Haro was one of the gods of the old faith
Haro bears a crown (a white crown), like the bishops of the Old Faith, and speaks of the history of the lands of the Old Faith. They mention that there used to be hundreds of gods, but as they were forgotten, or devoured each other, their numbers dwindled until there four in the game, with their numbers also dwindling as the bishops are gradually killed by the player.Haro might have taken over Shamura's domain as a god of knowledge when Shamura's skull was split, and they lost their mind when the One Who Wants/Narinder was banished, as they were no longer able to act in their capacity as master of that domain.
As Haro themselves may no longer have any worshippers, (and their worshippers might have lived now in the camps where Haro is found), their own powers dwindled, explaining why their crown is crossed/dormant. It may not be dissimilar to how the Lamb's red crown is crossed when in the presence of the bishops.
The One Who Waits will be the final boss.
Be it because it decides that the Lamb has outlived its usefulness, or the Lamb realizes that it's strong enough on its own to no longer need the empowering of the old god.- Alternatively, it will be a Final Boss for a secret ending route, where the Lamb realizes all the horror and atrocities they have been forced to do have helped release something worse than the Four Bishops' rule ever was.
- The Lamb will kill The One Who Waits and become the new god of the land.
- Confirmed. The Lamb will have a choice on whether or not to become a final sacrifice and if not, the final battle begins. After the fight, the Lamb pretty much usurps the One who Waits as the new god of the land and can choose to kill him or simply turn him into one of their followers.
The One Who Waits' Evil Plan is to turn everyone into lambs.
What started out as favoritism turned into extreme megalomania, as TOWW went against their pantheon's agenda by forcefully attempting to mutate every mortal into a sheep akin to itself. The Four gods betrayed TOWW and cast them down to prevent them from driving their followers completely extinct and starving them of worship. The 'prophecy' of TOWW is that a Lamb will one day spread its virulent lamb-ness to the entire world, hence the mass-genocide of lambs on the other gods' part.- Jossed. The One Who Waits only intends to sacrifice the Lamb to revive himself and use the rest of the cultists for mysterious purposes, likely nothing good.
One Non-Standard Game Over will cause your cult to commit mass-suicide
If you are unable to root out the sleeper agents in your cult for too long, they'll convince the other cultists while you're gone that you're fighting the final battle and need a boost. A large boost. When you return, your entire home base is wrecked, and your cultists have committed suicide or fled.- Alternatively, this will be the end-goal - a mass-suicide powered ritual to free The One Who Waits.
- Jossed. The One Who Waits is only interested in sacrificing the Lamb.
Despite the Hollywood Satanism trappings and human, er, animal sacrifice, the game is, in fact, about Christianity in an at least semi-positive light.
Specifically, early Christianity when it was small enough to be considered a minor Jewish cult and needed to grow its influence. The One Who Waits was imprisoned by the Bishops who are explicitly named after pagan gods and spirits displaced by Christianity (such as Leshy and Heket) to prevent the end of the Old Faith. Whether or not The One Who Waits is actually good or simply runs on Blue-and-Orange Morality, the Bishops are shown to be actively evil and callous towards their followers, sacrificing them on a whim to just slow down The Lamb a little - and The Lamb is at least encouraged to be reasonably compassionate by providing food and shelter.- In addition to this, the Lamb is perfectly capable of guiding wayward followers back gently rather than sacrificing or publicly torturing them.
The One who Waits is a Great Old One.
If they aren't a devil then it's possible they are an elder god.The One Who Waits was part of a pantheon until they were sealed down below.
The four Bishops each wear a crown similar to the Lamb's. This could indicate the Old Faith follows multiple gods and one of them was locked away.- Confirmed. The One Who Waits was a part of the Four Bishops, with his old name being Narinder.
Possible DLC Ideas
- A post-game campaign featuring new levels and challenges.
- A secret sixth bishop comes out of the shadows and becomes the boss for a new stage/biome.
- A brand new island for your cult to conquer complete with its own set of stages and bosses. You travel to this new location via ship or boat. Most likely Plimbo will give you a lift there.
- A new questline given to you by The One Who Waits if you recruit him as a follower, expanding upon the origins of the Old Faith and how he and his siblings came into power and the subsequent fallout leading to his imprisonment. Specifically their pre-crown bearer days.
- Expanded character customization features like head accessories such as hats, masks, etc. and customizable clothing for your followers.
- New building options for your base both functional and cosmetic.
- A family / generational / inheritance system where you and your followers can now have children / descendants.
- Not in Relics of the Old Faith
- Sins of the Flesh allows your followers to breed, mostly to inherit traits.
The Bishops and The One who Waits are all ascended mortals. The real gods are the crowns.
When we see the various statues of the old gods, the Money God, the statues around Haro, and sometimes just statues of them in random levels, they always have a much, much more unified appearance than the Bishops. One with a two-peaked head, lots of tentacles, and a large smile. While the last two parts do not truly fit, the overall shape makes me think of one thing... the Crowns.What if the Bishops are, in truth, merely ascended mortals, like the Lamb? Meanwhile the true power, the actual deities, are the crowns? Perhaps they are all that remains of the gods of old, mere symbiotes, using mortal hosts in order to ensure their survival in an age of constant deicide. Even if their mortal hosts die, the crowns survive, get claimed by another, and continue as if nothing happens, because they do not truly need to be the objects of worship, merely drink up the devotion towards another.
- Unlikely. If anything, it's likely that the more dignified statues are the gods of the old faith, before the betrayal of the one who waits. After the betrayal, they're gravely injured, and their power appears to have similarly diminished. Shamura, for example, was mentioned to have been the brightest before their skull was split.
