Joanna's guide on how to blood cult
Hello, I have recently noticed lots of players not knowing how to play as a blood cultist and decided to share my experience with this community that I love. The following guide contains steps and explanations that I consider are the most important to know, when playing as a blood cultist for the first times.
Important notes before you continue reading:
- This guide expects you to know the games basics.
- This guide does not explain everything. If you have memorized all of this information, there are still many strategies and items that are not mentioned here, so when you feel that you are comfortable as a cultist, try experimenting with new things.
- This guide does not have every Spell,Rune,Item explanation on what they are. For that I expect you to have the Beestation Wiki open and follow along while scrolling through the guide.
- While writing this I found out that there was a player who already wrote a guide on blood cult, so if you are interested more I suggest to take a look into it as well. Link to the post is here
The first 4 buttons you see as a fresh cultist
When a cultist is converted, you will firstly find out that you have 4 new buttons, in this Section I will explain what are these 4 buttons and what is their purpose.
Voice of Blood
This icon appears at the top left corner of your screen. This spell is used for secret communication with your other cultists. When clicked you will be given a prompt to write just like normal speak and once entered you will speak on to the cult channel. Careful not to use this next to somebody, because nearby people can hear you whisper. This spell is infinite and will never disappear.
Vote a Leader
This icon also appears at the top left corner of your screen. This spell is used to nominate yourself as the leader of the cult. When clicked it will announce on the cult chat that you wish to become a leader and shortly everyone will get an option to vote. I do not know the exact number needed to win the vote, but I believe it needs to be at least half.
During entire blood cult round, there can only be one leader, so if you get elected that’s it, you better not die, cause your leadership disappears with you being deconverted. The spells obtained by leader title are only good for late game cult, which is why usually the leader is elected once the final target is sacrificed. PLEASE TALK ON THE CULT CHAT BEFORE VOTING FOR YOURSELF!!!
Short summary of what you get as a leader of the cult:
When you win the election you will be elected as the cult leader, which gets 2 new spells on your top toolbar, your voice becomes Louder on cult speak and…
You lose all of your selected spells!!! (Not sure if this is intended)
The 3 new spells are:
Mark a Target, allows you to mark a person on your screen, which will be visible to everyone on their cult pin-pointer.
Final Reckoning, a single use spell, which requires to be charged for a few seconds in place, which results in teleporting all of cult members to your location. (I use this to gather all of the cultists for the final summoning rune)
Eldritch Pulse, I’ve never managed to use this practically so I will leave this for you to read on the wiki and practice in game.
Prepare blood magic
This icon appears above your backpack storage on the left side. Clicking this button will prompt you a table to select a spell to obtain. Using this button allows you to have only 1 spell at a time, but you can have up to 4 if you use a (Dark Blue) Empowering rune. Which is why you should only be using this button in Emergency situations (Usually when you loose your cult dagger or have been affected by holy water in combat).
Explanation of all the spells can be found on Beestation Wiki
Draw a rune (HIDDEN)
This icon appears above your backpack storage on the right side, it is only visible when you are holding a cultist dagger in your hand. This button allows you to draw all of the cultist runes, so keep your dagger close to you, since you will be drawing lots of graffiti as a cultist. When pressed it will prompt you a table with all of the possible runes to draw.
Drawing runes deals damage, so keep in mind, that you are always hurting yourself. To get rid of a rune, use your dagger on it and it will disappear in a second. (Please do not leave visible runes if the cult has not been discovered)
Explanation on what every rune does can be found on Beestation Wiki
I just got converted what should I do? (Also works if you are round start cult)
Well shit… you just became a cultist what should you be doing next?
Step 1. Secure your cult dagger
If you are round start cultist, you should have everything safely stored in your bag and you can skip this step
First, when you get converted a blood dagger is spawned on the same tile, this dagger belongs to you and as previously mentioned is used to draw runes. That is why your first action should be to pick it to pick it up and hide it in your bag.
Sometimes, your cultist buddy, that just converted, you might pick it up and steal it from you. Fear not, because there is no reason for a fellow cultist to steal an extra dagger, usually the case is that you are still dizzy and your cultist brother wants to hide the evidence from an upcoming visitor (Probably a security officer). After a nice chat with the officer, your brother will probably give it back to you.
What if the situation was chaotic and you lost your cult dagger?
Lets say, you got converted in a situation where you had to make a run for it and lost your dagger… Or maybe you just managed to break cuffs and ran away from a security officer detaining you.
