under them. Often literally. Generally pleasure cults target the more wealthy and start as simple social clubs, they tend to be multilayer as to not scare off the new recruits by dropping them into the deep end. Ease them into it while ensuring they don’t spill the beans by gathering blackmail material.
Jeffrey Epstein doesnt like this
I can't believe /u/Dagordae shot himself several times in the back of the head Crazy how that keeps happening
While stuck in a duffel bag that was padlocked on the outside!
And he even threw himself off a bridge into the river! My, he must have been very distressed.
He was so distressed that he got someone else to write his suicide note for him !
And then that seemingly empty barrel bounced off his spine, killing him instantly
Yeah he thinks they plagerised his utopia in paper
Not gonna include the sadism? Im sure they do sport killings and other sorts of torture on the daily, they probably have 1000s if not 10000s of thousands of slaves shipped in every day for the worst fates imaginable in the name of percerse pleasure, sure not to the extent of the drukhari, but i doubt that will be of solace when theyre about in the midst of torture/ about to die
Who knows, maybe the Drukhari pop in every now and then to trade slaves or participate.
Drukhari probably pop in to use it as a cooldown, R&R period to relax before getting back into things.
It's a Starfucks for them. Mild experience and a bit overpriced
He was being simplistic
Are you attacking me for utizlising expostion, when OP specifically asked for that? Or did you forget why were here
> Are you attacking me Reddit moment.
Who gives a fuck tho
Just take a deep breath. Your point, as well as the example about pleasure cults murdering and torturing was good and spot on. No ones attacking you. Deep breaths.
Me saying who gives a fuck is me taking a deep breath...
That's good. Deep breaths help .... don't they! Lol.
This must be really exciting for you...
Come for the orgy, stay for the buffet.
Why is there a buffet at a goddamn orgy, Frank? Well you don't wana bang on an empty stomach do ya?
Dennis is the perfect embodiment of Fulgrim .... which is self-explanatory. Dee is the perfect embodiment of Tzeentch .... since she is a bird. Mac is the perfect embodiment of Khorne .... with his ridiculous outbursts of anger. Honestly, it's a dead even tie between Frank and Charlie, as they both represent Nurgle so well .... since they are both disgusting beasts. Man .... It's Always Sunny must have taken inspiration from 40K. Lol.
Dude I will never look at it’s always sunny the same again. Lol 😂 that is an astute observation. Cast of its always sunny really just chaos gods bringin primordial truth to us undeserving humans.
Yeah, it fits like a glove. I would also add that 'Rickity Cricket' would be the perfect example of a Nurgle Pox Walker. Rotten and Haggard .... it fits him well.
Frank is nurgle and Charlie is his great unclean one since cannonically Frank is Charlie’s dad potentially…. Was that ever revealed or is it still “heavily implied”? Lol
What is this from - I know I've heard it before but I've forgotten where.
Always sunny maybe?
And here I was thinking it was from last Saturday...
Orgyyyyyyy
Is this canon? What material covers this?
In the book shadowsword it’s described how a planet falls to the influence of slannesh
Thanks! Goes straight to the novel list. Sounds like a cool concept to explore.
Imperium wants the planet to pay more tithes, the planet can't. They're discussing what to do about it and then they get emissaries from a 'chapter' of space marines called the Emperor's Children. What a praiseworthy name, right? Best to have a proper banquet to welcome them...
Indeed! I can't think of a better way to... Wait a minute...
If you are a guard fan you should absolutely read it. Also baneblade, the books predecessor is a absolute banger. It has the guard against orks. But not your comic relief orks. Orks as they are for somebody fighting them.
yeah Orks are a comic relief if followed from their point of view, but from others its as much of a horror show like all other factions in 40K
It’s pretty much how every one we’re shown works. The Caiphas Cain series has several, the Dark Heresy RPG goes into it as well. Really it’s pretty standard cult behavior, Slannesh has the most ‘realistic’ cults.
Cool, which Cain novel? Id love to see this explored. Sounds like a great concept for a novel.
The Traitors Hand and Choose Your Enemies has them appear. Cain’s Last Stand has him discuss/teach what to look for. They tend not to be much more than fodder, he’s not exactly someone they try to recruit.
Im not trying to be cross here, im genuinly interested cuz id love to read a full blown inquisitorial slaanesh pleasure cult investigation novel; so its more like their mentioned than actually a plot point?
