Kult
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Kult is a Swedish Dark Fantasy/Splatterpunk (self-description) Role-Playing Game by authors Gunilla Jonsson and Michael Petersén. (Who are, despite the very dark topic, two nice people working in a bookstore.) It takes place here and now, in the reality of today. But reality is not what we think. Around us the world is dark and dangerous and nothing is what it seems to be. Our reality is an illusion, created to keep us captive. We are imprisoned since the ages past by a dictatorial creator. The true world, invisible to us, is ruled by creatures who dominate the false facades, our prison wardens and torturers. And if your characters happen to steep too far into Evil, they might actually turn into monsters physically.
Kult can be used for any kind of horror game, from "splatter the attacking zombie hordes" to "solve the occult mysteries of the universe" to more subtle paranoia and conspiracies. Players play characters who somehow came into contact with darkness - whether purely theoretical, like students interested in the occult, Mad Scientists or Mad Artists; in reality, like muckrakers, private detectives or COPS; or actively fighting it, like soldiers, gang members or street fighters.
What can you do in Kult? You can fight evil... or become evil yourself... or simply go mad. Or outgrow such childish things as Good, Evil, Madness and Four-dimensional spacetime. But don't expect that to be easy.
Tropes used in Kult include:
- Abandoned Hospital and Abandoned Laboratory: Urban decay and blight are but one theme of Kult.
- A God Am I: Every human has the potential. And they're right.
- Alien Geometries: Everywhere outside The Illusion.
- Alone with the Psycho[context?]
- Artifact of Death[context?]
- Ax Crazy: The Angels of Death, who serve a similar function to the Archons, but are much, much more malevolent about it.
- Bedlam House: Most asylums are like that, and often the doctors and wardens there are at least as mad as the inmates.
- Black and Gray Morality[context?]
- Blue and Orange Morality: Quite unavoidable for any character who has high enough mental balance or truly accept the truth about the world.
- Body Horror: What can happen when your mental balance plummets low enough.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Possibly the only inversion. It seems every other eldritch horror broke it's arm trapping US in the illusion, and it seems only inevitable for us to eventually break out.
- Cannibal Clan[context?]
- Corrupt Church: Chokmah, The Black Madonna.
- The Corruption[context?]
- Cosmic Horror: It's difficult to judge whether this setting or the Cthulhu Mythos are more horrific.
- Well, at least here, there's a chance of escape...
- Crapsack World: If you are Born Lucky, then it's only a World Half Empty. Most Horror settings have at least one faction who aren't pure evil, even if it is just the mundane police. Not so in Kult. Every single one of the governments, religions, and armies in the world are puppets of the lictors or the Angels of Death, who want to keep mankind complacent in its ignorance of the True Reality.
- The Dark Side[context?]
- Dark World: In the forms of Metropolis and Gaia, representing urban and natural landscapes respectively.
- The Dragon: Golab and Hareb-Serap, two Angels of Death that're most loyal to Astaroth. They hate each other, but will ignore that for time being.
- Eldritch Abomination: Almost everything that exists, but most notable are the Forgotten Gods, who remain dangerous and beyond our understanding even after we awaken. They're so powerful that the whole power conflicts between Archons and Inferno are no concern of them.
- Enemy Mine: Notable Netzach, who will join forces with Malkuth or even Angels of Death if it will help him defeat Astaroth.
- Evil Counterpart: Angels of Death to Archons and Astaroth to Demiurge. Actually Eviler Than Thou Counterpart since neither of the pairs are truly good.
- Fighting a Shadow: Subverted. Archons and other superbeings can have multiple incarnate avatars simultaneously, and it takes less than a day to create a replacement when one is destroyed. However, getting killed hurts, and if several incarnates are killed in short period, the pain can actually kill the being.
- Freak Lab Accident: One possible background for player characters.
- Freak-Out[context?]
- Game Face[context?]
- Genius Loci: The cathedrals of Archon and Angel of Death are the true self of their owner.
- Go Among Mad People[context?]
- God: The Demiurge.
- God Is Dead: God is dead, and the Devil is the only one who wants him back. Also, God is dying retroactively, being dead further and further back in history.
- God Is Evil: Humans were immortal superbeings before he took all our powers away and made us what we are.
- Go Mad from the Revelation[context?]
- Happy Place: One could say, in the world of KULT most humans are there.
- Harbinger of Impending Doom[context?]