In this case, get to a private location and use one of the 4 starting spells known as Prepare Blood Magic. From the table of spells, select Summon Ritual Dagger. This will provide you with a new button, which is the spell that you just prepared. When activated, one of your hands will become glowing, use this hand on yourself and you will get a fresh new Cultist dagger.
Step 2. Preparing Spells
After you get converted, if the environment is safe, your cult bro will probably draw the rune for you and you will be able to use it on the spot, but what if you got left alone?
Well before we start drawing our gang symbols, make sure you are in a space where no snitches can spot you vandalizing station property. I suggest to go somewhere deep into the mains or use a private office like in dorms.
I hope you followed step 1, cause you are expected to have your blood dagger on you at this stage.
Take out your blood dagger out of your backpack and it should let you use your hidden starting Ability Draw a Rune. Activate it and from the pop up table, select Empower, this should result in a dark blue rune.
Clicking on the rune will open you a table of spells to prepare, similarly to the Starting Spell Prepare Blood Magic, the only difference being, that this rune allows you to select up to 4 Spells, unlike the starting one, which is capped to 1.
Recommended Spell Combinations:
Now that you know how to obtain 4 spells, time to learn about good spell combos to have ready on you!
Teleport
I recommend having this spell in every combination, because this is your “Get out of Jail” card. Every time you are in a battle or officers are asking you to surrender, you can just pop the hand and teleport to safety.
This is a single use spell, that upon cast, will make your hand glow and when targeting on yourself or somebody else, will let you to teleport to an existing teleporting rune.
Moving forward all combinations will contain Teleport + 3 other spells.
Summon Combat Equipment
Another important spell to keep track of is Summon Combat Equipment, this spell fills up your empty slots (Shoes, armor, both hands) with combat gear. If all of the mentioned slots are empty you will receive a basic cultist body armor, cultist shoes, a cultist sword, a cultist bola. This is a a must know spell, if you wish to have any chances of fighting a security officer or a robust crew member.
I only use this spell when I am preparing, but never keep it in my spell combination list afterwards.
Note @PowerfulBacon did suggest, that having the combat equipment spell in your slot can lead to strategies, where you can ambush, a security officer by coming close to them, while wearing nothing and equipping yourself with combat gear in a seconds notice
2.1. Stealth Conversion Combo (Stun, Shadow Shackles, Conceal Presence)
This combo is great at round start, when cult is still in early stages. If you wish to covert crew in such a way that they will not have a chance to speak out a word, these are the spells to go for.
When you find your target, you stun them with the stun spell, followed straight up with shadow shackles, both of these apply a mute on the target. The second you have shackled your target, remove their headset. If you succeeded, you should be able to drag your target to any location and they will not be able to scream for help.
Conceal is used to hide or reveal the hidden runes, this is a great spell and has multiple uses, meaning that you will be able to use it a couple of times before it runs out. I use this spell to hide the runes if somebody is nearby and when making hidden teleportation runes across entire station.
2.2. Combat Spells (Stun, Electromagnetic Pulse, Blood Rites)
These are the spells that I use, If I was found out as a cultist and I am ready to fight. Here’s a quick explanation for every spell and what is it used for.
Before preparing all of these spells, I recommend to prepare Summon Combat Equipment Spell and use it on yourself. This will provide you with basic cultist armor, a sword and a bola. Everything you need for an upcoming fight.
While on the hunt, your primary targets are security officers, but while roaming you might find a few free walking conversions (Crew mates) and having more allies is never a bad idea! That is why you have a stun spell to temporarily knock out your opponent where you can slash them to crit, preventing them from moving.
EMP, is used to neutralize all of the common security gadgets,that they are carrying with them, if you set up an ambush and pop this at the right time, the player on the other side will not react in time to switch their tactics on how to fight you. This spell is also great for catching borgs.
Blood Rites, allow you to suck up blood on the ground and stack it to your personal counter. It is a fun spell to use and try out, while it does require lots of stacks to be able to use it for any good spell at worst you can consume all of the blood stacks on yourself to quickly regain some health in a critical moment. (I do not think that this spell is Crucial to this combo, so feel free to replace this with a 2nd stun or something else).
Step 3. Assist in helping the cult succeed
In this step I will explain how to figure out on what the cult currently needs and how can you help that.
Early stage
This stage considers the first 30 minutes of the round when the cult is lacking numbers.
