Thread: Any 'Kultists' lurking about?

So I am running a medieval Legend/MRQII campaign that uses Val du Loup, Deus Vult, Merry England, and Stupor Mundi sourcebooks for background. It revolves around the Crusades/Templar/Assassins, there is to be a lot of politicking & general skull-duggery (dare I say conspiracies) etc., and I thought I'd introduce a strong Gnostic element to the game. And so I finally get to my question:

I've read about Kult RPG, and how it's based on Gnostic ideas. It's set in modern era etc. but I thought I'd plunder some of the central themes & rules, and perhaps some of the magic system? Unfortunately the game seems to be out of print. So I was wondering if any Kult players here might tell me whether it's worth hunting for some of the books for this purpose, and which ones? I am mostly after ideas about magic and the mythos, for example how does the awakening work ruleswise. I am trying to find some sources in the Internets as well.

I've not read the Kult games, so can't help on that.

However, introducing Gnostic elements to a medieval game is very fruitful.

The Cathars are said to have a strong Gnostic core, as have many of the other heresies of the time. Kabbalist Judaism appears in the medieval period and that has Gnosticism in spades. Some say that the Templars were moved towards heresy through Gnostic beliefs, although I am not sure if that was the case.

There are many Gnostic practices in the medieval period, especially among small sects in the middle east. Once the Crusaders meet with them and learn of their ways, they could easily bring back some of the beliefs. That is why the Middle Ages was such a melting pot of beliefs. On the one hand the Catholic Church became steadily more conservative and resistant to heresy, on the other hand beliefs were being brought back from Outremer and Moorish Spain, with Jews being expelled and moved between countries, ancient Christian sects being awoken or rediscovered and many marriages between people of different beliefs.

As I see it, Gnosticism has several core beliefs:
Belief by Inner Knowledge - the certainty of belief
Teaching of secrets to certain ranks of believers, so outsiders learn some secrets but the inner circles learn higher secrets
Absence of hierarchical structures - either everyone is a preacher or there is a preacher class, but no layers of priesthood
Some differences in how the Godhead is seen and honoured - this isn't strictly a Gnostic belief but many Gnostic sects do not believe in the Catholic Trinity

How should it work in play?
Gnostic sects might get their Blessings through different means to other sects. This is only important if you use Merrie England's ideas on how sects get their Blessings.
Members of the sect might get an awakening of knowledge or Gnosis, almost an illumination or revelation. This gives access to more secrets and maybe to extra Blessings.
Members of the sect might be able to recognise other members by using secret phrases, handshakes or other signs.

I don't own Kult but used to play it back in the day with one of my friends copy since he didn't wanna GM he asked me if I could run some. That was ages ago so don't know if I can help you much since if I do dig some old Kult stuff up it would be in swedish.

Yes, as far as I understand, the premise of Kult is that the material world was created by the Demiurge, and it's really an evil illusion to entrap us humans, who are divine by nature. And the goal of gnostic practicers is to throw off the shackles of this material world to return back to divinity, be it pure energy or whatever. Apparently in the Kult world though, the players are not intended to be these 'awakened' beings, but they do get the occasional glimples of the reality behind the illusion (here my knowledge of the background gets hazy). I guess it's kinda metaphysical 'Matrix'?

What I am curious about is whether Kult has rules for the awakening (at least temporary if not permanent), ie. how do you reach this state and so on. What's the reality behind the illusion (horrible, apparently)? What is the magic system like? And so on. I also read that the Demiurge 'went away' (and demon named 'Astraroth' (?) is trying to assume his place) around the time humans started to reject religion as the sole truth (ie. 17th century or after). So what happened to the Demiurge? In the medieval campaign he'd still be around, I think?

My memory is a bit hazy but I think death was the only way to break through the illusion. Hence the tagline "Death is only the beginning". If I remember correctly insane people also saw through the illusion more often than normal persons and was probably the reason why they became insane in the first place.

I am pretty sure if you poke around you could find some scans of the books and that no one would mind since they have been out of print for a while now.

So is reincarnation part of Kult world, or do the dead go to heaven/purgatory/hell?

I love the Kult setting. System was meh, but the setting is fun.

Think Silent Hill meets The Prophecy.

Start here --> Kult - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (very good summary).

The system supports a Mental Balance, similar to WoD's Humanity trait and CoC Sanity trait combined; except when you did certain things your balance slides from Darkness to Lightness. Being in the middle was ideal, the further you got towards an extreme, the more "effects" you suffered from. Read the Wiki article, it talks about Ascension to either godhood or demon-hood.

Google Kult RPG Reviews. There are a few good ones out there that give you an insight into the game.

For adapting it to BRP, you could probably steal the Mental Balance rules wholesale and plug them in. I think PDFs are available on OBS (One Book Shelf which is RPGnow or Drivethru RPG...).

I think the 1st edition stuff from Target Games was the best for setting info. There are a couple free net books out there of material for Kult.

This comes up enough that I feel like a solid conversion of Kult to a new system could be in order...

Also, check out Nephalim for a BRP game of modern supernatural conspiracy and horror. I haven't read through my hard copies yet (picked a lot up used at a convention), but I hear it's splendid. Enlightened magic is supposed to be a reworking of the Nephalim magic system, so could be worth keeping your eyes out as a magic system for Kult.

Good luck! Let us know how your game proceeds.

Kult is a highly sought after collectible. I lucked onto a copy of the 2004 edition which I found in a Hastings store: but going onto Amazon I don't see any that you would be able to get ahold of a dead tree copy for less than $60 (used). Holy ****. There's a dealer in Texas who wants $1500 for a copy of the '93 edition!

Moving on. The magic is mainly ritual. Magic is grouped into five lores: Passion, Death, The Dream, Madness, and Time and Space. Casting spells costs Endurance.

Beyond our illusionary world is a vast, nightmarish city: the Metropolis. In a medieval setting I suppose this would be a composite of Rome-Alexandria-Babylon. There are places where the veil between the Metropolis and our world are thin, and the unwary can stumble through.

A cheaper alternative might be GURPS Cabal: Kenneth Hite: 9781556344299: Amazon.com: Books. This gives a good overview of hermetic magick and kabbalisticism.

For the historical and philosophical background there's Amazon.com: Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism (9780060670184): Kurt Rudolph: Books. Gnosticism is a fascinating subject: and its influence in western thought is surprisingly wide-spread. Phillip K. Dick came to hold gnostic beliefs, and the Matrix films of the Wachowski brothers can be seen as a Gnostic allegory.

I can't believe that someone hasn't grabbed up the Kult license. Chaosium? Pelgrane Press? Hello?

Sounds like you're running a dark medieval BRP game with the LEGEND combat manuveres to me. That could work well, but not sure if the LEGEND magic would be the best fit, so I see why you're posting.

Soltakss's view on tweaking the Blessings rules from Merrie England is the best move. There was a part on Mysticism in that book, but I think it was just a paragraph or two (I am not at home to check), but it probably has some good guiding advice there for stuff like Catharism, Gnostic Practices etc. Love that book.

You may also want to check out Nephilim's 'Liber Ka' magic sourcebook. It could be easily ported over to provide hermetic sorcery flavour; I think the author was going to bring out a new edition for BRP but I haven't heard of any recent progress on that. I know Gnostic Practices is what you were after, however I thought Western Occult Sorcery might also be of interest to your setting in any case.