This document was compiled from M.E.G. intelligence reports, intercepted cult communications, defector testimony, and fragments of Lost Era scripture preserved in the Cygnus Archive. Portions may be inaccurate, incomplete, or deliberately falsified by Amor Incrementum counter-intelligence operations (Sub-Sector Volto). Reader discretion is advised.
I speak from the dust of Hoofstad, from the marrow of the Lost. I inscribe not history, but the shape of its scar. What follows is the hymn of the rot-lovers, the prayer of the soil-thirsty. The Amor Incrementum. To know them is to understand that growth and consumption are the same god, wearing different masks. To mask is to reveal. To feed is to be fed. Why wear a mask of loneliness when you can bloom in the face of a thousand?
â A scripture-pamphlet recovered from the corpse-moss of a Culled One, inked in fermented almond water and the blood of hybrid flora. Translated from the pre-fragment dialect by Leo Castellos.
From the deep subterranean jungles of Level 8 to the twisted forests of Level 499, they till soil with flesh. Their names are many: The Furrow-Saints of the Loam; The Protastheian Reapers; The Mold-Mission; The Farmers of the Fleshy-Deep. However, they are best known by one name above all: The Amor Incrementum.
The Amor Incrementum1 constitutes one of the oldest continuous religious organizations among the Daethos.2 They may be best described as a theocratic, agri-cultist paramilitary organization. Their numbers have waxed and waned over the agesâonce commanding vast temple-complexes across multiple levels, now reduced to scattered cells with an estimated membership of several-hundred individuals; a far cry from the harvest-festival mobs of the Lost Era. Now they are a cult in the truest sense: elusive, secretive, and fanatically devoted, considering themselves to be among the last true adherents of the Daethos. They inhabit (and are most often encountered within) Level 4, Rottnest Jungle (Level 8), and Level 499 — though credible sightings place mold-gardens maintained by them in Level 1.
To the uninitiated, they largely present as mere reclusive farmers: masked growers, herbalists, and âsoil-physiciansâ trading food, poultices, and horticultural counsel, cultivating sustenance in a world of starvation. The second impression is the one that sticks: their âagricultureâ is not always botany. Their cultivated specimens are reported to include root-crops that bleed, tree-roots with marrow, and wall-mold coaxed into shapes resembling organs.
The Amor Incrementum venerate not just the mere act of farming in the conventional Frontrooms-based sense, but also the very principle of growth itselfâthe blind, consuming, beautiful-terrible force that drives root through stone, splits concrete with determined grass, and reclaims all corpses for the soil from which they were never truly separate.
More specifically, they worship Protastheia, the Goddess of Growing Things and Their Inevitable Return to Growing Things — though many have not seen her true face in six hundred million square miles of segmented eternity. In the fragmentary scriptures of The Lost, Protastheia was counted among the Pantheonâthose Gods who shaped Daedos in the age before the Collapse, before the Yellow rose and the geometry broke, before the Liminal became all that remained of what was once a garden of intention.
The Amor Incrementum are what remains of her congregation. They are, effectively, a fungal colony of belief that has survived the social and near-literal death of its god by embedding itself in the meat of the world. They are the white blood cells of a cosmic body, hunting wanderers who refuse to join the corpus. They are the last gardeners of a broken cosmos, planting consciousness in stingy, unforgiving soil.
They are also — it should be noted with the clinical detachment appropriate to discussing organizations that will kidnap you and feed you to a hive of floral-insectoid horrors — extremely hostile. They operate in the liminal spaces where reality thins and the concept of ânatureâ can be rewritten by willful, ecstatic surrender. They view the Backrooms not as a prison, a labyrinth, nor a puzzle to be solved. Rather, it is a garden, and they are its most devoted gardeners, viewing themselves as the seeds destined to sprout from it.
To be of the Incrementum is to be Blossoming. They wear masks to hide their humanity, for to be human is to be unfinished. Their flesh bears the mark of the Bloom: skin etched with root-veins, eyes milky as overripe pith, bodies elongated into limb-prayers mimicking Protastheiaâs âEternal Limbsâ. They till liminal soil where water defies gravityârivers that arc skyward like inverted libationsâharvesting molds from Level 0âs walls, alchemizing them into sacraments of rot-sweet nectar. Hostile to the uninitiated wanderer, they barter only for relics of the Daethos: icons of Protastheia the Harvester, or shards of her disgraced progeny. Intruders face the prunerâs kiss: abduction to The Hiveâs Queen-chamber, left to be grafted onto the greater whole.