In this stage you should primarly focus on doing your cult stuff in secret. Try not to get found out, since it is much easier for cultists to perform their magics, when nobody is suspecting anything.
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If the round just started and you are one of the starting cultists, then the first thing you should focus on is converting more cultists, having the advantage of the crew feeling over-confident and roaming the maints innocently is a great time to convert unsuspecting crew.
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It is very rare that a cultist will have AA, that is why you have to secure a safe way to travel around the station. Setting up Hidden teleportation runes across all the station maints is a very good strategy. This is insuring that you will always have a get-away rune from dangerous situations.
Mid stage
This stage considers the round approximately being 30-50 minutes long and you should have increased your cultist numbers. A good indication of this stage is an alert indicating that Your eyes are glowing red.
If at this point cult is not yet suspected Great work! But this entire process cannot be done in secrecy for long. So at this point you should start considering more drastic and risky measures. Do not be scared to be responsible for cult being found out.
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One idea is trying to considering on building a base, because you are coming close to halos. The goal of a base is for cultists to regroup, heal, use forges to craft stronger armor and so on. Having a cult forge master is a great thing, I’ve experienced this once, when Actias Noctis @Doktorwueue prepared a cultist armory with armor, swords and bolas ready to be used in a seconds notice.
While having a hidden base is good, the base mustn’t always be secret. A few cultist can easily defend a base if coordinated well, so try to group up with your fellow cultists.
Note: I do not recommend to make a Constructs for base defense (Usually this will lead to the construct having nothing to do and ghost)
For base locations, I highly discourage using the maints, since every security player knows every map by heart and a single fake-wall gives away something bad. Usually good bases tend to be constructed in abandoned parts of departments (Atmospherics, Virology, Xenobiology, Cargo Warehouse). -
Second, If your target has not yet been sacrificed, then you should start making attempts on their life. Usually the Sacrifice targets are members of Security or Command, but if the cult hasn’t yet been suspected you can try and get close to them, while they are still clueless and defenseless.
If the sacrificial target is sacrificed before Halos, this allows cultists to skip the process of Storming the brig, which usually ends up in big casualties on both fronts. -
Third, if you are suspected of being a cultist and security are on to you, you should try and start hunting down security officers. Equip stronger armor from a forge, grab a sword and sharpen it. Equip combat spells and try to catch a paroling security officer off-guard. Each security officer removed, is 1 less combatant to fight in the final stage.
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Fourth, if you feel like you are close to having halos, grouping up 2-4 cultists and storming a department is a great way to catch players off-guard and to move a group of players to your side of the front. The goal of this raid would be to stun/crit players and convert them. Expect resistance and a cavalry response in 1-2 minutes after you are spotted. Once the cavalry arrives you should teleport out and try to save the newly converted cultists.
Final Stage (HALOS)
Halos or also known as the stage where every cultist gets a pentagram over their head. At this stage all secrecy should be dropped the End times are near!
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Storming the brig. If you have not sacrificed your target yet, then he is most likely already protected inside of brig and armed to the teeth. That’s why you should organize a team and try to storm down the fortress. I suggest using Juggernauts and Artificers to tank down shots and break down the gates of the brig, but that is rarely possible.
If grouping up is difficult, rushing the brig to break their gates and inflicting damage on defending officers is also decent, medicine is temporary, but Nar’sie is forever. Just don’t die in the process!
A maxed out Blood rites will allow you to cast a big beam converting structures into cult structures and putting officers to crit, casting this into the brigs direction is also a great way to aid the raid on the brig.
note: Your final sacrificial target can be out in exploration or dead in lavaland, so use the spirit rune and turn yourself into a ghost. Using ghost form, find your target and share their location with other cultists. -
For the final summon you will require 9 cultists, so doing medical work on cult side is also important. You may want to search for dead cultists and bring them back to living conditions. Using a Revive rune will instantly bring back a dead player (Even a non cultist, i believe?). If revive doesn’t work and you are running out of time, then bring your fellow cultist corpse on a sacrificial rune and sacrifice them, this will turn them into a soul shard and you will be able to manifest them as a cult shade. A cult shade counts as a +1 cultist, but is pretty much useless (SO DO THIS ONLY IF ITS FOR THE FINAL SACRIFICE)
note: Revive stacks are generated by sacrificing non-sentient creatures on a sacrifice rune. Revive stacks are used when using revive rune.
How to convert?
