This classic scenario, first presented at LinCon in 1991, has become legendary for its controversial content, and is without a doubt partly - if not substantially - responsible for the outrage KULT caused in the early 90s, and the lasting notoriety it has acquired.
It was written by the original authors of the game, Gunilla Jonsson and Michael Petersén, and only available in Swedish for the next 28 years.
Late in 2019, Helmgast re-released it for a wider audience - translated into English, adapted to the new rules of the current edition, and freely available for download.
You can find it here on their website:
https://kultdivinitylost.com/resources/
Or directly from here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EKG4k9Py94BhFF1OxXkwVu3rpWl4fz_j/view?usp=sharing
I had the great honor to be asked by Petter Nallo to take care of the rules adaptations. I had greatly enjoyed my previous work on Taroticum and Other Tales, so of course I gladly accepted that invitation. I can just never decline a chance to work with classic KULT material - I love it too much!
The scenario is not very rules-heavy, especially by the standards of 1st ed. KULT, and I had heard that Gunilla and Michael used to run it mostly in a freeform kind of way, themselves.
But there were of course a number of NPC statblocks to convert to K:DL, the PCs themselves needed their character sheets adapted, and the scenes had to be checked for situations where a Basic Move or the use of an Advantage might be suggested here or there.
Of all these, the biggest challenge was perhaps the PCs themselves - and the powers that are unlocked for them as the Seven Seals are broken, one by one. That's clearly what I spent most of my time on with this one.
In the end, we decided to keep the characters rather on the rules-light side - at least in the beginning - to fit with the scenario itself. We gave them only two Advantages, and no Disadvantages because the scenario is so focussed that having these would run a risk of unnecessarily derailing it.
Relations are likewise merely described informally, since there will be hardly any time to socialize with them anyways.
We did give them short write-ups about areas they are generally competent in, in which I carried over a number of the Skills they used to have in the old edition. These boxes on the sheet are intended to convey to the players a quick and easy to grasp impression of what their characters are, well, "generally competent in", i.e. which kinds of tasks they can be expected to perform with confidence and ease.
And then there were the Effects on the PCs When the Seals Are Broken. There was a bit of going back and forth on these - how to translate this, how to adapt that... But I think I like the way they turned out in the end.
I tried to time them a bit to some possible sequences of events, such as when the Angels are liable to attack them, or when they are hunted by the police while searching for Jim in Rome... but at the same time they had to synergize with the PCs' Attributes and previously existing Advantages, and ideally also with their themes as both the Riders and the Apostles.
Ultimately, only your own playthroughs can show whether these ideas have indeed succeeded - so if you have played or run it, let me know in the comments how it went!
On the other hand, if you're still wondering whether to try it with your group, or have already decided you will but didn't get around to it yet... Here's a podcast to inspire you, where the original authors play it with the awesome guys from Redmoon Roleplaying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj45s1-APlE
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| What Jim never told us... The Riders are the Storm! |
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