¶ Agnostic Front
Architects of polite Dissent. Officially Unaffiliated. Existentially Unamused.
Slogan: "Just because they made the universe doesn't mean they should run it."
Motive: They want a galaxy free of divine interference — or failing that, a galaxy where the gods are forced to take customer complaints.
Unofficial Mascot: A cartoon deity in a business suit holding a smiting stamp and looking very bored.
¶ Overview
The Agnostic Front is a loose coalition of thinkers, tinkerers, disgruntled philosophers, and graffiti enthusiasts who all agree on one simple point: the gods exist, but that doesn't mean we have to respect them.
Unlike your average atheist (who simply doesn't believe) or your average priest (who definitely believes and has a hat to prove it), the Agnostic Front takes the daring middle ground: yes, gods are real — but they are also cosmic-level civil servants with a penchant for lightning bolts and deeply flawed performance reviews. "He Who Smotes First" is just another celestial middle manager with delusions of relevance, as far as they're concerned.
Their central belief is that worship is just unpaid divine PR. If gods want adoration, they should earn it — preferably with quarterly transparency reports and fewer plagues.
¶ Activities
- Distributing hand-printed propaganda flyers titled things like Divine Tyranny and You, Your Life, Their Entertainment, and Omnipotence ≠ Competence.
- Defacing temples with slogans like:
- "If gods were just, they'd pay taxes."
- "No deity, no master. Except maybe gravity."
- "Fireball this, divine pencil-pusher!"
- Interrupting religious ceremonies with poorly rehearsed protest chants and strongly worded pamphlets.
Their headquarters is technically "nowhere", but they do tend to meet weekly in a ruin on Old Temple dedicated to "A God of Unspecified Function", where they hold book clubs, strategy sessions, and sarcastic lightning safety drills.
¶ Punishments from the Divine
In response to their very loud disbelief, the gods have developed a passive-aggressive punishment system:
- Individual storm clouds that follow members around, raining exclusively on them.
- Miniature earthquakes localised to their shoes.
- Sudden "miraculous" inconveniences like turning tea into mayonnaise.
- In one documented case, an entire lecture was interrupted by a swarm of bees spelling out "REPENT".
Of course, the Front uses this as proof of divine insecurity, and includes such incidents in their pamphlets under Celestial Tantrums, Vol. II.
¶ Public Perception
Most folk view the Agnostic Front the way they might view a mildly unhinged uncle who shouts at weather patterns and hands out flyers titled The Divine Delusion: Now With Footnotes. On one hand, they're troublemakers. On the other, they're our troublemakers. While temple authorities grumble and palace priests grit their teeth, the average citizen of Calad Bar has come to regard the Front with a mixture of amusement, admiration, and that peculiar respect one gives to people who are clearly doomed but determined to go down singing. After all, anyone willing to insult a thunder god to its cumulonimbus face probably isn't wrong — just very, very flammable.
¶ Frontman
Professor Quib Wrendlebaum is a perpetually damp gnome bard-wizard hybrid and the eloquently irreverent leader of the Agnostic Front — Calad Bar's most charmingly heretical organisation.
Known for his cracked spectacles, soggy robes emblazoned with anti-celestial graffiti, and a petulant storm cloud named Nigel who follows him like divine punctuation, Quib preaches spiritual scepticism with the flair of a theatre lecturer and the persistence of mildew.
He isn't out to abolish religion — he simply wants it to admit it's been a bit daft. Despite frequent divine zaps (which he views as celestial applause), he remains undeterred, distributing blasphemy like pamphlets and turning every thunderclap into a teachable moment.
