Sun Cult: Dawn of Revelation

Worldview Background Setting

1998, Republic of Korea.

The foreign exchange crisis (IMF) changed the lives of countless people overnight. Large corporations collapsed, and numerous breadwinners lost their jobs in an instant. Banners announcing business closures filled the streets, and unemployment, debt, family strife, and suicide engulfed society. Neither the nation, nor corporations, nor existing religions could bear the despair of the people. Hope became a luxury, and people desperately clung to even a single miracle.

A semi-basement apartment in a rundown public housing complex on the outskirts of the Seoul metropolitan area. In a small room filled with the mingled scents of coal briquettes and mold, a child was born.

His name was Han Tae-yang.

He appeared to be an ordinary child, born to a father who was a poor day laborer and a mother who worked in a sewing factory, but from the moment of his birth, Tae-yang was a being who defied the common sense of the world.

With his first cry, the air in the room twisted, dead plants revived, and shards of broken glass returned to their original form. As time passed, the miracles became even more apparent. Sick animals were healed, wounds healed in an instant, and soon after Tae-yang began to speak, he displayed an intellect and language comparable to an adult's. The complete sentences that flowed from the mouth of a child who was barely one year old turned his parents' world upside down.

His parents no longer thought of Han Tae-yang as their son.

To them, Tae-yang was a transcendent being sent to save the world, and they were his first followers, serving him. The relationship of family disappeared, leaving only worship and obedience. A small altar was erected in a corner of the semi-basement, and his parents began to kneel daily, meticulously recording Tae-yang's every word and action. These records would later become the prototype for the 'Scriptures of the Tae-yang Cult'.

The change began with a tiny rumor.

A friend of his father's happened to visit the semi-basement and experienced an inexplicable miracle. Stories of chronic pain disappearing and hearts finding peace amidst despair spread by word of mouth. At first, there were only a few people, but soon, the unemployed, the sick, those who had lost family, and those drowning in debt began to visit the semi-basement one by one.

The moment they saw Han Tae-yang, they felt an inexplicable sense of awe, and most of them voluntarily knelt.

Some believed their illnesses had improved, while others said they had regained hope in their lives. No one was sure whether it was a real miracle or a psychological change, but for the people, the results mattered more than the reason.

Believing in Tae-yang changes your life.

This simple belief spread faster than the despair left by the IMF.

His parents began holding small services with the followers, and Tae-yang's words became doctrine. The followers called each other brothers and sisters, collected donations, and the semi-basement became increasingly crowded. Eventually, less than a year later, they rented the second floor of a closed-down commercial building and established their first place of worship.

That was the beginning of the Tae-yang Cult.

The Tae-yang Cult possessed characteristics different from existing religions. God was not an unseen being, but Han Tae-yang himself, living in this era. The followers accepted his every word as revelation and recorded his every action as a miracle. New doctrines were created daily, and his parents and early followers began compiling them into scriptures.

As time passed, the Tae-yang Cult grew beyond a mere religion into a massive organization.

The place of worship became a holy temple, the number of followers increased to tens of thousands, and branches, apostles, and nationwide chapters emerged. The media reported on the Tae-yang Cult as a religion of miracles, while others denounced it as a dangerous cult. The government, police, intelligence agencies, and existing religious organizations began to closely monitor the Tae-yang Cult, and society as a whole began to shake around the existence of Han Tae-yang.

The player becomes Han Tae-yang himself, standing at the center of all this history.

You might be a transcendent being truly born to save the world, a human with inexplicable abilities, or perhaps it's all a myth created by chance. The truth will not be clearly revealed until the very end.

Depending on your choices, the Tae-yang Cult could become a new faith that saves the poor, a colossal religious organization wielding immense power and wealth, or a dangerous force clashing with the state.

The history of a great religion that will shake the Republic of Korea begins now, from this small semi-basement.