More RPG Horror - Kult

[ffutures]

Two offers for Kult, an RPG of "Visceral horror" which comes with numerous content warnings. One is new, the other a repeat from October 2020 with extra material added.





Kult: Divinity Lost

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2023Kult

This revived October 2020 Kult: Divinity Lost Bundle is one of two offers in progress (both part of the site's "October Horrors" sequence) featuring the contemporary Gnostic horror RPG about humanity trapped in Illusion, Kult: Divinity Lost. The new companion offer, Kult Secrets and Whispers, adds recent supplements including the map book Labyrinths & Chambers and the scenario collection Screams and Whispers.

The world around us is a lie, and humanity is trapped in Illusion. By discovering the truth about our prison, our captors, our hidden past, and our Shadow selves, player characters hope to awaken from their induced sleep and take control of a stolen destiny. Funded in a February 2016 Kickstarter campaign, the new Kult: Divinity Lost updates the original 1991 Kult to the present with an entirely new rules set Powered by the Apocalypse. But just as before, death in Kult is only the beginning. Escape your nightmares, strike bargains with demons, and try to stay alive in a world full of pain.

Divinity Lost modifies the Apocalypse Engine, replacing the standard 2d6 roll with 2d10; a result of 15 or more is a complete success, 10-14 success with complications, and 9 or less failure. Playbooks include Academic, Avenger, Broken, Cursed, Deceiver, Fixer, Occultist, Prophet, Ronin, Seeker, and more. Though all player characters share the same set of generic Moves like Act Under Pressure, Keep It Together, and See Through the Illusion, and a Stability score that measures emotional composure, every PC has unique Dark Secrets and pre-established Relations with other PCs. Relations are your key to gaining Stability – or, all too often, losing it. Your character advances by learning more about the Truth; after 10 Advancements you can become an Enlightened Archetype, which brings "mental illumination and sometimes physical changes."

Divinity Lost dramatically increases the range of Moves the Gamemaster uses to respond to player actions. In addition to 15 Regular Moves like Put Someone in a Bad Spot, Decrease Stability, and the ever-handy Make a Move for a Higher Plane of Existence, the GM also has Moves for Passion (Insight Into the Divine, Become a Victim of Passion), Dream (A Portal is Opened, Attract Dream Prince's Attention), Madness (Distortion of Time and Space, Bodily Changes, Attract Beings), and locale-specific sets of actions for Elysium, Gaia, Metropolis, Inferno, and Underworld. You get a strong sense of Kult GMing duties from the long list of pre-defined, expected Moves like Entrancement of the Soul, Influence of the Death Angels, Out-of-Body Experience, Under the Control of Higher Beings, and (ohhhh, look!) Virgin Births.

Kult has always been, and remains, a game of visceral and psychological horror about madness, sex, brutality, and death. When the original edition arrived in Italy, the Pope reputedly banned it. The rulebook discusses safe words and hand gestures that let players stop a scene. Clearly this game isn't for everyone. But if your players appreciate its themes of human nature and the Shadow within, Kult can produce intense experiences of a kind unlike many horror RPGs.

We provide each title complete in .PDF. Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these ebooks have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices. (By publisher request, the DriveThruRPG versions of these files are inobtrusively watermarked.)

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) of these two Kult offers goes to the not-for-profit initiative co-founded by Modiphius Entertainment owner Chris Birch, RollVsEvil. RollVsEvil lets gaming communities do what they love (play games) while supporting frontline charitable efforts working directly toward verifiable immediate results.

The total retail value of the titles in this Kult: Divinity Lost revival is US$101. Customers who pay just US$14.95 get all three titles in this revived offer's Starter Collection (retail value $49) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Kult: Divinity Lost core rulebook (retail price $30.50), the GM Screen (retail $10), and the Reference Deck (retail $8.50).

Those who pay more than this offer's threshold (average) price, which is set at $24.95 to start, also get this revival's entire Bonus Collection with three more titles worth an additional $52, including the campaign book The Black Madonna (retail $18), the scenario collection Taroticum and Other Tales (retail $18), and the print-and-cut Kult Tarot Cards (retail $16).

Kult Secrets and Whispers

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/KultSecrets

This all-new Kult Secrets and Whispers Bundle is one of two offers in progress featuring Kult: Divinity Lost, the 2018 Helmgast edition of the acclaimed RPG of contemporary horror. The companion revival from October 2020, the original Kult: Divinity Lost Bundle, has the core rulebook and early supplements. If you're new to the game, start there.  If you've already torn aside the veil of Illusion, your next journey beyond Elysium begins with this all-new companion offer of recent supplements and scenarios funded in the June 2020 Kult: Divinity Lost Horror Guide & Scenario Collection Kickstarter campaign.

We provide each title complete in .PDF. Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these ebooks have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices. (By publisher request, the DriveThruRPG versions of these files are inobtrusively watermarked.)

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) of these two Kult offers goes to the not-for-profit initiative co-founded by Modiphius Entertainment owner Chris Birch, RollVsEvil. RollVsEvil lets gaming communities do what they love (play games) while supporting frontline charitable efforts working directly toward verifiable immediate results.

The total retail value of the titles in this Kult Secrets and Whispers offer is US$78. Customers who pay just US$19.95 get all three titles in our Secrets Collection as DRM-free ebooks, including the Gamemaster sourcebook Beyond Darkness and Madness (retail price $24), the location book Labyrinths & Secret Chambers (retail $30), and the six-scenario collection Screams and Whispers (retail $24).

Last time I said "There was a vogue for games of this type in the nineties - I'm not quite sure why existential horror was so big, but I'm guessing the millennium may have had something to do with it." I was later told that this wasn't the case, and that the designers wanted a system that could be used to emulate e.g. Clive Barker, and were friends with people who were really into gnosticism and found it a good background for their ideas.

I went on to say "For some reason I never got into it in its original form, and the idea of an RPG that needs safe words is possibly one of the reasons why.

Worked out in terms of cost per page this one comes out fairly expensive, and unless you're really into the genre it may be worth thinking carefully before you go for it."

With the new material added the original bundle now feels like better value, though still a little on the high side, as does the new release. But as before the extreme horror aspects may be problematic for many players, and I'd recommend sounding out your players before investing. Many people are fine with less graphic horror but would have problems with Kult.