The Cult of the Great Green God is an anomalous religion that arose in Egypt at an undetermined period, but its earliest evidence dating back to the 12th dynasty., during the Middle Empire. This cult worshipped a deity known as the Great Green God, whose existence as a real entity is still under discussion. Such cult would have been based in a small city located south of the ancient Egyptian empire, near the Nubian border. Apparently defunct for almost two thousand years, it has recently experienced a revival, particularly in South America, in the form of small groups often linked to extreme environmentalist and even eco-terrorist movements.
Unlike the rest of Egypt, which was markedly polytheistic, this city worshiped a single deity, a god of nature who had small forests and oases dedicated to him, instead of stone temples. This worship developed for at least 800 years, despite being in frequent conflict with the powerful Egyptian priestly class for not allowing the worship of any other god within their city, and also for not paying the tributes required for the upkeep of said priestly class.
There is evidence of organized persecution against the cult for religious, or seemingly religious, reasons. As already noted, their refusal to pay tribute to the priestly class may have caused the cult to be outlawed and become the victim of a deliberate effort to be erased from all historical records. This explains the many gaps in our knowledge about the history and culture of the Cult of the Great Green God, and the contradictory theories made by Foundation historians about the chronological development of this group of interest.
Culture and religious practices
The cult worshiped a god at first syncretically related to gods of fertility and nature such as Heqet or Menu and depicted in the same way, as a green-fleshed man with a notorious erection, although he later acquired his own identity as a god of vegetation, lord of all forests, oases, reeds and nenuphars.
The few surviving documents on their religious practices, including comments from indirect sources such as the Mekhanite Book of the Apostates, indicate that they believed that plant flesh was a purer element than animal flesh, and therefore more valuable. They were forbidden to eat meat or eggs, being strictly vegetarian, or to use any material of plant origin, which apparently extended to using wood to build ships or furniture, plant fibers for clothing or footwear, and papyrus for writing. This would explain why all the ancient cult texts found are written on clay tablets or parchment scrolls.
They performed their rituals at night, in oases or small forests near them, in ceremonies led by the so-called "Green Men" (although apparently they could also be women), who served as priests, herbalists and community leaders. These ceremonies would involve all cult members, including children and elders, who apparently had to undress completely as a sign of humility. Their ceremonies also involved the consumption of the so-called "fruit of life", in order to experience "visions", and, according to two papyri recovered from the Library of Nag Hammadi, they would also participate in multitudinous orgies with no limitations as to age or kinship, however, these are possibly false and injurious accusations made by the primitive Egyptian Christians.
Specimen of SCP-ES-041-1, sacred tree for the cult.
After they died, their bodies were not mummified, but buried superficially in order to serve as fertilizer and thus become "brother tree and sister grass", a process that they would accelerate in some cases by ingesting seeds of anomalous plants, such as SCP-ES-041. This would also lead, on occasions when cult members had to hide their faith due to persecution by the authorities, to the fabrication of fake mummies along with the performance of a traditional Egyptian funeral.
A related icon that appears with frequency is that of a lying mummy from whose mouth or belly emerges a stem with six leaves, ending in a water lily flower. Later, a simplified version emerged (the stem with six leaves and the water lily flower) which is the one most commonly used today. The exact meaning of the symbol, whether it is a representation of their god or a way for believers to identify each other, is unknown.
A cuneiform tablet found in the Library of Ashurbanipal, in Nineveh, tells the testimony of a merchant who visited "a city in Kemet where there is no temple dedicated to any god, and its inhabitants worship palm trees and the reeds and water lilies of the marshes" and who also "know about plants, including many that heal diseases much better than the priests in their temples". This is the only direct evidence of the existence of the city where the cult of the Great Green God developed.