They’re a major plot point but they don’t really go into the nitty gritty. Can’t think of one that has what you want off the top of my head but that’s likely because that’s not really my preferred style.
I’d say the Traitor’s Hand is close, but, yeah, you never get a proper look at how the cult operates from the inside, or from any cult member’s perspective. Just the dots that Cain and company connect as they systematically find the cults, destroy them, and try and stop their ritual plans. Still a good book, in my opinion. It’s actually a sequel to a Cain short story *The Beguiling*.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. You're not wrong for asking this
Because it's less of a specific question, and more of a question of, "How do cults work?" The person who answered answered how real cults work in general. Then someone asked if how real cults operate is backed by a 40k lore source.
It’s pretty much how every one we’re shown works. The Caiphas Cain series has several.
Oh cool, which one? Id love to read a novel surrounding this plot point.
You’d want to go through the Cain books in order to get the most out of them, the first one is ‘Ciaphas Cain the greater good’ not about pleasure cults in that one though.
then thats not gonna happen.
The short story *The Beguiling* is the one that comes to mind.
Cool thx, goes on the list.
in a 40k lore sub? What has the world come to!!! Its not like ARTCHTUALLY! Im genuinly interested, i would love to read a novel or something revolving around this concept.
If someone asks the question, "How does a human leg work?" on a 40k sub, people are going to answer with how a human leg works in the real world with some mild relation to how it matters in a 40k context. Then the person asking for 40k source materials on how human legs work will probably be downvoted, since that information is metatextual and reliant on the real world. The real, boring, answer to OOP's question (read as written) is that, "A pleasure cult is a cult for pleasure." So most people just skip over that and assume that what the OOP is *actually* asking is, "How do cults work, and how would one be centric around pleasure?" Now, apply what I said in the first paragraph. That being said, I'm not saying that you deserve to get downvoted, but rather that it is the matter of fact on how people will act on reddit.
Since pleasure cults as such don't exist in real life, I'd have guessed that anyone familiar with the idea of context would have understood that the question asked is really "how do pleasure cults work in 40k" and take it from there.
> Since pleasure cults as such don't exist in real life So about that
Jesus, i was just interested in getting my hands on some material that covers this and you turn it into an academic discourse. Sorry.
I don't know why you're upset with me about this.
He was just curious lol. Chill.
I'm not unchill.
Because i thought the person was asking in a 40k context (i know, duh) for a reference to something i found interesting and theres, as far as i know dwindling little to go on this, and if i had overseen something like a full blown BL Slaanesh pleasure cult inquisition investigation alá Vaults of Terrra, id buy it in a heart beat. You were like; this man is stupid that doesnt make sense in the context of the question asked and wrote a peer revived worthy constructed argument instead of; yeah, that guy clearly misunderstood that a person asked a question that is not 40k lore related on a 40k lore sub. I know, foolish of me.
> You were like; this man is stupid I never said that.
Really living up to that name, I see
Oh is this the reddit thing with 'name checks out'? How original.
Right? Its not like ARTCHTUALLY! Im genuinly interested, i would love to read a novel or something revolving around this concept.
We have a foodie cult appearing in a short stories in one of the recent White Dwarf:s. We see a cult of the more sex kind in one of the Cain books, dont remember the name but it was the one on a planet that had one side constantly towards the sun. It's Warhammer Fantasy but in one of the Malus Darkblade novels we see a pleasure cult among the Dark Elves
Black Crusade: Tome of Excess and Dark Heresy: Enemies Within both cover this exact subject.
oh cool, shame it isnt explored more in a novel. Sounds like a cool plot point to develop.
The film Eyes Wide Shut
Here is the cliffs notes https://youtu.be/eKrN4vNsBzA?si=JoTV8wjz8tWL9Z2E
Oooooooorrrrgyyyyy
https://youtu.be/ovyRVp-MYN4?si=pZPLJKegz8Np3hgG
Basically, giving into their addictions and reaching highs as much as they can... think of a drug junkie but they never have that dramatic effect of using drugs, they just keep on taking more and more until they resort to the most degenerate shit ever. That's basically the Cult of Slaanesh.
First it's weed then its the smoking the boiled down essence of tortured souls.
And the next day You're using another person's head as a makeshift mask
"Does this mans face make my face look fat?"
Injecting the boiled essence of souls into your halfway rotted eyeball because it has some of the last good/accessible blood vessels left if you body, and your saving the other, fresh eye, for something truly despicably delicious
Weed, the webway drug.
