History Main / PathOfInspiration

* The Terraist Church in ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'' encouraged people to return back to their roots, i.e., the planet Earth, which by the time period of the series[[note]] during the late 36th century AD[[/note]] had become an [[InsignificantLittleBluePlanet isolated backwater planet]]. As the series progresses, it became increasingly clear that the Terraist Church's real objectives were to regain the lost status and power that Earth enjoyed centuries ago and would resort to any means, from brainwashing its members to plotting assassinations of key figures in the galaxy, so as to achieve their objectives.

* ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' has an unusual type, a neo-pagan cult that worships [[LoveGoddess Astarte]]. While this does not sound evil on the face of it, the group is always shown as subversive and hostile to the Victorian state and its culture, which is conservative and Christian. The Victorians retaliate with a veritable inquisition, outlaw the religion, and have the senior priestess of the cult [[BurnTheWitch burned at the stake]].

** Also, the Templar Order, an offshoot of the Zakarum that engages in torture and brainwashing of those it recruits into zealous and self-loathing warriors of the Light, is revealed in Reaper of Souls to [[spoiler:have been formed as a response to the threat of both demons ''and'' angels, the latter part normally being a bad thing except that angels in the Diablo universe are not guaranteed to be on humanity's side due to humanity's nature as the children of both angels and demons. The evil part comes in when we learn that the torture and brainwashing was part of the order from the ''very beginning'' and that the Grand Maester wants to do this to ''every single citizen of Westmarch and beyond'' to turn them into Templars]].

* This is the general state of religion in ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' setting when it isn't a straight ReligionOfEvil. Many Darklords will make up a religion to help control their subjects, such as Azalin Rex and the undead-worshipping Eternal Order, and some will just use a permutation of an existing faith for the purpose. The Nidalan church of Belenus is a real god but doesn't actually resemble the deity of Nidala (since the faith was founded by an ex-paladin of his, Elena Faith-hold). Although unconfirmed, religion of Yutow the Peacebringer also is very likely to have been made up by Valachan's Darklord, considering that it teaches extreme [[AntiIntellectualism]], acceptance of one's station in life, and reverence of panthers, which is useful for keeping the population ignorant, unmotivated to rebel, and not suspicious of the werepanthers the Darklord uses as his secret police.

* This is the general state of religion in ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' setting when it isn't a straight ReligionOfEvil. Many Darklords will make up a religion to help control their subjects, such as Azalin Rex and the undead-worshipping Eternal Order, and some will just use a permutation of an existing faith for the purpose. The Nidalan church of Belenus is a real god but doesn't actually resemble the deity of Nidala (since the faith was founded by an ex-paladin of his, Elena Faith-hold).

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* The Path of Inspiration of TabletopGame/{{Eberron}} is seen, by name, in several high-level adventures in the ''VideoGame/DungeonsAndDragonsOnline'' game. Player characters with the True Seeing ability will see the not-so-diminutive Quori creatures, which animate and control the faithful, latched on the head of the Inspired. They preach out in the streets about their happy ol' church, with none (but the player characters) ever the wiser.
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'': Brotherhood of Nod! They're usually depicted as a quasi-cult with their leader, Kane, determined to continue the spread of the ecology-destroying Tiberium substance with the belief it would advance the human race. It's even more so in the third installment of the Tiberium series on a massively successful scale, getting a large chunk of 80% human population who live in the deserted Yellow Zones to go against GDI and work on his goals even further.
** Then subverted in the final installment as in some cases, they were [[TheExtremistWasRight actually right]].
* The Glabados Church from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' qualifies, though one must both play through the whole game and read the Germonik Scriptures to get this whole picture.
** It also seems that even among the highest officials of the Church, few know of its true origin and purpose. [[spoiler:Simon, for example, rose to become one of Church's most powerful priests, before accidentally discovering the Germonik Scriptures and learning the truth. Their entire church is based on a lie. Their "god" is actually one of the most powerful of demons, Ultima.]] Though many of those who aren't aware are rather evil anyway. Thus, Glabados could be seen as both a Path Of Inspiration ''and'' a CorruptChurch.
** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII The Prequel]] reveals that the false god's masters were demiurges, creating entire races for their research and manipulating them via religion and prophetic visions into waging war.[[note]]Eventually, one of them realized they went too far and joined the humans to destroy the connection between the mortal world and her realm.[[/note]]

