The Church of The Dragon Arm

Behold The Wyrm Blódge

Beorthric of Des Moines, High Priest of The Church of The Dragon Arm hit send on his latest HipTalk video and rubbed his temples. Getting videos past the mods was getting harder and harder, he’d need to think of new recruiting methods soon. HipTalk was his last unbanned account. Well that and Readdit. But that platform was a bit of a cesspool. Maybe a newsletter? He could always buy a bunch of emails on the dark web. He paused and grabbed his notebook and pen, maybe he could even advertise on the dark web. Not a bad idea- no. He scratched out the note, no, he did not want to invite a bunch of criminals to live in the temple. He needed good, honest, hopeless people willing to sacrifice all their moveable wealth, all of their ties to the outside world, and a limb or two, to the Wyrm Blódge. Beneath the scribbled out note, he wrote fantasy cons, and underneath it, learn online D&D. One of his current congregants had suggested those.

His temple complex in the Nevada desert currently housed thirty-two thralls, as worshipers of the great Wyrm were called, but he needed more. Many more, if he were going to meet his annual financial goal, fake his death, and retire early. His seminarian, Beorthric of Denver was nearly ready to take the reins of the Great Dragon Head. Denver was compassionate, he’d make a good High Priest, certainly, but he’d still be plagued with the same recruitment problem. Des Moines looked up at the wall to his left where pictures of each High Priest Beorthric before him hung. There were quite a few as the religion reached all the way back to 1105 when Beorthric of Norwich first severed his own arm in the name of the Wyrm Blódge. They were not all photographs, obviously, and the older Medieval ones, like Norwich’s, were probably worth a fortune. Des Moines had considered selling one or two, but at his core he was terrified of The Wyrm’s wrath. Stealing money from thralls was one thing, stealing anything from The Great Dragon was heresy.

Below the wall of pictures sat the Great Canon, a collection of giant manuscripts listing every thrall, the wealth they had surrendered to The Church, and what appendages they had sacrificed since Norwich himself had written his own name down on page one, of book one. Probably also of interest to collectors. Membership had thrived in the early days and perhaps thirty thousand thralls up until the modern era had been de-limbed in the name of the Great Dragon. Quite ironically, it was medically the safest time in history to get a limb amputated, but the hardest time to get people to believe in a religion. And convincing platform mods that his religion didn’t promote self-harm or self-mutilation, just self-sacrifice was a hurdle he consistently struggled to mount. His medical credentials were another. While not a surgeon, he was a physician. That was one of the requirements for becoming High Priest in this day and age. Fortunately no government agency took The Church seriously enough to investigate. With only thirty thralls, most of them lonely, with no one to care much that they had disappeared, it wasn’t worth their time.

Still, the fact nagged, he needed more thralls. Where were all the world’s lonely people? Dating apps? There was a thought. He scribbled it down. More thralls might bring more attention, but that would be Denver’s problem. Des Moines would be gone, dead, as far as anyone knew. Living a life with fewer worries, fewer doubts, and no Great Dragon looming over his eternity. He drew a little dragon doodle on his notebook, a pestering thought jabbing at him. Wyrm Blódge wouldn’t return until the proper number of amputations had been reached, what that number was, no one knew. To date, amputations tallied 31,798 arms, legs, fingers, and toes. So many appendages burnt and the smoke sent skyward to the dragon god in the last 919 years, and still she had not appeared. What if, in his rush to retire, he reached the required number of limbs?

He shuddered. In truth, the thought terrified him.

He closed up his notebook, slipped his phone in the pocket of his robe, and counted under his breath: three, two, one. Right on time the evening worship bell pealed through the temple complex. It was a big night.