The crowns are more likely symbols/extensions of their power, or tools that let them use that power more effectively, rather than being the source of them. We see Shamura without their bandages, and it reveals that the crown is physically rooted into their brain, likely preserving their life, and keeping what's left of their mind together after the damage they sustained, but with the result being their madness. After the betrayal of the One Who Waits/The Heretic, and to deal with the threat posed by the lamb, they may be more likely to draw upon the powers of their crown.
It's also notable that you don't take their crown, you take their still-beating hearts instead, which suggests that the beings themselves have power, something supported when you battle Narinder/The One Who Waits, who is still able to fight you, and draw on a One-Winged Angel form similar to the monstrous forms of the other deities of the old faith, despite giving his crown to the lamb. - Seems at least partially confirmed in the "Relics of the Old Faith", with Leshy and Shamura stating they found their crowns, and all of them having dealt with ???
There will be DLC set after the Refuse ending that culminates in the Lamb creating a new universe.
This will give new meaning to the 'five becomes [...] one becomes nothing' prophecy... because that's what there was... in the beginning.- An epilogue cutscene may extend the 'origin story' aspect by showing the point of view of the Lamb looking down at His chosen people, seeing them worshiping a golden calf and, perhaps after having a brief visible flashback, beginning to write some new rules. First among them: 'thou shalt have no other gods before me.' Never again.
- Bonus points for a character in the DLC being an anthropomorphic bull.
- This does not happen.
Shamura is not nonbinary.
They use non-gendered plural pronouns because they lead a Hive Mind of spiders, and this is their way of acknowledging their status as said swarm's mouthpiece.Alternatively, more humorously/horribly (depending on your perspective), the brain damage caused by The One Who Waits may have caused Shamura to forget their own gender
- But their siblings would still remember their gender and address them by their old pronouns. It's not that deep.
- Also, if they ARE plural, they would be pangender and thus, non-binary.
Ratoo's old lover is the former Lighthouse Leader
Ratoo makes mention of his lover being "at the bottom of the sea", and the Lighthouse Keeper mentions that the leader of the lighthouse group went out to the pier and never came back, and it's heavily implied to be because she was taken by the Fox (the skull on the pier being evident of that). It also happens that the Fox is only encountered at night, and the Pier is one of the locations you can encounter him. In a future DLC, the Bishops will be resurrected some way or another and be forced to work for the Lamb
The Bishops will somehow be resurrected and try to take back the Crowns but will be caught by the Lamb who decides to spare them and force them to help build up the Cult. They will then set up camp in different locations around the Cult of the Lamb's local area and can be called on to aid in a Crusade with each Bishop having different powers based on what their Crown represented.
- Confirmed, you bring them back in the Relics of the Old Faith and they become followers just like Narinder
Haro is related to Clauneck and his siblings
Clauneckâs sister looks a lot like Haro, and the trio is mentioned as having been hatched among old gods. The Red 'Fox' is a wolf
It's unknown why people started calling him the red fox, but you start out with fox followers, and he gives you the wolf follower. Plus it fits the iconography of the big bad wolf, and wolves and sheep, so it would make sense for him to be a wolf.- Well, he looks more like a fox than the confirmed wolf characters, and foxes are traditionally known for shady deals. It is possible that the character was originally going to be a wolf, but was changed as a reference to another shady fox dealmaker called Red(d), though.
Forneus is a former vessel of the Red Crown.
She still wears a crown to this day, in fact, mostly to keep the memories of her crusading days in her mind. She did not fail, the way Ratau did, nor did she usurp the power of the One Who Waits, the way the Lamb has the opportunity to do. Instead, she willingly gave it up after having twins, so she could focus on their upbringing and being a mother to them. It's why Aym and Baal eventually become the attendants of the One Who Waits. He knows of their bloodline's power and skills, and still hold Forneus in high enough regard to consider her offspring worthy to be by his side. Casting possibilites for the potential Cult of the Lamb show
Lamb:- If they have a feminine voice:
- Stephanie Varen (Since she already voiced a cute divine animal.)
The game takes place in the distant past of Night in the Woods
The main religion, that Pastor Karen is a priestess of, is a wildly different descendent of the Lamb's cult. The Black Goat is either an old god (though not necessarily one of the Bishops) trying to get back old ground or new arrival try to do the same thing the One Who Waits did by trying to make Mae a vessel. One of the Bishops is a Broken Pedestal to the Lamb
They had a life before the genocide of the sheep people. He may have actually been a fairly devout follower of one of them before their betrayal. Most likely candidates would be Leshy or Shamura, since their the one's who are most likely to be fought first and last, which it seem more meaningful than fighting them second or third, the order Heket and Kallamar are most likely to be fought in, and the latter's Sympathy for the Hero. One of the First Gods took the form of a snake, another an owl, and potentially a third was named Yngya
Sins of the Flesh brings with it some lore content to seek in the form of the Ancient Tablets, and other such things. Finding all the Ancient Tablets will reward you with a follower form that is a snake, potentially hinting at a snake being important to the lore of the Gods that came prior to the Bishops and Narinder. Ancient Tablet IX mentions that someone named Yngya cannot be found, and the way they are spoken of hints that they had some power - potentially over seasons with mention of how the leaves no longer change colour.A separate lore piece can be found as a letter called Offering to the Owl in which a hunting party asks that their hunt be granted success because of an offering left for them.
All of these separately give us clues as to who or what the First Gods were or looked like.
