Content Warning! Mental Health, Parental Abuse, Human Experimentation, Surveillance.
KULT: Divinity Lost is not a nice game. It is, in fact, an often rather harsh horror game. Kult is a Swedish game that is currently in its 4th edition, which uses a somewhat modified PbtA system. Yes, playbooks, and so on. Character generation in the game usually assumes that players of the whole group get together, and create not only their characters but large parts of the background. PCs come with Dark Secrets, Advantages, and Disadvantages. The latter two provide character-specific moves, and all those, together with Relationships that are built during the generation process, nudge players into entangling their fates. The whole net that forms is then picked up by the GM to use as the foundation for the initial setup. The whole process is quite nice, but since it is only me I will pretend I am making a solo character. No other PCs around. The whole thing will be a pale replacement, but you can't have everything.
I am not very familiar with the old editions, though I have been a player in games that used some of the published materials in other contexts. Kult characters tend to be dark, damaged, and, depending on who you are, and the type of game you are in, either doomed in the way only horror characters can be, or destined to become monsters, and not the sparkling, friendly kind. I generally fall into the former camp.
Let's start. For background, how about we say we play in West Berlin, 1980. I kind of like the oppressive atmosphere of a city surrounded by another country, encircled on all sides by the other side in a Cold War. Let's give her a German name. How about Irene Langhans? Sound good. Irene isn't the youngest. In fact, she is 46, therefore born in 1934, meaning WW2 started when she was 5 years old. She barely remembers her dad, who died in the war; her grandparents also never made it. She and her mom did not have the best time, but thanks to some relatives survived, and even managed to keep up a modest living after the war. Still, the war left marks in her psyche. One example is an event from the last year of the war when she was evacuated with other children to the countryside. On the way a plane strafed the train, the pilot thinking it was a troop transport. The memory of bullets hitting the teacher sitting opposite her is as suppressed as most other memories from that time, though they make appearances in her nightmares now and then. The less said, the better. That, and the memories of living with her mother, who had become emotionally manipulative and even abusive during these horrible times, left marks in many ways, though, and she suffers from crippling anxiety. Crippling enough that by the time of the story she has spent the last years in a mental asylum that shall remain nameless (Archetype: The Broken). She wasn't locked away for the most part but spent most of her time on the premises since the world outside was too much to take.
While there, she was enrolled without her consent in several non-sanctioned research programs by unscrupulous doctors (Dark Secret: Victim of Medical Experiments). These unsanctioned, illegal experiments were uncovered by a new clinic leadership recently, and it was decided to quietly make the victims leave, and pay them off with minor work-from-home positions. The experiments made her live through really vivid dreams of a labyrinthian cityscape, filled with unspeakable horrors. She did, in fact, breach through the Illusion that surrounds all of humanity, and got glimpses of the Truth, the way the world actually operates. As a result, something there noticed her and decided to reach out (Disadvantage: Involuntary Medium). This connection still exists, and she tends to become a channel at the worst of times. She has no control over this. She also has the (Disadvantage: Broken), which is mandatory for her archetype. This means she is always halfway down the downward spiral to have her psyche fully shattered. Which might happen now that she is forced to face a world she fears she cannot take, numbed by drugs just so she could go away, and with nightmares she brought with her from the dreadful place she had at one point felt safe in.
On the plus side, being left alone with her abusive mother as a child has made her a keen observer of people around her, and she has an innate (Advantage: Sixth Sense), meaning she has a feeling for situations that could become dangerous, and is good at catching lies, or sensing hidden motives (Advantage: Intuition). Finally, her connection to the labyrinth has left her with a near-supernatural ability to navigate the city; if she needs to be somewhere fast, she just closes her eyes and lets go. Usually, she then ends up where she needs to be, rather fast (Advantage: Wayfarer).
She is physically resilient (Fortitude +2), and somewhat headstrong (Willpower +1), but years of pharmaceutical therapy have left her at (Reflexes 0). Her other attributes are (Charisma 1), (Coolness 0), (Intuition 2), (Reason -2), (Perception 3), (Soul 1), (Violence -1). She tends to wear ragged and worn clothing; the money from the clinic doesn't last very far, and she is not quite capable of reliably taking care of herself. For similar reasons, she is razor-thin, though she is starting to fill out a bit. Being outside the clinic, away from the drugs, is allowing her life spirits to come back a bit, and while clothing is not high on her priority list, food is. She eats better now. She is twitchy, eyes darting around a lot, and people who see her often think she is about to flee any second. When she has to wait for anything, often public transport, she tends to endlessly walk in a tiny circle, side-eyeing everyone around her. She has other such nervous behaviors.
Finally, I choose three Relations; if other PCs would exist I would choose Relations to them, but that is out. The Relations to other PCs are formed by assigning specific functions to them; I will instead do that with the three NPCs I am supposed to create from scratch.
Her neighbor Martin Hoppe, a nice retiree, has developed a soft spot for her: He doesn't know about her issues, but she reminds him of his daughter who lives on the other side of the wall. They have a Relation at (+1). During random wandering in the city, Irene has met a homeless woman called Sarah. Sarah seems very similar to a younger Irene, and the two have become close in a way that is not spoken with words (+2). Sometimes Irene even relaxes when in Sarah's presence. Finally, the house Irene lives in was chosen because one of the clinic guards lives there. Irene knows him, and suspects he is supposed to keep an eye on her. In her darkest moments, she thinks he is supposed to kill her if she talks. In even darker moments she believes that she has seen him on the other side and that he has altogether worse reasons for being there. She does not care about him at all, though she happens to run into Christian a lot (+0).
Before the first session, I have to come up with two Dramatic Hooks, supposed to prompt scenes that might occur. I get XP if Irene undergoes these scenes. These Hooks are Hooks and do not prescribe results. Let's go with 'Confront Christian about his real motivations', and 'Find out where my mother is'. The latter does not quite fit, but I like it. Once these are fulfilled (or if after the first session I decide to drop one), it gets replaced by something the rest of the party makes up.
And that is a KULT: Divinity Lost character, about to take a really bad turn to a far darker future. I like her. She is the kind of character I cannot help but feel massively sorry for, and root for.
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