KULT: Inverted cosmic horror

This was meant to be another RPG Antagonists article, but trying to describe or group the many myriad antagonists and monstrosities in Kult is like trying to come up with names for every different type of breeze. In Kult, literally everything that isn't you is your enemy. Kult is a fantastic setting, definitely one of my favorites because it does paranoia like nothing else, and totally turns the overworked Lovecraftian story on its head.

So, for those not familiar with the setting of Kult, it essentially takes the ideals of Gnosticism, a belief structure that goes has elements from a variety of different religions and mythologies, but primarily posits that reality as we see it is a lie. Humans were once some of the most powerful elder beings imaginable, infinite beyond space and time, omnipotent and capable of molding reality itself like clay. In our golden age, we built Metropolis, an infinite and hyperdimensional endless city, to house both our brilliance and all our servants. One day, a being that clearly didn't like humans too much, placed a curse on humanity. A curse that lowered us to the state we're trapped in now, seeing in only linear time and three dimensions, cursed to live only a mere century at a time. Cursed to remain trapped in a cage of perception and matter. This being was called the Demiurge, and he is basically responsible for everything bad that has happened to humanity.

The Demiurge, in Kult cosmology, has suddenly disappeared, however, with absolutely no warning, leaving his legions of servants, primarily the Archons, suddenly bereft of any kind of purpose. His opposite number, a powerful demon named Astaroth and his lesser demonic lieutenants, the Death Angels, were suddenly with no opposition. Suddenly, the entire metaphysical framework that kept humanity trapped had lost the single most important cog in the machine, the one guy who knew how the entire system worked. Instantly, everything outside the lie fell into an orgy of backstabbing and civil warfare, as every alien abomination wanted to take the throne of the Demiurge for themselves, and remake reality the way they saw fit. Hell leaked out of its prescribed boundaries and started infesting the physical world as demons and lost souls found new prey on earth. All these things fall to the wayside, however, when the Lie begins to fall apart. The prison that once contained humanity is breaking, coming apart at the seems without the power of the Demiurge to maintain it. Humans are Awakening, becoming aware of the world behind the world, and remembering the actions of their wayward servants, and boy, are they pissed.

In Kult you play a human, usually a blind one, but one who has taken certain steps toward true Awakening. Now, one of the core principles in Kult (or at least my interpretation of it. Anyone who knows Mage: The Ascension or has read my drabbles on it will know that I essentially give the same interpretation to the Nephandi) is that there is a portion of the human mind that wants to remain trapped in the cage forever. This portion is essentially the part that recognizes comfort. Everything that you do that is comfortable or keeps your sanity stable and keeps you feeling 'safe' is your mind unconsciously clinging to the illusion of reality, and wanting to accept it. The more deviant your mind gets, the more a human breaks out of the prescribed framework that keeps them trapped. This is why Awakening is seen as a horrifying process, because in order for it to work, a human has to force their minds away from the mold of comfortable humanity, and learn to become something different. This can manifest as absolute, ascetic and chaste sainthood, where the human denies all earthly pleasures and temptations, eventually growing into a brilliant and unflinchingly bright angelic being that rivals the most beautiful of the Heavens, or degenerating into the absolute depths of depravity, murder, cannibalism and other such perversions until you are cleansed of all delusions of normality or society. Both ways are equally valid paths and both ways eventually lead to the aspirant confronting their light or dark sides, and killing them, the final tether to this reality. When that's done, they Awaken, and leave this world for Metropolis, to walk the cosmos unchallenged.

Part of what makes Kult a great horror story, especially from a cosmic horror perspective, is the idea that being a normal human being is inherently wrong in the Kult universe. When you get up, have breakfast, go out for drinks with friends, go to work, or try to live a healthy and normal life in any way, you are actually and genuinely mutilating your spiritual essence, denying what you are and what you could be, and condemning yourself to be a blind, mewling slave for all eternity. It all seems pretty horrible, but realistically, the way out of bondage is equally horrible. Are you really prepared to butcher a family down the street, who have done nothing wrong and consign their souls to hell just so you can erase the last bleeding shreds of your own conscience? Are you prepared to set atop a mountain in serene meditation while a village below is slaughtered? Kult asks the question of what a person values more, humanity versus power. To be human is to be a victim, but by that same corollary, being powerful inherently makes you an abuser. For a person with any type of conscience at all, that's a horrible dilemma, but one that ultimately every human will one day have to make.