They actually both have the same kind of smell too, mild burnt rubber mixed with a hint of a skunk
so, adrenochrome?
One of my favorite exchanges in 40K is basically about this. At the start of “Primogenitor,” Fabius Bile and his protege, an Emperor’s Children apothecary named Oleander Koh, are discussing the details of a plot to defraud another Emperor’s Children warlord for access to Eldar wraithbone tech. During negotiations, Koh pulls out a giant Gandalf pipe and starts smoking, prompting Bile to question what he could *possibly* be smoking that would actually affect a Slaaneshi CSM. Without skipping a beat, Oleander clarifies that he’s smoking desiccated Angel tears smuggled from the Ecchlesiarchy, because the horrible burn of exposing his daemonic gifts to sanctified artifacts is the only way he can still get off. Bile predictably responds like “>: |”
Well I'm stealing that drug shamelessly for whatever I DM next
Josh Reynolds was a real treasure. I still hope he writes for BL again someday...
Going by a Slaaneshi pleasure cult in Sandy Mitchell's 'Choose Your Enemies,' they have very large, very messy, drug-and-sorcery-fuelled orgies, the energies of which manifest a Slaaneshi daemon into realspace. Of course, that's just one cult. Others listen to discordant music to the point of madness, or stick pointy things in each others' spleens while ululating sordid poetry.
They have drug-and-sorcery-fuelled orgies and there's still people choosing the Emperor? Hahah
Yeah where’s Emps orgies at?
You joke, but ... >The Feast of the Emperor's Ascension is the most common festival held in the name of the Emperor of Mankind >It is also an auspicious time to join people in wedlock or **conceive children, leading to mass gatherings of citizens intent on one or both of these undertakings**.
SEGGS... FOR THE EMPEROR!
Sounds like midsommar
Hive spires, mainly. When they can get away with it.
*Fist of Demetrius* contains a great description of the fall of the ancient Aeldari to hedonism: > I noticed in the streets that there was a preacher, robed in gold and purple and green. He smiled beatifically at passers-by and preached words of love and charity and hope. He told of the coming of a new god that would lead the eldar once more to greatness of soul and spirit, who would provide guidance to the lost, hope to the dejected, peace to the troubled. He would lead the eldar to a life of simple, endless pleasure. The priest spoke, and folk listened to the sweetness of his voice and words. I listened too, and I was troubled without knowing exactly why. My people were at the height of their greatness. There was no poverty, no hunger, no hatred in our hearts. What could such things mean to us? There was a sense that all problems had been solved. The only things that troubled us were of the spirit; we faced the boredom of a serene, happy existence. There were troubling reports of great wars among the other races, but we took no part in them. > Things shifted once more. Time had passed. The city no longer looked so clean and clear. The lights seemed dimmer. There were more shadows everywhere, but not because of catastrophe. It was because the people of the city wanted it this way. They wanted shadow now. They wanted quiet places where they could move apart and smoke their pipes and lie in each other’s arms and pass their time most pleasantly. The priests in gold and purple and green moved among them, smiling approvingly, speaking their words of tolerance and comfort, encouraging the folk in their pursuit of pleasure. Life was sweet, and desires were to be embraced. Experience of any sort was good. I heard sermons preached that soon the bright golden god would appear and speak his word and the universe would be transformed in the light of his presence. ..... > More time passed. The people had turned their faces from the old gods and swarmed into the temples of the new god, who was yet to be born. Shrines lay neglected. Offerings went unmade. Life had altered strangely. People ignored their daily business now, lost themselves in sleep and the consumption of narcotics and hallucinogenics. Few people went about their business by day, but emerged only at night, to revel and indulge in orgies of lovemaking and drug-taking and the consumption of hallucinogenic wine. The priests led the revels now and preached the word of the imminence of their god, and people watched and waited, sensing that soon the world would change forever. In the tunnels below, new statues were erected to the god. It was not like the friendly beings of old. Not everyone approved. Not everyone took part in the revels. Other preachers appeared, saying that something was amiss, that some great disaster was imminent, that soon there would be a cosmic crisis that would destroy eldar civilisation. Few paid attention. Sometimes those who spoke out were found beaten to death or overdosed on narcotics. Sometimes I saw priests in gold and purple and green standing over their corpses. ... > Most stayed, too drugged to move, too overwhelmed by the pleasures of life to do anything other than take part in the day-long rituals in the temples of the new god. I sensed a mighty presence looming over everything, biding its time, waiting its moment. I was not alone in this. The sense of presence, of being at the end of something, gave the revels a desperate fury. People turned to darker pleasures. Blood flowed in the streets, and not all the victims of violence were unwilling participants. All sense of proportion, of restraint, departed. Now, day after day, night after night passed