06 - Setting up a Story

Chapter 6: Setting up a Story

This chapter outlines how to create a story in KULT: Divinity Lost, providing you with step-by-step instructions for creating your stories, developing suitable PCs, and collaboratively designing an Intrigue Map to kick off your campaigns.

Choose a Setting

The setting is the environment in which the story takes place. The first step in creating a story in KULT: Divinity Lost is discussing as a group what environment you think would be a cool setting for the story you want to play out. The setting is defined by two factors: location and time.

Location

The location of your KULT story could be a particular city, such as New York City, London, or Berlin, or regions thereof, such as Manhattan in NYC or the French Quarter of New Orleans. The setting can also feature more localized and specific places, such as an Atlantic freighter, an Antarctic research station, or a military base in the Nevada desert. The location affects what PC Archetypes are available and what sort of story you’re telling. In KULT: Divinity Lost, a PC will be spending most of her time in urban environments, as cities are regularly influenced by otherworldly powers, but don’t feel limited to telling stories only in crowded downtowns or back alleys. Desolate wilderness, dark highways, and Levinesque suburbs are all also appropriate for a KULT: Divinity Lost story.

Time

KULT: Divinity Lost is primarily meant to support stories taking place in modern urban environments. You may wish to set your story a few years prior to the current date, but it’s also possible to set your story in the past, in order to play with particular moods or themes. You might be interested in playing in Berlin after the end of World War II, in Manhattan’s gay community during the 1980s AIDS-crisis, or in London at the turn of the century, as Jack the Ripper stalks the slums.

A story in 1950s Tehran is likely to play out quite differently than one set in Tehran in 2010. Playing in Hong Kong versus playing in Stockholm will provide very different, yet equally enjoyable, experiences. Take some time to discuss and decide what would be most fun. Invite everyone to make suggestions and contribute to the first session.

Choosing Archetypes

Each player now selects an Archetype to play. Only one of each Aware Archetype can be present in a story - no doubling up! Every Archetype includes specific rules for creating a PC with that concept. In addition to the Archetypes in this book, you may create new ones, if the need arises.

All Archetypes except one - The Sleeper - are considered to be Aware. Aware Archetypes have various Advantages, and also possess knowledge, somehow, that the world is not quite as it appears.

Aware Archetypes

Aware characters are people who sense reality is not as it appears. Their Dark Secrets pursue them, reminding them of the horrors of their pasts and making their futures uncertain.

• The Academic: Academics are subject matter experts, intellectual authorities, and students whose search for knowledge has caused them to question everyday reality.
• The Agent: Agents are intelligence analysts, spies, and special agents for governmental authorities or private organizations.
• The Artist: Artists are creative individuals, whose works walk the line between genius and madness.
• The Avenger: Avengers are victims of real or imagined injustices, who willingly employ brutal and bloody methods in their quest for retribution.
• The Broken: The Broken are ordinary people who have experienced horrible things and suffer major traumatic stress as a result.
• The Careerist: Careerists are manipulative leader types, whose shrewd ruthlessness allows them to step on others to reach the top with a minimum of guilt.
• The Criminal: Criminals are hardened offenders who use cunning, threats, and violence to get others to do what they want.
• The Cursed: The Cursed are living on borrowed time, aware that death or something even worse will eventually claim them. They desperately try to find a way to avoid their fate.
• The Deceiver: Deceivers use their good looks, natural charisma, and talent for manipulation to get others to give them whatever they want.
• The Descendant: Descendants are cursed by inheritance, destiny, or the sins of their ancestors. Something is trying to get them for something they didn’t do.
• The Detective: Detectives are highly perceptive professionals who are masters of investigation and casework.
• The Doll: Dolls possess a kind of magnetic attraction, which unconsciously evokes desire in others. This often leads to unintended consequences.
• The Drifter: Drifters are usually people living on the fringes of society, longing for acceptance. They may also just as easily be subversives who despise the society they have escaped from.
• The Fixer: Fixers are sly, clever, underworld businessmen and operatives.
• The Occultist: Occultists are seekers of knowledge and power, who have begun experimenting with magic, parapsychology, and spiritualism to solve the riddles of existence.
• The Prophet: Prophets are charismatic religious leaders, preachers, and ecstatics.
• The Ronin: Ronin are professional murderers for hire.
• The Seeker: Seekers are urban explorers, hackers, and conspiracy theorists, who use the internet to poke holes in the fabric of the Illusion.
• The Scientist: Scientists are genius researchers and inventors, whose experiments might be above board or of questionable ethics.
• The Veteran: Veterans are normal people hardened into terrifying warriors by violence and death.

