Your loyal followers turned Disciples, praying at the Shrine of Disciples to stack damage and hearts before every crusade.
Disciples are how a peaceful cult turns into a one-shot machine on crusades. They are your loyal followers praying at the Shrine of Disciples, and the buffs they charge up can let the Lamb delete a Bishop in a couple of hits.
The system is simple to run. According to the wiki, Disciples fill a shrine gauge that you activate for a temporary crusade buff, from bonus hearts to multiplied damage.
Stacking is the whole trick. The wiki notes the buffs stack across multiple shrines, so a camp full of Disciples and shrines becomes absurdly powerful.
This guide covers what a Disciple is, how the Shrine of Disciples works, how to stack the buffs, and the separate Disciples of Yngya from the Woolhaven story.
A follower who prays at the Shrine of Disciples to charge crusade buffs.
Blue and Spirit Hearts plus weapon and curse damage multipliers.
Build the shrine, then let Disciples pray to fill the gauge.
Yngya's Disciples are a separate Woolhaven story group.A Disciple is a promoted, loyal follower who empowers your crusades. Per the wiki, one objective is literally to level a follower up into a Disciple, and Disciples are the ones who pray at the Shrine of Disciples.
More Disciples mean faster buffs. According to the wiki, the more Disciples you have, the quicker the shrines charge, so growing your flock directly powers up the Lamb.
They work through prayer, not combat. The wiki explains Disciples never leave the camp to fight; instead they generate crusade buffs at the shrine, making them a support engine for the 
crusades the Lamb runs.
The Shrine of Disciples is where the buffs come from. Per the wiki, the Empowered Shrine of Disciples is a building added in Sins of the Flesh, costing 16 Gold Bars and 8 Stone Blocks, where Disciples pray to give you crusade boosts.
It fills on a gauge. According to the wiki, the shrine's gauge takes about 10 follower interactions to fill, and once full you activate it for a buff that lasts until your next Crusade or 
Purgatory run.
0.5 to 1 Blue or Spirit Hearts (bonus health)
x1.05 to x1.15 weapon damage
x1.05 to x1.15 curse damage 16 Gold Bars, 8 Stone BlocksYou cannot micromanage the shrine. The wiki notes followers prioritize the main Lamb shrine until it is full, and you cannot manually assign Disciples to the Empowered Shrine, so it charges passively.
The Shrine of Disciples goes from minor to game-breaking when you stack it. Per the wiki, the buffs are multiplicative and stack, so multiple shrines let the Lamb tank far more hits and kill enemies, even bosses, in a few swings.
It pairs perfectly with the Berserker. According to the wiki, the 
Fleece of the Berserker benefits hugely, since the Spirit Hearts act as extra, healable health that offsets the fleece's drawback.
It is a grinding shortcut too. The wiki points out the buffs speed up farming God Tears and Purgatory rows by shortening each fight, so Disciples pay off well beyond a single crusade.
Grow your flock while shrines charge. In practice you can raise more Disciples at the Mating Tent between crusades, and since more Disciples charge shrines faster, breeding up your cult is the fastest way to keep the damage buffs flowing.
There is a second, story meaning of Disciple worth knowing. Per the wiki, the Disciples of Yngya are the lamb worshipers who served the winter god in Woolhaven.
They are the villains of that DLC. According to the wiki, these Disciples, including 
Rami and the others, cut out Yngya's heart to create The Rot and then died in the Ritual.
Do not confuse the two. The Yngya Disciples are named story characters, while the Disciples in your own cult are the loyal followers who pray at your Shrine of Disciples for crusade buffs.
The buffs can trivialize bosses. Per the wiki, stacked attack buffs and bonus hearts make it possible to defeat a Bishop in only a few hits.
The shrine is passive by design. According to the wiki, you cannot assign followers to the Empowered Shrine of Disciples, so the only way to charge it faster is to have more Disciples in the cult.
The buffs are crusade-only. The wiki notes they are removed after a Crusade or Purgatory run, so you re-charge and re-activate for each outing rather than keeping them permanently.
Disciples turn your cult into a crusade power source. These guides cover the buffs they charge, the flock they come from, and the fleece that loves them most.
Game data and screenshots adapted from cult-of-the-lamb.fandom.com, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Original content remains the property of the wiki contributors and Massive Monster and Devolver Digital.