Homebrewed "Observe the Situation" Variant Move

 

Hot take:
The Observe a Situation move is the single weakest and most awkward of all PbtA basic moves. 

Always has been, ever since the hallowed and sanctified forefather-game Apocalypse World itself.

There, I said it. 

It just never really worked smoothly for me. I feel it breaks the immersion in a totally odd way, and distributes narrative rights (and player input / reactions / consequences) somehow clumsily and counterintuitively. It just tends to break the flow of the conversation, while at the same time weirdly boxing in the fiction as well.

On top of that, it doesn't explain its trigger - not just not very well, but not at all... "When you observe the situation" is just a repetition of the move's name, for Demiroth's sake! We don't get that with other moves. Most of them generally describe what the fictional action of the character should roughly look like in order to trigger them.

And finally, the questions the move allows: These shouldn't be the literal questions the players get to ask. They are good categories, by and large, but they shouldn't be categories the players are made to think in. Instead, they should be seen as "General Areas of Situational Observance", and should be for the GM to keep in mind, when looking out for things in the conversation that might trigger the move.

Apocalypse World (and all the games that followed it, and kept the move's structure by and large the same) wasn't totally off, you see. 

Just like, I get the impression that the intended design wasn't completely thought through, just yet.

Aw crap, now we got a bunch of mafia thugs powerwalking right at us! Not good! At a quick
glance, if shit was to hit the fan, I wonder which one of them would be the most dangerous?

Here's my take on it:

- Make the players' questions be what triggers the move!

- Make the answers give the players what they're asking for, if they rolled well enough (arguing that highly perceptive characters would know what they want to look for, and wouldn't ask if there wasn't a reasonable chance for it to be discoverable here), instead of dictating their next actions so they can get that little bonus to them.

- Sure, sometime your prep may prevent [this specific thing they wanted], but then the move (if you trigger it, see the Disclaimer below) has to make you offer suitable replacement observations.

 

With these guiding principles in mind, I have written a new move, radically revamped and intended to replace the OaS from the corebook:

(Disclaimer: Activating this move is subject to the usual rule-of-thumb to "say yes, or no, or roll the dice". In other words, only let the player roll if neither your prepwork, nor the established fiction, or anything else in the game pre-empts it by already providing a clear answer to the triggering question. You could quickly rack up a real high number of rolls otherwise, and that might end up more disruptive than helpful to the game.)

Assess or Exploit the Environment

When you are looking to spot details about your surroundings in order to find advantages or gain insights you can exploit, ask the GM what you wanna know about and roll +Perception. 

The GM will reveal potential exploits and discoveries according to how well you roll, while also honoring the limits decreed by the game's already-established fiction and the GM's own secret prep work.

General Uses of Perception in Charged Situations:

(directions to think in / aspects of a situation to ask about)

• Threat assessment
• Searching for hidden things or subtle details
  
• Checking for dangers or threats
• Looking for advantages or beneficent ways to proceed
• ...
  

 

Example Questions: 

(if you ask something like these, the GM can trigger the move)

• Which one of them is the greatest threat?
• Which one of them is weakest against [this thing we got]?
• Can I see a terminal or something, where this could be switched off?
• Where did her dropped gun go? Can I perhaps locate and pick it up?
• Are there any more [soldiers / gang members / cultists] hidden somewhere nearby?
• Wait, is this corridor trapped, perhaps? Do I see any wires or odd sections of floor or the like?
• Is there a chandelier I could use to swing on, to escape these thugs?
• I look out the window - is there a fire escape we could flee down?
• Is there any way to block that door? Just to buy us a couple minutes maybe?
• Could I distract those goons, perhaps by toppling over a big bookshelf or something? I wanna get straight to the chanting man by the altar without them getting in the way.
• Is there something I could use as an improvised weapon? Like a fire poker, metal statuette, or dunno, a big flower vase maybe... or a chair I could break or something?
  
• ...
  

A burglar wondering what may be the smoothest way
for him to get into (and out of) this fancy crib...

GM-Reminder: Only trigger the move if you're not prepared to answer the question anyways.
If you decide to let your player make the roll even though your prep or the established fiction alredy prescribes (or prevents) certain answers, proceed as described below.

If and when the GM asks you to roll +Perception after you asked a question similar to the above,

On (15+), if the GM's prep doesn't explicitly state something contrary, the GM will give you what you're looking for, plus something extra (such as letting you ask an additional question, or answering another question or two for free), and you take +1 to act upon (either of) these reveals.

