Could someone explain "Kult" to me? From what I've been able to piece together, in the game God disappears in the middle ages, the devil goes looking for him and disappears too, the angels and devils have NO idea what to do without their repsective bosses, and somehow all mortal existance is a lie and when people die  their souls are tortured into amnesia and reincarnated, but some people are beginning to catch on and.......:confused:

I mean, is this really the plot of Kult or did a roll a "3" on my "comprehend scattered game refferences" skill?

Kult's setting is essentially mannichean and gnostic.

The important bit is that God (called the Demiurge) constructed this reality as a prison to keep humanity locked up in.  So our reality is a bit like a North Korean show village, if you look at it from one perspective it's real but if you look closely it starts to become evident that it's fake.  The true reality is this infinite city called the Metropolis and it is inhabited by the Archons who are essentially angels and they are our jailors.  

They also run the process known as death which is a way of wiping humanity's memory every few years for fear that we figure out the truth.  This is why, In Kult, "Death is just the Beginning" and play continues after the characters die.  

Another problem is that God has gone missing and the illusion covering the true reality is starting to slip and this is reflected in the fact that more and more of humanity is now living in cities, suggesting that we're unconsciously moving towards the truth.


It's inspired by the likes of Clive Barker and, weirdly, a 1940's Ingmar Bergman film called Prison.

I think it's one of the great horror settings.  It's right up there with Cthulhu in terms of bleakness.  The problem is finding a copy of the book that's in print.

Also: before the Demiurge broke the souls of the species and half-blinded them to the truth because of some unknown transgression, there was the Age of Human Divinity, when reality itself bent to the will of its human masters. That ancient power still isn't irretrievably lost: beneath the Lie, homo sapiens remains a tribe of gods exiled from its rightful home, and by abandoning through either cold logic or the vilest decadence the illusionary concepts of what humanity is supposed to be, it's possible to achieve enlightenment and regain that godhood. That is the reason for the forgetfulness brought by death.

(Then again, from the common point of view, anyone following those paths ends up alien and monstrous long before reaching their goals...)

Ah yes, explaining why you can "win" by either having an extremely positive mental balance suggesting that you're some kind of saint or buddha who has managed to elevate himself above the world of man OR through an extremely negative mental balance suggesting that you leave no stone unturned in your increasingly demented voyage through corruption and decay until you eventually find the truth underlying all the madness.

Mental Balance is a little like Sanity in Call of Cthulhu, except that the zero point is where most of the normal folks spend their time, and moving away from that into either direction can transform you both mentally and physically.

Reminds me of the movie Dark City  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/

Humans have been taken and live different lives, over and over again, memories are wiped, and new lives are lived.

GW