Codex: Cultist Sacerdos (Patreon)

“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”

Contrary to popular belief, the Church of Starry Wisdom is not a run-of-the-mill eschatology cult or uncivilized pagan coven. Instead the church is technically advanced, open to outside world and follows strict ecclesiastical polity in terms of operational and governance structure.

The Sacerdos is a scribe and researcher affiliated with the church's seminary, tasked with recording and interpreting the abstruse riddlelike messages left by the Haunter of the Dark in a successful summon ceremony held by the Augur. Most of them have higher education background before being admitted to the seminary after passing a so-called neo quadrivium baccalaureate - the detail of the examination is unbeknownst to outsiders.

It was rumored that Nyarlathotep helped us create the pyramids and the nuclear bomb. Regardless of the rumor's credibility, the church's pact with the elusive Outer God has yielded unimaginable benefits to humanity - the space craft that could travel at one thousandth of light speed which made the Yuggoth expedition possible, for instance.

Some of the Sacerdos sacrificed their sanity in the process. At times the arcane knowledge disclosed by Nyarlathotep is so detrimental to mental stability that merely understanding it leads to irreversible brain damage. This dire challenge was eventually overcome by a joint research program held by the church and Miskatonic University when a young neuroscientist invented a device that could efficiently process and replace the traumatic image one perceived with a safer version to prevent synaptic dysfunction - the cognitive filter.

All scenes players see in the Operation Lovecraft are censored by the cognitive filter so don't worry about failing a sanity check. But you probably have realized that in reality the girls' experiments with the specimens may not actually be as sensual as it looks like...