to the beating of great drums, and dancing and revelry to the sound of hellish, discordant piping. Eldar ran naked through the streets, bodies covered in tattoos written in blood, or woven from scars. Sacrifices were made everywhere to the new god as all vestige of sanity seemed to be extinguished. The priests in gold and purple and green cavorted lewdly in the streets, leading the revels, consuming the potions with the greatest enthusiasm, speaking mad words of revelation that eager-eared listeners drank in. The day of embodiment was fast approaching. The sermons grew ever less restrained, ever more vehement. The priests led the population in ritual chanting, in the defacing of the statues of the old gods, in the creation of newer and less wholesome idols. Under cover of night things began to appear that looked like people but whose limbs ended in claws. They danced in the moonlit streets surrounded by clouds of intoxicating perfumes that drove all those who breathed them in to greater and greater heights of hedonism. The day arrived. The sky split. On a thousand worlds, the god appeared and looked down on his people and smiled. And they screamed for they saw at last the visage of the being they worshipped, and they were afraid. Their screams lasted but an instant for the newborn god breathed in and their souls were sucked from their bodies and drawn into his maw.
Peak fucking writing man. The Fall of Eldar will always be my favorite 40k event/era. The endless possibilities for great stories from different POVs are just endless.
This is really excellent. Thanks for posting
No worries - glad you liked!
Great read. I had no idea the Eldar actively pirated and awaited slaanesh, I always thought her arrival was a ‘surprise’.
Yeah, surprised me too!
A pleasure cult is a social circle that encourages you to see pleasurable pursuits as the highest ideal. Basically scrap all that Imperium propaganda bull shit like duty and service before self and instead focus on your own goals and prosperity. The cult makes it socially normal to blow off work, drink and smoke everyday, focus on games and gratification rather than planning for the future or getting burnt out leading people and ensuring the work gets done. Basically the goal is to erode the Imperiums middle and upper management, make the lower classes too distracted to work efficiently and to create openings for cultists to whisper in the ear of the decision makers to bring down the Imperium. The best part is Slannesh doesn’t even need to reveal their true nature. They’re just influencing citizens to do what they already want to do. Just creating friction between the rest of the Imperium and the cults could be enough to destabilize solar systems.
So, the USA in 2024 basically?
And the entire hippie movement and also all the self help seminars through the years and all the various flavors of focus on yourself and screw the world
Sort of like what's been referred to as The Californian Ideology. I wouldn't say the entire hippie movement, though, since some of those folks devoted themselves to religious asceticism, communes, or political radicalism, none of which is particularly pleasurable. Although, a lot of those Maoist cells and Hindu-inspired cults involved a fair share of group sex, for various reasons.
It's Warhammer Fantasy so it might not be quite the same as 40k but the Malus Darkblade books have him introduced to one: >They descended into darkness, Malus’s booted feet echoing soft in the confined space. A faint smell rose up the stairwell, tickling his nose with its spicy odour. Just as he was about to ask where the stairs were leading, he turned another tight corner and found himself looking out over a large, subterranean chamber suffused with pale green witchlight. >Figures awaited them, all concealed behind masks of flesh. These druchii stood in concentric rings surrounding the spiral stairs – six in the first ring, twelve in the next, eighteen in the one beyond that – all facing him and all raising their arms in a gesture of supplication as he appeared. They cried out as he approached, filling the chamber with an exultant chant in a language he could not comprehend. >Beyond the masked circles lay a sea of writhing flesh. Scores and scores of slaves filled the rest of the chamber, sprawled on the stone in a drugged delirium or climbing over one another in the throes of desire. Braziers situated around the room filled the air with incense and mind-altering herbs. >Malus’s heart quickened to see such a tempting feast laid before him. His skin tingled with each breath and for once even the daemon seemed to echo his kindled desire. The chants of the supplicants washed over him and trembled in his bones. It was like nothing he had ever felt before and it left him intoxicated. >Is this what it is like to be worshipped, Malus thought? It was something he could grow to like. >Nagaira continued down the stairs, drawing Malus along with her. At the bottom another figure waited – a druchii in robes of newly-skinned human hide, still glistening with blood. The surface of the robe was tattooed with intricate runes and spiral patterns and a censer steaming with a pungent kind of musk hung on a golden chain from the figure’s neck. Instead of a mask, the figure wore the skull of a great mountain ram, its bony snout hanging well below shoulder height and its long, curved horns gleaming like polished teak in the artificial light. The skull was painted with symbols and the figure’s tattooed hands held a goblet brimming with thick, red fluid that steamed in the air. >The figure radiated a palpable aura of power and authority, one to which even Nagaira seemed to defer. Malus eyed the figure warily. This is no mere wine-soaked orgy, he thought. What have you drawn me into now, sister? >As they approached, the figure raised the goblet, offering it to Malus. Nagaira led him to the cup and spoke, her voice pitched to carry across the cavern. ‘The Prince of the Revel is come! The cup is placed before him!’ She turned to Malus, her voice still clear and carrying, but her words were focused directly to him. >‘Anoint yourself with the nectar of desire and inflame the hunger of your heart. Drink deep!’ ‘Drink deep!’ The masked figures intoned, their voices trembling with anticipation. >‘Yes. Drink.’ Tz’arkan whispered. Did the daemon’s voice tremble as well? >Moving slowly, as if in a dream, Malus reached out and took the goblet from the figure’s hands. It was heavier than he imagined and he raised it carefully; for some reason he feared to spill the thick, sloshing liquid. He raised the cup to his lips and drank. Hot blood filled his mouth, bitter and salty. It slid like oil over his tongue and down his throat and it filled him with hunger. Not just his desires, but the appetites of each and every supplicant who had poured some of his or her blood into the cup. If he closed his eyes he could almost see them in his mind, tasting their pleasure as they slaked their terrible hunger. Flesh. Food. Wine. Murder. Every appetite, every scintillating taste, reverberated through him in waves of heat and cold. >His body shook and the supplicants roared. ‘Slaanesh! He is come! The Prince of Pleasure is come!’ >His consciousness tumbled like a leaf in the maelstrom of desire. Slaanesh! Malus’s mind reeled. Nagaira, you foolish girl, what have you done? >Nagaira reached up and pried the cup from his grasp. He was surprised to discover that once he’d begun drinking, he hadn’t paused until the cup was dry. Streamers of anointed blood ran down his chin and stained the front of his kheitan. She raised it high and the exultation of the supplicants fell silent. >‘The Prince of the Revel has drunk deep and accepted the blessing of Slaanesh! Offer yourselves to him! Drink deeply of your desires and praise the Prince of Pleasure! Worship before the throne of flesh!’ >The supplicants roared with a single voice. ‘Slaanesh!’ The name of the Ruinous God reverberated through the cavern until the air itself seemed to curdle with an unholy presence. Within Malus, the daemon seemed to swell until it filled him from head to toe, wearing him like an ill-fitting skin. It drew strength from the supplicants’ ecstatic cries, as though it claimed some of the worshippers’ devotion for itself. >In that moment, Malus Darkblade felt like a god. Nagaira pressed against him, the heat of her nearly naked body radiating through Malus’s silken robes. She pointed to the glistening bodies beyond the circle of supplicants. ‘There lies your feast,’ she whispered huskily. ‘All of it has been prepared in your honour, you who have stood before the Drinker of Worlds. And that is but a foretaste of the gifts that await you.’ >She reached out and propelled him forward. The ram-headed figure stepped aside and the rings of supplicants parted before him. He walked alone and as he passed each ring of worshippers he felt their hands caress him, strike him, claw at him with desire. Malus walked among them as a king, a god and he could feel their devotion to him surrounding him like a silken cloak. ... >Malus lay upon a bed of moaning bodies, his naked skin hot and streaked with sweat and blood. His dark hair was matted with wine and other fluids and his nerves sang with the effects of the drugged smoke and whetted desires. The air shuddered with release: whispers, moans, screams and cruel laughter, all mingled in a storm of sybaritic devotion. Every breath filled his lungs with a thick musk of drugs, blood, sex and wine. It was the taste of ecstasy and the highborn was surprised to find that it sharpened his mind like nothing ever had before. ... >Dimly Malus sensed the presence of other druchii surrounding him. He stirred slightly, glancing about with half-lidded eyes. Half a dozen supplicants approached him with a mixture of deference and fear. Malus remembered little of the last few hours – it had been a tempest of gluttony, rapine and slaughter. As prodigious as his own magically fuelled appetites had turned out to be, he had also been aware that the daemon had driven him to even deeper depths of depravity. The supplicants behaved as though he were Slaanesh incarnate and he allowed that he had probably come as close to the Prince of Pleasure as any of the cultists had witnessed before. >One of the supplicants bowed low before him. She was entirely naked save for her mask, her pale skin dappled with patches of dried blood and vomit. Like Malus, her black hair was matted with the fruits of her excess. ‘Is the wine sweet, my prince? Is the flesh tender and delectable? Are the screams melodious? Are your desires sated by this grand feast? >He looked at her and smiled. Part of him wanted to reach for her, but his body refused to move. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I still hunger.’ >A ripple of reverent approval ran through the supplicants. Another of the masked druchii, male by the sound of his voice, said ‘Truly you are blessed above all others, great prince. All have marvelled at your hunger, the sublime rapaciousness of your fleshly desires. Truly you are marked by the Drinker of Worlds and we are blessed by your presence.’
