“The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger at least once in her life … most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite, with crowns of cord on their heads; there is a great multitude of women coming and going; passages marked by line run every way through the crowd, by which the men pass and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must say, "I invite you in the name of Mylitta". It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. “

- Herodotus, 440 BC

The use of ‘temple girls’ for sex began in the ancient Near East, taking various forms in Babylon, Sumer, and among the Hittites. It survived even into relatively recent history through the institution of the Davadisi in India. Early human colonists took the practice to Hyperborea where it flourished.

Fertility Rituals

All Hyperborean fertility rituals involve sex. Fertility sex worship is for two reasons; for favorable harvest, or for abundant breeding.

Harvest rituals are about winning over a god, usually Shub Niggurath. Farmers will breed a virgin slave girl and offer the blood of her deflowering to the goddess’s shrine. Those near forests were Dark Young lurk will travel to their sacred gathering places and cast the blood there.

More prosperous (or desperate) farmers will go a step further than offering blood. Before the planting season they will breed a slave or slaves, wait till they manifest morning sickness, and then sacrifice the victims by blade or fire. Those in Dark Young-infested lands will stake their offerings out by the edge of the forest, and return the next day to collect and burn any human remains.

Whatever the perceived results of such practices, they have a eugenic outcome. It is the lazier, slower, or sickly slaves that are sacrificed in this manner. It also serves to help maintain discipline on a farm. In the months before harvest a farmer’s slave girls are at their most pleasing.

Slave girls are in no such danger over where breeding is the objective. Here, the goal is simply to impregnate slaves and see healthy offspring born. Such practices are common in cities where slave breeding supplements the high death rates of low tech, urban living.

Ritual Magic

Magic and worship are essentially the same for Hyperboreans; forming pacts with demons for favors. Where sex is a ritual/spell component, not just any slave girl will do. Instead, a temple’s own, consecrated slave girls are used - this allows priests to maintain a monopoly over these rituals.

Slave girls are usually consecrated by some or all of the following:

• restricted or special diet

• seclusion from commoners

• ritual cleansing

• indoctrination into the cult’s mysteries

The status of temple girls depends on their roles. In a faith where they are invested in, such as the Servants of the Mi-Go, the most senior temple girls are not slaves at all, but sex priestesses recruited from the faithful. Sex priestesses are well trained, educated, and may be quite powerful - even to the point of controlling their temples. As such, in the patriarchal world of Hyperborea, the temple is one area where women may wield as power as their male peers.

However, in faiths where temple girls have roles that require minimal investment, they are slaves. In the Cult of Yog which is Darfur’s dominant faith, temple girls are sacrificed after sex. Such girls are quickly and easily consecrated, and kept caged till such time as they are needed. Before major religious festivals the temples are filled with such victims.

Control

Cults also use sex and temple girls to exert control over their followers. By making sex with temple girls a source of prestige, cults may limit access in exchange for power and privilege. A clever sex priestess will have her own following of helpless male followers, who may keep far lovelier females chained and kneeling at their feet, but be very much slaves themselves.

Conversely, encouraging - or demanding - women worshipers to join as temple girls, is a demonstration of the temple’s power. Those women who refuse may be shunned, or otherwise socially punished. In extreme cases, they may even suffer stoning or ‘honor killings.’

Wealth

Temple girl slaves are a form of wealth, in and of themselves. Accumulated and beautiful flesh has considerable value - which also makes temples a choice target for raiders. Temple slaves are also prostituted out to the faithful for direct revenue.