* The Church of Yevon from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' was [[spoiler:created to make people accept the periodic resurgence of [[EldritchAbomination Sin]], formalize the [[SenselessSacrifice stopgap method]] used to keep him at bay, and kneecap anything that could challenge the Yevon government (most notably the development of weaponized machina)]].
* The Fellowship from ''VideoGame/UltimaVII'' are rather obvious about this, having been created by the Guardian for the purpose of subverting the virtues and turning the Britannian people against Lord British and the Avatar. And, you know, summoning an omnicidal demonic monstrosity into the world. The inner circle is all about ritualistic murder of anyone who gets in their way, and all of the section leaders (except one) are in on it.
* The "Ethos" from ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}''.
* The Divine Ascension in ''VideoGame/PandoraFirstContact'' is a religion based on social networking, used to collect data and blackmail their followers, at least that's how it started out.
* The Church of Martel from ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' is a worldwide scam that normalizes the unnatural ebb and flow of the world's fortunes as a natural cycle solved by the Journey of Regeneration. [[spoiler:It's also a complicated scheme by the BigBad Yggdrassil to produce genetic copies of his deceased sister across millennia of careful breeding, then have these "Chosen Ones" give up their bodies so his sister can be resurrected]]. That said, the spoiler-tastic portions of this trope are restricted to the innermost circle of the Church: the rest of its members are either faithful believers who don't know any better, or corrupt in a more mundane, power-hungry sense.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheTempest'' looks like it'll be this, but [[spoiler:the church is actually good, and the pope was being manipulated.]]
* The White Mantle in VideoGame/GuildWars straddles this and CorruptChurch. The founder of the White Mantle was a decent guy who wasn't aware the Mursaat were evil; by time that became apparent, the Mursaat had saved his people and taken him away never to be seen again. On top of this, once the Mursaat are beaten, it turns out they had been holding back an even worse evil.
** The Charr had a different kind led by the entire caste of shaman. The Flame Legion used smoke and mirrors and copious amounts of magic to seem like they were Gods for the sake of controlling the rest of the legions, and were the ones who began the Searing and the war that followed. Players kill the Imperator and prove to Charr-kind that they're not divine, omnipotent beings, and as a result Charr finish the job and are {{Nay Theist}}s by the time the sequel rolls around.
* The Cult of the Watchers seems to be the state religion of TheEmpire in ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'', though actually they don't even bother making pretenses of good intentions. They just straight-up MindControl all their subjects and anyone they capture. It's the quicker, easier way really. It's not a ReligionOfEvil because the "Watchers" they serve and worship are the same beings as the gods worshiped by the CrystalDragonJesus religion.

* Depending on who you ask, the Scarlet Crusade In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', is either this or a CorruptChurch. The ''depends'' part, hinges on whether you believe the founder of the sect-Alexandros Mograine-was a good guy or not: and whether you think the internment of the orcs following their defeat in the Second War was justified or not.
** The Light in general is portrayed this way in the Maghar Orc allied race campaign. And the behavior of X'era the Lightmother certainly backs it up. Whether or not this is actually true, is a matter of much debate among the fans though.
* In the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' series, the Covenant is both a religion and a caste-based interstellar empire incorporating multiple species. They worship the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]], who they think AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence by means of the Halos, and seek to recreate this "Great Journey." Unfortunately for them, what actually happened was that the Forerunners lost their war against [[TheVirus the Flood]] and decided to go out by ''[[TakingYouWithMe annihilating all non-indexed sentient life in the galaxy with the Halos in order to starve out the Flood]]''. In fact, the short story ''[[Literature/HaloEvolutions Wages of Sin]]'' reveals that [[spoiler:many in the Covenant leadership always knew that "the Great Journey" part of their religion was a sham]].
** The Covenant also veers into straight CorruptChurch territory regarding its genocidal campaign against humanity; [[spoiler:its High Prophets discovered humanity's connection to the Forerunners, and quickly sought to cover it up by all means possible]].