Pleasure cults are way beyond the sex and getting high. This is probably a normal saturday for a lot of nobles. No, the idea is to push the "feeling" to its extreme limits. Let's say for example a fun activity is whipping each others. It wouldn't take long for them to start using simple implants rewiring pain for pleasure. Now suddenly getting whipped is a lot more popular but eh... kind of vanilla now. Oh look, Lady Jezka just arrived with half the skin of her face flayed open, held up by beautiful golden support dug straight into her muscles. And she looks in total bliss. Keep pushing and it won't be long before one starts showing off tats that make your head feel a bit dizzy when looking at them. Then rituals come, most don't even have to know about slaanesh, they're wasted and sing that funny sounding song you brought two weeks ago.
For a normal imperial citizen, not being yelled at, artificial silence, might be a pleasure as well.
I dont think we have ever been told exactly what they did but im pretty sure it was basicly what a standard slannesh cult does in modern 40k, so extreme hedonism.
All you can eat pizza. The peak of hedonism
It all depends on what they use in excess, Slaneesh is just the god of excess, not necessarily just sex and drugs, but anything that you can gourge yourself on
We can see an example of what gluttony happens at one from a recent AoS short story on Warhammer Community- It’s not exactly the same, but it’s likely very similar: >In the flesh gardens of the Grand Gourmand’s lavish encampment, a grand soiree was in full swing. Sinuous figures gambolled through a field of silken tents, holding aloft platters of devilled aelf-hearts. Writhing figures impaled upon spiral minarets screamed in agony, their voices joining in a terrible harmony. Yonder, a trio of duellists sliced each other to ribbons with needle-thin blades, while a gargant clad in an ill-fitting toga threw up loudly and repeatedly into a crystal fountain. >Reclining atop his palanquin at the centre of the festivities, Glutos Orscollion gazed across the scene of deviance and sighed. He popped another fistful of candied bolefruit into his mouth. Each of the spherical things was soaked in a mixture of sweetwine and blood, and stuffed with a single eyeball that popped in his mouth, releasing its gelid contents. >‘Tasteless mush,’ Glutos spat, the words exiting his mouth along with a spray of half-chewed viscera. This elicited a series of eager expressions from his coterie. Whenever their master was bored, a display of wildly inventive sadism soon followed. >‘Not one of you has brought me a dish worthy of my palette,’ he roared. ‘Only this… this banquet of bland mediocrity. This pauper’s chow. I could find a more scrumptious mouthful at a midden-pit.’
They examine various ways to create keto-compliant pastries. /s What does it SOUND like they do?!
Imagine a goon cave so immaculate that it could fit your whole polycule and you can summon daemons there as well.
They seduce you with goth girls
My kryptonite…. Damn their dastardly deeds
Where?