When the mindset of the pharaoh and the priestly class (driven, apparently, by followers of Mekhane) changed from mild tolerance to determined persecution, the cult was outlawed and its city was apparently destroyed, and its members condemned to slavery or forced to hide and pretend to be "faithful followers" of the main religion. There is some evidence that, in some cases, the persecution included more "original" and ironic punishments, being the case of cult members who, after being caught, were tied to the trunk of their sacred trees to be subsequently set on fire. The ES-041-A-12 file details similar atrocities, such as forcing cultists to cut down trees or to eat meat.
It is not known at which point the main city of the cult was destroyed. It is believed that it could have happened during the reign of Ramesses III, after the so-called "Conspiracy of the Royal Harem", which started an insurrection of the Nubian population against the Pharaoh. Another theory points out that it could have happened at the end of the XX dynasty, around 1050 B.C., when there are violent separatist movements on behalf, once again, of the Nubians.
Following this, there are several references to the survival of this cult, albeit vague and unconnected. Certain recently recovered documents seem to indicate that members of the cult left Egypt and sought refuge in neighboring kingdoms, where their religion would have thrived and even endured into the 20th century, although they would never have abandoned their status as a minority sect.
• Historian Cleonymus of Thebes, from the 1st century A.D. relates that Alexander the Great secretly visited an oasis where "a god made of reeds" was worshipped, and that their priests named him son of this god, in order to gain the favor of the great Macedonian conqueror. However, he allegedly rejected such an important position, as he preferred to ingratiate himself with the priestly class of the classical gods of Egypt.
• A temple from the 3rd century A.D. belonging to the Nubian city of Meroë has a hieroglyph on one of its walls, showing the lion-god Apedemak fighting against a god "with green flesh" and from whose mouth sprouts "leaves and roots".
• According to Rufinus of Aquileia, after the destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria by the Christians in 391, the Christian patriarch Theophilus discovered a hidden pagan temple where they worshipped "a god of the forests" who lived in a tree with purple leaves whose fruits apparently "granted immortality". Theophilus destroyed the temple along with every tree consecrated to this god, which apparently did not belong to the Egyptian pantheon.
• There is a reference in the apocryphal Ebionite gospel to an idol from which "leaves and roots" sprouted, which was worshipped in a small valley on the shores of the Dead Sea, in times of Herod Antipas. The idol and the cult that worshipped him would have been destroyed during the first Jewish–Roman war (years 66-73 A.D.), although it is not known if this was done by the Roman legions or by the Jewish rebels.
New references to this cult are not found until 1938, when an expedition of the SS Ahnenerbe that sought to identify the Aryan roots of the Egyptian civilization discovered, 30 kilometers away from the Valley of the Kings, a tomb of the 12th century B.C., belonging to a royal court scribe named Iuwelot, which contained a statue that did not seem to correspond to the same historical period, alongside 31 clay tablets with hieroglyphic, hieratic and ancient Greek writing (later classified as SCP-ES-041-A12). According to the archaeologist who discovered the tomb: "it was full to the brim of leaves and branches, like vines, all dried and brittle by the passage of time, even some roots had managed to penetrate inside the outer stone sarcophagus, and then into the inner wooden sarcophagus, to partially cover the mummy that was inside". The vicissitudes of the war prevented this statue and those clay slabs from being transferred to Germany until 1942, when their trail was lost, being apparently destroyed by the Allies' bombings.
Next came the appearance, in the 1970s, in Italy, of a peculiar religious cult called "The Children of the Vine", which worshipped nature in a stance bordering on eco-terrorism, including the murder of two entrepreneurs engaged in the forestry business. This cult came to the Foundation's attention in 199█, when rumors spread about strange "orgiastic rites" performed in a small forest 50 kilometers east of ██████████, Sicily. When a Foundation team intervened, it was discovered that 40% of the trees in the forest were specimens of SCP-ES-041-1, and in the very center of the forest, in a wide clearing covered with purple flowers, SCP-ES-041 was found. The artifact was taken into Foundation custody, while controlled fires were set to destroy all the specimens of SCP-ES-041-1 present in the environment. Subsequent operations led to the capture of ██ members of the "Children of the Vine", some of whom were administered amnestics, while a percentage of around 30% were confined in psychiatric hospitals under Foundation control. These operations also allowed the recovery of all the clay tablets found in Egypt alongside to the statue (later lost).
