headcanons on cabal religion pls
Okay, so, I hit up destinypedia for the first time since d2 dropped for the new lore on the cabal. I’ll break this ask up into sections.
Firstly, the Cabal and Psions aren’t the only two races in the empire. The number of species in the empire is supposedly “beyond reckoning” but the reference link doesn’t exist so oof. We know there are the Cabal, Psions, then a third race that got mentioned briefly in passing once in flavour text and never again because Bungie are cowards and weak.
Secondly, I hate that we haven’t been given the cabal’s proper name. Am I the only one to be annoyed with this? They cannot call themselves the Cabal, they simple cannot. And if Bungies tries to tell me they are, they are objectively wrong and are welcome to fuck right off with that shit.
Thirdly, to get to the ask, these are all canon unless I state otherwise because Bungie couldn’t write good the Cabal well if they were given the writing on those sheets you give children to trace over letters.
Psions originally didn’t have much in the way of any religious beliefs. Some societies may have had some superstitions but nothing really in the form of organised religions. In their early days, sure maybe they had some religious beliefs, but I think those would have been shrugged off with the creation of the OXA machine, a clairvoyant device.
The Cabal themselves, many deities. Lots of them. Maybe not as many as ancient Rome but still, more than one. Destiny Lore states that in Cabal mythology the first Emperor allegedly took the sun, his name is Acrius by the way.
Since this is mythology in Destiny lore, something that is accurate until it is inconvenient, I’ll do you a favour and say this is fact. This is Cabal Mythology. The story got embellished, I don’t know how, but the myths around Acrius are based to some extent on true historical events. He is their big daddy god.
Acrius would be the god of prosperity for the empire as a whole. There’d be separate deities for things like childbirth, war, crops, etc. With the introduction of more species in the Empire, there are likely more religious beliefs which have mingled and changed Cabal religion itself.
Much like we have multiple religions, the Cabal Empire has the same with some funky fusions of their religions where things seem to fit.
Guess what? Because you’re awesome and put up with me bitching about Bungie and mostly seriously talking about claiming the Cabal as my own, you get some extra good shit.
The Tusking Ceremonies. What are they? Nobody knows.
I’ll tell you what they are!
Much like christmas it’s origins were religious but has since grown into more of a celebration than a purely religious affair. Unlike christmas it’s not the birthday of a man who was nailed to a cross for talking about how nice it would be if people weren’t dicks to each other.
The Tusking Ceremonies were originally a celebration of the Cabal’s strongest women and this was done by a sort of gladiatorial combat where contenders would fight without weapons. These fights would normally be non-fatal, but injuries weren’t uncommon. Women could also challenge women to fights to the death if they felt it was necessary. E.G. A woman thinking they could do a better job than Umun'arath could challenge her to a fight to the death over it.
The Ceremony was not only a celebration of strength, and sometimes a bloody way of settling disputes (if the Emperor allowed the fight), but a celebration in honour of whichever deity(ies) the Empire believes gives them strength, or possibly even to Acrius himself. But yes, the Tusking Ceremonies are specifically for women since they’re the only ones who have tusks and it would be silly for the tuskless men to participate in the Tusking Ceremonies.
I hope this is what you wanted, thank you for asking, and stay awesome.
