So it is absolutely no surprise to me that in our completely non-scientific poll with over 500 votes the most popular five RQ cults are:
5. Yelmalio: Always the most popular cult outside of the Lightbringers cluster, Yelmalio, is a distant fifth. I suspect with the Pavis and Big Rubble material he’ll become a not so distant fifth. A solid fighter cult with few spells, but those spells are REALLY handy when you are fighting against trolls.
4. Issaries and Lhankor Mhy (a tie). This is where RQ is obviously different from D&D. Neither of these cults have any direct combat relevance, but they are very popular despite that. They are “roleplayer” cults, allowing people to use communication, negotiation, and investigation to solve obstacles. These are communicators/magicians or knowers/magicians.
3. Storm Bull. Not a surprise as Storm Bull is a straight-forward combat character, who drives the party to fight Chaos. Strong emphasis on fighter/magician.
2. Humakt. The original player character cult, Humakt has always been popular – who doesn’t want to play sword-obsesssed samurai from time to time? Strong emphasis on fighter/magician.
1. Orlanth. THE adventurer cult. Orlanth’s cult is both one of the easiest for starting players but also the most socially and mythically complex, with lots of options for character growth. It works for fighters, communicators, and magicians.
Those 6 cults represent about 2/3rds of the total votes, while the other 25 choices represent about 1/3 of the votes.
The next tier after these is no surprise either – Babeester Gor, Eurmal, Ernalda, Chalana Arroy, and Seven Mothers.
After these cults nothing else even cracks 1% except “Other” which got about as many votes as Babeester Gor or Eurmal.
It is a reminder to people who want to write content to be aware of what the main audience is!