Character Creation: Kult

Been a good long while since I've done a modern horror game.

The Game: Kult (1st Edition)

The Publisher: Target Games, now defunct (there's a new edition published by Mophidius, but I don't have that one)

Degree of Familiarity: None, which is weird

Books Required: Just the one

Kult was published in 1991 in Sweden, and then in 1993 in English, meaning it was around just about the time I was getting into horror gaming (I ran Chill 2nd Ed almost exclusively from summer 1992 to summer 1994 when Wraith: The Oblivion came out). I think I remember seeing a copy kicking around at my FLGS (Mind Games, in Toledo) but I never bought it. Might have a financial decision, the game might have seemed too religious in nature to me (doubtful, but possible), or I might have thought it looked a little too "edgy," like it was trying too hard. I don't remember, that's a lot of years ago.

Reading it now, it's pretty darned 90s. The layout looks more than a little like a contemporary White Wolf game, but the prose is pretty easy and the game establishes its tone right out of the gate, which is nice. The system looks like you roll a d20 and want to roll lower than your target, but still high, which is an arrangement we considered for Chill 3rd and strikes me as unintuitive as hell (if you want to roll low, you should want to roll low, and vice versa - I speak from experience when I say that 90% of players at the table to play a horror game do not give a shit about the statistical breakdown of the mechanics).

Anyway, the basic idea here is that we're in a "world where the sun has set." Monsters, horrors, possession, God has abandoned the world, and our characters are folks who seek truth to kill their own inner demons, perhaps, which is a notion I can get behind.

My amigo Travis gave me this song as an inspiration ("Angrboda," Wolves in the Throne Room):

 

I'm not a fan of black metal generally, but I do like the music here. The lyrics are inaudible, so I'm not going to worry about them. This is actually really perfect for this game, I think.

So, staring off, I'm meant to do character concept and history and stuff like that. Let's say that this guy has some shit on his soul. His name is Roscoe Worth. Roscoe grew up poor, in a shitty section of a large city. The plant down the road, where his father and uncles worked, was really where everybody from his neighborhood worked. You worked there until you got cancer from the chemicals, or you were good enough at sports to get out.

Roscoe went a slightly different way: He and his pals formed a band. They dropped out of high school in the middle of their senior year (there's more to it than just wanting to go play metal; Chris, the lead singer, was going to get kicked out anyway because of some vandalism that got out of hand and everyone else followed suit). Roscoe's dad had a van that he never used, so Roscoe stole it to use as the band's transport. They played a couple of (probably illegal, given their ages) gigs at some of the shittier bars downtown, and then they got a call from some guy who owned a biker bar out on the highway.

They went out, played the gig, got very trashed, and started heading back to the city. They saw lights behind them, and Roscoe, not wanting to get pulled over, tried to outrun the cops. With his buddies cheering him on, he drove straight off a bridge and into the river. All of the other passengers died; Roscoe managed to survive by sheer luck. He spent 18 months in prison and got paroled, and he's been drifting ever since.

Roscoe is angry - he's angry at the cops that chased him, he's angry at Chris for talking everyone into dropping out, he's angry at the bar owner for booking a bunch of 18-year-olds and giving them beer all night, and he's mostly angry at himself for what he did. It's been years, and Roscoe can't get over that anger.

OK, good start. Next? Archetype. Well, sure, 90s game. There's a Rock Musician Archetype, but that seems to assume a successful musician. I think Outsider makes the most sense. There is no place on the character to write Archetype, in fact. Oy.

Archetype also gives you a list of possible Disadvantages, Advantages, and Dark Secrets, but those terms haven't really been explained so I'm gonna move on to the next step and hope this all gets contextualized.

Next I split up 100 points into the 8 Abilities: Agility, Strength, Constitution, Comeliness, Ego, Charisma, Perception, and Education. I am not a fan of these. Comeliness in particular is dumb; it's a measure of attractiveness, which is always iffy, but then the book also says it's rarely rolled. What's the damn point, then?

