Thanks for the names! I've given the matter some thought, and I'm going to base the cult around the (fictional, my creation) Greek Philosopher and mythos cultist Tremecleus, so it'll be one of the following: The Tremeclean Order, The Brotherhood of Tremecleus, or the Tremeclean Fellowship - whichever sounds the best. Lemme know which you think sounds better!
Essentially, it's a 'it is better to rule in hell (briefly) than reign in heaven, so let's burn this fucker down' sort of philosophy. Perhaps a little more patient than that, but you get the idea.
Or I could go with the Order of the Cerulean Mollusk, but that feels a little tired.
umm it isn't a "cult" name technically but I like the Order of Taraka or the Order of Oreilleus (or really us) both names stolen from BtVS but not everyone is as obsessed with Buffy as me so they rarely recognize the reference.
I didn't personally watch the series, but I know a number of my players have, so those are out.
Plus I'd like to either pervert an existing real-life organization or come up with something whole cloth.
Mine stuff out of Frazer's Golden Bough. Volume 3: A Study in Magic and Religion is probably most applicable: http://books.google.com/books?id=CYAIAQAAIAAJ&dq=Golden%20Bough%3A%20A%20study%20in%20Magic%20and%20Religion&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Patrick, I will definitely have to give that book a glance, from what little I've read it should be very useful.
When I was running Trail of Cthulhu, the players were members of a group called the Agency of Chaos, who specialized in dealing with Mythos and paranormal situations.
Near the end, the players began to do a little digging, and learned that the Agency was a pretty old group, dating back to the 1700's when it was known as The Brotherhood of Chaos, and even earlier than that in the 1500's as The Order of the Great Chaos, and eventually tracing the groups roots all the way to somewhere in Ireland in the 1100's when it was known as The Followers of the Crawling Chaos.
The players benefactor was one of the avatars of Nyarlathotep all along.
Most of my players have read Lovecraft and are familiar with my style of running games, so they would catch that particular bit of foreshadowing right off the bat and commence with the murder. Still a fun plot twist when you can make it work, though!
Order of the <adjective> <verb> usually works.
Order of the Golden Dawn, Order of the Red Dragon (both actual cult/orders)
Brotherhood Of The Three-Fold Claw yadda yadda yadda.
Another proponent of the mad libs school of antagonist design! Yeah, this is what I ended up doing. Really just writing the post gave me a few ideas, but I felt like I should toss something up just in case. Game will begin later today and I'm not comfortable leaving EVERYTHING to the last minute (just most things.
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The Cult Church of Mormon.
Tempting, very tempting, but I'm already working with enough factions, and this'll be a primarily European campaign. It may be that I'm just unfamiliar, but I thought Mormonism was a fairly US-centric thing.
"So who'll we be fighting today?"
"Polygamists!"
"...polygamists?"
"Eeeeeeevil polygamists!"
"Oh no! The worst ones!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society
Existing faction, in this timeline they were subsumed into the lunatic fringe of the Waffen SS instead of being purged by Hitler and the other high-ranking Nazi officials. Good suggestion, though. Thanks!
Also, don't forget about evil corporate cults. The Gakuso Group (MPD Psycho), The Quanta Group (Believers), and the Sea Organization (Church of Scientology) do spring to mind.
In terms of "Order of" names I liked the Order of the Black Snow.
1930's seems a bit early for much in the way of corporate cults. Maybe a cult of personality around an industry baron (or a time-displaced scientist, totally not a plan, whaaaaaaaaat?), but I dunno about major corporate intrigue. This'll be an international spies 'n' secrets kind of game, with superpowered Nazi supersoldiers and strange and bizarre cults coming out of the woodwork. I suppose there might be room for the boardroom, but I dunno if the players will dig it with everything else.
tl;dr - Thanks guys!