(Example of prep-induced negation: There cannot be a terminal in this room to switch off the poison gas with, because it is established in prep that the machinery that pumps it in is controlled from a hidden panic room in the basement.) 

If the GM's prep does prevent you from getting what you asked for, the GM will offer you two alternate observations - ideally adjacent, if not fully equivalent, to what you originally went for. You may additionally also get something extra, such as another question answered for free, as per above.

(Example of alternate offerings: Though you cannot locate a mechanism to switch off the poison gas, you see a way to plug the vents it streams in through (if you act fast enough, or in concert with a helper), and you spot a cupboard across the room with its door ajar so so you can see that there are a handful of gas masks inside (but to get there you have to go through the crossfire from the cultists shooting in through the door).

 

On (10-14), you spot something useful, but the GM will make it something less effective, hard to attain, or that comes with consequences or a cost attached. You still take +1 to exploit this insight, discovery, or observation.

(Example of "something less": Yes, you see gas vents that you could plug up, but it will not be perfect, just prolonging the time until the room fills up with it... Or alternatively, the GM may decide that it can be done, but the one that does the plugging (getting closest to the vents) must still suffer the effects of the gas - though then your comrades will be safe from it...)

 

On (-9), you do not find what you're looking for, and no close substitute either. In fact, you may have distracted yourself looking in all the wrong spots, and overlooked something dangerous. The GM makes a move.

Terrain ahead is contested. Death can lurk anywhere. Better make damn sure.

Special Case: Avoidance Questions

Sometimes when asking about threats or dangers, what the player really wants to hear is "No. There's nothing like that here."  That's an entirely legit and valid thing to ask about, too.

Examples:

• Are there any more soldiers lying in hiding, ready to flank us once we advance?
• Does this corridor look like it might be trapped?
• I look behind me every now and again, to make sure I'm not being followed...?
  

 

In such cases: On a successful roll, give the player that certainty, and let them take the +1 as well. Now that they know there are no hidden reinforcements over there, they can advance with improved confidence and bravado.

On a partial, you can give them something like: "Yeah, there might be a few guys hiding there... but it couldn't possibly be many, and you can see they'd have a shoddy angle for shooting at you guys anyways, from that particular spot". And still give the player that +1, that's cool, they earned it.

On a fail, feel free to go: "You can't be sure about that... in fact you can hear a rustling sound from those very bushes, and did you just spot a dark silhouette moving over there, too?"
And you can make a move, because of course you can.

Oh shit, wait - I'm not being followed by anyone... or am I?!

Note on Avoidance Questions vs. Pre-Existing GM Prep:

If your prep and the result of this roll come into conflict - say, if you had totally planned to have some soldiers hidden in the bushes off to the side... or to have the PC shadowed by an insane stalker... then you face an immediate choice: 

• Abandon your plans and let the player have the certainty of having made damn sure there can't be any nasty surprises coming that way.
• Reveal the threat's presence to the player, regardless of the roll's result. In this case, also double the bonus the PC gets to act upon (or against) the newly discovered revelation, making it a +2.

NB: If the player rolled a fail and you go for the second option, you can make a move for the hidden threats, even immediately (if you want to). But if you do, give the PC that fat bonus against [those soldiers / that stalker / ...] anyways.

Yes, also to dodging their [gunfire / knife stabs / ...] during this "surprise round", or similar stuff.

That player just totally guessed your devious trap! That deserves rewarding.

Or well, you know... at least a fair shot at surviving said trap. 

Yeah, we can give 'em that much.

Bottom Line: 

Play it reactively, take your cues from the players and what they're interested in / looking for. 

Don't make them jump through weird conversational hoops. Do your best to keep the game flowing smoothly - while also giving fair dues to your own prep and the fiction as established. 

Ask the dice only as a last resort. If you do, and they roll well, grant them what they wanted.

But if they roll badly, don't hesitate to dish out some fierce consequences.

You can hear the killer's steps slowly descending the stairs as you find yourselves in
this room. You said you look around for anything useful, yes? What are you trying to
find most urgently? A weapon? A place to hide? An escape route? Something else?
Ask, and you shall be given. Maybe.

 

 

 

Getting High is Only the Beginning - using (and abusing) Drugs in K:DL

 

The question occasionally comes up: How to handle drugs in Kult: Divinity Lost? 