First things first: is to know what targets to pick
Avoid mindshields
Your stun spells do not work on mindshielded crew, so the only way to bring them in is to put them in critical state, where they are no longer able to resist.
Converting a mindshielded member is impossible and having more than 2 cultists next to the rune, will result in gibing them. You should only be doing this, if you cannot be bothered with removing their mindshield surgically. Gibbing someone is very likely to cause suspicion and result in security being on high alert.
Note: Keep in mind, that if a player has a mindshield during cult, Consider that they have signed a contract accepting to be gibed if caught by a cultist.
If the cult is still in the early phases and are still in secrecy, then you should avoid targeting the following targets: Security Officers, Detective, Captain, Chaplain All of these by default have immunity to your spells, by mindshield or holy aura. Chaplain is an exception, he is protected by holy aura and is completely immune to all of your spells.
Common mistake: Do not try to stun people in plainly visible areas, if somebody notices you using a spell, they will at minimum try push you and try to prevent you from stealing your target. You should only be doing this if you are geared up and are ready to slaughter multiple crew (This is murderbone and only allowed in halos).
A short way to explain how converting works:
- Draw a sacrifice rune
- Put your target on that rune
- Get a friend so the total number of cultists near a rune is 2
- Activate it. This will result in the rune being invoked and a new cultist joining your ranks!
Sounds easy on paper, but the 3rd step usually is the hardest problem, since you are dependent on an unreliable factor, which is your teammate, so in this section I will try to explain how to solve the 3rd step.
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The most reliable way (What if you are a lone cult?)
Getting a cultist buddy to come to your location can be difficult, since they are probably busy doing something else and you want this to be done as quickly as possible. So, the steps on how to convert someone, when you are alone are the following!
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Make sure you have your target secured. (Cuffs applied, Headset removed)
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Bring your target to a location where you feel safe to stay for approximately 1-2 minutes. (Usually some maint room and not a public hallway).
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Draw a sacrifice rune and put your target directly over it.
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Draw a spirit realm rune
Spirit Realm Rune
The purpose of this rune is to grant you abilities focused with ghosts.
These functionalities are:
First and the important one is, Summon a Cultist ghost. This will offer one of the dead players a temporary role to manifest as a cult ghost in the physical plane. This ghost counts as an additional cultist member next to the rune, increasing the total nearby cultist number to 2.
Important to note, that while this ghost is manifested you will be slowly drained out of life, so you can actually die if not paying enough attention! If you are done converting and or on the verge of death, simply walk off the rune or use your cult dagger to remove the rune.
Second, Ghost form. This will let you leave your body as a ghost allowing you to communicate with cultist and with the dead players. In this form you have all of the abilities as if you were dead, meaning you can search for any players and communicate with dead observers.
While this is a good ability to use, you should not consider this one, when considering conversion. -
Summon a cultist ghost (This may take a few time to spam, since the offer is very short and quick)
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Once the ghost appears activate the rune your target is standing on.
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(Optional) Thank your cultist ghost for helping you.
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Step off the rune, returning the ghost to the spirit realm.
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Concealed conversion (Fun and Practical method)
This method lets you add a little bit of Role playing spice into conversion, without using any spells or cuffs to subdue your target. Usually this requires you on making a person interested in finding out what you are up to and following you to the sacrificial site. This also requires for you to have a cultist buddy with you.
- Set up a room with a sacrifice rune.
- Conceal it, with the Conceal Presence spell.
- Make up a story and/or decorate the place.
Example: We are praying to the gods for plushies and they responded, come check this out - Get them standing on the hidden rune location.
- Fool them into thinking, that all 3 of you are praying to the gods for blessings. (Saying a few lines like, “Oh great one, please accept my offer…”
- While they are standing on the rune and praying/singing to the false god, reveal the runes and show them the truth.
Usually, the target will not have the time to react to the runes appearing, since it is literally 1-2 second process. But just in case have a stun spell if something goes wrong.
Fun fact, if you have 3 cultists involved in this activity you can sacrifice a living security officer, by doing the same process.
Final notes
I believe Blood cult rounds can be very fun when combined with proper RP, so please do not try to use cheesy strategies such as trying to Speedrun Nar’sie summon. This tends to result in rounds being similar to Nukies ending in 30 minutes or the cult getting completely destroyed. These strategies result in a quick victory/loss, but are very boring and dry.
I hope this helped you and hope to see you practicing your blood arts!