Sleeping Archetype

• The Sleeper: A Sleeper is a person living out their lives blinded by the Illusions. Sleepers represent the regular people of KULT: Divinity Lost.

Playing Sleepers

When players opt to play Sleepers, some adaptations must be made to the story’s structure. Sleepers are less capable than the other Archetypes and aren’t aware that something is very wrong. When a player creates a Sleeper, they should base this character on one of the Aware Archetypes. As the PC gains experience, they gradually awaken from their lulling dream and eventually become the Aware Archetype they’re based upon.

It’s particularly suitable to play Sleepers in longer stories. The PCs will be thrown into KULT: Divinity Lost’s dark world, gradually coming to understand more about themselves and their environment, until they eventually develop into Aware Archetypes. Sleepers are also good Archetypes for horror stories featuring vulnerable and confused protagonists.

Due to how distinct Sleepers are from the other Archetypes, it’s recommended to have all PCs begin as Sleepers if they’re used in your story.

Dark Secrets

Each player now selects one or more Dark Secrets for their PC. Dark Secrets create a skeleton of a story and determine what threatens the PCs, what forces them to question the Illusion. Make it clear that their Dark Secrets will be the source of much of the story’s horrific content, and that it is important that the players choose Dark Secrets they are comfortable with, but will also make play scary and interesting.

Each Archetype has five suggested Dark Secrets to choose from, but the player is not bound to those five if they prefer another. Before the players select Dark Secrets, you should discuss the following options:

• A single Dark Secret shared among all PCs.
• A predetermined theme for the Dark Secrets you choose.
• Choosing freely and allowing the GM to draw connections between the Dark Secrets retroactively.

When players have chosen their Dark Secrets, it is the GM’s job to ask questions in order to help the players develop their secrets. You should avoid yes or no questions, as open-ended questions will reveal more details. Players should know only what their PC knows about the Dark Secret. They will discover the rest over the course of the story.

The players should also choose a personal drive for their Dark Secret. The personal drive gives the PC a goal in the story, serving as an inspiration for story events. Several personal drives are suggested with each Dark Secret.

Don’t forget to note down any important details while discussing the Dark Secrets with the players.

Shared Dark Secrets

Utilizing the same Dark Secret for all PCs can encourage a tighter story, where the PCs have strong ties with one another and good reasons to cooperate. This is a good option, especially if you want to play a shorter story with a unified group of characters. Some story types with shared Dark Secrets include:

• Guilty of Crime: The characters committed a crime together, which has now returned to haunt them.
• Returned from the Other Side: The characters are all adopted children from a small town. Having reached adulthood, they begin suffering the exact same nightmare.
• Occult Experience: The characters’ high school clique performed a ritual for fun, but ended up conjuring something terrifying that night. The PCs survived, but several of their friends were killed or later disappeared without a trace. Five years later, the demon is still loose and has come back to haunt them.
• Survivor: The characters are related to journalists for a local paper, who were all found brutally murdered. Recently, they have received letters containing their relatives’ notes. Each letter provides clues to what their relatives discovered.

Predetermined Theme

You can also select Dark Secrets based on an agreed upon theme, ensuring they have built-in connections. It’s important to ensure the theme is appropriate for a horror story. Although action or thriller scenes may occur, KULT: Divinity Lost is primarily intended to be a horror game.