Beliefs
What makes the Amor Incrementum particularly dangerousâbeyond their demonstrated willingness to abduct wanderersâis their sincere belief that they are helping. They see themselves as prophets and missionaries, agents of divine mercy offering salvation.
They will explain this to you, calmly, kindly, while they drag you toward the entrance of the Queen's chamber. They are very patient teachers.
The Garden of Daedos
They teach that the Backrooms is a living thing, an organism unto itself. The foundations are bone; the halls are veins; the air is breath held too long in the lungs of something vast and sleeping. To them, Daedos is a fallow field waiting for the harvest.
Conversely, the human form is a "withered stalk," a temporary husk that must be stripped away to allow the true, divine flora to emerge.
In contrast, they view The Frontrooms as a sterile, plastic hell. A place where things do not rot, where death is hidden away in hospitals and neatly packaged coffins. To them, this is an abomination; life must decay to feed the next cycle. To deny the rot is to deny the goddess.
Protastheia
Protastheia, she of the verdant mantle and the Hundred Hands, reigns as their eternal tiller. Once the dispenser of bountiful harvests in the Primordial dawn, she dreamed humanity into symbiotic grace: limbs entwined with root, flesh feeding soil in sacred reciprocity. In their theology, Protastheia is not a cruel goddess but a loving one, and her love manifests as the irresistible pull toward unity.
They believe that Protastheia, in her infinite gentleness, permitted humanity to exist here; a temporary infestation allowed to feed upon her bounty. But the Backrooms are her house, her garden — its soil embedded with divine roots predating first No-Clip. And wanderers are trespassers, tracking mud on her floors.
The Divine Flesh
They believe the Backroomsâ native floraâspecifically the non-photosynthetic, flesh-like fungi and root systems found in levels like 499 and 8âare the literal, holy flesh and ichor of Protastheia. To ingest them is a sacrament; to become them is apotheosis. Hunger is treated as Protastheiaâs language. To deny hunger is to deny the Root-Motherâs speech. To feed is to pray.
The Debt of Sap
The theology of the Amor Incrementum can be summarized in a single principle, from which all other doctrines flow like water seeking root-level. Their central dogma is "The Debt of Sap". It posits that all consciousness, all existence, is a loan taken from the foundational biomass of Protastheia. The atoms which comprise one's body were borrowed from the great cycle of growth-decay-growth that constitutes Protastheia's infinite garden. The body you inhabit was grown from nutrients extracted from the earth, processed through countless organisms before you, and will return to that same earth when you are done pretending you own it. The illusion of ownership is temporary. The reality of belonging is eternal.
To believe oneself separate from the cyclical feast is the original blasphemy. Humanity, and all thinking things, are "mosquitos upon the hide of the world," sucking sustenance without gratitude. By eating, breathing, and occupying space, one robs resources from the "True Mother" (Protastheia). When you think of yourself as "yourself," when you draw boundaries between your flesh and that of the world, you are withholding what was never yours to keep.
"Do you remember picking wild berries in the forest when you were young? How the sweet nectar dripped down your throat as you reached for another handful? But were you thankful for the pure joy that nature gave to you? That nature had been giving to your kind for generations? Of course you weren't. You acted just like the animals you are, rushing desperately to the feed trough to steal whatever you could."
â Excerpt from Kain Petrie's sermon.
The only way to settle the debt is through surrender of the self back to the biomass. As berries were plucked ungratefully in forgotten Frontrooms youth, so must the thief repay in vitae-sap. At deathâor at willing offeringâone's flesh shall return to the Root-Mother. The cult insists this is a dissolution of individual identity into the greater, mindless, thriving whole. None are permitted to remain âunrecycled,â lingering as waste.
The Mask
"To mask is to reveal."
This phrase, inscribed upon the entrance to every Amor Incrementum sanctuary, encapsulates their understanding of ritual and identity. The masks worn by cult membersâparticularly those who have joined the formal hierarchical structure of Mask Sectorsâare highly symbolic in addition to their practical uses.