It's by no means an unreasonable request to wanna know about - the game revolves all around the dark aspects of the human psyche, after all. Suffering, desire, anxiety, nightmares, insanity, obsession, expansion of the senses to perceive other realities... Surely intoxication, addiction, hallucinations, and other aspects of drug (ab)use firmly have a place in this!

 

Jeez, man - what the fuck you put in this drink??

(Salvador Dali)

However, the Corebook doesn't really dedicate a lot of space to the mechanical representation of this whole topic. We get the Drug Addict Disadvantage, but apart from that there are only occasional mentions, and we are never given any hard and fast rules for it.

Why is that?

Fun fact: As backers of the original K:DL kickstarter may remember, there was an early draft of the open beta for the 4th ed. Corebook which had a table with Attribute modifiers according to the effects of different drugs you might ingest. 

But it was ultimately decided to cut it out - so it never became part of the published book.

Here are a few excerpts from it:

As you can see, amphetamines improve your reflexes, while alcohol boosts endurance.
Also, cannabis apparently allows you to ignore injuries just as well as alcohol does.

Heroin looks suspiciously similar to alcohol, except it doesn't improve endurance, but at
least it also doesn't reduce your willpower. Otherwise it's much the same, just stronger.

 Evidently the effects of LSD on your intellect and perception are about on par with those
of cannabis... but you get funky visions from it, too. Sniffing glue on the other hand is the
only drug that doesn't care about which Attribute it affects - it fucks them all up equally.

(If you're interested in the full table,
find me via DMs and I'll send it over.)

Here, for comparion, the equivalent table from old Kult:

 

This one shows a very different approach. Not concerned with individual Attributes, but rather interested in the user's mental, emotional, and physical conditions - in other words, their fictional positioning... and you know what I find funny about it?

It seems perfectly fitted for adaptation into a PbtA system, with its tiered results and all!

Sure, there's some solidly Old-School Simulationism involved, with its calculation of CON-rating fractions - but just think if the terms given in it were distributed across (-9), (10-14), and (15+) instead... 

In fact, I have occasionally in my K:DL games drawn inspiration from the oldKult drugs table, playing it by ear to gauge the effects of intoxacting substances on PCs. You can let them roll +Fortitude (or +Willpower if you feel that fits better) to see how well their metabolism (and/or their mind) takes it, then adjudicate on the fly what seems to make the most sense / best drama / most terrifying horror / ... (as needed), taking into account the drug's dosage, purity, and other circumstances in the fiction.

So in comparison, this strikes me as a much more useful 'guide to drugs' than the above shown table could ever hope to be. Seems understandable why they decided to leave it out after all, eh? 

It would have just been a lot of miniscule bookkeeping for the GM, and at the same time disappointingly inconsequential most of the time.

Somewhere between the cumbersome 'keeping track of five distinct -1 penalties every time a character gets a bit drunk', and the hard-to-rationalize 'tripping on LSD or snifffing glue also giving me no more than a bunch of -1s'... 

...well, I feel like there has to be a better way to handle this.

Because sometimes, all you want is a quick way to gauge a drug's impact on your general narration, i.e. on your game's fiction.

But sometimes, you may wish to represent a PC's intoxication mechanically in the game.

It can at times become hard to distinguish which parts
are the hallucinations and which ones are real...

(Nostradamus)

 

Here's my take on how to go about it

in six (mostly) brief steps:

- Use what the Apocalypse engine already gives you

In truth, drugs are already (kind of) part of the PbtA system. When the ingestion of stimulants or narcotics becomes part of the shared narrative, the rules for it behave exactly as the rules for any other story elements: We are being fans of the player characters, so we are highly interested in -

• "Why do you consume the drug?"
• "How do you do it?"
• "When and where? In whose company?"
• "What do you feel it helps you achieve or accomplish?"
• "What are the downsides, the complications and troubles it gives you?" 
• ...
  

In other words: What are the drug's manifold narrative functions?

- Tailor it to your PCs' needs

Discuss the characters' drug use with the player, and judge any intoxication effects accordingly, tailored to the individual user.

Does the PC snort coke to stay awake and alert for his shift at work? Or to party through the night afterwards? 

Does she shoot up heroin to soothe her wounded soul and find some small measure of comfort in this cruel world? Or pop some amphetamins to distract herself from the guilt and shame that haunt her?

Does he eat shrooms to expand his conscience and pursue his spirituality? Or smoke some weed to relax and have some laughs with the boys while playing videogames?

There are dozens of different types of drugs, and hundreds of reasons and techniques how to consume them. Find out about your characters' preferences, habits, pressures, hopes, and fears - and how they connect to the drug use.

