It’s been a while since my last update because of, well, life. I have changed direction and title of this project from just a Boardgame project to everything tabletop related that I gradually complete.
I am back with another finished project, this time in the Turnip28 universe.
I have finished my homebrew cult (one of many to follow) “The Hivebound“, based on the Beekeepers of Bhir. Below you will find the lore and images of my cult!
———————————————–

The Hivebound

“The Hive forgets no soul. It sweetens them all.”

From the drowned fields of Bhir there comes, now and then, the distant drone of wings. Veterans know to lower their eyes. Pilgrims kneel. Wise men bolt their doors.

For where the Hivebound walk, the Hive is never far behind.

The Origin of the Swarm

No chronicle records who first brought bees to Bhir. The Hivebound insist they have always been there—older than kings, older than the Root, perhaps even older than mankind itself. They claim the first Queen was discovered slumbering beneath a hill of wax before the world rotted, and that every generation since has merely tended Her descendants.

Whether this is true is impossible to say. The bees, however, are certainly real.

They are enormous creatures, larger than hounds and some nearly the size of cavalry horses, wandering the marshes in ponderous, choking swarms. Their wings beat with the hollow roar of distant artillery. They feed not upon flowers—for few flowers remain in the mud—but upon the dead. After every battle, they descend in black, vibrating clouds.

The Hivebound simply follow.

The Sweetness of the Departed

To outsiders, the Hivebound are mere corpse collectors. To themselves, they are shepherds of souls.

Every body recovered from the battlefield is carried back to the Great Hives with solemn, mud-slicked ceremony. Rank means nothing before the Queen. Noblemen, peasants, enemy officers, thieves, and monks are laid side by side upon waxen litters while the robed brothers chant the Litany of Returning.

The body is sealed within a chamber of living comb. Months pass. Sometimes years. When the chamber is finally opened, the corpse has become something… else.

Amber honey fills every cavity. Wax binds broken limbs together. Propolis seals shattered flesh. Skin turns to translucent, glowing parchment beneath layers of dark red gold. The Hivebound call this The Second Preservation. The preserved dead are known simply as Saints.

No canonization is required. The Hive has already judged them.

Saint Honey

What remains within the emptied chamber is the greatest treasure of Bhir. Saint Honey is unlike any other substance on the Root. It is as dark as dried blood, smelling faintly of smoke, pollen, and old battlefields, glittering with flecks of wax, bone dust, and fragments of those who rested within it.

The Hivebound never remove these impurities. To filter the honey would be to discard blessings. Every monastery keeps its own jars, each marked with the name—or often merely the description—of the saint from whom it flowed:

• The Gunner Without Hands.
• Three Brothers Who Shared One Face.
• The Unknown Colonel.
• Child Found Laughing.

No two harvests are alike. The honey is never spread upon bread; it is painted upon gaping wounds, mixed into sealing wax, rubbed into musket stocks, and applied to the brows of riders before a charge. The bees know its scent. Whether they recognize holiness, or merely pheromones, is considered an offensive question.

Of Faith and Trade

Every neighboring cult mocks the Hivebound. Until winter. Until plague. Until another bloody campaign leaves thousands wounded and screaming in the trenches.

Then, carts arrive quietly beneath white flags. They do not ask for miracles; they ask for honey. They leave with carefully sealed jars bearing heavy wax stamps and solemn warnings not to spill a single drop.

Most never ask whose saint filled the comb. The Hivebound rarely volunteer the answer.

After all… The Hive remembers. The names do not matter.

The Living Saints

The oldest and most perfectly preserved Saints are never buried. Instead, they are enthroned.

Bound together upon heavy, creaking litters, they accompany every great procession, forever facing inward in silent contemplation as if continuing prayers begun centuries ago. No one remembers their names, and no one believes they need them.

The Saints occasionally creak. Sometimes a finger moves. Rarely, one speaks. The Hivebound never seem surprised.

“The comb settles,” they explain.

Visitors usually stop asking questions.

Mother Beeatriss, the Hive-Mother

No one would mistake Mother Beeatriss for a warrior. She is short, broad-shouldered, and permanently stooped beneath robes stained thick with wax and smoke. Her face has not been seen in decades, hidden behind a tightly woven veil resembling the spiral chambers of a hive. Around her neck hangs a heavy collar of beeswax seals, each pressed with the mark of a different monastery absorbed into her flock.

Yet, no one commands the Hive as she does. She walks among swarms untouched. Queens crawl upon her sleeves. The great riders claim that when Beeatriss hums her evening prayers, every hive in Bhir answers in unison. Whether this is miracle or instinct matters very little; the bees obey. Her followers call her Hive-Mother. She rejects every other title. When she speaks, it is rarely above a whisper.

The bees make enough noise for everyone.

Toady: Brother Willoughbee

If Beeatriss is the soul of the Hivebound, her son is undoubtedly its liver. Brother Willoughbee stands head and shoulders above every monk in the order—all gangling limbs wrapped in robes seemingly stitched for someone half his width. His hood forever hangs crooked, and his gait resembles a starving stork wading through mud.

He is rarely seen without a clay jug of fermented hive mead. The monks insist it is medicinal; Willoughbee insists it is breakfast. The drink itself is brewed from overripe honey sealed inside humming wax amphorae until it acquires an alarming enthusiasm for escaping its container. Veterans claim one cup grants courage. Three cups grant conversations with long-dead Saints. Four cups usually result in either prophecy or unconsciousness. No one has yet determined which comes first.

Despite his perpetual intoxication, Willoughbee possesses an uncanny rapport with the giant bees. Swarms drift lazily around him as if he were merely another oversized drone. He has been known to stagger directly through active hives while apologizing politely to each bee he bumps into. Beeatriss refers to this as divine favor. Everyone else calls it impossible luck.