The Fellowship of Hakkaiden was not doing well these days.
Its history was already marked by many difficulties. When the Great Mourner rose up and proclaimed the majesty and power of a god called Hakkaiden, not a lot of people accepted his message.
The Age of Conquest had just ended and much of human space was in shambles. A lot of cults and religions mushroomed into existence as the traumatized survivors tried to process the tragedies in their own ways.
The Fellowship of Hakkaiden was one of many cults that had risen up during those 'boom times', yet it had never risen as far as other successful religious organizations.
The beliefs of the cult had a lot to do with it. According to the first Great Mourner who founded the cult, Hakkaiden was the god and personification of human sorrow. Its doctrine encompassed many facets of sorrow such as sadness, mourning, crying and the acceptance of loss.