Kult

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Kult
Cover for Kult: Beyond the Veil
Designer(s)	Gunilla Jonsson, Michael Petersén
Publisher(s)	Paradox Entertainment, 7th Circle
Publication date	Third Edition , 2001
Genre(s)	Horror
System	Custom

For the Polish band see Kult (band)

Kult or KULT is a contemporary, fictional horror role-playing game.

1 Setting
2 Rules
3 History
4 Trivia
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Setting

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The setting is very intense and gloomy: In Kult, the world as we see it is nothing but a simple illusion, built as a prison for humanity, cast there by the Demiurge. According to the game, the world as we see it is as real as a movie set: All smoke and mirrors. In reality, humanity lives in the ruins of its former greatness. Around us in the darkness are the guardians, the Archons, put there by the Demiurge to keep humanity in ignorance. The Archons have various creatures do their bidding, and these are our jailers. Death is merely a ploy to reset the consciousness of the soul and make impossible the acquisition of enough knowledge to escape the prison.

Metropolis is the eternal city that is True Reality and as the Illusion disintegrates, Metropolis is slowly revealed to us as evidenced in the urbanization of the world. "Death is only the beginning" references the reality that all the suffering of a soul on Earth is nothing compared to horrors that await in the afterlife in Metropolis. Metropolis also intersects with us and appears in our reality wherever there are torture chambers, death camps, battlefields and other scenes of human agony and distress. The Citadel, a towering fortress at the center of Metropolis, was the Demiurge's throne before his disappearance and at the opposite side of the world is an anti-Citadel where Astaroth (or Lucifer or Satan) rules. Below Metropolis is the Abyss where She-Who-Waits-Below dwells as an unknown entity of immense power. Mortals achieve levels of awareness of their true potential of Godhood through a series of transformations including destroying a polar opposite angel/demon of yourself, transcending your corporeal body and finally achieving the Awakening, although this rarly, if ever, happens to player characters in the game.

The game universe is strongly influenced by Gnosticism. Influences of Clive Barker and H. R. Giger are also obvious.

The imagery of Kult is powerful and the first edition included a warning in the front that the book would be disturbing to some.

[edit] Rules

The system is a skill based system utilizing 20-sided dice (It is however not the d20 system published by Wizards of the Coast), with point based characters. It has one of the most deadly combat systems yet seen in an RPG and fatality rates of the characters to match.

Kult's magic system is largely drawn on the same real-world occult belief systems as some modern magick societies. Dragon Rouge magic beliefs, in particular, are similar to the magic theory described in Kult, if one ignores the more extreme aspects of the game (such as the supernatural creatures that function as "enemies" to the players characters, or the idea that the world is an illusion).

[edit] History

KULT was originally released as a Swedish role-playing game, and later translated into several other languages. Kult has been released in Swedish, German, English, Italian, Spanish and French.

Currently, KULT is being published in English and French by 7th Circle and in Italian by Raven Distribution.

The game was originally created by Gunilla Jonsson and Michael Petersén and released by the company Target Games in 1991.

The two first editions of the game are out of print, but the game has been licensed from its current owners, Paradox Entertainment, to the French company 7th Circle. Their third edition of Kult, subtitled Beyond The Veil is currently out of print, and indications seem to point towards the English line being moved to a strictly electronic format, PDF^[1].

[edit] Trivia

The Hellraiser-like aspects of the game's aesthetic is rumored to have been added by project leader Nils Gulliksson.

Some symbols and creatures that appear in Kult can be seen in other Swedish games. The Mutant Chronicles universe (created by Nils Gulliksson and Michael Stenmark) and the many spin offs from that, shares creatures and some mutual details in background stories etc.

Interestingly, the different editions aren't the same in different languages. Specifically, the Swedish second edition diverges quite a lot from the original, as well as the English second edition. Most of the changes seemed to be aimed at removing references to real-world occult groups and practices, and is rumoured to have happened because of the negative press given the game after a young boy playing the game committed suicide. The hysteria concerning the game had its origins in a warning broadcast by the Swedish TV news station Rapport. The suicide was later discovered to not be related to the game.