Anyway, Roscoe. I think the physical ones are going to be higher, maybe Charisma? Education actually has a barometer - it's the number of years you went to school up to 15. Since Roscoe dropped out in 12th grade I'll say he's got an 11.

Comeliness can be kinda middling, too, so I'll put that at 8. Agility, Strength, and Constitution I want a little higher, so I'll say 15 each. That's 64 spent, so 46 to split between Ego, Perception, and Charisma. Let's say 13 in Charisma, 15 in Perception (prison kept him wary) and that'd leave 8 for Ego, which is fine. So that's:

Agility 17

Ego 8

Comeliness 8

Perception 15

Strength 17

Education 11

Constitution 17

Charisma 13

And now some secondary abilities. I can lift my Strength in kilograms and still walk (17 kg, about 37 pounds). I can move 9 meters per round, and I get 3 actions per round. +5 to initiative, +4 to damage, my Endurance is 115 but there's no slot for it (what the shit).

Speaking of what the shit, the next thing on the list is Dark Secrets, which I have to take if the character has a "negative mental balance." After a good five minutes of looking, I discovered that one's "mental balance" comes from subtracting Advantages from Disadvantages, which is a later step. Sure, I should read all the instructions before starting, but why would the Dark Secret come before the step that determines whether you have one?

Anyway. Skipping that for now. Advantages and Disadvantages! Disadvantages first. I want Persecuted (obviously, I have a criminal record), Touchy (generally angry person), and Death Wish (it's not that Roscoe wants to die, but he's long since stopped being afraid of it).

Advantages, then? Artistic Talent (Roscoe is actually a talented musician). I don't actually think I need any other ones.

Oh, great, more stupidity. Check it:

Right? Disadvantages - Advantages. But lo, here's the example of character creation:

That's Advantages - Disadvantages. That's not the same thing. The character sheet seems to indicate the latter is correct:

So that's what I'm going with. That makes my mental balance -15. That also means I jump back two steps and, since I have a negative mental balance, I need a Dark Secret. I could get weird and say that he was a victim of medical experiments in prison, or that he's been possessed or something, but I think Guilty of Crime is fine. Roscoe killed four of his friends because he was stupid, and no matter what occult truths he learns, he can't undo that. (Or can he? No, best not to think about that.)

Skills! I get 150 points, plus 15 for my overage in Disadvantages, so that's 165 points. I start with a 3 in all of the basic skills, I can't take academic skills at all because my Education is too low, and Skills are 1-for-1 unless I want to go over the controlling Ability, in which case it's 1-for-3. Fortunately, all the Skills are on the sheet. So, what would I like?

Climb 15

Handgun 15

Sneak 15

Dodge 15

Unarmed Combat 17

Hide 15

Search 12

Play Drums 17

Play Guitar 17

Computer 5

Seduction 12

Net of Contacts 12

Singing 13

Drive Vehicle 11

Night Combat 12

That's 165!

So, that's pretty much it beyond description/further history. Roscoe has been out of prison for a few years, and he can't hold a job. He gets music gigs as he can, and he's good, but it's always under the table and he never stays with a band. He has a beat-up van that he lives in, and he travels around as the whim takes him. He's technically in violation of his parole, but his PO is overworked and long since stopped giving a shit.

Roscoe, for his part, is afraid to stop feeling angry because if he does, there's nothing left but guilt and despair. Discovering the occult truth of the world might actually be a relief, because it might give him a real cause. It's not like he's afraid to die.

Roscoe is tall and thin (he doesn't eat much). He's got black hair and blue eyes, and he's got multiple tattoos, most of them from prison. He carries a revolver sometimes, but usually leaves it in his van (massive parole violation). He has an electric guitar in the van, and he wants to pick up his own drum set, but hasn't freed up the money.

And I think that's it!