For example, the players agree that the story is about cults and the twisted gods they serve. One of the players selects the Dark Secret Chosen, since she’s been ‘chosen’ by a mysterious cult to be sacrificed to their deity. Another player selects Guardian. Her PC belongs to a secret society, which tasked her with protecting the Chosen PC from the cult. The third player chooses Survivor. Her PC had a friend who investigated the cult and disappeared in the process. Now, she allies herself with the Chosen character and the Guardian to stop the cult.

By discussing each other’s Dark Secrets and making connections, you can create a shared background before the story has even begun.

Choose Freely

By choosing freely, the players can pick whatever Dark Secret they find most interesting for their PC. The GM then needs to decide how to tie the PCs and their Dark Secrets together into a unified story. This is a common method for longer campaigns, but works just as well for shorter stories. During the first session, the GM will take the PCs’ Dark Secrets and use them to collaboratively build the Intrigue Map.

For example, one character has the Dark Secret Heir, another Mental Illness, and a third Returned from the Other Side. As the story begins, it appears as though the Dark Secrets lack any connection with one another. One PC has inherited an archaic video camera (Heir), another has suffered hallucinations and been hearing voices since her childhood (Mental Illness), and the third is a sole survivor from a ship that disappeared off the coast of northeastern Florida during a hurricane twenty years ago (Returned from the Other Side).

However, over the course of the story, it becomes evident the camera’s previous owner was a passenger on the doomed ship, and the mentally ill PC was a child actor in a series of obscure art films, recorded using the same video camera. Now we have connected the first character’s inherited camera, the potential origins for the second’s mental illness, and the third character’s supernatural experiences on the vessel that disappeared. It is now up to the GM to determine how these connections are related to the backstory.

Sleepers and Dark Secrets

Sleepers aren’t aware of their Dark Secrets when the game starts. Instead, they gradually recover the memories of their Dark Secret through play. The player still selects their character’s Dark Secret, but if they prefer, they can let the GM pick it instead. Eventually the PC remembers their Dark Secret and awakens to a new Archetype.

You can still have a shared Dark Secret, select them in accordance with an agreed upon theme, or select Dark Secrets freely. For Sleeping PCs, what their Dark Secrets actually entail will be defined during the course of the story.

Disadvantages

After Dark Secrets, players choose their character’s Disadvantages from the options available to the Archetype. The player has to pick two Disadvantages. Disadvantages are Moves which cause obstacles or complications to be inserted in the story. The description of each Disadvantage contains an activation trigger. Generally, these triggers are based on scene transitions, the character’s behaviour, or time passing in the story.

When players select their Disadvantages, they should attempt to connect them to their Dark Secret. The Disadvantage Stalker is appropriate, for example, if a Dark Secret involves being watched and chased by a malicious person or being. Sometimes, Disadvantages develop naturally from the PC’s profession or living situation; for example, having a Rival as The Careerist. Some Disadvantages just provide interesting personality traits and can be selected by the player simply because they sound like fun to play out and explore in the story. A Careerist character might have the Liar Disadvantage because it fits her concept.

There are two types of Disadvantages to choose from: internal threats and external threats.

• Internal threats are often expressions of the PC’s traumatic stress, like Depression or Nightmares. These Disadvantages influence the PC’s behavior and, in some cases, how they interpret the world around them.
• External threats are Disadvantages representing other creatures or forces that mean the PC ill will, like a Nemesis or a Competitor.

The GM should ask questions about the characters’ Disadvantages. What or who is the PC Stalked by? What is the nature of their Nightmares? Who is the subject of her Jealousy? How does she manage her Depression? Note down the answers for later.

The Sleeper’s Disadvantages

As Sleepers aren’t aware of their Dark Secrets at game start, it can be tricky to nail down some Disadvantages perfectly. Instead, draw connections between Dark Secrets and Disadvantages during the course of the story. If a PC is Stalked, you don’t know at game start by who or what, but as the PC starts recalling their Dark Secret, the GM will get a better idea of the stalker’s identity.

