The Mortimer Sect

Name: Mortimer Sect / Cult of Tiberium*Type:* Tiberian religious cult*Leader:* Mortimer*Headquarters:* Temple of Tacitus, near La Paz, Bolivia*Organisation:* Believers, Templars and Elites*Beliefs:* Veneration of Tiberium and its lifeforms*Enemies:* Mutants / The Forgotten*Conflict:* Firestorm Conflict*Dissolution:* 2031

The Mortimer Sect is a religious cult established in the Bolivian mountains, near La Paz, during the Firestorm Conflict. Led by the mysterious guru Mortimer, it worships Tiberium with fervour and controls the region surrounding the Temple of Tacitus.

Like the Brotherhood of Nod, its members regard Tiberium as a gift rather than a catastrophe. Their doctrine, however, goes much further than Kane’s.

Mortimer’s followers directly worship the plants and creatures transformed by Tiberium, which they regard as sacred.

This belief explains their surprising coexistence with certain Tiberian life forms. Fiends and Floaters thus live within the cult’s territory without attacking its members.

Paradoxically, the cultists harbour a deep hatred for mutants, even though they represent the human beings most profoundly transformed by Tiberium.

They regard them as heretics and abominations desecrating the sacred lands, and immediately attack any mutant who enters their territory.

The cult’s members themselves appear to possess a strange resistance to Tiberium. They can remain in the vicinity of extremely dangerous blue crystals without suffering the mutations or injuries normally caused by such exposure. The origin of this immunity remains unknown.

Mortimer’s society is organised into three castes. The ordinary Believers form the backbone of the cult: fanatics, poorly equipped and almost suicidal, they possess only light weapons.

Above them are better-equipped fighters, right up to the most senior members tasked with protecting Mortimer and the cult’s sacred sites.

The sect’s territory is home to several ancient temples with unexplained properties. Two of these, in particular, are associated with phenomena that seem to transcend human understanding.

In the Temple of Time, the passage of time appears to be drastically altered: when an archaeologist enters, several hours seem to pass in the blink of an eye.

The Temple of Thunder, meanwhile, causes a violent storm to break out suddenly when the building is explored. Even Mortimer seems capable of disappearing and then reappearing elsewhere, giving the impression that he is teleporting. The true nature of these phenomena is never explained.

The most important of these structures, however, is the Temple of Tacitus, where a missing part of the alien artefact is concealed.

During the Firestorm Conflict, a small team including the mutant Commando Ghost Stalker is sent to the region to recover this segment of the Tacitus.

Ghost Stalker’s presence immediately provokes hostility from the cultists due to their hatred of mutants. The clashes culminate in the death of Mortimer, who is assassinated by the Commando.

The disappearance of their guru leads to the immediate collapse of the cult. Unable to accept the death of their leader, the surviving followers commit mass suicide, bringing the cult to a definitive end in 2031.

The Mortimer Cult thus represents one of the most extreme manifestations of the religion that arose around Tiberium: a cult that seeks neither to control the substance, like the GDI, nor simply to use it to transform humanity, like Nod, but which regards the Tiberium ecosystem itself as sacred.