In their theology, the physical face is considered a âsoft lieâ, a mask of the false self shifting with fear and desire. The âtrue faceâ is the biological lattice, the mycelial network, the vascular system revealed when skin is removed. The mask is the âhard truth,â committing the wearer to a role. By wearing them, they symbolically kill the person they were. When you wear a face that is not your face, you acknowledge that your original face was equally arbitraryâequally a mask worn over the true self, which is no self at all, which is soil pretending to be person pretending to be soil. The act of masking is thus simultaneously humility (admitting you are not what you appear) and worship (participating in the sacred truth that all appearance is temporary growth awaiting harvest).
The most common masks, those worn by lower-ranking members (typically bark-visors or thorn-crowns) are grown or assembled: dried gourd-rind, mud-baked cloth, lacquered fungal plates, occasionally ceramic. Many include seed compartments near the mouth.
More specialized masks, those harkening to the Commedia dell'arte, are reserved for members of the Masked sectors. These masks are held to much higher esteem, for they are said to have been directly crafted by Protastheia herself. Different masks carry different theological resonances. The Colombina, worn by the cult's supreme leader, represents the cosmic gardener who sees all but is seen by none. The Oni, worn by executioner-judges, represents the sacred violence by which the Garden prunes what will not bend toward the light.
Diagram depicting a typical Amor Incrementum member.
The Blossoming
The highest honor for an Amor Incrementum member is to be Culledâa rite intended to âthin the selfâ so that Protastheia can âplant throughâ the person. To them, her grace is the inevitable compaction of self into something useful for the whole. Pain is a nutrient, and to suffer is to be watered. When the flesh is torn, when the bone is broken, the "soul-roots" have room to expand.
The process is simple:
- The Feast: The initiate is fed a paste of black mold and almond water, their veins swelling with mycelium.
- The Pruning: Their limbs are broken, not to maim, but to reshape. Bones become stakes. Skin becomes mulch.
- Germination: They are buried in the Queenâs Chamber of the Hive. If they are worthy, they sprout. If not, they nourish.
The promised outcome is Blossoming — a state described as communion, sainthood, or becoming a âgarden-limbâ of the goddess. The Culled Oneâs husk ruptures into fungal apostles, limbs eternalized in Protastheia's verdant wheel. Their bodies are woven with fungal tendrils, their mouths sewn shut with vines, their eyes replaced with glowing spores weeping sap from empty eye sockets. They become a hollow husk that moves with vegetable patience, possessed of a single, serene directive: to propagate. They forget their name, their face, their shame. To them, it is a release from the prison of selfhood; an invitation to belong in a way that mere social connection could never provide.
The Great Bloom
The Amor Incrementum believe that a time will comeâor perhaps is already coming, in the slow vegetal time that plants experienceâwhen Protastheia will fully awaken once enough flesh has been offered. The Gardens will overgrow the Liminal; the Yellow will be swallowed by Green; the Hive will expand beyond its current domain. The entire Backrooms will become a single organism synonymous with Protastheia in a spontaneous, universal vegetative assimilation; a Culminal Space where geometry is biology and death is pruning. The Incrementum will be the white blood cells in her veins.
Practices
Temple hygiene: Their sanctuaries are spotless in a way that feels wrongâblood cleaned, bones arranged, rot painted over. The air smells like soap over mold.
Gardening: Ritualistic cultivation of mold, fungi, and Snatcher Weeds. Creation and care of Clumps as "children of the Goddess".
Mask veneration: Wall Masks are treated as âfaces of the gardenâ. Some sects claim masks are *seeds*, meant to be worn until the wearer becomes âsoil-worthyâ. High-ranking priests wear Wall Masks (specifically the Colombina or Oni variants) to channel Protastheia's influence.
The Harvest of Names: A rite involving recitation of strangersâ names into soil, implying identity as fertilizer. (This may be memetic bait)
The Communion of Spores: Monthly ceremony where initiates inhale âblessing dustâ (cremated Clumps) from flower bowls while reciting their "grievances against solitude." Side effects include petal-shedding tears and the compulsion to send handwritten letters to deceased relatives.
