Them

The members of them are a loosely aligned hive-mind with godly powers greater than anyone besides one of their own can comprehend. Their powers are boosted even further by their sacred artifact, the shard of them, one of the few surviving shards of the original universe, and by far the greatest. The members of them are from this original universe, but beyond that not much is known. Mere centuries ago, a former member of them, known simply as The Other, STOLE this shard from the home of them, in the center of everything. The other escaped to our planet, hoping to go undetected. But detected it was, and in desperation, it gave the shard to one of us, a native. This native, however, turned on the other, using the shard to imprison it and return it, and the shard, to them. Because of this act of good, they noticed the good qualities of humanity, and let us keep the shard for them. And that is the origin of the cult. The shard is kept in our most holy temple. After the cult began, they started allowing the Cult to nominate people to become one of them, absorbing some of The Cult's and therefor humanity's best into their ranks. Some members of the cult can even harness the power of the shard in order to create servants. Before now, They wanted to keep the Cult, and it's secrets hidden from most of the world. Now however, they have decided to let all of humanity know of, and worship them. Those that do not will be considered followers of the other, and punished as such.