
There was a discussion about religion this weekend, and its tax-free status.
What if ...
We started The First Church of Cthulhu? (and who cares if someone else registered one? Ours would be BETTER!)
Buy some land, build a compound. Of course, there must be access to running water, maybe it's built on a shoreline? Or at least has a well. With some swamp. And a hill. There would be a section entirely devoted to frogs, and two or so flocks of whippoorwills.
The Temple itself will be round (no corners for ShadowBeasts as a professional courtesy), with bas-relief columns, and lots of stained glass. The roof would be a stained glass dome, with the absolute center pane being black, while His tentacles are rayed about, as if you're looking up directly into His maw.
The dorms would, naturally, be entirely non-Euclidean. Gotta drive those acolytes mad!
Once a calendar month there would be a major holiday, one for each of His tentacles. Every new moon would be a holiday, too. "Yep, sorry boss, need next Tuesday off, it's Dagon's Day!"
Every May Day, everyone spends it asleep, in honor of dead Cthulhu who lies dreaming. This is done by everyone in the compound drinking Kool-Aid.
And one person never wakes up. One of the paper cups, unmarked, you never know, could be you ... Which naturally means that you want to proselytize, because the more people drinking that KoolAid, the better the chances that you WON'T grab That cup ;D
I think that for the first few years, as the cult is gaining it's footing (or tentacle-hold, whichever), that one person actually just gets a double dose of sleepy juice, and wakes up a few days after everyone else. Don't want to be accused of homicide TOO soon.
Tax free status... You could be a cardinal...
Thoughts?