Some Disadvantages can also lie dormant until the PC is Aware. A PC with Schizophrenia can keep her condition in check, for as long as she’s in her Sleeper state. As a GM, you can make softer Moves for the player’s Schizophrenia during this time, allowing the hallucinations to take a milder form, which then worsen gradually as the PC recalls her dark past. Let Sleeper characters be confused and uncertain. They have no idea how reality actually works.

The Intrigue Map

The Intrigue Map is a tool for the GM to use during the course of the story. It takes the form of a web of people and places which are connected to the characters. Prior to the story’s beginning, the GM can use the Intrigue Map to come up with conspiracies based on the Dark Secrets selected by the players.

The Intrigue Map consists of Hubs and Links.

Hubs

There are nine types of hubs to include in the Intrigue Map: player characters, events, places, objects, leaders, monsters, organizations, groups, and contacts.

• Player characters are self-explanatory. The player characters form the initial hub marked on the Intrigue Map.
• Events are major occurrences affecting the PCs and the story as a whole. Dark Secrets produce the most common type of event, but new ones can arise over the course of the story.
• Places are important locations that provide clues, portals to alternate dimensions, or some connection to other hubs. The PCs will likely return to these places during the story. They can include the house an Heir has inherited, the antagonist’s headquarters, or the subway station where one of the PCs pierced the Illusion for the first time.
• Objects are items with particular meaning to the story. They’re connected to several of the other hubs on the map, and contain information or supernatural properties. Magical artifacts, possessed objects, valuable evidence, and occult tomes are typical objects.
• Leaders are powerful individuals with sizeable resources at their disposal. Typical leaders are power-hungry politicians, greedy business owners, ruthless gang bosses, or powerful entities who have adopted human form to influence our society.
• Monsters are humans whose humanity has been compromised or creatures from one of the alternate dimensions. They could be bloodthirsty demons, haunting spirits, perverted serial killers, twisted monstrosities, and other fearsome opponents.
• Organizations are large collections of individuals, each performing a specific function and organized communally for internal synergy. Typically, an inner circle makes the important decisions and delegates the implementation details throughout the organization. Distinct individuals often play a lesser part in an organization and tend to be interchangeable. Due to this, organizations are difficult to eradicate - they’re like hydras, you can cut off one head and three new ones sprout in its place. Organizations include corporations, professional associations, religious communities, and national institutions.
• Groups are groups of creatures that take actions together as a team, due to conscious decisions or base instincts. A group might be a family, a squad of police officers, a cult, or a pack of hungry borderliners in the city sewers. It’s common for groups to be linked to leaders and places.
• Contacts are people such as the PCs’ relatives, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and allies. They are often peers the PCs turn to for comfort, assistance, information, and closeness. Contacts who turn hostile as a result of events during the story are converted into leaders or monsters, or become part of groups. Generally, only the most prominent contacts are written down on the Intrigue Map. The GM notes down each player’s contacts separately, and includes them on the map if they turn out to be of particular importance to the story.

Links

Links are lines drawn between hubs. Links are detailed using short descriptions next to the line to make the nature of the relationship between the two hubs obvious. It’s often appropriate to use Disadvantages as links. For example, you might draw a line between a player character and an event, and then write Wanted next to it, showing the PC’s Disadvantage is connected to that specific event.

Step 1: Dark Secrets

Once the players have selected their Dark Secrets, the GM begins drawing up the Intrigue Map. Take a blank piece of paper and start by writing down the PCs’ Archetypes. They should leave enough room for writing down the characters’ names as well.

Draw links between all the PCs, ensuring they’re all connected to one another. If you have two players, draw a line between them, for three players draw a triangle, and for four players draw a rectangle. Each one of these links will later be labelled with the connections the players make between their characters.

Next, write down the PCs’ Dark Secrets and link them to each character. If they have a shared Dark Secret, you can draw links from it to all the PCs. If the Dark Secrets have objects, places, people, or monsters associated with them, you may want to note them down as hubs immediately. You don’t need to decide what type of hub they are yet, just write them down and link them to the Dark Secret. For example, one of the PCs has selected the Dark Secret Heir and decides she’s inherited a lonely plot of land in northern British Columbia. The GM would write down “the estate” on the Intrigue Map, linking it up with Heir.