Kult, like every other good horror RPG has great antagonists as well, from the magnificent Archons, who are literally living, extradimensional cathedrals in Metropolis, to the incredibly disturbing machine-beings the Techrones, or any denizens of Inferno. It does paranoia so well because all these things literally inhabit the same world we do, hiding in our metaphysical blind spots. Every human, every day is being watched by invisible eyes, eyes belonging to beings that have experienced slavery at our hands and want horrible, torturous revenge. Kult isn't like the World of Darkness or the Esoterrorists, where there's a nice dimensional boundary between this world and the eldritch horror one. In Kult, we already live in the Eldritch Horror world. We walk through it every day, going about our business blind to everything outside our narrow field of vision. Every city on Earth is a subconscious reflection of Metropolis, and going down the wrong alleyway can lead an unfortunate person to the endless twisting spires of the City Without. Escaped demons, torturers from literal hells, set up minor pockets of Inferno behind closed doors and work to further the degredation of the world and the human psyche, counting on humanity's own reality warping power to work against it and to elevate its tormentors. Behind illusionary masks, alien entities walk among us, forever dividing us and keeping us from claiming our birthright.

One of the major themes of Kult however, is that no monster is quite as bad as the monster that lives at the heart of every person. Humans are gods, literal, omnipotent gods bound in material bodies, and as gods, we come up with atrocities that can make even the most sadistic Death Angel pale. There is a long way before true Awakening, and humans on that path tend to become minor reality warpers, as their powers begin to corrode the illusion. No enemy in the entirety of the Kult bestiary are quite as scary as those who came from humans. Nepharites, the chief torturers of Inferno, are occasionally converted humans, who have joined them Hellraiser style, and they outdo their alien counterparts with vigor. There are humans that have almost succeeded in ascending, but become trapped in the void between worlds, becoming angry ghosts. The most terrifying are the truly Awakened humans, who combine the creativity and spirit of humanity with a completely and fundamentally alien outlook, and worse, is the implication that that's what mankind is supposed to be. One key feature to remember when running Kult is that all the alien architecture, all the mind-bending beings and monsters that haunt every shadow of the material world are ultimately created by us. In the distant past, we found these eldritch shapes and being pleasing and bent them to our will. How exactly does that reflect on us? It makes you wonder exactly what kinds of gods we were, and whether we can truly blame our former servants for being twisted and evil. We did after all, make them what they are.

Kult is an awesome RPG, despite following similar themes to Mage: The Ascension, The Awakening and The Esoterrorists (all of which it predates by the way), because it asks the question of whether it's a good thing for humanity to reach its full potential. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and looking at everything humans do to each other without endless reality-warping powers makes you wonder if it really is worth it. Still, if you give up, what else is there beyond being blind and defenseless forever?

Here are some cool pieces of fiction to inspire a Kult Game.

The Evil Within: A really, really fun, recent survival horror game, even if it is a bit derivative (and I will be reviewing it when I finish it), and it really shows the utter, perverse and still somewhat familiar darkness within the human mind. The Evil Within plays the gnosticism card for all it's worth, with the characters trapped inside some kind of illusory, platonic cage controlled by a sociopath. It shows you exactly what a twisted mind could create with no limitations on it, and the visuals are perfect for places in Kult like Metropolis or Inferno.

Hellraiser:  One of the primary inspirations for the game (and yes, I am aware I've referenced it before. Hellraiser is just that groovy.) and could almost be slotted into the Kult universe with no alterations. Hellraiser, for all its supernatural elements (at least for the first two movies) were ultimately about very human darkness given form. All of the villains were human and all the Cenobites ever did was give people what they want in their hearts, and my, do they have such sights to show you.

Sauna: A very little known, twisted and surreal Finnish movie, following two brothers who come to terms with who they are, and spoilers, but it isn't very nice people. Set on a background of the 25- year war between Russia and Sweden, the brothers trek through a dead looking, hellish swamp, haunted by the ghosts of their past victims while something follows them, leaving grisly souvenirs as reminders of their sins. It's a nice historical setting, and a great example of a blending of personal and cosmic horror.

