Cult of the Mothman

The Cult of the Mothman was a pre-War religious faction in Appalachia that worshipped the Mothman.

Background
The Cult of the Mothman had been worshiping the Mothman in secret since long before the Great War, viewing him as a way to tell of the future and frequently attempted to summon him to do as such.

On October 22, 2077, only a day before nuclear armageddon was unleashed across the world, the cult conducted a ritual to summon the Mothman. One member identified as Brother Charles claimed that the ritual succeeded and the Mothman had warned him of a terrible flood that would occur the next day that could only be survived by reaching high ground. The cult took this warning seriously and informed its other members. Ultimately, the cult members would settle in the abandoned Lucky Hole mine. The group actually purchased the abandoned Lucky Hole Mine after a Brother Charles allegedly met the Mothman and was instructed a “great flood” would occur on the same day as the Great War.

The group took it to heart and sought shelter in the Lucky Hole Mine, despite the fact they initially were instructed by the Priestess to go on the roofs. The only corpses found on the roofs are that of the Responders that took over the town after them. After the entrance into the Mine, the group constructed numerous shanty housings and shrines throughout. It is obvious that the group deviates from the original deity of the Mothman as evident from the numerous holotapes of Jeff Lane that can be found in Point Pleasant and Lucky Hole Mine. He describes the Mothman as a “creature” but expresses desires to seek out the hidden horrors of his mind ; a very clear tie to many plot points in the real-life Lovecraft series. This comes to fruition with “The Interloper” who contacts Jeff Lane and others in the Lucky Holes Mine through some sort of psychosis, luring them deeper into the mine to find him. At this time, Jeff Lane expresses himself as a “vessel” for the Interloper. It is unclear exactly if Jeff Lane is dead or not, but it is highly implied by the bodies found around the Interloper that one of them might be him.

The only thing left of the group is the multiple shrines scattered across Appalachia, possible evidence that the group managed to survive for a short time after the war, confirmed by their resurgence by 2103.

Organization
The group was led by an unnamed High Priestess (later known as the First Priestess of the wood) that led the group’s religious prayers and to short-lived sanctuary in the Lucky Hole Mine. It is unknown what happened to her, though it is highly likely she is one of the skeletons in the Mine, either the one in the coffin where the note is found (possibly a human sacrifice or cannibalized) or one of the ones in front of the Interloper.

The cult has a small underground meeting area in one of the buildings in Point Pleasant, and they also has several unmarked shrine locations throughout Appalachia such as:
 * Sunken church near Raleigh Clay's bunker
 * Inside the church in Helvetia
 * Shrine east of Bleeding Kate's Grindhouse
 * Shrine at the church in Sutton
 * Shrine at Kanawha County Cemetery

Technology
The Cult of the Mothman is very primitive in nature, using a combination of wood, bones, wire, leather, vines, and cloth to construct their armor and shrines. For weaponry, the cultists stuck to melee, using scraps of metal and black titanium to construct blades and crudely fasten them to different parts of a deer bone and horn as handles. .

Interactions with the player character
Sites of the cult's influence can be found across Appalachia, especially in regions such as the Forest and the Mire. The sites themselves can be as small as unmarked thickets with ritual totems and corpses, to as large as the labyrinthine depths of the Lucky Hole Mine.

With every one of the cult's members presumably dead as of 2102, only the corpses of cultists can be found. One such cultist, Moncrief, can still be heard as part of The Path to Enlightenment event at the Landview Lighthouse. A trio of dead cultists can also be found in a random encounter.

The ritual bindings and ritual mask are clothing items of the cult's make, and can commonly be found in areas of their influence. The cultist dagger and cultist blade are weapons of similar origin.

The Cult makes a minor resurgence in the Wastelanders DLC.

Appearances
The Cult of the Mothman appears in Fallout 76 and its add-on Wastelanders.