Step 2: External Threats

The next step is to note any Disadvantages that are suitable candidates for hubs or links. They can either be a hub of the leader, group, or monster type, or they can be used to describe a link between Dark Secrets and player characters.

Below is a list of Disadvantages that present external threats to the PCs, as well as suggestions for how they could be represented on the Intrigue Map:

• Nemesis (Hub: Leader or Monster)
• Wanted (Link: Could connect to a Leader, Organization, or a Dark secret)
• Curse (Link: Could be linked to a Leader, Monster, Object, or Location)
• Stalker (Link: Could be linked to a Leader, Organization, or Group)
• Haunted (Hub: Monster)
• Competitor (Hub: Leader or Monster)
• Rival (Hub: Leader or Monster)

Sleepers and the Intrigue Map

If the PCs are playing Sleepers, you don’t have to draw up anything other than Dark Secrets and the Disadvantages connected to them. You will figure all this out as the Dark Secret’s nature is revealed during the course of the story.

You should, however, define any and all hubs not connected to the Dark Secret, but are still linked to the PC through Disadvantages, such as Jealousy, Competitor, and Rival.

Sometimes Disadvantages are their own hubs. For example, if a PC is Wanted for murdering their family, the GM notes down a police captain in charge of the case. They would be recorded as the leader hub, and Wanted would be the description of the link between them and the PC.

Advantages

The players now select their PCs’ Advantages. Each player gets to pick three Advantages from those available to their chosen Archetype at game start.

The Structure of Advantages

Advantages are abilities that give the PC an occasional upper hand in the story. Advantages can be either active or passive.

Active Advantages

Active Advantages are Moves which grant the PC unique abilities or powers. They each have a trigger, something that needs to happen in the fiction for the Advantage to be activated. For example:

• Exorcist: Whenever you perform an exorcism to banish a spirit or extradimensional creature, explain what the ritual looks like and roll +Soul:
  • (15+) The creature is banished. Choose two options.
  • (10–14) The creature is banished. Choose one option.
  • (–9) The creature resists banishment and something goes terribly wrong, such as the creature possessing you. The GM makes a Move.

Options:

• Nobody is harmed during the ritual.
• The entity will not reappear later.
• The entity will not become hostile toward you.

Sleepers and Advantages

Sleepers don’t have Advantages. When characters transition from Sleepers to Aware Archetypes, they may select three Advantages.

Passive Advantages

These provide the PC with modifiers in particular situations, such as increasing Harm inflicted when attacking, boosting the effects of basic Moves, and enhancing Moves so they are always in effect. For example:

• Hardened: You take +1 ongoing to Endure Injury.

What the Advantages Represent

Ask the players questions about their Advantages, as each one says something about the character. A Fixer who is Duplicitous has in all likelihood betrayed some people in the past. Who are they?

Companions

Certain Advantages provide the characters with henchmen or followers, such as Gang Leader (for The Criminal), Boss (for The Fixer), and Cult Leader (for The Prophet). Ask the players more about these Advantages and don’t forget to develop them into interesting NPCs during the course of the story.

Supernatural Abilities

Advantages based on the Soul Attribute are typically supernatural abilities. It’s useful to determine when the PC acquired or perceived them, and how this changed her life. The first time the PC makes use of the Advantage, ask them how the ability works and what she experiences when using it.

Attributes

The players now select their characters’ Attribute values. As the players mark high or low values, ask them to inform you and ask them questions to determine why. What does a Violence of +3 mean for a PC? Or a Charisma of -2? For more information about the Attributes, refer to 04 - The Player Character.

Name

The players are free to assign names to their characters on their own, based on their cultural origin and nationality. Since the story can take place anywhere in the world, the Archetypes do not feature any preset options to choose from.