- Kephn

Killer is Dead Review

So, this is the first game I've played by auteur game director and developer Goichi Suda, better known as Suda 51. Suda had made his career by making some very weird games, and exploring his fetish for assassins, katanas, cell shading, and presumably watching Tarantino films on large cocktails of drugs. He was very well known, and gained creative freedom for his own projects after the cult hit Killer 7, a pretty incoherent and weird game about assassins fighting aliens or something, and I really wanted to get my hands on it. Unfortunately, the only one of Suda's games to come out on Steam is the very stylish and completely surreal Killer is Dead, something of a spiritual successor if his fanbase is to be believed.

So, going into this game, I had no idea what I was in for, and man was it a genuinely unique experience. I don't know if this is the style that Suda usually brings to his work, but if it is, I would love to have a chance to play some of his other games. So, without further ado, I present to you a review of Killer is Dead, my Suda 51 cherry-popping if you will.

Storyline

So......trying to sum up Killer is Dead's story. Um......yeah, it's pretty odd. We play a cyborg named Mondo Zappa who is some kind of state sponsored assassin, who gets hired out by every Tom, Dick and Harry who happens to wander into the office. Your targets tend not to be humans as such as really surreal monsters from the moon, called Wires. This is a world that includes extradimensional candy houses, vampires, cyborgs, unicorns (really), aliens and all sorts of less-describable things, though no one really seems to find any of that the least bit odd. Your clients are even stranger, including a ghost, a princess from the moon and a shapeshifting sparrow. The story seems to revolve around some kind of evil energy that turns people into monsters, controlled by a deranged looking man named David in an outfit that makes Dr. Frank-N-Furter's look restrained.

Yeah. This guy. Even the main character thinks he looks like an idiot.

Despite the hefty amounts of total, batshit insanity, the story is actually......quite good, really. It takes on a dreamlike atmosphere where the emotions of the characters and their relationships to each other are a lot more important than what is literally happening. Mondo is a surprisingly deep and flawed protagonist (even if he is aware that he's a character in a video game) and clearly has a code of conduct and a conscience despite being an assassin for hire. His comments here and there indicate a kind of warrior-poet mentality that really contrasts with the crazy world he's in. It's a strange kind of balance that makes him relatable and makes the world more approachable, because we have one character who reacts like a normal, sane person.

The other characters are equally memorable and quirky, with your energetic, schoolgirl dressed assistant, the badass, sour and stripperific assassin lady who's more concerned about a paycheck then morality (and inexplicably has 7 sets of retractable arms) and the cyborg head of the organization, who's both jovial and comes off as deeply regretful and contemplative of his time as an executioner. The baddies are equally interesting, despite the game taking a 'monster-of-the-week' formula to its levels, with some absolutely amazing and imaginative boss design, like a Yakuza boss who can animate his tiger tattoo, or a lich who owns a recording company and aims to drown the world in noise. It really comes together to make a bunch of characters that seem familiar despite being surrealist fantasies, and a story that fits together like an awesome and bloody dream.

Gameplay

This is really where the game shines and where it goes from being a series of odd cut scenes and becomes a fully fledged game in its own right. Combat is its bread and butter, and once you get used to the system, it becomes barrels of fun and still remains challenging despite being fast paced hack n slash. The main 'mana' component is blood (collected whenever you hit an enemy) that is used to power the functions of Mondo's cyborg arm (which morphs into a chaingun, a giant drill, a freezing gun and a charged laser blast), which allows players to take on something of a temporary, third person run and gun approach. Now, the thing that did annoy me was that the instructions were really unclear in the English prompt, which might be a bad translation, but the game really jumps headfirst into the action with little warning or tutorial. It also forces you to play with a certain key configuration, that I, as a lefty found quite uncomfortable until I forced myself to get used to it. None of these things really break the game, but man, do they make the learning curve sharp, especially when a large amount of combat involves swordplay, parrying and dodging. 

The mission formula basically takes an episode based format, where Mondo is hired by an increasingly bizarre bunch of clients to go hunt down an increasingly colorful and hammy string of supervillains. Once each level is complete, sidequests within the level open up, and while I think the formula does well to go for the sort of 'serial novel' or 'anime' approach they were going for here, the sidequest missions are pretty samey and exist largely for the purpose of grinding. The main plot features some gorgeously designed levels and enemies, but the side missions feel tacked on and lazy, a contrast that doesn't really fit together. I would have much preferred them to ditch the sidequests and extend the terminally short main campaign a bit longer, to explore a bit more of the characters and the crazy world.

