The "Moons"Report
English：Moons · World & History
The religion of the Preacher Cult. They believe the "Moons" will make blood rain on their farmland and give them a good harvest — and since the sky will not provide the blood, passers-by have to.
The worship of the "Moons" is the religion of the Preacher Cult. It exists in exactly one place — Cult Village on the eastern Stormgap Coast — and its congregation is exactly coextensive with the faction: there is no church elsewhere and no lay following.
What they believe
The doctrine compresses into a single sentence: the Moons will make blood rain on their farmland and bring a good harvest.
Note the plural. What they worship is not a personified deity but the glowing bodies in the sky themselves. This is a completely different kind of faith from the Holy Nation's Okran — Okran has a name, scripture, a hierarchy and an adversary (Narko); the Moons have no mythology, only a causal law.
And the operative word in that law is blood.
Who believes it
The cult's structure is extremely flat, with only three roles:
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| The Preacher | The sole leader, both religious and temporal |
| Moon Guardian | The armed arm; guards the village and enforces doctrine |
| Farmer | The most numerous; works the fields and takes part in the sacrifices, blade in hand |
Apart from The Preacher himself, who is always a Hive Prince, members can be Greenlanders, Scorchlanders, Hive Soldier Drones or Hive Princes — all four at a relative chance of 100, meaning perfectly even.
That is rare in Kenshi. In a world where the racial line is usually also the political line, the worship of the Moons does not ask what you are, only whether you believe. Faith replaces blood as the sole ticket in.
How the doctrine drives behaviour
This is the part players actually run into. The religion is not background flavour; it is written straight into NPC behaviour.
One: outsiders are attacked on sight. Cultists attack all outsiders immediately, with no room to negotiate.
Two: prisoners are tied to metal poles. Those they knock down are not killed but tied to poles at the field's edge.
Three: random execution. The cult randomly decides to hack one of its prisoners to death — not the strongest, not the weakest, but at random. This is ritual, not judgement.
Four: the bodies go into the furnace. Executed bodies are disposed of in a Corpse Furnace.
Five: only Moon Cleavers. The cult uses Moon Cleavers exclusively, without exception. The blade's reversed crescent curve mirrors the moon overhead; doctrinally, every swing is an act of worship.
Six: no medical supplies. Cult members carry no medical supplies at all. This is a practical consequence of the faith: even when they win a fight, a proportion of them will slowly become crippled or die because nobody bandages them. A cult that believes blood buys harvests does not take its own blood seriously either.
External relations
The worship of the Moons is isolationist. The cult does not patrol, does not expand, and holds a single settlement. It has almost no stance towards its neighbours.
Its only special relation is with the Grass Pirates to the west — a value of 0, meaning coexistence without conflict.
Even so, the Holy Nation, Shek Kingdom and United Cities all place a bounty on The Preacher's head simultaneously, on the charge of hundreds of travellers disappearing in the region. A preacher who never leaves his village appearing on three nations' wanted lists says something about the scale of the blood sacrifice.
What the player can do
The Preacher Cult's relation mechanic has a rare design: you can join them by saving someone.
| Action | Relation change |
|---|---|
| Healing The Preacher with at least one Moon Guardian or Farmer witnessing | up to +95 |
| Attacking The Preacher | -200 |
| Having captured or killed The Preacher | -25 |
| Putting The Preacher in a Peeler Machine | -25 (death in the machine costs nothing further) |
That table is itself a statement of doctrine: the sin of attacking the Preacher is graver than killing him. What offends this cult is the ritual and the authority, not the loss of a life.