GM Note: Try to avoid picking the same names as celebrities or well-known characters from media. This often turns silly and can be obnoxious to the other players.

Equipment

Discuss amongst the player group what types of equipment are appropriate for the characters to own. Players may choose freely what sort of important things their characters keep on their person and if they own a car. If anyone specifies an item that seems outside the norm, the GM can ask the player to justify how she’s acquired an object like that.

The GM will decide what the item is capable of. In Chapter 4 - The Player Character, you can find lists of weapons and other gear with defined effects, but the GM may freely modify or add to the list of items, their abilities, and their limitations to suit the story.

Presentation

When the above is finished, the players will present their character to the rest of the group. In turn, each player states their character’s name, her occupation, any notable features (such as the choices the player made during the Looks step of character creation), and what impression she usually makes on others.

The GM, as well as the other players, may then ask questions about things they’re curious about. Examples of good questions to ask:

• How old are you?
• Who or what are you most passionate about?
• Do you live with someone else? Where and how do you live?
• Where do you hang out in your spare time?
• Who is your best friend? If you don’t have any friends, why not?
• Have you ever hurt another person? Do you feel had about that?
• Who do you have sex with? You don’t? What do you do when you have those needs, if you have them at all?
• Who or what do you hate most in the world? What did they do to earn your hatred?

If you get some interesting answers, you may ask follow-up questions, as well as note down additional questions to be brought up later in the story. The point of this step is to ensure the players get a handle on who the other characters are and come up with fresh ideas about their own characters. It shouldn’t take all night though, so keep it short, maybe ten minutes per character.

Relations

The last step when setting up a story and defining the characters is to establish relationships between the PCs and the NPCs in the setting.

Relation represents this social strength, measured with three degrees.

• A neutral Relation (0) means the PC only has a surface-level relation to the person or has no strong feelings one way or another for them. It might mean an acquaintance, a co-worker, neighbour, a friend of a friend, or someone you know but dislike.
• A meaningful Relation (+1) means the PC has strong feelings for the person. It’s someone she needs to be present and active in her life, who helps, supports, and provides comfort for her. Examples include family members, friends, and lovers.
• A vital Relation (+2) is someone the PC’s life revolves around. Without them, life would feel empty and meaningless, and losing them would result in severe psychological trauma for the character. Examples of vital Relations can be the love a parent feels for a child or spouse, a soulmate, an object of obsession, or the Best Friend Forever she simply cannot live without.

Relations Between the Player Characters

Each Archetype provides a numher of suggested relationship descriptions you can use to establish ties between player characters. Players are always free to establish their own relationships at any degree - neutral, meaningful, or vital - if they prefer. However, the degree of Relation does not need to be shared between the two characters. One PC might love another with their heart and soul (vital), while their beloved find their bond to be of lesser importance (meaningful). This is commonplace, for example, in situations where one person is courting another who is relatively uninterested.

If the player characters do not know one another prior to the start of the story, do not establish any Relations.

Work out the details of the relationships, as necessary. If, for example, another player character “assisted you with removing a company rival,” the players should obviously determine who the rival was and what happened. Was the PC compensated financially by The Careerist for the services rendered, or were there other motives? The GM should ask questions of both players until she’s satisfied with the level of detail.

Relations to Non-Player Characters

Each player also develops up to three NPCs with whom they have neutral, meaningful, and vital Relations, respectively. Write down their names and brief descriptions of each. Ask questions why the PC’s relationship with each NPC is as important as it is. You might already be able to tie NPCs to hubs on the Intrigue Map, if there are suitable links to be made.

The GM should also ask the players about the NPCs they establish Relations to during character creation; who are they, what are their names, what is the PC’s past with them, etc.

Antisocial Player Characters with no Family or Friends

In exceptional cases where PCs lack close relations to fellow humans, the NPC Relations can be assigned to pets, objects, or locations. In those cases, they would be the PC’s beloved dog, the old car she inherited from her dad and cared for as if her life depended on it, or the house the PC bought with her husband prior to his disappearance.