The Harvest of the Self: Pilgrimage to Protastheia's Chamber (often one-way). Volunteers (always terminally ill or "philosophically exhausted") are lowered into Protastheia's chamber. She asks them: "Would you like to become a story that outlives you?"
Acceptance rate: 98%.
Goals
The Amor Incrementum pursues several primary objectives, arranged in what they term "the Hierarchy of Growth".
The Preservation of the Oldest Ways
The Incrementum positions themselves as the last true custodians of Protastheia's worship. In the Lost Era, before the Collapse, before the scattering of The Lost into death and forgetting, the veneration of the agricultural goddess was widespreadâwoven into the fabric of daily life in Hoofstad and surrounding settlements. Farmers, mothers, and the dying alike all prayed to her. Though most of this has been forgotten, left behind as a relic of its age, the Amor Incrementum are determined to keep their traditions alive — no matter how taboo.
They collect and preserve the relics of this older faith: blessed ceremonial sickles, depictions of Protastheia in The Muralist's earliest works, fragments of tablet-scripture from the great temple, pressed botanical specimens from gardens that no longer exist in stable spacetime. They maintain oral traditions, chants, and ritual calendars which they believe connect them to an unbroken chain of worship stretching back to the first human to have fallen into the Backrooms and recognized the goddess of Desire.
This preservation is genuinely scholarly; some of the most comprehensive records of Lost Era agricultural practices exist only in Amor Incrementum archives. M.E.G. researchers have attempted to negotiate access to these materials, with predictably unproductive results.
They prize any flora or organism connected to the old Pantheon. The fossilized flower from Level 51, the anomalous roots of Level 499, even the residual organic matter from entities like the âDollmakerâ or âThe Gardenerâ of Level 8. These are not resources; they are holy relics to be studied, replicated, and spread.
Propagation of the Faith
They actively seek out wanderers and scavengers as potential converts. Their methods may be subtleâleaving carefully-composed theological pamphlets in high-traffic areas, or operating supply caches that "coincidentally" serve as recruitment points. Amor Incrementum missionaries have been known to approach lone wanderers in isolated levels, offering food, shelter, and companionship to the desperate. They are patient, kind, and exactly what a person starving in the endless beige needs.
And then the theology begins. At first it sounds almost reasonable:
"Aren't we all connected? Isn't isolation the true suffering? Wouldn't it be nice to belong to something larger than yourself?"
The language of infection mirrors the language of love.3 Their missionary work is a slow, patient huntâplanting seeds of doubt that grow into fruiting bodies of submission. They are gardeners seeking fertile soil. The strong-willed are broken down as fertilizer; the meek are grafted onto their collective consciousness as auxiliary limbs. Willing converts are preferred. The unwilling are reclassified as âalready dead in spirit,â and therefore eligible for âreturn.â
Preparation for the Great Bloom
Their ultimate, eschatological goal is to trigger the Great Bloom. They seek to collapse the distinction between architecture and biology, turning entire liminal spaces into living, thinking organs of Protastheia.
The cult sees themselves as midwives to the new world they have been "called" usher in, and so works tirelessly to terraform the liminal, dead spaces of The Backrooms into a breathing, eating, living ecosystem. They seek to break the "stagnant geometry" of wallpapers and carpets and replace it with the "honest meat" of roots and soil, expanding the reach of vegetative growth. Wherever something can grow, they ensure it does. They claim certain corridors, caverns, and fungal groves as Protastheiaâs property, enforcing access through threats and ritual tolls.
Organization
The Amor Incrementum rejects traditional hierarchy. Leadership is fluid, determined by proximity to the locus of the âBloomâ. They organize themselves through a system they call the Mask Sectorsâa hierarchical structure in which rank, responsibility, and sacred function are all encoded in the ceremonial mask worn by each member.
The system is divided into three primary classifications:
SECTOR 1: O.M. (Original Masks)
The de facto leadership caste. A collective of individuals who have undergone the deepest stages of the Culling. They are those who wear the ancient masks, passed down through generations of cult leadership, touching faces that lived and died centuries before the modern wanderer population arrived.
They hold the authority to conduct rites and adjudicate âsoil-law.â They keep records on bark strips, old receipt paper, and seed catalogs. They direct where the tilling happens. They manage the logistics of starvation and oversee the distribution of resourcesâmostly human captives and "Sacred Mold"âbetween the Sectors. Several carry pruning tools treated as relics.
