No Real Life Examples, Please! This is a very controversial subject and likely to invoke edit wars. Combining them with Politically Incorrect Villain can also result in The Klan. The Church of Happyology is a sister trope, especially if Happyology isn't being played for laughs.
Media portrayals of Satanism tend to fall directly into this trope for this, see Hollywood Satanism. If a genuinely "good" (or at least non-evil-worshiping) religion is being twisted into evil, it's the Corrupt Church. Also contrast with Path of Inspiration, where an evil religion masquerades as a more ordinary faith. This trope is the polar opposite of the Saintly Church. Whatever deity the Religion of Evil worships will generally be the Greater-Scope Villain with Demon Lords and Archdevils, Eldritch Abominations, Jerkass Gods, Satan, a God of Evil, The Anti-God (or even the one-and-only God Himself) all being likely candidates.Īny legal powers who don't take kindly to the sacrificial and depraved acts of worship this religion encourages may attempt to make it an Illegal Religion, although unlike many flimsy, often prejudiced reasons for banning a faith, the Religion of Evil's practices and rituals often prove that it deserves prohibition. Or maybe they're anti-authoritarian types who mistakenly think Satan Is Good.īecause Religion is Magic, devout practitioners and high-ranking clergy will use Black Magic and The Dark Arts you can expect the High Priest to emanate a Cross-Melting Aura. Or maybe they think that their universe's Hell will be an eternal debauched party, or that they'll be guaranteed to be the people on top of it. Maybe they think that they can get the perks from their evil god during their lifetimes but wriggle out of the consequences. Maybe they believe that their Satan will visit them with natural disasters or curse them with misfortune if they don't pay the proper tribute of rites and sacrifices. Why would anyone voluntarily follow such a religion? Maybe they have such horrible lives that they just want to bring down everyone else. Members of the Decadent Court may attend, either in search of power or just for the thrill. In the rarer cases when it exists openly in a "good" nation, it tends to be treated as a legitimate minority faith, perhaps worshiping the evil members of the pantheon. In the latter cases, most of the time the masses will follow the religion out of fear rather than any genuine religious devotion. The Evil Counterpart to a good religion, whose deity is not so much worshiped or prayed for rather than appeased and bribed towards leaving mortals alone.The state religion of Mordor or The Empire.A small Secret Circle of Secrets (known more generally as a Mystery Cult or mystery religion).
Any time a temple's decoration involves lanterns made out of the skulls of their Human Sacrifices, it probably qualifies here. Quite often it'll be a Card-Carrying Villain that refers to itself as evil sometimes it won't say that word straight out, but its tenets and actions will be such that its followers are necessarily evil. Most often a Fantasy trope, the Religion of Evil has no pretenses of being anything other than. For a church itself being evil, see Corrupt Church. Hartridge, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
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