Vastarian: Cult Shrines for November

The Scared Linament of Judgment.

In the later part of 2023, Between the Bolter and Me created its own setting in the 40k universe and encouraged others to get involved in developing it by making it an Open Invitational. The setting is called Vastarian - Dreams of the Pious, with Vastarian being a major cathedral world that has been thrown into turmoil due to the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum. This has caused a massive psychic awakening amongst the general population and has fomented conflicts between the different religious sects on the planet. The Invitational asks you to create your own Imperial Cult (the more eccentric and deranged the better) and using your favorite ruleset, play some skirmish games to help develop the lore! In addition to the overall Invitational, we also held a contest for people to create their own cults and were amazed by all of the awesome creations by hobbyists from around the world! Although the contest is over, we are still encouraging people to get involved in the setting and keep the Invitational going. We are currently building up to a small Inq28 event with friends in November (hosted with Bill Ford of the Mordheim 2022 and Rot of Hondious fame!). We wish we could get more people involved in the event, but due to space and general logistic reasons, it has to remain quite small. Despite this, we have been looking for ways to let others get involved in the event in some small way. Bill has been working on a final board for the event, one where he would like to have it filled with all manner of small shrines dedicated to the numerous Imperial cults on the planet. We realized this might be a fun way to let people contribute to the event: create a small shrine/piece of terrain dedicated to a Vastarian Cult!

Creating a small shrine allows you to continue to develop a cult you already created (for our previous contest, perhaps), or create a shrine for an entirely new cult. After creating it, if you would like, you can send the shine to Bill in Texas, so that it can be used in the November event itself! If you do decide to send a shrine for the event, we will be sure to document it via photos, showing that it found its way to Vastarian (and possibly witnessed bloodshed!?)! There is absolutely no obligation to take part in the project to create little shrines to celebrate the Emperor, but would love it if you did! Below are a few we have been working on, along with some others from people taking part in the event this November:

This little statue/shrine to navigators was created with a model created by Weirdingsway. A purity seal created with foil from a wine bottle, and a bunch of small candles were added to the resin model to suggest how venerated the statue is.

This shrine is dedicated to the Church of the Red Athenæum (note the Hourglass filled with blood). It was created with one of the small mausoleums from the Warcry Corpsewrack Mausoleum boxed set, adorned with some purity seals made with foil from a wine bottle.

Two small shrines for the Vastarian event this November. Both were quick to create and now just need to be painted!

Klaasje Akhmatova, Bibliognost of the Church of the Red Athenæum, next to a shrine dedicated to the Red Church.

A sketch of a Shine to the Marrow King, created by Shane Brockway (7he_blindman). You can read more about the cult here!

Gundamofficialhobby created this series of shrines venerating aspects of the God-Emperor.

An eccentric walking shrine, rumored to be from the Imperial Menagerie, created by Luke from Asgard Games.

If you have any questions about creating a shrine for the event this November, don’t hesitate to contact us via Instagram!

- Eric Wier