Sub-Sector Colombina
- Leader: Madam Karliah Jones
- Function: The administrative cortex. Final arbiter of all disputes, all doctrines, all sentences. Jones is a woman of terrifying intellect, rarely seen — rumored to be more root system than woman now, wired into the biology of Level 499. She alone may speak directly to Protastheia's aspect-representations. She alone interprets the will of the Garden.
- Mask Significance: The Colombina is a half-mask, covering the upper face while leaving the mouth exposed. It represents the cosmic gardener who perceives all but speaks only necessity.
Sub-Sector Bauta
- Leader: Rafael Lawson
- Function: Interrogation. Enforcement. The "hunting hounds" of the cult, responsible for tracking down subjects of interest and extracting information through methods that M.E.G. documentation describes only as "thorough." They break the will before the body is planted.
- Mask Significance: The Bauta is a full-face mask with a pronounced chin that allows the wearer to eat and drink without removal. It represents the predator that is also preyâconsuming while being consumed by the Garden's greater purpose.
Sub-Sector Pantalone
- Leader: Amanda Wright
- Function: Analysis. Theory-construction. The scholars of the cult, responsible for organizing intelligence gathered by other sectors and developing new theological frameworks for understanding Wall Masks and other sacred artifacts. Interaction with Pantalone members is discouraged; their speech is often laced with memetic spore-hazards.
- Mask Significance: The Pantalone is notable for its effects on *others*âthose who interact with Pantalone-wearers report difficulty maintaining coherent thought. In-person communication is avoided unless absolutely necessary.
SECTOR 2: B.M. (Behavioral Masks)
The operational caste. Those who move among wanderers, shaping perception and gathering intelligence. These are the visible face of the cult. They are often seemingly normal, wearing simple robes woven from fungal fibers. They travel in small groups, preaching the âGospel of the Rootâ, trading almond water and false kindness. They plant the first spores in your mind with a shared meal. Not always present. Identified by masks with stitched mouths or hanging seed strings. Their task is the voice-work: sermon, confession extraction, âblessingâ of crops.
Sub-Sector Volto
- Leader: Jacqueline Guzman
- Function: Counter-intelligence. Rumor propagation. They move through populated levels posing as M.E.G. operatives or lost wanderers, spreading misinformation, confusing outside groups, ensuring that accurate knowledge of the cult remains difficult to obtain.
- Mask Significance: The Volto is a blank, featureless face-mask. It represents the truth that all faces are equally empty, equally interchangeable, equally soil-in-waiting.
Sub-Sector Kitsune
- Leader: Kokona Sagobe
- Function: Infiltration. Identity theft. Using intelligence from Sector Pantalone, Kitsune operatives disguise themselves as trusted figuresâlovers, family members, friendsâto extract information from targets.
- Mask Significance: The Kitsune is a fox-faced mask, drawing from Frontrooms mythology. It represents the sacred lie that reveals sacred truth.
Sub-Sector Arlecchino
- Leader: Phoebe Chester (Acting)
- Previous Leader: Landon Chester (MISSING)
- Function: Distraction. Misdirection. They accompany other sectors on missions, drawing attention away from primary objectives through performances that range from the theatrical to the violent. While you watch the dancing clown, the roots are already wrapping around your ankles.
- Mask Significance: The Arlecchino is a patchwork mask of many colors. It represents the chaos of growth, the way vines twist in directions no gardener planned.
SECTOR 3: N.M. (Negative Masks)
The enforcement caste, many of whom have undergone partial Blossomingâarms fused with vines, eyes replaced with glowing mushrooms — revered as the holy dead-in-life. They are mobile shrines, walking cathedrals of rot. To touch them is to risk spontaneous germination. They wear masks carved from fungal shelves, speak in the third person, and can make walls weep nutrient fluid. They are the recruiters, the kidnappers, the ones who drag the "ungrateful" to the Queen's Chamber. They serve as laborers, guards, and living siege engines. Many guard the temples in Level 8's Rottnest Jungle and the maze-gardens of Level 499.
Sub-Sector Buskin
- Leader: Farai Sobel
- Function: Termination. They hunt wanderers who have acquired knowledge the cult deems dangerousâthose who "know too much" without leadership's permission. They spend most of their time outside cult sanctuaries, watching. Waiting.