- Tie it back to Basic Moves

One of the best game design advice I ever got for Kult: Divinity Lost was from Robin Liljenberg, when I made some writeups for the monsters and NPCs in one of the campaigns we published. I was highly enthusiastic and thinking about all kinds of special abilities and unique powers I could give to the various monsters in there, and what custom moves might be uses to represent them. Robin suggested to not focus on writing too many new special moves for each monster - but rather to simply tie things back to the Basic Moves, as much as I possibly could. 

He taught me that the game's basic engine is strong enough to carry many variations of all kinds of narratives within its genre, on the shoulders of those 10 moves alone. And as time has since proven to me, he was right. 

With this in mind, there are few very simple, and very intuitive things we can do with regard to drugs:

When Philipp gets shitfaced-drunk to forget his worries, he becomes disoriented and insensitive. Actions that would normally easily succeed may instead require a roll for him, such as Observe a Situation or Read a Person. He also becomes completely unable to meaningfully Investigate anything in this state. 

When Kenny gets shitfaced-drunk to suppress his nightmares, he becomes abrasive and clumsy. Attempts to Influence Others and Act under Pressure that would normally easily succeed may instead require a roll for him. He also automatically fails the first attempt to Avoid Harm he has to make in any given scene while still drunk.

When Gabby snorts some speed to get hyper before an illegal street race, she may take +1 to any rolls to Act under Pressure and Avoid Harm during the race, until the high wears off. Every time she wins a race while under the influence, she must Keep it Together or become Addicted to the white powder.

When Tricia is whacked out on morphium because sometimes she just needs a break from it all, it makes her feel numb and deeply at ease. She feels no pain from any kind of Wounds, and automatically succeeds to Keep it Together, should she have to. However, she must Act under Pressure in order to do anything except lethargically lie around or sluggishly shuffle about. 

When Ben hits the cocaine to get into his party mood, he becomes active and extroverted. He takes 2 Edges, usable to apply a +2 bonus when rolling for any Basic Move. At the same time however, passive and inert behaviour such as sitting still or shutting up for more than a few moments requires him to Keep it Together, and a fail compels him to keep moving and talking.

...

As you can see, positive and negative consequences can come from the same substance. All drugs have beneficial benefits (the consequences desired by the user) and unpleasant downsides. Be sure to mix up both in your custom drug moves. If the people who use drugs wouldn't get something out of it, nobody would be using them at all.
(At least before they fall victims to a crippling addiction, that is. But that comes a bit later.)

Use Basic Moves, simple numerical modifiers, and the occasional automatic success for the beneficial effects. As a general rule, make the positive aspects of drug use comparatively small bonuses, or with only a few uses.

For the downsides, employ your GM Moves, give (stronger) numerical penalties (and the occasional automatic failure) to certain Basic Moves, and generally adjust your measures for when something should and shouldn't be a roll in the first place.
Make the complications that arise from intoxication rather situational perhaps, but more severe.

Example: For people who like dropping acid, it's not normally a huge problem that you would be very bad at talking to your parents, teachers, or boss while under its influence - because you wouldn't usually be around them when you're tripping on it. But if you are forced into that situation anyways... it's not unreasonable that you should suffer strong complications.)

This precarious balance between effects and downsides is fluid, however. 

Eventually, When Addiction sets in, i.e when a PC gets the Drug Addict Disadvantage, this should mark the point when the positive effects rapidly start to diminish, and the downsides escalate to swiftly become dominant in the user's life. 

As the GM, you are always free to drift and change the details of your players' custom drug moves, according to whatever the fiction suggests and your devious mind sees as fitting.

They say drugs, you say how high!

(Mahadma Ghandi)

- Explore the Fiction: habits, rituals, attitudes, uses...

We are already knee-deep into this, in fact, but it cannot hurt to recall: The fiction is the most important thing. Take care not to get lost in just numbers and dice rolls. None of that is important (or interesting) if it doesn't facilitate the telling of a gripping and horrifying story. 

Take a look back at the first two headers here, What the Apocalypse engine already gives you and Tailor it to the PC's needs, and double-check the questions there. Are they being answered? 

It's okay if they are being answered in-game, doesn't have to be up-front. As long as you got the feeling that the conversation is moving in a way that is getting you closer to getting them answered eventually, you can afford to be patient for now.

