So you Wanna Leave a Cult?

    Well hello there! If you have picked up this pamphlet, opened the cover and started reading this then you are in fact, in a cult! It's alright though, these things happen to people with little self esteem and who are incredibly gullible to people who speak with a degree more authority than they are used to. If you feeling offended, then congratulations! You are on your way from leaving the happy little group of suckers that surround the ego maniacal criminal you call a cult leader!
    Follow along these 7 simple steps and you just might make it out into normal society!
    Step 1: Just.Leave.
    Now  I know what your thinking- "If I could just fucking leave, then I would!" and if that is your case, this is not the step for you. For those who just got their feet wet in strange rituals and sabbaths in a spooky warehouse, you can leave! Most cults starting out will always have one or two who drop the cause and return to normal life. They may attempt to reach out to you, so if you find them getting too frequent, best skip town for a while.
    Step 2: Remember that skipping town bit?
    If just now 'a cult' seems like a bad idea after the sacrificial bloodletting binding you all together, then its time to close your accounts, stuff all your clothes and money in a bag and drive. There are two optional places you can hide if your former cult buddies decide "one of the Chosen Children of Chargathum'dall" is too important for the Grand Plan: A massive city, or a small town. Both have their pros and cons of course. a city will offer the anonymity of millions of other people, though so do they if they come for you. In a small town, you are the newbie in a town where everyone knows everyone, and there is a high chance your new friendly (and nosy) neighbors will happily greet you, while simultaneously trying to pry everything about yourself out of you. The trick is to act the right amount of normal to keep the community placated, while being interesting enough to keep them from just dismissing you as "just another townie."
    The con of a small town is that everyone is just too damn friendly. Once your cult finds you via some dark magical means or the paper trail your incompetent ass left, being friendly to the locals will make it easier for them to spill your location to them. But, I hear small town cops are really bored and with something like this, you'll have their full attention.
    However, if you are too deeply entrenched in the eldritch rituals and ceremonies to actually just up and vanish, proceed to Step 3!
    Step 3: Fake your Death!
    Well this escalated quickly didn't it? Sadly, your inability to "just say no" when you performed that rite naked and skin-soaked in a mixture of goat and pigs blood, and your witness of something inhuman peering between the shadowy gaps of the trees scribbling furiously, means it's time to take hold of your gender specific genitalia and start being drastic! This step might be a tad hard to do as they watch over each other like a bunch of paranoid hawks but it is worth trying out at the very least! Due to some legal reasons this pamphlet cannot spell out how to do that, so if you're rather unimaginative and have no skills in grave robbing, proceed to the next step!
Step 4: Time to be a Mole!
    Like any decent cult, yours is bound to be doing something so shady even shadow things raise their shadowy eyebrows. It's time to put your natural ability of ass kissing to good use! Build up evidence against your Leader and the various members of your Cult, maybe set up a camera during the Ritual of Borsha'gthha so you have that rampant animal abuse on tape (best keep yourself out of the footage though). Collecting evidence might be hard if you have to live in a room with four other dudes while your Great Leader has a girl-filled mansion to himself. But hey, if you all have an hour of "private time" then be sure to stash them where no one would look. Finally, once you have enough footage, be sure your one of the few who go into the neighboring town to get supplies, ditch your fellow cult members and sing like a canary hopped up on crack.
    With any luck, your testimony and the various evidence will be enough to have police and SWAT kicking in plywood doors and dragging cultists out. Unless of course, the police are under the Cult's control... Which leads us to:
    Step 5: Time to Hire Investigators!
    Aaah, the bane of any cult: nosy people! Yes while it seems a little terrible dragging other people into your mess, remind yourself you saw your leader summon a black glowing ooze from a ritual circle and it turned Bob into a horrible bloated monstrosity that shambles around the estate, so you're really running out of options! A normal party of investigators come in groupings of 3 to 8, and have a wide variety of skills and knowledges that could be helpful in ending your cult...Or getting them brutally killed, at the least. Fret not, for there always seems to be a unlimited number of people willing to fill in the sudden vacancies!
    As for actually hiring them, its best to hire by proxy! Find a good friend, trusted loved one, or someone the cult has alienated, and promptly beg them for help. 9/10 Times they will happily shell out money or favors in order to bring the investigators into town. If your Cult leader starts to get antsy and look suspiciously at his herd then you know they are here!
    Step 6: Lay Low!
    Again, this may seem rather hard as the gaggle of semi-competent "heroes" you managed to hire happily plow though all the carefully laid plans your leader had laid in place with a frightening mix of pure luck and incredible bouts of violence toward the heart of the eldritch and sordid affairs you and your buddies have been up to. It is here you may start to notice bouts of madness begin overtaking various cult members, including your leader as the amount of black rituals with each gleeful ruination of one of those dastardly webs that were woven.
    Human sacrifice in order to summon up a big nasty thing from the realm of H. R. Giger's nightmares and spell slinging mad men are not far behind you and your choice of wearing your "brand me with dark maddening runes" robe today. Its best for you to stay as far under the radar as possible, and weave the illusion of actually participating. Make the movements but not say those hard to sound words, stay hunched in the back as your leader asks for "volunteers", and above all else- STAY. AWAY. FROM.THE. INVESTIGATORS.
    They are more likely to get you killed than any abomination of nature your Grand Leader pulls from parts unknown. You're still a "cultist" and in 99% of the time you run into them, you will get shot, stabbed, beaten, or hit with a spell. Find yourself in that happy medium and wait for:
    Step 7: Wait Until Everyone's Dead!
    Yup! The final step is to be the biggest coward in the bunch. For you see, in the end once you introduce investigators into the mix the  "Final Plan" will be pushed months or even years ahead of schedule as time becomes a precious commodity. As the party to end all parties gets started, the investigators come storming in, guns blazing and sealing spells at the ready.
    Before that, be sure to have an exit strategy, know the entrance which they will most likely enter, hope you aren't doing this ritual inside a room with only one door, and make your move when everyone is distracted! That's right! Run like your life depended on it (because it does!) Always be sure to be wearing normal clothes and good running shoes under your robe because you best ditch that place the minute you can.
    Its best to find a place to hide and wait it out if you can, as who knows what nasty buggers are lurking around the perimeter? Just don't stay in the main building as investigators have a habit of setting fire or blowing up buildings with cult related activity in them.
    If you can't do this, I suggest stealing some car keys before hand, or learning how to hot wire for a quick and safe getaway. Just be sure to ditch the car after the sun rises! With any luck all evidence of you being in the cult would be burned up along with the corpses of monsters and your former colleagues, leaving you free as a bird (except for those nightmares and therapy!)
    And there you have it! You managed to survive the worst decision in your life, and once again are free to hopefully not join another cult! For additional aid please grab "So, an Investigator is Trying to Kill You?" Who knows, you might need it!