* The Order of the One True Way from ''VideoGame/SuikodenTierkreis'' believe in predestination to ridiculous levels, to the point of not running in terror when a townsperson is struck and killed by lightning because ''their leader said it would happen.''
* The AncientConspiracy of ''VideoGame/ArcTheLad'' uses more than one strategy to TakeOverTheWorld. This is one of them.
* The Children of the Cathedral from ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'' have to count. [[spoiler:They're led by an insane mutant made up of several people who wants to turn all humans into Supermutants]], after all.
* The Church of Optimology from the VideoGame/ChzoMythos, which [[WordOfGod by Yahtzee's own admission]] is Scientology in sheep's clothing.

* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'': Since [[spoiler:GodIsEvil and every game features an apocalypse of some kind]] in this universe, Paths of Inspiration are boosted.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'' offers us the Order of [The] Messiah. The guy they worship... let's say he was the former poster boy for GodIsEvil. The Senate Elders? The Four Archangels. The DarkMessiah they're trying to create to summon the [[ThereWillBeCake Millennium Kingdom]]? TheHero.
** ''VideoGame/Persona3'': Strega sets up a death-cult to come and [[WatchTheWorldDie witness the inevitable yet breathtaking end of the world]] while eating popcorn. They told the truth about the ApocalypseWow but lied about it being inevitable and painless, as the cultists are set to transform into shadows and attack the city's citizens to disrupt any help they could give to SEES.[[note]]Luckily, all of the Protagonist's Confidants survive to give him the support he needed[[/note]]
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiDevilSurvivor'': The Shomonkai cult wishes to complete the Trials of God. Except they do this by worshiping the demon lord Belberith.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'': The Church of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado; for the most part, they're just indulgent monks who have to put up with arrogant [[FantasticCasteSystem Luxuors]] between their [[CargoCult intimate moments with precursor technology]]... except their leaders ''are technically responsible for the demon-transformation plague'' because they ''genetically modified humans with Chaotic thoughts to mutate into demons''. And in their ending, they choose to mass-murder Tokyo, you, and even ''themselves'' to ensure no further cultural ideas make it to the surface.
* The Order of the Mechanists in ''VideoGame/ThiefIITheMetalAge''. The Mechanists want to spread advanced technology to improve life and inspire progress in The City. [[SinisterMinister Father Karras]] wants to [[OmnicidalManiac kill everyone]] because he believes that [[MachineWorship machines]] are the chosen of [[CrystalDragonJesus the Builder]].
* ''VideoGame/GrandiaII'': You know that war that happened 10,000 years ago between Granas, the benevolent creator, and Valmar, the destroyer? And how Granas won? [[spoiler: That was a bit of a lie. The truth is... when they both defeated each other, Granas was the one who died and Valmar was split into multiple pieces. And the highest members of church knew this and kept it from the general populace, to keep order.]] Furthermore, Granas and Valmar [[spoiler:were never truly divine in the first place. They were merely scientists who unlocked the power to [[RealityWarper warp reality]] and used it to set themselves up as gods.]]
** [[spoiler: The pope lied to Elena about the reasons for gathering the remaining pieces of Valmar. It wasn't to kill him in one strike. The pope just wants to be [[GodhoodSeeker the new reincarnation of Valmar.]]]][[spoiler:He succeeds. Kinda.]]