- 'Specialize' your rulings from Basic Moves to Dis/Ads, Stability, Relations...
  (but only if you're feelin' it)

There are some situations that justify writing up your very own, unique special moves for a game. Compare, for example, my recent blog post about Refusing Death, which I think constitutes such a case. This is comparatively rare however, and most of the time you should prefer to employ the core mechanics that already exist in the game.

This doesn't have to be Basic Moves only. It can easily extend (if you want it) to Advantages, Disadvantages, Stability, Relations, Wounds, personal drives, etc.

In real life, drug users - especially the more experienced and routined ones - often have very precise cocktails of substances, or ways how they use them, in order to achieve highly specific results. They're proficient in using their drugs of choice, you see. All of these substances have very particular effects, and we are extremely adept at tailoring our consumption to meet our individual needs.

Even outside of illegal/excessive drug use, people are taking their psych meds to counteract their depression, anxiety, or schizophrenia. They take sleeping pills against their insomnia, and painkillers to make it through the day in spite of their bad back. Coffee to get started into the day fresh and vivid, an aspirin against the headache, a glass of wine to enliven the conversation... 

We have our habits, rituals, and custom using techniques with these substances, as well. We know to take our dixanephram with half a cup of coffee, to even out the early onset tiredness. We have learned that smoking cigarettes and drinking beer combines to produce that mild euphoria we so like. We bring a whole assortment of different pills and powders to the party, to finetune our personal experience for many hours to come.

Applying the same ideas to encompass a PC's various mechanical Traits, then:

We have already gotten to know Kenny, above, who uses strong alcohol to suppress his nightmares. This might be ruled to, unsurprisingly, affect his Nightmares. Perhaps when he gets hammered before going to sleep at night, the GM rules that he automatically passes his roll for the Disadvantage that night. 

(Although maybe after a while the effects become weaker as his metabolism becomes more used to them, so he merely gains a +2 to his roll against the Nightmares anymore... and it may deteriorate further from there.)

We have also briefly met Gabby and Ben, the racer and the party tiger. For Gabby, an alternate ruling for her consumption of stimulants before a race might be to give her bonuses on her Driver Advantage.
For Ben, we don't know precise what it is he does when he gets into his "party mood" - but it might be that he snorts the coke to boost his abilities related to the use of Forked Tongue, Artistic Talent, or as a Seducer. 

(Note that such a limited area of benefit is much 'weaker' than the blanket bonuses to any Basic Move that we gave him above. Perhaps, therefore, grant a slightly larger number of Edges to him, or even allow the occasional auto-success perhaps?)

Conversely, maybe Tricia doesn't shoot up heroin in order to suppress any particular one of her chronic mental or social problems (i.e. Disadvantages), nor to improve her performance in certain fields of expertise (Advantages). Instead, perhaps she uses it to soothe her tormented soul, seeking to regain a measure of comfort and stability amidst her cruel and miserable life. 

The GM may therefore change her Heroin Move to: 

When you shoot up heroin after suffering a shock, trauma, or other severe emotional pain, you may retroactively ignore your most recent decrease in Stability. Unmark those boxes on your sheet as you regain these Stability levels.

In any such endeavors, remember to mix benefits and downsides into interesting cocktails of potential narrative developments - related both to potential progress, and looming complications.

Except for dope, we operate in all aspects of organized
crime. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that drugs
destroy your mind, and destroy your family.
In the end, it will only lead our country into ruin.

(John F. Kennedy)

 - When they break, escalate the Bad Things... hard!

When a PC goes Broken in the course of drug (ab)use, the time for being patient with them is over. No more slow buildup of tension, gradual deterioration of social relations, creeping threats to their bodiyl and mental health, etc. Make a Move, and make it hard.

You may confer the Drug Addict Disadvantage on the PC, if they don't have it yet. If they are already addicted, consider giving them a Mental Compulsion, Obsession, Phobia, or even inflict Schizophrenia, a paranoia of imagined (or are they?) Stalkers, or simply a cripping Depression.

Certain drugs also have the potential to take our minds to the borderlands of the Illusion, and sinister otherwordly entities are always lurking there, waiting for confused and helpless victims to stumble by. So you could also choose to subject the PC to a Curse, have them become Haunted, or turn them into an Involuntary Medium perhaps?

From this point onwards, continued consumption may see its benefits diminishing rapidly, or no longer apply at all - while the downsides should escalate radically. It's all in your GMly hands now. The player character has ventured too deep into the forbidden abyss, and their compulsion have gotten out of hand, driving them to ever greater depravities, and tormenting them with ever worsening consequences.

