In October 2023 we presented two offers featuring the 2018 Helmgast edition of the acclaimed RPG of contemporary horror, Kult: Divinity Lost: the revived October 2020 Kult: Divinity Lost Bundle and the all-new companion offer Kult Secrets 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, we can finally awaken from our induced sleep and take control of our stolen destiny. Funded in a February 2016 Kickstarter campaign, Kult: Divinity Lost updates the original 1991 Kult with a 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 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, too often, losing it. Your character advances by learning 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 predefined, expected Moves like Entrancement of the Soul, Influence of the Death Angels, Out-of-Body Experience, Under the Control of Higher Beings, and (ohh, 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.
KULT: DIVINITY LOST [from Oct 2020]
This October 2020 Kult: Divinity Lost Bundle once again presented the core rulebook and early supplements. If you’re new to the game, start here with the three titles in this revived offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $49), including the complete Kult: Divinity Lost core rulebook, the GM Screen, and the Reference Deck.
Those who paid more than this revived offer’s threshold price also got this revival’s entire Bonus Collection with three more supplements and play aids worth an additional $52, including the full-length campaign The Black Madonna, the scenario collection Taroticum and Other Tales, and a print-and cut deck of the unsettling Kult Tarot Cards, which are used in the title scenario of Taroticum.
KULT SECRETS AND WHISPERS [all-new]
If you’ve already torn aside the veil of Illusion, your next journey beyond Elysium begins with the titles in the Kult Secrets and Whispers Bundle, an all-new companion offer of supplements and scenarios funded in the June 2020 Kult: Divinity Lost Horror Guide & Scenario Collection Kickstarter campaign: the Gamemaster sourcebook Beyond Darkness and Madness, the location book Labyrinths & Secret Chambers, and the six-scenario collection Screams and Whispers.
Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) of these two Kult offers went 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.
