The followers of the Daedalan cult believed through enough scientific experimentation, they could defeats the constrictions of humanity and ascend to the heavens in their true winged forms. Members of the priesthood would experiment upon themselves, often sewing and riveting self-made bird wings or other flying contraptions into their own skins, making them unrecognizable to their friends and family members. When a priest had finished making their bodily adjustments, they would be bound to the highest tower in the city and await enlightenment in the form of their sun god lifting them from their human flesh and granting them true flight.

Occasionally, A truly holy man would ascend and all that would be found in the morning were a few straps of leather and some burnt feathers. But mostly, the priests would spend days afixed to rooftops until they died of exposure and the buildings themselves incorporated the corpses into their structure...
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I imagine the Daedalans live in the same world as the Lepidopterans, but I can't say for sure. And yes, I know that Icarus flew into the sun and died, but I chose "Daedalan" because a) Daedalus built the wings and was actually successful at using them and b) Daedalan sounds more interesting than Icaran. I imagine Icarus is one of their holy figures anyway, since they're really into that kind of thing.

No, I don't know either. Sometimes my muse just wants to draw creepy bondage bird men on buildings and my brain has to come up with an elaborate backstory to explain why anyone's muse could possibly want such a thing. That said, the Daedalan cult sounds pretty interesting and I kind of want to expand it. The original idea came from a piece (it's really bad, so I won't link to it-but you can find it in the archives somewhere) I did ages ago that was inspired from the VnV Nation song "Beloved" (and if you're really clever, you can see the lyrics to that song in the graffiti on the wall), and I felt like revisiting it and here we are.

photoshop, 2008. art is (c) to me