* Morninglight from ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' is part ChurchOfHappyology, part [[UsefulNotes/CharlesManson Mansonesque]] hippie {{cult}}. And they [[spoiler:secretly worship an EldritchAbomination (although most members are blissfully unaware of that fact)]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'', the disciples of Beruga believe that he will create for them an earthly paradise in which they shall no longer fear death. When the hero descends into Beruga's castle, he discovers a laboratory where robots experiment with biological agents, supposedly for the purpose of prolonging life and curing diseases. This sounds like a justification for WithholdingTheCure, but the ''cure'' is never really mentioned again, though the disease is successfully weaponized.
* Arguably, the "New Terran Myth" wonder in ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth''.
** Not even the people who created it can decide if it's a cynical power grab or actual divine revelation.
* The CrystalDragonJesus faith of Trinitism in ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' is an odd example. All evidence from the game itself is that people genuinely believe it, even its practitioners, and that it's seen as a force for good even by its clergy. However, playing through Double's storyline reveals the sinister truth behind it: [[spoiler:the three goddesses that Trinitism worships are ''evil'', having created the [[ArtifactOfDoom Skullheart]] in hopes of one day producing a Skullgirl strong enough to ''[[OmnicidalManiac destroy the world]]''. Exactly why this is the case, isn't made clear, although playing Eliza's storyline implies it may be some kind of revenge gig, as apparently the Trinity used to be mortals themselves.]]

* The Healing Church from ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' was founded by students of [[ExtranormalInstitute Byrgenwerth College]] who saw the healing properties of the Old Blood from the Pthumerian Labyrinth beneath Yharnam and thought that it should be given as a gift to humanity against the wishes of their cautious teacher Provost Willem. The Healing Church uses the panacea-like old blood to form a stranglehold on Yharnam's government while using Yharnam's citizens as guinea pigs for their true goal; ascending humans (mostly themselves) into beings like the [[EldritchAbomination Great Ones]]. When it turned out that imbibing too much Old Blood turned people into werewolf-like beasts, the Healing Church created the Church Hunters to kill beasts (and anyone who looked like they might put two and two together) and started a propaganda campaign to blame foreigners for Yharnam's troubles and convince Yharmanites to keep taking blood treatments. By the time of the game, you can barely take five steps before tripping on yet another of the Church's crimes, and if it's not them, it's another splinter faction of the Byrgenwerth scholars.
* In the ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' series, Christianity itself is treated as simply a tool used by [[TheIlluminati the Templars and their predecessors]] to manipulate the masses for their own nefarious goals with most religious figures in the series being primarily antagonists.

** The {{Trope Namer|s}} is the Path of Inspiration, the state religion of Riedra, created by the quori forces of the Dreaming Dark in the because it both oppresses the masses ''and'' helps empower a great evil. The Path emphasizes peace, diligence, and doing what you are told. The people are separated into racial castes (with the Chosen, the bred vessels of the quori, at the top), and told that if they serve well in this life they will reincarnate as a better race in their next life; coincidentally, this encourages people to keep their heads down and do their duty without complaint. The books go out of their way to stress that life under the Path of Inspiration is not bad at all: [[HappinessInSlavery its followers lead a life of relative peace and sanctity]]. The only ''major'' points of contention from the point-of-view of an informed outsider are the whole "tricking followers into helping empower a great evil" bit and the part where followers have no personal freedom or even concept of entertainment (and those who do try to resist tend to disappear).

