Cult of Set

The Cult of Set is the serpent-worshipping religious organization that serves as the primary antagonist in Conan's quest, spreading across Zamora and beyond through dark towers, ritual processions, and the charismatic leadership of Thulsa Doom. Its doctrine glorifies death, demands absolute obedience, and culminates in the prophesied Great Cleansing, a night of blood and fire meant to purge the world of all who oppose the serpent god.

Origins and Spread

The Cult of Set is a relatively recent phenomenon in the lands of the Hyborian Age. As a food-vendor in Shadizar tells Conan, the cult has only spread widely in the past few years; "Not long ago, the Set cult was but a little band; now they are everywhere." The cult erects dark towers in every town and city throughout Zamora, all of recent masonry, serving as citadels of Set. These towers are the centers of worship and recruitment, where the cult lures the young and innocent into its toils, as Subotai bitterly observes: "Always it is the same: they lure the young and innocent into their toils—innocents who forsake husbands, sweethearts, and family to make love with serpents and mad priests, in orgies of foulness." The cult's rapid expansion is marked by its public presence, including processions that wind through the streets of Shadizar, drawing in new followers with music, incense, and promises of paradise.

Doctrine and Rituals

The cult's doctrine is a perversion of natural piety, worshipping the serpent god Set as the embodiment of death and eternal life. Its rituals are designed to induce a trance-like state in followers, who march with glazed eyes, unaware of their surroundings, like sleepwalkers. The processions feature girls and young women draped in soiled white garments, crowned with garlands of wilted flowers, dancing to the rhythm of tambourines, while ranks of youths beat drums and clash cymbals. Robed men with shaven pates carry brazen pots of smoldering incense, filling the air with a sickly-sweet perfume that Conan finds repugnant. The cult's worship of death is explicit: a merchant warns Conan that "The servants of Set are deceivers. They worship Death," and that they "would murder their own parents, thinking to confer a boon by relieving them of the burden of life." This death-worship is central to the cult's appeal, offering followers a twisted form of transcendence through self-destruction and violence.

Leadership and Charismatic Authority

Thulsa Doom is the cult's absolute master, a figure of hypnotic power and sorcery. He addresses his followers as "my children" and demands their total devotion, even to the point of killing their own loved ones. In his exhortations, he asks, "Who amongst you fears the warm embrace of death? When I, your father, ask it, will you take life for me? Will you strike true to the infidel heart, whether it be the heart of friend, or lover, or loved one in your former life?" His followers respond with ecstatic moans of "Doom! Doom!" swaying in rhythm to his words. Doom's power lies in his control over knowledge and belief, as he tells Conan, "What is steel, compared to the hand that wields it; what is the hand, without a mind to command it? There is the secret of strength. Steel, bah!" He demonstrates his authority through acts of cruelty, such as commanding a young girl to leap to her death to prove the power of faith over steel and flesh. His eyes are "dark and filled with sorcery, but there was no humanity in them," and he sees visions of a future only he can perceive.

The Great Cleansing

The cult's ultimate goal is the Great Cleansing, a prophesied apocalypse that will purge the world of all who oppose Set. Doom proclaims, "The day of doom is here. The purging is at last at hand. All who stand against us in high places, all who have lied to you and tried to turn you from me—parents, teachers, judges—all shall depart in a night of blood and fire. Then shall the earth be cleansed and ready to receive the god we worship." He tells his followers that they are "the pure water that will cleanse the world" and that they hold "the eternal light that burns in the eyes of Set." The doctrine promises that "ever Set will walk before, and all who dare to stand against him shall you kill, until the whole wide world is his." This ideology of cleansing justifies the cult's violence as a sacred duty, transforming murder into a religious act.

Opposition and Significance

The Cult of Set stands in direct opposition to the values of steel, self-reliance, and individual strength that Conan embodies. Conan's father taught him that "in all the world you can trust no one, neither man nor woman nor beast, neither spirit nor demon nor god. But you can trust a blade of well-forged steel." The cult, by contrast, offers a false trust in a serpent god and a charismatic leader, demanding blind obedience and the surrender of personal will. Conan's rejection of the cult is visceral: he finds its rituals repugnant, its incense sickly-sweet, and its worship of death an abomination. His quest against the cult becomes a personal destiny, as he reflects that all his suffering—on the Wheel of Pain, in the Pit, in his wanderings—was preparation for the moment when he would confront and destroy this evil. The cult's significance lies in its representation of the corrupting power of ideology and the danger of surrendering one's soul to a false god, a theme that resonates throughout Conan's journey from barbarian to avenger.