Friday, June 4, 2021

Playing around with Kult's Tarot Rules

I've never played Kult, but someone on Discord (I cannot remember whom) linked to their document about using tarot to build scenarios.

So I did that. Imagine it's for Esoteric Enterprises. It uses Kult's custom tarot deck but with a bit of finagling I was able to make a normal deck of cards work (man i really need to get a good tarot deck)

A forewarning - this got real fuckin' dark when I did it, so I expect others will have similar experiences if they try it out. 

(Wow this one has been delayed)

Individual

  1. Characteristic - Forgetfullness; they are elderly, and their memory is beginning to fail them.
  2. Past - Love; they were a devoted spouse for over forty years.
  3. Ambition - Lust; they have built an idealized image of their beloved in their head, and grief plus the loss of memory has created something new and not altogether healthy.
  4. Weakness - They are violently opposed by the cult.
  5. Strength - They are unflappable, calm, charismatic.

Location

  1. Type - An abandoned orphanage, aligned with dread powers.
  2. Past - Repetition; the drudgery and everyday horror of those who lived here.
  3. Trait - A stairway down, down, down...
  4. Weakness - Old TVs are everywhere; corroded VHS tapes contain mind-numbing subliminals, with overexposure slowly blocking off higher brain functions.
  5. Exceptional Aspect - Gangs of orphans would fight each other for the favor of the staff.

Cult

  1. Power / Ambition - A return to untamed wilderness. Not even that technological civilization is to dismantled, but that higher thought itself must be eliminated.
  2. History - They started as backwoods pilgrims; cast-offs from the meatgrinder of city life and the modern age, looking for some way to escape.
  3. Goal - Pure, thoughtless philosophy; the enlightenment of the zoanthropic man.
  4. Weakness - They have their own enemies in the hall of civic power. No friends of yours, but they have gotten on the scent all the same.
  5. Resource - Cruelty; the orphanage was sponsored by the cult's wealthier members, a testing ground of sorts.

Plot

  1. Power - Scandal; a cult member of some public prominence is revealed, accused of abuses at the orphanage.
  2. Cause - Croudfunding campaign to pay for the victim's legal fees.
  3. Next Move - Wait & see; both the cult and the victim's supporters are waiting for the trial and its verdict before acting. This might still be swept under the rug, or it might still boil over.
  4. Opposition - Those who want to hide the cult's abuses and normalize its existence publicly.
  5. Support - An online community has sprung up to find and support more abuse victims.

Creature

  1. Origin - Torment; formed from the compressed suffering of the orphanage, crawling up out of the darkness of those interminable stairs.
  2. Who Knows? - The first leaks began in the local punk scene - rumors spread by one of the bands, whose lead knows a victim who has not yet come forward. Curious (and often intoxicated) minds have gone out exploring, come back with more rumors.
  3. Drive - To fulfill and spread its purpose; to put the fear of God in people, to perpetuate the cycle that created it.
  4. Weakness - It is hunted, on the run, ragged, desperate. We know not what chases it.
  5. Strength - It changes the environment and people around it, gradually shifting them more and more like the place it called home and the victims it first preyed upon.

Artifact 

  1. Origin - An ancient cipher.
  2. Who looks for it? - A hacker trying to break it.
  3. Danger of use - Susceptibility to law - authorities are aware of this document. There is a watchlist, they will hunt people down.
  4. Primary Power - Fragments, remnants, leftovers; the detrital wisdom of its composer.
  5. Secondary Power - Allure; it drives people to try and solve it.

Compiling The Pieces

The NPC was the founder of the Cult in its early years, but after creating the Cipher (which accelerated the memory loss they would have experienced normally) they fell away from it into obscurity. 

The Cult, as it develops its dogma and spreads its influence, comes into ownership of the Orphanage, which is uses as a testing bed for its experiments into zoanthropy. The abuses by the Cult give rise to the Creature, which escapes into the wild after the Orphanage is abandoned by the Cult.

Some time later, victims of the Orphanage start accusing members of the Cult. The lead-up to the first major trial is currently ongoing. The Creature has been spotted outside of town, wounded (It has been hunted by the NPC, though they do not know precisely why they are so obsessed with killing it). The Cipher has fallen into hands outside the cult and someone you know is working on breaking it, hopefully before the authorities swoop in and make the whole thing disappear.

Well, I think this worked out pretty well.

2 comments:

  1. Just some filler, clearing out drafts.

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  2. And you continue to be the best source for Urban Fantasy stuff.

    Have you had a look at Dark Streets, Darker Secrets? I'll throw it into the ring vs EE for the crown of OSR Modern

    ReplyDelete