( sinqua walls, he/him ) heaven’s gates open to you, [ foster strickland ]. on earth, you are a [ thirty six ] year old [ cis man ]. in the great fellowship, you are immortal. together, you work with your family as [ a runner ] of [ the farm ]. you will be embraced, and your faults are made non existent. you are the embodiment of [ aching legs sprinting across dry dirt, heart thudding with the pounding of feet, soft smiles shared with loved ones, and daydreams that never seem to end ]. ( maric, 21+, cst, he/him, n/a )
foster’s lived a relatively normal life. he was born in nebraska city on a farm that his parents ran and operated. he literally grew up shucking corn, and he loved every second of it. the farm life was definitely for him. he liked the great outdoors; he liked working with his hands. he liked being with his family.
that all changed when they had to sell the farm. his paternal grandma, who lived in mississippi, came down with an illness, and foster and his family, having almost nothing left, decided to move down there with her. maureen strickland was grateful for the influx of people, and she all forced them to take her to church every sunday where foster and his family were finally introduced to alastair cross.
when maureen passed away, alastair showed them love and made her funeral bearable in their time of grief. foster and his family took to alastair with kindness, but when the holy house was built, foster lost a bit of faith in alastair. he’d listened to cult podcasts before, and it was a little suspicious. still, he didn’t want to leave his family behind, so he traveled to the holy house with them. now, he keeps his doubts under wraps. no sense in stirring the pot. alastair hasn’t done anything too strange.
( jennifer morrison, they/them ) heaven’s gates open to you, [ cedar marlowe ]. on earth, you are a [ thirty two ] year old [ gender nonbinary ]. in the great fellowship, you are immortal. together, you work with your family as [ a warden ] of [ the wardens ]. you will be embraced, and your faults are made non existent. you are the embodiment of [ calloused hands gripping a weapon, uncertainty in one’s self, blood dripping from innocent hands, and rushing rapids leading to a calm river ]. ( maric, 21+, cst, he/him, n/a )
they were not meant to be alive. cedar marlowe was born to a hippie dippie family in washington state. cedar lived in a commune in the middle of the woods. they were happy for most of their life, and they got into a lot of trouble early on in their life.
they didn’t realize their “commune” was actually a cult, and that cult was going to “ascend to heaven,” but they were raided before they could...um...ascend. cedar has always been around cults. there was a time when they were twenty that they didn’t have a cult they were in. they almost joined scientology once, but they didn’t have enough money.
ever since their commune got raided when they were a child, they searched for that same familial environment. despite the hippie upbringing, cedar was quite determined. fiery. ruthless when they needed to be. then again, being raised in a cult makes kids weird. or so they’ve heard.
they joined the great fellowship when they were 24, immediately taking to alastair and pledging everything they had to him almost immediately. they had nowhere to live and no one who loved them anymore. alastair took them into his home. they lived with alastair before the holy house was completed, and cedar shared every dirty secret they’ve ever had.
( linus roache, he/him ) heaven’s gates open to you, [ alastair cross ]. on earth, you are a [ forty eight ] year old [ cis man ]. in the great fellowship, you are immortal. together, you work with your family as [ the leader ] of [ the great fellowship ]. you will be embraced, and your faults are made non existent. you are the embodiment of [ weathered hands clutching an old bible, laughter in an empty room, the raging inferno of god’s light, and peace before the storm ]. ( maric, 21+, cst, he/him, n/a )
alastair cross, born john stone, heard the call of god when he was only a child. he was 5 years old, kneeling to pray, when he heard the voice of an angel calling him to a higher power. he would shepard a great flock one day, bringing lost souls to holy god. his mother and father didn’t pay much mind to that, excusing his visions for an excitement for god, something they actively fostered.
he spent most of his childhood years spreading the “good word,” gathering his classmates in his local, small-time ministry. it grew quite large before the school he attended forced him to shut it down. from there, it turned to an after school ministry. still, his parents encouraged this, believing his early pastoral behavior was a sign of a future in the ministry. they gave him a place to hold the ministry, offering him a place to worship early on.
when he turned 18, he knew he could do better than the ministry he built as a teenager; so, he changed his name and moved to another state. he lost any and all connection to his mother and father, abandoning them as only one could do in the early nineties. he moved to jackson, mississippi where he started his new ministry. from there, his church family only grew and grew. he married maura bishop only a few years in, when he was 22 and she was 20, and they had a son, lazarus cross, 9 months after they were married. in reality, alastair saw a kindred spirit in maura, a woman who was just as power hungry and desperate for adoration as he was.
alastair grew his church but never quite got it over the hump until he was 40. when he turned 40, something clicked, and the church started to grow like wildfire across treelines. by the time he was 45, they were running out of room in the third church building they had to move to. he loved the influx of followers, so alastair set out to create the holy house, a place where he and his flock could live and follow the bible’s teachings. or well, they could follow alastair’s teachings which he would pass off as god’s. he wouldn’t get that deep into the crazy shit until they were deep in it.
with the strides of the internet, his message reached more and more people until he had an entire town on his hands. give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. this was alastair’s motto. they would be the easiest to influence, anyway. he picked up his flock and moved them to woodville, mississippi, where he would be able to control them more. use them more.
in 2020, the holy house opened. it welcomed thousands of people, and in november 2021, the doors closed. no one was allowed in or out. the great fellowship could stand on its own now, and alastair would have no interference from any one else. it was its own self-sufficient city.