Now, the gameplay cannot be discussed without talking about the infamous 'Gigolo Missions,' which got this game a fair amount of controversy. Now, this is where I usually take off my political correctness hat with things like Postal 2, but I can kinda see where the naysayers are coming from. These missions basically involve seducing women by peeking at their underwear through your X-ray specs and giving them presents, at which point, they give you a weapon or power up. Now, it's obviously not taking itself seriously (I mean, the underwear X-ray mode is called Gigolo-Vision for chrissakes), and I respect that, but it does seem pretty pointless for anything other than fanservice. The ladies don't really have any interesting personalities (the only girls who have character are frustratingly un-seducable), and basically exist to be molested with your eyes. Again, I get that it's a joke, but it's a joke that stretches on for way too long, and it again, makes me wonder why all these pointless things were tacked on when they could have been working on the main campaign.

Art/Style

 I cannot go on about this enough. While the game makes some pretty questionable design decisions, the art direction is top-fucking-notch. The entire game is done in this wonderful, stylized cell-shading, that adds a great level of sleekness to the story. The magic-realist design of every character works in such a way that despite each level basically being a self contained story, they all fit together in the same crazy world that I genuinely started loving. It's fast paced and doesn't bother justifying its ideas. It's cartoonish and dreamlike and still visceral and bad-ass. Everything that happens, regardless of how crazy (seriously, that gold-dressed stripper dude with the sword? You fight him in his mansion on the moon), just clicks like a deranged jig-saw puzzle. Despite the shoddy length and the somewhat pointless sidequests, I make no exaggeration when I say that this is reason enough to purchase it. Killer is Dead is a unique experience, one that looks and feels different from everything else on the market. It is to be applauded because it's a game that really isn't afraid to try new directions, challenge its audience and force them to come to their own conclusions about what's going on. If the art and style were any less directed, the game would fall apart as a totally disconnected mess, and yet the re-occurring themes, the animation, the very odd dialogue and the symbols tie it together into a chaotic, but ultimately unified story. 

Conclusion

Is this game perfect? No, certainly not. It has an incredible amount of potential and a flood of great, new ideas, but shoddy choices in implementation. It's like someone who's excited about his new story idea and vomits it all out at once. It's messy, it's chaotic, it's organic, but ultimately it's good. If it had spent a bit more time in the editing and design departments, it really would be fantastic. Still, it's definitely a gem I enjoyed, and one I can count as one of my favorites, and its definitely a game I'm going to try for 100% completion for.  It definitely, for me at least, represents a direction I'd love to see the gaming industry take, one that isn't afraid to explore into new and strange realms, and if you're ready to take a ride with Mondo Zappa, and let his surreal dream-world wash over you, it's an experience that will stay with you, and one that you won't regret.

Rankings:

Gameplay - 4/5 - fun controls, when you figure out how to use them.

Story - 4/5 - Deep and thoughtful, if expressed through a violent acid trip.

Atmosphere - 5/5 - Surrealism and magic realism action at it's very best.

Art Direction - 5/5 - Absolutely stunning.

Level Design - 3/5 - Great levels, but repetitive and pointless side quests. 

Fun Factor - 5/5 - Genuinely huge amounts of fun, and rarely ever gets boring.

Overall Rating - 4/5 - A great, fun experience for fans of surrealism and cyborg ninja assassins.

 

- Kephn

Mage: The Ascension Homebrew Crafts

I was thinking about Mage: The Ascension, and one of the things I've always liked about it is the malleability of its Magick system. The idea that any act of creativity or destruction can in theory become a form of Magickal power. So here's some Crafts I've made up (some may overlap with established ones, I don't know, I haven't read all the splatbooks just yet). Feel free to use them in your own games.

Neuromancers
 'My friends rely a bit too much on modern tools. Searching for connections in silicon and copper, when the most powerful computer ever designed is between your ears.'

Parent Tradition: Virtual Adepts 
Specialty Sphere: Mind

Virtual Adepts like to think of the universe as a computer, one with accessible code that can be hacked into and rewritten. They believe that the source code of the universe, the Hypersphere, is a place that exists as a realm of ideas and thought, accessed through advanced hyper-mathematics, in order to change the code and thus corresponding reality. The Neuromancers agree with this view, however, while many Virtual Adepts use tools like advanced computers and extradimensional mathematics to access the Hypersphere and the singularity of all existence, Neuromancers believe that the mind is the ultimate computer. When boiled down, the mind is a way of perceiving reality, storing information, and to a degree, is programmable. The Neuromancers argue that computers and external tools are just a crutch, and that understanding the Hypersphere and the Correspondence Point are as simple as interpreting the way it is perceived through the human mind. Many Neuromancers are psychologists, though there is much argument as to which school most properly provides a structure perceiving the Hypersphere. There are those who cling to Freudian psychology and those who analyze the dream symbols of Jung, however all agree that the mind is already in contact with the realm of information, and can be used as a direct interface with it. As such, Neuromancer magic comes from 'thought-constructs', methods of doublethink that allow the user to perceive problems from all angles, and to further probe into the mysteries of their own and others minds.