 

 

Hangovers - the Inevitable Price We Pay

Those precious moments when you swear you're never drinking again. They're fleeting, but right then and there, the sentiment is usually an honest one.

Much less fleeting are the various physical, mental, and emotional aftermaths of drug (ab)use, that can plague the afflicted for hours, an entire day, or even several days after the high wears off. 

We have described benefits and downsides of drug consumption, but these mechanics are only applicable while the intoxication still lasts. They only shape up into a wholesome trinity when a third aspect is added: the drug's after-effects. The hangover. The crash. The puking. The shakes. The relentlessly racing thoughts. The itching. The restless legs. The intermittently returning hallucinations. The insomnia. The screaming agony from the yawning void inside yourself.

It's bad enough to make you go look for another hit, just a tiny little one perhaps... just to take the edge off. And most usally, you'll give in. You go score some more of that good stuff, sooner than later.

Such is the cycle of using, elation, suffering, abuse, and addiction. 

Mechanically, when representing the effects of a hangover, try and go for those aspects of the rules that were not employed by either the drug's benefits or downsides. 

• If the rush gives the PC a numerical bonus to some roll or other, don't give them a numerical penalty the next day. Perhaps target their Stability instead.
• If the ingestion of a feel-good drug raises their Stability, the hangover might see them feel jaded and detached - reducing (either temporarily or for good) one of their Relations by 1 level...
• ...or perhaps they get nauseous, distrought, and bad-tempered upon coming down, and take -1 ongoing to all rolls, until well-rested or using again.
• If you have to (or want to) use numerical modifiers on both sides of the comedown - which you fully might, it's totally up to you - try and vary up which of the PC's Moves are affected. Perhaps a drug that makes them astute at paying attention to people and situations (i.e. bonuses to Intuition and Perception) leaves them fatigued and shaky (translating into penalties to Fortitude, Reflexes, and Coolness) the next day...
  

This, too, may be expanded to include Dis/Advantages as well. Perhaps when coming down from heroin, every roll against your Nightmares automatically fails for the next three days. Or maybe you get a -2 to your next roll for being an Exorcist during the after-effects of the mescalin. This too is fluid, and can (and should) be gradually drifted according to how the ongoing fiction of the game develops across time.

Doing this mechanical switch-up between benefits, downsides, and after-effects creates a well-varied playing field - while still firmly rooted in the game's existing core mechanics - on which you can establish interesting trade-offs, hard choices, and dramatic challenges for your players to enjoy as they steer their characters across the slippery, and ever-steepening slope they have maneuvered themselves onto. 

GM-Note about "reparation shots": Of course it is possibe to find a different drug which counteracts the after-effect of the one you took before. IRL drug users do this all the time. Naturally however, that new drug will have after-effects of its own... But you shouldn't shy away from letting players try to alleviate their problematic consequences in this way. Ultimately, it will only feed into them getting further entangled in the vicious cycle(s), and allow you to explore yet more of their personal horrors.

What Music Would You Like Them to Play at Your Funeral?

In the long run, using drugs rarely works out well for those who do it. But then again, in Kult, what else ever does? And ultimately, it is the journey that counts, not the doom it ultimately leads you to... right?

But will it be worth it?

Will you be able to rise above your addictions, to become something more than a glorified animal enslaved by its own brain chemistry?

Or will it end up consuming you, devour you whole and destroy you... just to spit you right back into the endless cycle of hopeless misery and blind ignorance that we call life?

Go ahead, give  your next character the Drug Addict Disadvantage, or even just a mild flirtation with some substance-related habit or other... and play to find out!

Hey children, drugs are bad,
and if you don't believe me ask your dad.
And if you don't believe him ask your mom,
she'll tell you how she does 'em all the time.
So kids, say no to drugs
so you don't act like everyone else does.
You know there's really nothing else to say,
Drugs are just bad, m'kay?

(Friedrich Nietzsche)

 

Kult in Historical Settings (pt.1)

Whether it be the trenches of World War I, the lawless plains of the American West in the 18th century, the royal court of King Arthur, the province of Nazareth under the rule of the Roman Empire, or even prehistoric ice age cultures... There is an undying fascination to the idea of playing Kult in other time periods.

However, under closer scrutiny, such ideas are often easier to quickly come up with than they are to actually get just right, for that trademark Kult feel.

A big part of the challenge is that, by default, Kult is very much tailor-made for a late 20th / early 21st century setting. 