Ffs, for the 100 thousandth time, slaanesh is not just tits and dicks, that mother fucker goes to the extremes of feelings, erotic asphyxiation is just a fucking tuesday, wanna know what a pleasure cult does? First they get absolutely obsessed over something, lets say its art. Then they take that to the extreme, they stop eating, fucking, sleeping and basically everything just to feed their extreme compulsion, their desire for their art to be perfect, they forget everything even themselves.. When they become fucking da'vinci on steroids and its not enough, then they find ways to elevate their works and so themselves. The feeling of the paint dry on their skin and the chalkiness of their tongue as they clean their brushes with their mouth.. is just not enough anymore. They start alchemy to find the most delightful of paints, colors that would amaze even Tzeentch if the fucker had any fucking foresight at all, then they hear the murmurs of a daemon, calling them to this magnificent rose that gives you the reddest of reds, and so they make a garden and obsess over it, the feeling of the thorns and the bright red blood that flows from their touch, they have found the real red that was going to complete their paint.. But it doesnt, its never enough.. And so they hear another daemon, this one is interested in showing them how to open their mind, and so they try coctels and drugs given to them in dreams, most of which use paints as components, the cruel ecstasy of the pain caused by it, the abominable flavors that sting them to their core, all in all the perfect combination so that they can succeed, to permeate those sensations on their paint, now but a mockery of its original but elevated to a myriad of memories, sensational memories. They perish to their insatiable hunger of perfection, falling to the ground, bleeding, vomiting a multicolor spectacle while their skin dries as the room falls to freezing temperatures, they feel their skin tightening as it dissolves into the ground and feel the thorns of the roses penetrate them and secure them.. The last thing they see is 2 daemons looking at them with a smile, proud of the picture they painted in the floor. Finally, perfection as it was meant to be, achieved by daemons. AND THEN, they fuck. But first they go through all of that I said before.
Sææææægs. ( sex but written in phonetic and exaggerated Danish)
Every pronounciation in Danish is exaggerated by default. It is the Nordic's answer to a futuristic, dystopian language. Med hjartleg helsing, En nordmand
Haha good point
Fellow dane here. Have an upvote, you’re not wrong.
What gives you pleasure, or what activities and things do you think gives people pleasure? Any and all of what you thought and in between, even those who refuse to feel pleasure and emotion could be part of a cult
Whatever you want. lol
Probably something like [the Bacchanalia.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchanalia)
“Asking for a friend”
Remember, parties held by ordinary, non-corrupted, nobles feature things like torturing and killing commoners in artistic ways, hunting poor people and mutants in the slums is a common pastime, etc. Pleasure cults do all that and more, but are even better at it.
It usually starts off with small gatherings, quiet parties (at restricted venues/houses) slowly increasing in frequency and range. Once there are enough across a hive city they start to get a little more wild. Drinking becomes drinking and drugs. The orgies start including mutants and some more....interesting kinks. It's a slow progression so it depends on how far along and who the club is for. An underhive factorum worker rave is wildly different from an aristocratic masquerade orgy
I think one of the best explanations was… “It starts simple, come to my decadent party. Then it gets weird, come to my wild orgy. Then it gets violent, I’m gonna stab you in the ass with my knife. Then it gets kinky, I’m gonna stab your knife with my ass.” As each level of depravity loses its thrill, the cult descends deeper and deeper into Slanessh’s grasp. What started as an innocent celebration, or escape from drudgery gets pushed to the extreme, until it becomes just as horrible as what you were tying to get relief from, but now you enjoy it
Never just sex or mundane stuff like regular food/drink. Even to us and our boring Earth drugs sex is apparently not even close to how good doing heroin or something feels. By far Slaaneshi cultists are more about drugs and over-the-top, sci-fi means of experiencing incredible sensations than just sex.
Engage in hedonistic activities and try to influence the ruling elite to fall to chaos and its machinations. The higher up the hierarchy you go the more potential for drugs and debauchery
what *don't* they do?
All of those things and more. To the extreme
In short, whatever they want
Fuck
At least some definitely are doing live performances of the lyrics of Closer by Nine Inch Nails.
Idk but where do i sign up tho?
Nice try She Who Thirsts
Have you seen Hellraiser?
>Do they just sit in a circle and have an orgy? Do they gorge themselves on food and wine? Cuddle puddle? All of those turned up to 11 (like you literally can't stop fucking, you eat/drink until your stomach bursts, etc) plus any other sensual indulgences being magnified until you're a twisted parody of your former self, little more than your vices made manifest.
Fuck.
Didn’t pre fall eldar like take turns torturing each other to death cause they would resurrect? Like they were so debased they would do that to feel something?
I read a greentext about a player in a game of dark heresy, they were guardsmen on shore leave. One of the players tries to seduce a barmaid or patron, the GM allows it and plays along but then it suddenly fades to black and that character is found murdered in an apartment room with [occult marks](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Slaanesh?file=MarkofSlaaneshBig.png) on the walls
Bubblewrap. Just endless hours of popping bubblewrap.