Dermal Artisans
'The world is a dream of the body, expressed through the senses. The inside and outside feed on each other through the medium of skin. By changing what is within, we change what is without.'

Parent Tradition: Cult of Ecstasy
Specialty Sphere: Correspondence

The Dermal Artisans, once called the Blood Artists, are a rather extremist group of the Cult of Ecstasy. Rejecting typical Ecstatic ideas like the interconnectedness of emotion and physical being, the Artisans instead embrace radical egocentricism. They believe, firmly, that the outside world (everything that is not them) is an expression and reflection of everything they are. Dermal Artisans perceive a metaphysical 'skin', or shell for the soul as the defining barrier between consciousness and reality, and believe that alterations in that barrier can create changes in the inside and outside world. Artisans are often sociopathic in the extreme, believing that all things are nothing more than reflections of their inner god, and have no real compunction against taking what they want from whoever they want. Because of their flagrant violations of the Code of Ananda, they are absolutely reviled, and considered barabbi against the main body of the Tradition. The Artisans are not Nephandi, however, as they believe in themselves above all else. Their magic usually manifests as self-mutilation, both extreme or benign, marring the barrier between the inner and outer worlds. Sympathetic connections are a strong component in their magics, and nothing is out of their reach, as it is all a reflection of their bodies and souls. Artisans are usually covered in tattoos and self-scarification, and do not get along. They often fall into Marauder-hood very quickly, but those who do not become exceedingly feared masters of time, sensation and space.

 Hantu Penanggalan
'Man eats the animal, animals eat the grass, the grass eats the rotting flesh of man, and spirits eat their souls. The world is a snake eating its tail, a cycle of pain and predation.'

Parent Tradition: Verbena
Specialty Sphere: Spirit/Life

One name for a myriad of disparate yet oddly familiar traditions that span around the world, these abominations of flesh and spirit are some of the most feared and reviled of the Verbena's proud tradition. Such shame do they bring that the Verbena keep their existence a secret, however, they do not declare them barrabi. Such is the acceptance of the natural order that the Verbena, while disgusted by the methods of these magi cannot fault their logic. To these creatures, the natural order is not one of beauty and harmony, but a fierce and deadly game of predator and prey. The Penanggalan, the name somewhat accepted as the name of the sect because the large group of their practitioners in South East Asia and the Philippines, believe in this order wholeheartedly, and seek to become the greatest predators of all. Traveling to the most repulsive realms in the Umbra, these infernalists commune with evil spirits, taking them into their bodies and becoming hideous mutants, capable of detaching body parts and flying through the night sky, hungry for blood and souls. While Verbena do not consider them unnatural as such, the Penanggalan are hunted wherever they practice, as a clear danger to the natural order if nothing else. Penanggalan use their Life magic to warp themselves into absolutely hideous forms, some so disgusting that they drive men to madness, and perform perverse rituals like eating newborn babies and sucking the blood of pregnant women. Their bite brings madness and disease, and a sect in Burma, known as the Kephn, have been known to even eat the souls of mortals, devouring their sleeping or awakened avatars and using them to extend their supernatural lifespans. While they perform the perverse acts of Nephandi, these beings are anything but, seeking to extend their unnatural lives forever with their awakened spirits. They are discontent to follow in the footsteps of House Tremere or the Nagaraja and become kindred, however, and as they age, these horrifying liches spread death and plague wherever they go, leaving empty husks in their wake.

Other names: Manananggal (Phillipines), Krasue (Cambodia), Kephn (Burma), Nukekubi (Japan)

The Anachronauts
'We perceive time as a linear stream, but it's all a matter of perspective. Time exists as a stream all right, continuous to all reality, but perceptible only as a flow in one direction. Disengage your mind from the causality's cage, and you will see into infinity from both directions.'