Many of its motifs and themes, such as The Vanishing of God, the War of the Archons, the Encroachment of Inferno, and several other All-Caps Setting Elements are highly defining for its atmosphere, style, and mood.

Therefore, to me, the greatest challenge of playing in vastly different time periods is making the game's underlying themes work in them - or drifting them to still fit into the big cosmological narrative, while also staying true to the anarchic-dystopian spirituality and gleefully nihilistic philosophy of the original setting.

When running Kult in vastly different eras, you'll need to develop a firm idea of:

• where in the timeline of cosmic aeons / metaphysical cataclysms* are we?
• how does that generate horror to suffuse the game with?

* Note: I am using the idea of Aeons and Cataclysms as presented in the classic fanmade Book of Walls, which can be found on the Nyboria website, specifically in the section about Time and Space.

In order to answer these questions, it behoofs us to draft up a preliminary History of Elysium. I will do that in this post. Once we know (or can at least wildly guess at) the cosmological circumstances of its most defining eras, we can then attempt to answer the second question.
(Which however would have bloated this post beyond all reason, so I will attempt to do that in a separate, follow-up post to this one, at some point in the future.)

When imagining what such a metaphysical timeline of Elysium could look like, I realized that in my view, the history of the world in Kult is like the history of a very old prison. There have always been inmates, but they would have run through phases of variable unrestfulness and compliance. The were changes in management style, putting the guards under different orders, and more or less scrutiny upon their actions. Sometimes there were riots, crackdowns, close escapes...

Much of this will be pure guesswork and wild conjecture, naturally. But here's a rough idea of what it could look like: 

 

 

History is a Prison

 

The Seeding of the Garden

Malkuth forms Elysium from slices of Gaia, and the Demiurge imposes the Illusion upon it. Human souls begin incarnating in it. Their lives are short, brutish, and nasty.

The First Purge

The original, ultra-primitive environment turns out unsuitable to contain human souls for long; too many of their minds break under the pressure and limitations, they go mad and see through the Illusion. An age of ice, fire, floods, and darkness purges the human incarnations from Elysium, upon which it is metaphysically and arcanely expanded, strengthened, and "rebooted" by its masters.

The Lenience of the Archons / The First Uprising

Humankind now given at least some basic outlets in the possibilities of creating tools, crafting habitats etc, rapidly advances in both technologies and cultures. But the new system works very well in keeping their souls contained in the eternal cycle. The Jailers become complacent and humans achieve things we remember as Babylon, Atlantis, the Bronze Age high cultures, some of the Old Testament biblical shit...

The Crackdown

Some say the emergence of writing was what broke the camel's back, and the Jailers finally retaliated, and vehemently. The Bronze Age Collapse occurs as lictors and angels cut numerous civilisations back down to size.

The Jailers Revel in Glorious Dominance

As ancient mediterranean cultures develop, pantheisms become common since lictors, angels, azghouls etc are worshipped as local or regional deities. Mythical beings walk the earth thinly disguised and prey freely on humans, while the Illusion has gotten stronger in the wake of The Crackdown, and keeps humankind itself within tight reigns.

The Rise of the Sun

Abrahamic revolution, rise of montheism as the Demiurge contralizes His power. Many otherworldly beings are pushed out. The Illusion is stronger than ever, to the point that some of the "ground crew" type Jailers themselves go into Sleeper mode - some mancipia, eldermensch, lictors etc no longer consciously remember what they are, yet still, albeit unwittingly, continue doing their work in the Great Plan.

The Silence of God / The Stirs of the Snake

During the Medieval times, miracles no longer happen, and prayers are no longer answered. God is still watching, and judging, but He no longer speaks. Archons find themselves "forced" to step in when the Demiurge remains unresponsive and matters are urgent. The Illusion is becoming a bit weaker than before - although it happens unnoticably slow at first - but it starts to feel barren, desolate, and uncaring on some deep level.

Inferno stirs, its envoys and cultists more active than ever since The First Uprising.

The Vanishing

We all know this one: God is dead or gone, the rise of rationalism, enlightenment, modernity, postmodernity... the whole shebang. The Illusion feels increasingly empty, derelict, and abandoned. Even many Sleepers can feel this.

The War of the Archons

From at least the 30 Years War to at least Vietnam, this metaphysical conflict has (had) countless echoes in Elysium. It was (is) being fought across several of our our perceived centuries... The Principles are struggling for supremacy, seeking to control or destroy each other as each grasps for as much Influence over Elysium as possible.