New groups of worshippers of the Great Green God have recently emerged in South America, apparently without a strict or hierarchical structure, and are suspected of various acts of eco-terrorism. They are under investigation to determine their threat level and whether or not they possess anomalous artifacts.
The following is a fragment (taken during the exploration of SCP-ES-161) of a speech given by a "Green Man" during one of his ceremonies:
"Brothers… sisters… Children of the Vine… we have come here to unite our roots, to intertwine our branches and strengthen the union among us all, because a tree on its own is fragile, it is a solitary tree in a sad wasteland and its roots are shallow, but many trees form a forest and their roots, though they may penetrate shallowly into the earth, intertwine with one another and thus support one another, forming a unity, forming something greater than the sum of them all, forming a forest."
"We, as Children of the Vine, followers of the He who is One with the Tree and with the Nenuphar, He who Lives in the Oases and in the Jungles, must support one another, creatures of blood and flesh alone are weak, and as creatures of flesh who have not yet replaced their blood with sap and who still wear our own skin, we are weak by nature, but strong together."
"And we need more than ever to be strong, because our enemies, like wild boars loose in the forest, seek to uproot us, to cut us down and throw us into the fire. Men who have axes for hands and torches in their eyes are looking for us because they hate us, because they know that the truth is in our words and in our acts."
"And now there are more enemies than ever. I'm not just talking about the clock worshippers, those who pray to the hammer and anvil, they are few and their misguided faith makes them murderous and brutal, but they are not the greatest threat."
"No, the greatest threat is Man himself, the creature of flesh and blood, of short life, of fearful mind, he who does not listen to brother tree nor sister grass nor can hear their cry when he burns them and when he cuts them down. Man, frightened, afraid of the shadows, was always alien to the forest, and only saw the trees as fuel for fire and material for stupid tables and chairs. He is detached and does not know, he has a hole within him and ignores it, and seeks to fill it with power and wealth, and those who have any wisdom seek and seek, but do not find, and in their search for truth often lose their way and their wanderings lead them to believe that the Clock is a god, and that the Hammer and the Anvil are their gifts."
"Be wary of those who consider the blacksmith a god, he only makes weapons and tools, he molds the stones of the earth, his work is praiseworthy. But he cannot create life, he cannot make the seed of your soul endure and fall on fertile ground, where it can sprout."
It is not known if there is contact between the Cult and other GoIs, the only confirmed cases being with PoI "Maximus" and a single encounter with the Daevite civilization. An investigation is currently underway with the Church of Santa María, Giver of Fruits, a syncretic cult that combines elements of Catholicism with the worship of the Pachamama, in order to investigate possible links between the two anomalous religions.
While in the past the Cult was apparently persecuted by followers of Mekhane, at present there does not seem to be any link between them and the modern Church of the Broken God.
Update: SCP-ES-161 has revealed that there is open hostility between the two groups, at a level that could be called open warfare, and that the CotBG is persecuting and murdering members of the Children of the Vine, although more detailed information on this is not currently available.
A short guide to writing about the Cult.
- SCPs and tales can be either very old, or recent: You can create stories set in Ancient Egypt or surrounding cultures (and relate them to the Mekhanites or Sarkics), and create SCPs thousands of years old, or you can write about things related to the current Children of the Vine, which are only a few decades old, from the 1970's.
- The Children of the Vine are not evil per se, they are not villains or at least they do not consider themselves villains, although several may take radical attitudes when it comes to protecting Mother Nature. Google "eco-terrorism" and take it one step further combined with religious fanaticism.
- Everything about them is focused on nature, on plants, but they will not harm animals unless strictly necessary, while humans in general - including themselves - are not that important. Some members even see humanity in general as irrelevant and dispensable.