Parent Tradition: Void Engineers
Specialty Sphere:  Time

Exiled from the Technocracy, and declared a threat to the Consensus, the Anachronauts have been a shockingly hard foe for the Technocracy to pin down. With the pioneering of temporal lenses, the Anachronauts have come to the perception that time is simultaneous, observable, and editable. With the ability to reach into the near (and sometimes) distant, past, present and future, the Anachronauts know where to strike and when. Equally hostile to the Traditions and the Technocracy, these technomancers believe that their paradigm is the one and only, and are dedicated to 'cleansing' the timestream of all deviance and threats to that paradigm, in all time periods. If they could, the Anachronauts would occupy the timeline completely, setting bases up in every pocket of space and time and ensuring the universe's total following of script from the Big Bang to the Heat Death. Their initiation involves a technomantic rite that 'cuts' their link with causality, enabling them to enact their will on the timestream with little fear of temporal consequence. They often dress in flamboyant, anachronistic fashions, and see themselves as something of the 'Illuminati', capable of manipulating events that seem to take millennia and reach their conclusion with eerie accuracy and planning. Their enemies are often befuddled, as one can never be sure if they are playing according to the prewritten destiny of the Anachronauts.

Scribes of Morpheus
'It's simple. It's the hero's journey. We start along the path blind, a fool and end it with full comprehension of the world. It's all just a big pattern, and if you're wise to that, you can make the pattern work for you.'

Parent Tradition: Hollow One
Specialty Sphere: Entropy

Named after the Greek god of dreams and the fictional deity in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, the Scribes are a rather diverse group of individuals who share the overarching paradigm that life is a story, or at least that tropes common in most stories are appreciable and repeatable patterns within the human experience. The Scribes argue that stories and the tropes that find themselves intrinsic to modern storytelling are influenced by real patterns in reality, rather than cognitive bias. They claim that the ability of the human mind to relate to these patterns makes them fundamental to existence. Whatever the case, the Scribes are masters of manipulating the flow of the story, call it destiny, fate or probability. Life reacts to them as if they were characters in a work of fiction, and with a certain genre savviness, the Scribes are capable of putting themselves into exactly the right position in the story to achieve their goals. Many Scribes are literary theorists, obsessively studying story structure and comparing it to real world news in an attempt to divine the likely path the future will take and their own role in it. Many more are traveling bards, tricksters and gamblers, out to live a life out of the ordinary. Scribes, almost to a man work their magic through the focus of writing, be it through a notepad or a high-powered computer. Many Scribes often come together to collaborate, creating overarching works of metafiction and forcing reality to function as they want it. While not a powerful craft, it is gaining popularity, and some within the Traditions believe the website TVTropes is a powerful tool to enforcing their paradigm on reality.

The Court of Lies
'There are so many tales of man selling his soul to the devil and coming out the worse for wear. So often is the supremacy of the great Adversary presumed that everyone forgets the the Devil is powerless until he gets a deal in the first place.'

Parent Tradition: Orphan Infernalists
Specialty Sphere: Prime

The Court of Lies are an aberration. According to many, they represent something that should not be. As a whole, willworkers are something of a disparate bunch, however one thing everyone can appreciate is that working with demons tends not to be a good idea. The Court of Lies disagrees. Formed from a loose confederation of infernalists of all stripes and traditions, the Court is the first attempt at a unified Craft to unite all those that would dabble in the dark arts. What worries many Traditions and Technocrats, however, is that they have experienced very few setbacks. Often absolute masters of the laws of both hell and man, the Court prides itself on coming to the defense of lesser devil-pawns and giving them a seat of power with which to argue a fair contract with their demon overlords. Demons, while given respect, are fiercely monitored by the court, and those who renege on their deals or betray their lieges suffer the retribution of the dark willworkers, and many a foolhardy devil or bane has found itself discorporated or bound into a fetish after being blacklisted by the Court. While the Court is not accepted openly anywhere, there are always those who seek easy power, and the Court is there to facilitate their dealings with the Infernal. The Courts are quietly tolerated in more open territories controlled by Craft mages, and as they often destroy demons that attempt to interfere with reality without going through the proper dealings, many are happy to turn a blind eye to the Court's dealings, and are happy to let foolish mages who word their contracts poorly burn. After all, the Court may be evil, but it is, above all, fair, a rare commodity indeed among those who would dabble in the dark arts.

- Kephn