- Mask Significance: The Buskin is a theatrical mask of tragedy. It represents the sorrow inherent in pruningâthe gardener who loves but must cut nonetheless.
Sub-Sector Oni
- Leaders: Ethan Nelson (The Cultivator), Adrian Ortega
- Function: Judgment. Execution. This sector was nearly annihilated during "the experiment"âa theo-biological endeavor whose details remain classified even within the cult. Only two Oni-wearers survive. One of them, Ethan Nelson, is better known by his external title: The Cultivator, champion of Protastheia herself. He is their high priest, a man who has peeled away his own humanity to serve as the executioner of the faith. He is a walking ecological disaster, capable of animating floral and faunal matter into Clumps as his personal soldiers.
- Mask Significance: The Oni is a demon-face from Frontrooms mythology. It represents the sacred violence of natureâthe storm that clears ground for new growth, the fire that triggers germination.
Sub-Sector Sock
- Leaders: Katrina Ortega, Adrian Ortega
- Function: Containment. Sock-wearers are those whose transformation has progressed past the point of rational functionâferal, violent, barely aware of their actions. They are the "Final Defense," kept in a state of delirious, violent fever-dream until unleashed. The Ortega twins oversee their care and, when necessary, their deployment.
- Mask Significance: The Sock is not a traditional mask but a formless covering. It represents dissolutionâthe final stage before the self returns entirely to soil.
History
The Amor Incrementum is old. Older than the fluorescent lights. Older than the concept of the "Level." The historia of the Amor Incrementum cannot be separated from the historia of Protastheia herself, for the cult exists as the last living tissue of her worship; a root-system stretching back through the rot of centuries to draw nutrients from a past that may no longer exist in any stable sense.
The Lost Era
In the age of The Lost, Protastheia was honored among the highest of the Pantheon. She was not a god of kings or warriors, but rather one of the peopleâthe deity to whom farmers prayed, mothers appealed, and the dying spoke when they felt their flesh softening toward earth.
The Amor Incrementum of this period were more than a mere cult. Their numbers neared those of an entire civilization unto themselves (at least by the standards of Backrooms population statistics). They maintained the great gardens of Hoofstad, developed agricultural techniques that allowed humanity to survive in a place never meant to sustain them, and served as priests, scholars, and physicians.
The Thirty-ninth Day of Spring, First Year of Alpha, marked the beginning of the end. At the Harvest Festival, the faithful gathered to honor Protastheia in the traditional mannerâofferings of fruit, processions through the fields, prayers for another year of growth.
It was then that Y'liad Elyion descended upon them. The Grey One; The Eating Absence. He fell upon the festival village like a glacier falls upon a flower, and when he rose again, his greyflesh contained the corpses and souls of countless worshippers.
The Uprising
In the aftermath of the massacre, some amongst the Amor Incrementum questioned Protastheia's power; how could a goddess of life permit such death? Others questioned her loveâhow could a mother abandon her children to such a predator? This dichotomy gave rise to a schism in the group.
A faction arose that proposed an uncomfortable answer: perhaps the massacre was her love. Perhaps being consumed by Y'liadâbeing absorbed into his collective flesh, losing individual identity in the grey mass of his beingâwas simply another form of returning to the whole. Perhaps Stupor and Growth were not opposites but partners, decay and regeneration locked in eternal dance.
On the cusp of the Stagnant Age, Protastheia birthed the Ones with Eternal Limbsâmangled men stretched into prayer-postures against the Pantheonâs scorn. The other Gods saw her act of unityâflesh and flora as oneâas a disease. They tried to burn it out, but the ash became soil, and the soil remembered.
When the Great Collapse corrupted the Backroomsâwhen Hoofstad fell and the Liminal rose and the old Pantheon shatteredâwhat remained of the Amor Incrementum survived, for they were already accustomed to living in darkness. They went undergroundâliterally, in some cases, burrowing into the soil they worshipped. They embraced the very corruption that others fled, interpreting the aggressive, reality-warping flora as Protastheia's new scriptures, written in chlorophyll and rot.
