Greetings followers, pilgrims, and even heretics. With the DLC Woolhaven announced to come out early next year, I wanted to summarize the lore we know so far in Cult of the Lamb. That said, this article is non-exhaustive. I don’t plan to list every bit of lore that can be found; I mostly just want to create something to share some base knowledge of the lore. That way, if I want to write about smaller bits of lore or speculate about their implications, I can just refer back to this article for context without having to explain the basic plot setup at the start of each article.
With all that said, I plan to split this article into a couple of sections. A section for the main game, then parts for each of the major content updates that have come out since release. Each section will have two components: one summarizing the story (if any) of the game/update, and one going over the characters introduced or any information an update gave us. I probably won’t go over every character if there isn’t really anything interesting to note.
Also, spoilers, if you care about that.
- Main Game
Story: You play as the Lamb, the very last one. Four gods, called Bishops, have ordered all lambs to be killed due to a prophecy that a lamb will free The One Who Waits. You get sacrificed; however, you make a deal with The One Who Waits (TOWW). You will be revived; in exchange, you will start a cult in TOWW’s name and free him by killing the four bishops. From there, you run your cult and kill the four bishops.
TOWW then demands that you sacrifice yourself to him, only bringing this up now. You can accept this, and get killed with an unnecessary degree of brutality (your limbs get broken one at a time, seriously, what the hell????), or refuse, at which time you can then defeat TOWW and kill or make him an immortal follower.
Characters;
Leshy: youngest Bishop, worm god of chaos (possibly a Discworld reference :D). Injured eyes. Realm is Darkwood
Heket: second youngest bishop, toad god of famine. Very aggressive and angry. Injured throat. Realm is Anura
Kallimar: second oldest, squid god of pestilence. Seems to like collecting artifacts, also a coward. Injured ears. Realm is Anchordeep
Shamura: oldest bishop, spider god of war (and knowledge?). Speaks very cryptically. Head injury. Realm is Silk Cradle
The One Who Waits: the (former) fifth bishop, god of death. A betrayal happened between him and his siblings that caused them to seal him away, and for him to cause them severe injury. Acts manipulatively and is the most arrogant. His name is revealed to be Narinder. Realm seems to be purgatory? The realm between life and death? Or he has none. Lost godhood in the divorce.
Crowns: seemingly the source of power for the bishops, definitely for the Lamb. Shamura’s boss form seems to imply they might latch onto the brain of their host and control them. They seem to be conscious on their own
(active) Crown’s bearers;
Green: Leshy
Yellow: Heket
Blue: Kallimar
Purple: Shamura
Red: formerly Narinder, currently the Lamb
Aym: attendant? Acolyte? Adopted son(yes)? Of Narinder. The soundtrack reveals him to be the first son
Baal: brother of Aym, also with the one who waits. The soundtrack reveals him to be the second son
Ratau: a former vessel for Narinder, acts as the tutorial at the beginning of the game. Afterward retires to his shack to play knucklebones with his friends, which you can also play when visiting. Very mentor, much dad
Flinky: friend of Ratau
Klunko and Bob (the worm): friend of Ratau, Klunko lost his hand in a knucklebones bet?????
Shrumy: Last friend of Ratau, grumpy
Forneus: the cat shopkeeper, revealed to be the mother of Aym and Baal, and that they were taken to serve the One Who Waits
Helob: shopkeeper, you can buy followers caught in his web. A cannibal???? Does it count as cannibalism if none of them are spiders????????
Rakshasa: the shopkeeper for food/seeds, has a snail wife he loves
Ratoo: Ratau’s brother. Lost his heart to someone? Possibly the former lighthouse keeper… and then the Fox
Sozo: an ant infected with a mushroom parasite(?), obsessed with mushrooms. After completing his quest line, you will eventually walk into his room to see him dead????
Clauneck: tarot reader, a duck apparently?? None of the duck siblings are mortal, nor do they seem to be gods. Presumably, the one who gave the prophecy of the Lamb as the divine liberator
Kudaai: brother of Clauneck, divine weapon smith. One of his lines suggests he’s existed since “the first dawn”
Haro: mysterious owl that gives out lore, has a crown with an “X” on it, but little is known about what that means until later
The Fox: shows up in places with a moon symbol nearby at night. Probably killed the former lighthouse keeper. You can give Ratau to him to complete his quest line, or you could choose not to. Some implied history with rat dad
Midas: gold-obsessed starfish. Has a god? Of fortune? Gold? In the well in his cave.