- Have You Seen My God?: Even Astaroth is looking for him, since the Demiurge is the only one who gave his existence a meaning.
- Hell: Inferno. Nowaday, most souls end up in Purgatory instead. Catch is, Astaroth no longer give a damn about the place and lets his subordinates manage Inferno as they please, so you can get punished by the sin you never commit at all. And with less souls coming to Inferno, they will give you some extra For the Lulz.
- Hell Hotel[context?]
- Heroic BSOD: Failing a terror throw.
- Homicide Machines[context?]
- Humanoid Abomination: Lictors and Razids, and every other monster that can appear human. Also, humans themselves, when they Awaken.
- Humans Are Cthulhu: Humans are immortal superbeings, they are just slumbering and are unaware of their power.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters:
- In a sense. While it's rather difficult to see the Demiurge/Archons as the good guys, truth is, the divine, pre-Illusion humans were completely amoral bastards that destroyed millions of lives and caused untold suffering to members of weaker species. Perhaps the setting's deepest, most interesting question would be "Do we deserve to Awaken?"
- Despite being embodiments of evil, Angels of Death found the darkness in humans' hearts surpasses theirs.
- Indian Burial Ground[context?]
- Infernal Retaliation[context?]
- Knight Templar: Geburah is embodiment of this trope.
- Light Is Not Good: Or even "Good is Evil": Forces of "good" tend to fight to keep everyone mentally balanced - and this is a setting where "mentally balanced" = "to be blind and trapped in hell forever".
- Love Transcends Spacetime[context?]
- Mechanical Lifeforms: The Techrones, actually every piece of machinery can be one, including the monitor you're looking at.
- Mirror Scare[context?]
- Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: Schizophrenia is actually the ability to see behind the veil covering mundane reality. Mental illness in general is one of two roads to supernatural mojo (sainthood is the other one, but power-wise they're mutually exclusive).
- Off on a Technicality[context?]
- Orifice Invasion[context?]
- Police Brutality[context?]
- Power Born of Madness[context?]
- Religion of Evil[context?]
- Religious Horror: And with a title like KULT, is it really any wonder?[context?]
- Room 101: The Abyss, the great chasm where Demiurge's citadel once was. Only Astaroth has ever been known to get in there and return, but only barely alive. And he refuses to speak about anything inside that place.
- Room Full of Crazy[context?]
- Satan: Astaroth
- Scary Scarecrows[context?]
- Serial Killer[context?]
- Sinister Subway[context?]
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The whole game is practically glued to the cynical end.
- Snuff Film[context?]
- So Beautiful It's a Curse: The "Sexually Tantalizing" disadvantage. You're so beautiful that everyone wants a piece of you and nobody can listen to what you're saying.
- Soulsaving Crusader: The player can potentially become one of these, since driving someone over the Despair Event Horizon can allow them to break free of The Illusion.
- Split Personality[context?]
- Spooky Photographs[context?]
- Teens Are Monsters[context?]
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know[context?]
- Through the Eyes of Madness[context?]
- Tome of Eldritch Lore[context?]
- Torture Cellar[context?]
- Torture Technician: Golab and many others.
- Town with a Dark Secret[context?]
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia[context?]
- Unstoppable Rage[context?]
- Weirdness Censor: Probably the only reason why ordinary humans can survive in this world without going mad immediately.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Malkuth's servants kidnap humans and perform wild experiments on them. She actually wants to free all humans from The Illusion.
Hell, almost every of the Crime and Punishment Tropes, Evil Tropes, Madness Tropes or Horror Tropes might find a place in your KULT sessions.
Typical Characters that may appear in KULT:
- Agent Mulder[context?]
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer[context?]
- Amateur Sleuth[context?]
- Ancient Keeper[context?]
- Artificial Human: The Techrones.[context?]
- Ax Crazy[context?]
- Back-Alley Doctor[context?]
- Badass Biker[context?]
- Bouncer[context?]
- Con Man[context?]
- Defective Detective[context?]
- The Grotesque[context?]
- He Who Fights Monsters[context?]
- Hired Guns[context?]
- Housewife: Subverted.[context?]
- The Hunter[context?]
- Inspector Javert[context?]
- Intrepid Reporter[context?]
- The Jailer[context?]
- The Legions of Hell[context?]
- Lesbian Vampire[context?]
- Mad Oracle[context?]
- Sadist Teacher[context?]
- Weirdness Magnet[context?]