The Stagnant Age
The intermittent centuries between the Collapse and the modern era are poorly documented, even within cult archives. However, some things are known for certain. As centuries bled into the Stagnant Age, The Amor Incrementum dwindled. They had lost temples, artifacts, and entire sects to attrition and entity predation. At their nadir, they numbered perhaps two dozen individuals, scattered across a handful of levels, maintaining traditions they no longer fully understood.
For centuries, they were scattered, decaying. The âRotâ they speak of was originally their own despair. They survived in the darkest, most organic corners of the Backrooms, subsisting on mold and the memories of green things. Yet nonetheless, they maintained the garden of their faith. They cultivated mold in Level 0 when nothing else would grow. They harvested wallpaper-algae and crack-fungi, developing an entire agricultural tradition built on the most unpromising substrates, alchemizing survival into sacrament. They passed down songs, stories, ritualsâeven when they could no longer explain what the words meant. The teachings of the mother were thus twisted by generations of isolation. The message of "Love" became the mandate of "Consumption." They began to interpret the reality-warping effects of the Backrooms not as Protastheiaâs true, unfiltered will. They developed new, harsher doctrines that embraced the violence inherent in nature's cycles. They found common cause with Huvvat and her Hive, recognizing in the insectoid collective an expression of exactly the garden-consciousness they sought.
For centuries, they worked in secret, tending to their groves, feeding the Backrooms in silence as the world grew sicker, as the levels twisted and the entities grew hungrier. Slowly, imperceptibly, they began to grow again.
The influx of modern wanderers from the Frontrooms beginning in the late 20th century provided both opportunity and challenge. Opportunity, because here were new potential converts, new flesh to fold into the Garden. Challenge, because these newcomers brought their own beliefs, organizations, and competing interpretations of the Backrooms' nature. The Amor Incrementum responded by becoming more secretive; more aggressive; more certain of their own singular truth.
The Liminal Era (Modern Day)
The modern cult bears little resemblance to its ancient predecessors. Where the Lost-Era Amor Incrementum were farmers and priests, the current organization is a militant theological faction willing to use abduction, forced transformation, and assassination to achieve its goals.
Several key developments have shaped this transformation:
The Establishment of the Mask Sectors (date unknown, possibly early 21st century): The organizational restructuring that created the current hierarchy. This appears to have coincided with the rise of Madam Karliah Jones to leadershipâa figure whose origins are themselves mysterious.
The Discovery of Level 499: A vast, complex level that has become a primary Amor Incrementum stronghold. The level's unusual propertiesâparticularly the presence of "Ghost Lights" and plant-life with animal-like cellular structuresâalign with cult theology in ways that researchers find troubling.
The Al-2 Incident: M.E.G. researcher Ophelia T. Robinson documented that the Amor's crops were "bleeding." Shortly after, relations soured. The plants were not plants; they were *people* reshaped by the goddess.
The Rise of the Gardener: Ethan Nelsonâs ascension to Champion status marked a shift from isolationism to aggressive defense. Clumps once again began appearing in levels bordering their territory, expanding Protastheia's influence in ways that may exceed even the Amor Incrementum's intentions.
Current Threat Assessment: Rising. With the increased instability of the Backrooms and the public revelations of the Pantheonâs history, the Amor Incrementumâs doctrine finds more ears in the desperate, the lost, and the spiritually vacant. They watch from the shadows, waiting for the lights to flicker and die, so that the true, green dark can take over.
Relations
The Amor Incrementum exists in a state of tension with virtually every other major organization in the Backrooms. Their hostile isolationism, combined with their willingness to target wanderers for forced conversion, has made them few friends.
The M.E.G.
Officially designated a âHostile Cultâ by them. The M.E.G. views the Amor Incrementum as a biological hazard and a psychological threat. They recommend complete avoidance; active combat is authorized only when assimilation is imminent.
The cult, for its part, views organized technological civilization as the pinnacle of the Sap-Debt, with the M.E.G. serving as a particularly egregious example of human arroganceâan organization that seeks to map and catalog the Backrooms as if it were territory to be conquered or a prison to escape, rather than a Garden to be tended.
Several documented incidents of cult members attacking M.E.G. personnel have cemented this classification:
- The Blanchet Incident: An M.E.G. researcher named Blanchet was discovered dead in a Level 499 outpost, her body riddled with holes, surrounded by rotting roots. Evidence suggested she fought before her death but was ultimately overwhelmed.
