Baron Samedi: HaitianVoodoo Loa of the Dead

Baron Samedi is a minor God (Loa) responsible for ferrying spirits to the underworld. He looks after the spirits of his followers after death, ensuring they cannot be called back to the world of the living by magicians seeking to enslave them or worse.

The Baron is an outrageous, flamboyant and obscene character, given to revelry and debauchery. He is known for his love of stylish clothes, and is never seen without a top hat and long coattails of the finest fabrics. He loves cigars, rum and rare delicacies, and spends much of his time feasting, telling raunchy jokes and cavorting with women.

Much like their master, Baron Samedi’s followers are libertines and bon vivants. An exclusive cult of the wealthy rather than a grand religion congregating solemnly in temples, the Baron’s cult can be found—if you have wealth and connections, that is!—in resorts and mansions, behind high gates secluding the rich from the world of 3000.

By now, many global supply chains have broken down, while many luxury products like Cuban cigars and vintage cognacs are no longer produced, meaning those who can acquire these things do so only with great difficulty and for ludicrous prices. The cult of the Baron is one such network allowing access to these pleasures.

Degenerates clinging to their indulgent lifestyle while the world crumbles around them, the Baron’s cultists collect a fortune’s worth of wines, only to throw a lavish party and consume that fortune in a single night of drunkenness and licentiousness. They collect ancient art at auctions or through smuggling and have themselves buried with it. Pure hedonism is the way they go to the grave.