- Relics of the old faith
First major content update! Hopefully this will go by quicker than the last section…
Story: after defeating Narinder and becoming the god of death (probably), a strange god-like being shows up at what used to be the gateway to Narinder’s realm (now yours, probably?). Apparently, killing five whole gods has cosmic consequences. The bishops are trapped in purgatory, and you, the new infant god, must traverse their realms and kill them again to set them free. Also, you get a boss/trial rush mode. Doing so earns you god tears, which you can give to orb god for a spinning wheel of prizes! Also, you can give orb god a name. Killing the zombie forms of the bishops gives you them as followers, so that’s cool. Also, there are relics now; you get the bishops’ relics by finding them via quests after they are indoctrinated.
Shamura: the one who gave Aym and Baal to Narinder
Chemach: sister to the two duck brothers, she is the offputting dealer of relics. According to Clauneck, her fall to madness was foretold.
Aym and Baal: you can get them as followers! And give them back to their mom! Aym is the prickly one, while Baal is calmer
???: referred to as “the mystic seller” in the code, seemingly more powerful than the Lamb, but only a merchant for the gods? Not 100% certain if they even are a god themselves.
- Sins of the flesh
Jokingly referred to as “the sex update,” this update gives more lore for characters and general world-building. I will mostly be focused on anything that gives more info on characters already discussed.
Story: After defeating three bishops, the Lamb’s red crown turns into a snake form and unlocks sin for them. You can harvest sin from followers to use for a variety of things.
Haro: lore tablets imply he may have been a God of the Hunt, before relinquishing his role, which might explain the X on his crown. It also appears like he did this to survive the purge the bishops did of the gods before them, led by Shamura
Sozo: curing Sozo of his mushroom parasite reveals him to be the old Dr. Sozonius and confirming the mushroom was controlling his actions
Red crown: 100% sentient in some form, possibly still in the process of taking over the lamb. Though interestingly, even when not acting as the Lamb’s weapon/tool, the crown seems to mostly be floating on their head or otherwise not fully attached. However, official art does imply that the crown latches onto the Lamb’s brain, so who knows?
Yngna: The lore tablets reveal them to have disappeared, causing the end of seasons
The Great Ones: mentioned in the lore tablets, implied to be the duck siblings’ creator(s), might be the giant skull mountain on the map, worshipped by the gods before the bishops?
Chemach: possibly implied to have created the crowns, or at least give them out
Berith: the clothes shopkeeper, has some kind of history with Bop.
Interlude: Pilgrim Pack
I haven’t talked about any of the current DLCs out, mostly because they’re mostly cosmetic stuff without too much big lore, but the Pilgrim Pack has its own story and characters with it that I think are neat! The majority of the story is in a digital comic you get with the pack!
Story: a panda named Jalala arrives at the… island… I don’t think this place has a name, actually… I guess there’s “Land of the Old Faith” but I’m not sure that covers everything… never mind, irrelevant to right now. So Jalala comes to the island in a ship wreck, she meets a skunk named Rinor, and we learn that Jalala came here when her brother, Yarlen, invited her to “Paradise.” Since her map was destroyed in the wreck, Rinor offers to help guide her around the island to look for “Paradise.”
Rinor mentions a rumor of a red-eyed, terrifying beast roaming the land. But anyway, they go on their journey, and it’s cute and well-drawn and ominous. When they get to Silk Cradle, they’re attacked by one of Shamura’s followers. They get saved by the Lamb, who- surprise surprise- is the beast of the rumors. Jalala and Yarlen are reunited, and the comic leaves off with Jalala being wary of the Lamb.
There are some in-game quests related to this: one gets you Yarlen, another is finding Jalala and Rinor, and another is getting Jalala’s bag. For the last one, you get access to her journal, which is very cool.
Jalala: pilgrim panda, appears very nervous about everything. She cares about Yarlen a lot. Is shown to initially be cautious of the Lamb but a journal page indicates that later she might have a crush on them? Or at least admiration. Very much the “straight man” to this entire place.
Rinor: upbeat and cheerful, kind of oblivious at times. Much more chill than Jalala, probably because she grew up there, Darkwood specifically!
Yarlen: Jalala’s brother, also very chill. Unknown how long he’s been in the cult, but apparently long enough to have gotten used to the absurdity around him. Very affectionate to Jalala and cares about her a lot.
- Unholy Alliance
Story: not much, the goat exists. The trailer implies they are you from another dimension/timeline. You can purify the bishops. Fun times.
The bishops: Shamura reveals that the betrayal that caused Narinder to be sealed was his creation of the resurrection doctrine, through experiments Shamura encouraged. Followers flocked to him, and Shamura feared that he would allow the rest of them to starve of devotion and die. There are some thoughts I could share about this, but I’ll leave that for another article, perhaps.
The Goat: the cult of the lamb’s official Twitter account had a brief period of being taken over by them, in which they show how they really do not like Narinder. This is funny to me
I’m planning to write another article speculating on what we know of the upcoming DLC, Woolhaven, then yet another when it actually comes out. As well as other articles going over other parts of the game that interest me.
Farewell for now, and Praise be the Lamb!