- Ongoing Kidnapping Attempts: Multiple reports of Amor Incrementum missionaries approaching M.E.G. operatives in isolated areas, offering "assistance" that inevitably leads to recruitment pressure.
- Interference: They sabotage operations, poison supply lines with spores, and target isolated researchers.
The B.N.T.G.
A relationship of cautious, illicit trade. While officially condemning them, some B.N.T.G. black marketeers trade in Amor Incrementum ârelicsâ (fungal samples, spore-vials) for exorbitant prices. The cult itself does not seek profit, only resources, but they will engage in barter if it serves the spread of the Bloom. The Amor provides food (Almond Water, Mold-Scones, unidentifiable meat). The B.N.T.G. provides technology and raw materials. The Traders don't ask where the meat comes from. The Amor doesn't ask what the Traders do with the "fertilizer."
Tensions have escalated, though not into open conflict. The B.N.T.G.'s economic pragmatism grates against the cult's theological absolutism, but both organizations recognize the impracticality of all-out war.
For now, an uneasy détente persists.
The Iron Fist
Openly hostile. The Iron Fist, being dedicated to the destruction of divine entities and their worship, naturally includes Protastheia (and by extension, her cult) in this criteria. Their militant atheism and desire to purge godly influence has no patience for a cult that worships a distorted aspect of a former Pantheon member. They are to be exterminated, their groves burned.
Clashes are frequent and brutal, sometimes ending with Iron Fist squads disappearing into the foliage, never to be seen (but sometimes heard screaming from inside a tree trunk). They burn cultists on sight, often ending in pyre-scorched earth to prevent spore spread. The cult reciprocates by offering "blessed" food to Finger outposts. The converts are never detected until they begin photosynthesizing.
The Church of The Veiled
These are rivals for the âmythic niche.â The Amor Incrementum views the Church as crude, destructive children who understand only the end, not the fertile cycle. However, they are generally non-confrontational unless resources are contested.
Entities
They have a unique, symbiotic relationship with certain fungal and plant-based entities. They are often targeted by more predatory entities (like Crawlers or Smilers), as their distinct organic signature marks them as easy prey, but their collective awareness and the defensive adaptations make them difficult targets.
The Lost
The cultâs most tragic relation. Traditional members of The Lost view the Amor as heretics who have distorted the old ways into something grotesque. The Amor views The Lost as "withered branches" that need pruning. Their goal is to âreclaimâ them, to graft their fading consciousness back into the living network of Protastheiaâs will. It is an act they perceive as ultimate mercy, and the Lost often perceive as ultimate horror.
The Hive
The HiveâLevel 276 in M.E.G. classification, though the cult considers numerical designation blasphemousâis governed by Huvvat, an entity that the cult believes to be either an aspect of Protastheia or her most perfect creation. The insectoid social structure of The Hive, in which individual identity dissolves into collective function, represents the Amor Incrementum's ultimate aspiration. The Hive is the Garden perfected: a system in which all components serve the whole, in which individuality dissolves into beautiful collective function, in which the Queen tends her subjects as Protastheia tends all growing things.
The Amor Incrementum believe that the Queen's Chamber in The Hive is the true altarâthe womb, the stomach, the cathedral of digestion and gestation from which all things are unmade and remade. To be brought there is the highest honor. Cult members who refuse conversion are sometimes brought to the entrance of the Queen's chamber as "offerings." What happens to them there varies; some emerge as Culled Ones, and others do not emerge at all.
The Cygnus Order
Blanche Von Haderachnmaintains a policy of providing information to any who seek it, regardless of affiliation. This policy has, on rare occasions, brought Amor Incrementum members to the Archive's doors.
These interactions are invariably tense. Blanche's inherent nature, especially relative to that of Protastheia, creates theological friction. Her willingness to provide information about the cult to their enemies creates practical friction with other groups.
Yet the Archive has never been directly attacked by Amor Incrementum forces — likely because both parties know that there would be no use in attempting such a thing, given Blanche's practical omnipotence over her own realm.
Thus ends the Verdegris Canticle. Tread not their groves lightly, for the soil hungers with memory-echoes of the ungrateful plucked.