Inferno Arising

Astaroth's magnificent and terrifying will is cryptic, but the Death Angels clearly act in accord at least some of the time, and a widespread onslaught of their attempts to manifest in Elysium is undeniable.

...

(The Ungiven Future)

 (...yes we should talk some more about Kult in Space some time! 

Remind me to get back to you on this :))

What do you think? Could there be cool, horrifying scenarios set in these time frames? Do you agree with this history? Spotted anything I left out or got gravely wrong? Have your own inspirations for a scenario in a different historical period?

Thrilled to read about it in the comments here, or over on Discord or FB!

 

 

Disturbing Discovery

 

Let's face it: We've all been musing about Kult in Space at some point or other, haven't we?
Most people immediately associate the idea with space-horror classics such as Hellraiser IV or Event Horizon... but here, Kraetyz shows that a possible take-off point for a Kultish campaign that is revolves around space travel can also be... much closer to home, as it were:

In 2025, NASA finally sends a team to revisit the original 1969 moon landing site. A trail of footsteps is found that goes off into the distance, classic moon leaps due east. In one of the larger craters, the tracks lead them to Neil Armstrong's body. Mummified in his space suit, he looks like he's been dead for 56 years. With the entire event being live sttreamed, there is no chance to conceal the disturbing discovery from the world.

Why is it there? And who or what was it that came back to Earth?  

 

(by Kraetyz)

 

 

 

For more Kraetyan goodness, be sure to check out his blog, Beyond Elysium. It has loads of good stuff, ranging from Actual Play reports, to explorations of the Kult Tarot cards, to mechanical considerations of PbtA and K:DL - truly there is something awesome for every Kultist to discover on there!

Space, the Final Illusion. These are the transgressions of the starship Kraeburney. Its sixty-six-year mission: To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly see through Veils that no man has seen through before!

 

 

 

The Pipe

This one is brought to you by Sølvkre, a good friend of mine from the Kult:Elysium discord group, who took this photograph while taking a stroll through the borderlands one day, and wrote the below story inspired by it.
I thought it was eminently Kultish, and with his permission may now share it with you:

* * *

He was not well versed in the particulars of flora that made up the moist green film that had grown up where the water ran down the concrete wall. Nor did he care much. The water trickled out of a rusty metal pipe, a little over an inch wide, and had endowed the surface of the wall with a multitude of colors and textures before it splashed into a small pool formed by years of erosion. It had rained for several days in a row now, and the water gushed out of the pipe as from the urinary tract of some shameless slut. Illuminated by his halogen flashlight the water reflected strange hypnotic patterns on the walls of the small room. An empty space left behind by urban growth, disused and hidden, but nonetheless an artifact of human aspirations. He let his index finger run along the edge of the pipe's opening. While it had probably once been smooth it was now serrated and uneven with a layer of rust. Further in, the surface felt smoother, even delicately organic, lubricated as it was by oily residues transported through the pipe by the water. He turned the flashlight off, and pocketed it. In complete darkness he could no longer see the pipe, so he had to feel his way with both hands; his sense of kinesthesia somewhat hindered by the lack of sight. He found and gripped the pipe, and leaned forwards. Carefully. He stopped to take in the sweet odors of decay carried by the water before he stuck his tongue into the hole. At first carefully probing, and then with more conviction. He licked with growing enthusiasm as the water covered his face, ran into his mouth, dripped on his coat and further down onto his shoes. He forced his tongue deeper into the narrow hole and let his lips envelop the protuberance, feeling the metal scrape against his teeth.The sharp edges of the pipe opened several small cuts in his mouth where rusty particles mated with his hemoglobin to impregnate his body with the consciousness of the city up there. Rat feces, dislodged pieces of diseased animals of various sorts, urine from a drunkard two blocks away and nitrogen oxides from a thousand cars mixed in his mouth. His pelvis gyrated slowly against the wall as he worked his orbicularis oris around the pipe. Grime, metal, rust and blood. He held every conceivable secret of the city in his mouth and it was much too much for a single mind to process. He threw up several times. On the wall, on the floor and on his clothes. He was entirely spent, and slumped down against the wall behind him. Still in darkness. He was too exhausted to turn the flashlight back on. He needed to sit for a while and let the cold air remind him what he was. An animal with futile aspirations of becoming ... He didn't know what. The sound of water digging ever deeper into the little pool reverberated through the chamber as if nothing had happened. The room and the walls were entirely indifferent to him. 

* * *

 

Sølvkre