* The {{Trope Namer|s}} is the state religion of Riedra, created by the Quori forces of the Dreaming Dark in the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' DungeonPunk setting TabletopGame/{{Eberron}} because it both oppresses the masses ''and'' helps empower a great evil. The books go out of their way to stress that life under the Path of Inspiration is not bad at all: [[HappinessInSlavery its followers lead a life of relative peace and sanctity]]. The only ''major'' points of contention from the point-of-view of an informed outsider are the whole "tricking followers into helping empower a great evil" bit and the part where followers have no personal freedom (and those who do try to resist tend to disappear).
** The Blood of Vol from the same setting is a lesser example. To the common man, it is a slightly creepy but otherwise okay religion that views blood as a gateway to immortality and venerates undeath as a great martyrdom for the sake of teaching others ( as in Eberron, undead creatures are not AlwaysChaoticEvil). Considering that the afterlife of Eberron consists of a drab wasteland that slowly erases your memories until you're a mindless wandering shade, you can see where they're coming from. The truth is a little harsher: [[spoiler:The Blood of Vol is actually being manipulated by BigBad Erandis Vol in order to advance her agenda in Khorvaire, with the actual dogma being an altered form of House Vol's beliefs preserved by elves fleeing Aerenal]].

* The Church of Yevon from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' was [[spoiler:created to make people accept the periodic resurgence of Sin, formalize the stopgap method used to keep him at bay, and kneecap anything that could challenge the Yevon government (most notably the development of weaponized machina)]].

* [[VideoGame/CommandAndConquer Brotherhood of Nod!]] They're usually depicted as a quasi-cult with their leader, Kane, determined to continue the spread of the ecology-destroying Tiberium substance with the belief it would advance the human race. It's even more so in the third installment of the Tiberium series on a massively successful scale, getting a large chunk of 80% human population who live in the deserted Yellow Zones to go against GDI and work on his goals even further.

* Holy Mauser faith in ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess'' [[spoiler:was actually designed by the aliens who conquered Earth and exiled brainwashed human survivors to a small portion of its surface. Its function was to a) prevent humanity from ever discovering their true history, b) allow semi-sentient weapons named Peacemakers to act without interference as "Lord Mauser's angels", c) rally the entire world population against the person carrying the genetic anomaly enabling her to "cancel" Peacemakers' presence and challenge the status quo, who just happens to be the protagonist of the show. It may be also notable that all this was apparently organized for humanity's own good, at least, from the alien point of view.]]

* ''Series/StargateSG1'': "Hallowed are the Ori". Interestingly, after [[spoiler:the Ori are killed, in ''Film/TheArkOfTruth'', their former subjects take up Origin as a legitimate religion, albeit with some changes. "Can you take out the parts about burning people alive?"]]

* ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' features the [[ChurchOfHappyology Unitologists]]...and their [[MacGuffin Marker]], which unleashed a horde of zombies when the Unitologists began not only studying it but worshiping it (and the guy who found it). More generally, they're aiming for an AssimilationPlot--but interestingly, they don't keep that part a secret. They just don't tell people that the assimilation involves getting murdered by bloodthirsty zombies and bonded to an undead necromantic HiveMind.

* ''Webcomic/SlightlyDamned'': Four of the six warrior-caste angels we've seen have crippling anger issues due to their fervent belief in Gaia, the goddess of love and peace, [[WeComeInPeaceShootToKill and her 'edict' to wage genocidal war on demonkind]] to defeat her archnemesis Syndel, the GodOfEvil. It is unknown when exactly the CouncilOfAngels seized control of Heaven, but what is known is that [[HaveYouSeenMyGod Gaia and Syndel has been absent for the past 15 years]], and have enforced caste systems that turned Heaven into a fluffy police state.

* The Healing Church from ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' was founded by students of [[ExtranormalInstitute Byrgenwerth College]] who saw the healing properties of the Old Blood from the Pthumerian Labyrinth beneath Yharnam and thought that it should be given as a gift to humanity against the wishes of their cautious teacher Provost Willem. The Healing Church uses the panacea-like old blood to form a stranglehold on Yharnam's government while using its citizens as guinea-pigs in creating new forms of blood to help mankind ascend into godhood like the [[EldritchAbomination Great Ones]]. When the blood causes the beastly-plague, the Healing Church creates its own hunter's workshop to emulate the various hunters that begin cropping up and begins a propaganda campaign to blame "foreign influence" for the scourge to keep the suspicion away from the Church, brewing a culture of xenophobia of their progressively on-edge populace. Other crimes from the church include poisoning the water supply in Old Yharnam to make them dependent on the Church's blood, burning Old Yharnam to the ground and sealing it off when the scourge overwhelms it, massacring the Vilebloods for being a political threat, banning access to Byrgenworthe for fear of their secrets getting out, inhumane experimentation and the creation of the School of Mensis, a splinter group ''so'' ruthless and corrupt it makes the rest of the church look humane by comparison.