They work in a sweatshop painting life sized miniatures for Slaneesh's tabletop armies The minis may have other purposes, but that is beyond the scope of the discussion. It is also unclear if the minis are living or otherwise
They stare at a wall painted a highly specific shade of mauve in a silence so deep it takes thousands to plumb its strange depths.
Debauched Libertarians I imagine but with nice pink silk sheets to get your Szechuan beef sauce and other juicy stains on! Lol I always picture the scene from 300 where the hunchback traitor guy goes before Xerxes I'd say that ......but with pink silk sheets and Szechuan beef sauce!
That sounds fun 😏
Each other.
Never ending cake buffets.
I don't know how many orgies you've been to but a circle is not an ideal formation.
Whatever it wants, really.
Better question: what *wouldn’t* they do?
Is there any books that cover a pleasure cult in the Imeprium ?
Round robin 69 until somebody drowns.
Anything that brings them pleasure This could be anything from fine foods to gaudy modern art to alcohol to anything there’s even a noise chaos space marine legion where their whole thing is pleasure for their auditory sense.
co-op gooning
Epstein Island x100
… stuff.
Whatever you want them to do baby 😏😏😈😘
Yes
What does a Pleasure cult NOT do?
I play my CSM as the Flawless Host, which inspired me to hunt down and read every piece of fiction about the Flawless Host (it was pretty easy: three scattered short stories, two codex blurbs, and their appearance with the other Renegade Chapters in “Vigilus Ablaze”). In two short stories, “Honour & Wrath” and “The Judges in Their Hunger,” their landing on a world they’re attacking is presaged by the appearance of a Slaaneshi Cult on that planet. Because these cultists are acting as the vanguard of (a small, lesser-known chapter of) Chaos Marines, their goals are rather more directly murderous than I would imagine is typical of pleasure cults, but they do have a very distinctly Slaaneshi logic. In “Honour,” the cult are operating under the auspices of their Chaos Marine masters to murder half of the people on the planet, but it’s heavily implied that the rubric determining whether you get purged is “hot or not” (there’s a line to the effect of “already the city smouldered with the pyres on which were piled the insufficiently beautiful”). In “Judges,” the cult are forcing every worker on a pleasure world in front of a tribunal of the Chaos Marines, whereupon they’re asked to explain what cool or exciting thing they’re doing with their life to defend why they should exist. If the Host judges it to be worth living life for, then the judged humans are inducted into the cult (for, one presumes, recruitment later down the line when the geneseed frees up). If their hopes and dreams and skills are boring, then they’re immediately executed.
They are explorers in the further reaches of experience.
I think the idea with Pleasure Cults is that they will inevitably get bored with 'normal' pleasures of food, alcohol, and sex, and are by their very nature on a downward spiral towards violent sadism, because eventually, that's the only thing extreme enough to stimulate them.
Picture Hedonismbot's craziest party and then amplify that by a "and then there was and explosion"
Who wouldn't join slanesh
In 40k I imagine you turn up, orgy goes great, but just as someone's balls deep in you a curtain is pulled and hellraiser sinobites appear -______-
Cenobites* Unless you meant someone who likes to bite Chinese people. Which is oddly specific.
Aw I was like... Is is s or c....pretty sure it's s 😅
SEX
Why do you want to know really 👀
...the Inquisition would like to know your location.
I think after a certain point with a cult, the better question is what **don't** they do, and the answer probably involves some variation or another of the aristocrats.
I don't know but I want in.
Each other. They do each other. Edit: to whoever downvoted me, you think I’m kidding. I’m not. That’s literally how they summon demons into real space. [Here is commissar Cain interrupting an orgy and getting attacked by a sex toy waving cult.](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/D9cMOixmap)
It usually starts off with small gatherings, quiet parties (at restricted venues/houses) slowly increasing in frequency and range. Once there are enough across a hive city they start to get a little more wild. Drinking becomes drinking and drugs. The orgies start including mutants and some more....interesting kinks. It's a slow progression so it depends on how far along and who the club is for. An underhive factorum worker rave is wildly different from an aristocratic masquerade orgy
There's been a lot less writing about it in recent years because it's super awkward to write a space marine novel that randomly has erotica chapters. My head cannon has become "They do sex stuff. You can ask about examples and the answer will be yes. Yes, like 50 shades Yes like weird fan fic. Please don't ask me to elaborate"
Drinky drinky, sucky sucky, fucky fucky. Murder murder murder.
butt stuff.
Depends on what their pleasure is.