How and why to recruit followers in Cult of the Lamb

Cult of the Lamb is a hybrid city-builder and hack-and-slash game. The goal is to cut your way through a group of heretics to help rescue your god, all while building up your cult with followers.

In this guide, we’ll explain how to increase your cult size in Cult of the Lamb, and what makes followers so damn useful.

How to get followers

You’ll find your first follower at the start of the game, while making your way to the grove your cult will eventually call home. Subsequent followers can come in much the same way, although not all are tied to the story.

While on your Crusade — slicing your way through baddies — you’ll be able to choose your path on the way to the boss. These paths have icons denoting what kind of room you’ll be entering, like a sword for combat or vegetables for food ingredients. But some paths will take you through a person symbol, which will give you the chance to recruit a new cult member. Simply kill all the enemies that spawn around the altar and rescue your new “friend.”

On your Crusade, you’ll also encounter a variety of mini-bosses as you seek to open the door to the Heretics — you’ll need multiple successful runs in an area to do this. Each of these mini-bosses transforms into a follower after you defeat them.

Image: Massive Monster/Devolver Digital via Polygon

You can also buy followers from Helob, the purple spider who likes to trap people in their web. You can find Helob on Crusades by looking for the shop symbol that has a little person figure under it, but they’ll eventually set up shop outside of your Cult compound as well. Helob will sell you a follower every day or so if you visit them regularly.

Finally, you may get new followers by completing quests for existing followers. However, these new followers are often undesirable, and are either elderly or eager to dissent.

What are followers good for?

A cult is only as strong as its legion of members, and there are a lot of reasons you want to grow your army as quickly as possible in Cult of the Lamb.

While you’re hanging out in your grove or out on Crusade, your followers will stay home and work for you. They’ll collect resources like wood and rocks, they’ll farm, and they’ll pray to you, earning you Devotion. You’ll need these prayers to unlock new buildings and upgrades, and the resources to build out your perfect compound.

But more than just economics, you’ll need followers to help you progress the game’s story. In order to unlock new areas, you’ll need to hit a follower threshold, so it’s important to always keep growth in mind as you move forward.

On a more sinister note, you can also use your followers as living resources. Some NPCs might ask you to sacrifice your followers, and there are a variety of sacrificial rituals that will benefit you or the entire cult. While followers can be very useful in life, it’s worth remembering that they’re also useful in death.