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', the Scarlet Crusade appears like this to Alliance players in a major quest line leading up their instance. Then after this quest line has shown that they are a CorruptChurch, players encounter another turn of events in Stratholme, a high level instance, where it turns out that the faction was led by a ''demon''.

** [[spoiler: The pope lied to Elena about the reasons for gathering the remaining pieces of Valmar. It wasn't to kill him in one strike. The pope just wants to be [[GodhoodSeeker the new reincarnation of Valmar.]]]][[spoiler: [[OhCrap He succeeds.]] Kinda.]]

* In ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' the [[AncientConspiracy Seers of the Throne]] Ministry of Paternoster is devoted to making every religious faith as dogmatic and closed-minded (especially in regards to magic) as possible, in accordance with the commandments of the [[AGodAmI Exarchs]]. Notably, they don't want [[{{Muggles}} sleepers]] to directly ''worship'' the Exarchs, since they believe that for anyone other than a mage to do so profanes them.

** [[spoiler: The pope lied to Elena about the reasons for gathering the remaining pieces of Valmar. It wasn't to kill him in one strike. The pope just wants to be [[AGodAmI the new reincarnation of Valmar.]]]][[spoiler: [[OhCrap He succeeds.]] Kinda.]]

** Also, the Templar turned corrupt by ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', [[spoiler:brainwashing anyone they wished to conscript into zealous and self-loathing identities, and plotting to do the same to every human they could get their hands on, starting with Westmarch. All while recruiting unwitting volunteers for their "cause".]]

* The Universal Brotherhood from the ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' game did this. The nice benevolent facade hid a collection of bizarre alien insect-beings whose main purpose was to infuse insect spirits into its members. [[DeathFromAbove An orbital nuclear strike]] was avoided ''only'' because said nuke was delivered at ground level, unleashing horrible horrors into Chicago. And that was the ''good'' ending of this saga.

** [[VideoGames/FinalFantasyXII The Prequel]] reveals that the false god's masters were demiurges, creating entire races for their research and manipulating them via religion and prophetic visions into waging war.[[note]]Eventually, one of them realized they went too far and joined the humans to destroy the connection between the mortal world and her realm.[[/note]]

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* The Healing Church from ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' was founded by students of [[ExtranormalInstitute Byrgenwerth College]] who saw the healing properties of the Old Blood from the Pthumerian Labyrinth beneath Yharnam and thought that it should be given as a gift to humanity against the wishes of their cautious teacher Provost Willem. The Healing Church uses the panacea-like old blood to form a stranglehold on Yharnam's government while using its citizens as guinea-pigs in creating new forms of blood to help mankind ascend into godhood like the [EldritchAbomination Great Ones]]. When the blood causes the beastly-plague, the Healing Church creates its own hunter's workshop to emulate the various hunters that begin cropping up and begins a propaganda campaign to blame "foreign influence" for the scourge to keep the suspicion away from the Church, brewing a culture of xenophobia of their progressively on-edge populace. Other crimes from the church include poisoning the water supply in Old Yharnam to make them dependent on the Church's blood, burning Old Yharnam to the ground and sealing it off when the scourge overwhelms it, massacring the Vilebloods for being a political threat, banning access to Byrgenworthe for fear of their secrets getting out, inhumane experimentation and the creation of the School of Mensis, a splinter group ''so'' ruthless and corrupt it makes the rest of the church look humane by comparison.