The Blessed

"We're all Covered in Blood. Always."

- Ziggy the Priest

The Blessed is a religious cult who worships Baxter Harmless and they appear as the main "villains" (but we all know who the true villains are) of the Mafia III DLC "Sign of the Times" which takes place sometime in 2015, years after Lincoln Clay's return from Outworld, before the main story's events.

Info
The Blessed is as old as New Bordeaux itself, according to the FBI. Their origins could be traced back to the first settlers who arrived in the city or possibly the entire state of Louisiana. They came to the city in search for a new life, but found only death instead. That all turned around when they incorporated death into their religious practices, including the use of human sacrifice.

At some point in time up until 1911, the Blessed was led by Baxter Harmless, a self-proclaimed God of the cult and a former Confederate general during the American Civil War who knew Thomas Harlow well. Harmless claimed that Clurkicus, the pink demon created by Shinnok, appeared before him while on a hunt to eradicate the "savage filth" in the great plains and hills and told him to proclaim himself as a god. Harmless also claimed that the entity reached forth into his very soul and filled him up with his own tainted blood. Baxter's iron-fisted and charismatic ruling allowed the Blessed to gain massive power within the city and they were eventually linked to the Weishaupt Order.

However, their presence within the city was weakened in 1928 when the New Bordeaux Opera House was set on fire by black residents of the city, killing roughly one hundred citizens, many of whom were members of the cult plus Weishaupt Order. The Blessed lost their power and were pushed back into Bayou Fantom for decades.

Sometime around 2015, the Blessed reappeared in city, led by Bonnie Harmless, a direct descendant of Baxter and a great worshipper of his. The cult used Nuit Blanche, a hippy nightclub, as a front to indoctrinate and drug people into the Blessed. There, Bonnie picked out the neediest people they could find and make them members using her charisma, manipulative attitude, and her twerking plus female charms and some drugs.

Bonnie believed in honouring her family and their God's name by birthing The Blessed, but she was unable to, likely due to infertility or the fact that she was a lesbian, but hide it from time to time. She tracked down the second-last person in the Harmless bloodline, Anna Harmless, who she believed she was chosen to birth the One Bastard Son who was suppose to purify the world of the filth and wickedness. She tracked a depressed and stressed Anna down working at a diner, where she noticed how poorly treated Anna was, and convinced her to join her family's great cult.

Anna was then brought to perform a ritual at o' Sammy's Saloon, a place that the Blessed considered as one of their "Places of Lightness", to purify her. Disturbed by what she saw and fearing for her life for some reason, she ran away after being tasked to sacrifice a poor black man. She was discovered by Father Morgan and Lincoln Clay, whom she gave information about the cult too and decided to become a race traitor, sticking up to Clay and Morgan and tried her best in convincing them that "the White Man is the devil" and that the Blessed must be extinct.

Lincoln then went to many of the cult's points of interest, including Wells Park Middle School, Wealthy storage, and the Harmless Mansion which was occupied by Ebeneezer Crab and his wife. There, after knocking out the Crab's, he gained enough information about the cult, eventually killing many of the cult's members at the opera house despite his injuries. Anna, however, ended up committing suicide after Bonnie had dragged her to the opera house, where Ziggy the Priest impregnated her. Lincoln finally tracked down most of the cult at the Scary Sanatorium, where he killed many of the cult's highest followers and eventually, Bonnie Harmless. After the death of Bonnie, the Blessed was lead by Jack Kowinsky, a Polish-Jewish friend of the Crab's.

Beliefs
The Blessed are actually an upper class of New Bordeaux, composed by members of the oldest and wealthiest families of the ex-Confederate states, including the Harmless family and Crab family.

The Blessed are secretly white supremacists who hate inferior races, like African-Americans and Hispanics, but have nothing against Jews or Muslims, not at least that we know of.

The "filth" are people reputed unworthy to live by the Blessed, which includes a whole bunch of people. Black people, the hobos on the street, jobless druggies, deadbeats and some Christians are commonly considered "filth" and it is a common practice of the cultists to kidnap those types of persons and sacrifice them to Baxter Harmless. But what will a Confederate general do with such worthless souls at his display? Only time and Jack will tell.

The Blessed also included some chosen women who would was birth the seed of the One Bastard Son who will rule humanity after the Apocalypse and after Shinnok and Cetrion's retirement. Bonnie Harmless initially believed herself to be the woman, but later thought it could be Anna Harmless, the last Harmless line to be a Blessed.

Known members

 * Baxter Harmless - Deity, first known Leader
 * Bonnie Harmless - Former leader, deceased
 * Jack Kowinsky - Current leader
 * Ebeneezer Crab
 * Lorene Crab
 * Ziggy the Priest
 * Anna Harmless - former, forced
 * Marlon

Trivia

 * The Blessed will play a minor role in the New Era events to come, possibly serving as Queen Almeida's minions.
 * Many members of the Blessed drive a Ferrari, Riddler, Lamborghini, Bentley, or BMW's, making it pretty obvious The Blessed is nothing more than a cult of rich white folks.
 * The forms of veneration to Baxter Harmless included offering fruits, vegetables and human blood. Baxter was reportedly a vegetarian and the first one of his kind. What did he need the human blood for then? Probably for decoration.
 * Despite being close allies, The Blessed are not a part of the Dixmor Project since one cannot worship two deities. However, confusingly, some puppets of the Project identify themselves as Christians and go to Christian Churches which is more baffling than ever since the Project worships the exact opposite of Yahweh.