Sacrificial rites, occultism and dying - over and over again.
That's what anyone who chooses to play the new "Cult of the Lamb" can expect.
It does not apply to a mediocre black metal record from the dark forests of Norway, but a delightfully blasphemous little video game in the form of a rouge-like dungeon crawler, or cave crawler, which meets cozy base building.
Where the player, as the sacrificial lamb who in death receives help from a higher power, gets to create his very own little sect and with it build the base for crusades against a religious superpower.
In the game, which has
the peculiar and twisted style of the developers Massive Monsters, the dark theme is met by a cute visual manner - a bit like the classic game series Animal Crossing moved into the TV series Stranger Things' Up and Down.
In the meeting, the comedy arises and even if the laughter sometimes gets stuck in the throat - it hurts the heart a little to sacrifice a faithful cult member, but if you need to have a demon with you on the crusade, you need to - so it is with a little giggle that most of the game is played.
Giggles and to some extent frustration.
Because it's in the nature of the genre to get frustrated.
A genre based on dying and losing almost everything - over and over - to experience the game's variety makes room for that.
The processions, which in the "Cult of the Lamb"
form the caves or paths, differ each time;
you never know what weapons you'll start with, what you might find along the way, or what tarot card upgrades you'll get.
You can count on these rarely being the answer to your prayers, but it's guaranteed to be something that changes the way you have to play.
If the crusades form
one part of the game, base building is the other safe leg it rests on.
The sect is where both the base and, by extension, you as the sect leader and holy warrior are slowly built up.
The more time spent there, the greater the depth of the experience - from micro to macro level.
It's hard not to become obsessed with unlocking new resources or getting even more followers.
Which can make this goofy, cute and disarming game a little hard to tear yourself away from.
Not necessarily
because it's fun every second but because that sect can't survive without its leader.
If it's not someone vomiting outside the church or trying to incite others to overthrow you - then someone is getting the plague.
Or some cauliflower appears that needs to be planted.
Does the game,
as religion tends to do, ask any big questions about life?
Absolutely not - here, religion is just a funny cover over a solid craft.
A bit like the hard rock band Ghost.
Liberatingly blasphemous and impossible to get genuinely upset about.