IHC 2022 - Panel 5.5 - Seminar with Petter Nallo : The Commandments of KULT

The commandments... as I said a bit earlier before we started this stream was that these have sort of been created naturally and sort of as a guide for writers for cult because writing for cult is sometimes quite hard and I wanted to sort of give some sort of help to sort of see in what areas should I be for this to be a cult horror scenario and what differs this from ordinary horror.

And there are nine commandments right now.

Ten would have been ideal, of course.

But we will see if a tenth one might pop up.

I will also talk about general inspirations and suggestions for what could be a good way to start writing for cult, if someone would be interested in that.

So, I will start.

I divided him into two tablets, so to be very much like Moses.

The first one is the setting, and the first commandment here is a dark and broken world.

This is something that is very true in all gothic horror.

It's about decay, things falling apart.

And it's very true for cult, because in cult, of course, the machinery of the illusion is broken.

God is dead, or at least gone.

And the world and the people within it are crumbling and falling apart.

And we are trapped in this prison.

where the rules are starting to sort of lose ground and we sort of keep it together ourselves with lies upon lies and we sort of create our own illusion because unknowingly we are sort of afraid of the dark.

And in the world of cult, the feeling of this world that is dark and broken and fractured is sort of a central thing.

You might meet people that are sort of seems polished and fine and pure, but they are sort of just broken beneath the surface.

I think it's important that it should be always hints of light, because if there is nothing to fight for and nothing to hope for and nothing to care for, you know, you can just like there is no hope.

reason for the players to go on in the story.

At least it's very hard to motivate that.

But I think that this feeling, this sense is something that you as a creator for cult should have the back of your mind like and then the question is do i create a feeling of a dark and broken world so when you are writing a scenario or something do i get this sensation do i get this feeling what can i do to enhance this in some places and it could be the description of like uh the asylum can we can we enhance that a bit to to give this feeling of all the systems is falling apart is it no The walls are cracked.

It's a bit more filthy.

Because, of course, normally as a player, you are not one of the sleepers.

You are aware, sometimes enlightened even, and you see more of the reality that most people just take for granted.

So that's the first one.