Inspiration

Anyone out there seen a fairly cheap movie "the prophecy"? I watched last pm and it had a few cool ideas. It was about the resolution of the millenia long war between the angels, some of whom (especially Gabriel)are a bit miffed cos god gave humans souls which means he doesn't

love his angels so much anymore. The only drawback was that the angels (including lucifer) looked a bit like tragically hip characters from a white wolf game. Still, I suppose if monsters are what we make them, then that is the contemporary paradigm... If any have seen it be interested to know what you think. If not, check it out.

I also saw Prophecy in the cinema, but I felt the movie should've moved slower, and the plot could have been more detailed. The idea, however, was ingenious, and I had hoped for a possible

sequel. I loved how the supernatural was more dependent on acting than on special effects. The movie was a lot like recent developments in Millennium.

One of the most amazing angels ever is of course Gabriel. Our holy executioner, the Angel of Death. Just like in Prophecy, I wonder if an eternity of slaughtering has left the angel a bit touched in the head. What if a player was Muslim, and found the angel Gabriel, only to learn that the angel suffers from schizophrenia, thinks he's relaying God's word when all he's doing is listening to imaginary voices? Perhaps the other players will worry more about Gabriel's mercenary activities, if all those "condemned" by God are in fact just victims of the angel's insanity. Imagine the angel as a seraphim with blades for wings, a pair of extra hands sticking out of his cloak, a death mask nailed over his pale skin. A Nepharite/Seraphim by all accounts. Upon approaching certain victims, the hands pull up the cloak, and Gabriel screeches out in ancient Hebrew "LOOK UPON YOUR SIN!" to which the victim looks in horror and fascination, perhaps even nostalgia, all at once. Each victim is then slain, their soul taken to a place in Inferno, a field of crosses where each crucified victim has their sin written on the crosses. "Sodomite" decks many. Perhaps another has a crucified woman with the sin

"Whore", and under her, a baby is nailed in, with the title "Original sin". The child is barely moving, but it's tongue licks its face, feeding off the mother's blood that falls. In the center of it all, there is a cross higher than the others, and it is burning. It is Jesus, and his sin is written in

blazing words: "Heretic"

Millennium episodes "Lamentation parts 1 & 2" are very well done. I hope that those who have not seen these two episodes somehow manage to find them in their local area, or eventually they air in your area. If people want, I can spoil the plot and post the summaries of the episodes here.

Back to Sandman, I just took a look at Sandman the Awakening(I think that's the title), which follows the lives of the Endless, eternal beings personifying ceratin forces, after...well, after something that I don't want to spoil. Anyway, the art is excellent, and one Endless in particular has always been fascinating. Desire, a very mischievous, dangerous, Endless, who appears as a beautiful woman or man. In the Wake or Awakening, the drawing is an excellent picture of a person who seems neither man nor woman, but would clearly be exceptionally beautiful either way. If Desire is from the realm of Passion, then Dream is from his realm, Death from her realm, Destiny from Time, Delirium from Madness, and Despair and Destruction from places not before known, then you have very interesting characters.

Just thought I'd recommend, in case you haven't kept up with releases for other games, Pagan publishing's "delta green" modern day sourcebook/setting for Call .of .Cthulhu. Not so much because it offers anything wildly different from the usual cthulhu badguys (although they are straying into non-mythos territory which might upset Lovecraft purists) rather because it is a mine of ideas and information for anyone wanting to run a game that is heavily into government conspiracies and intelligence organizations. I think I would adopt this approach when I actually get around to running Kult, professional investigators discovering that things are not as they

seemed, rather than the ordinary folk have bad things happen to them in style so beloved in the movies. I think the former lends itself better to campaign play, the latter is more suited to a one-off. Anyhow, if you like worldly conspiracy, check it out.

With regard to sources of inspiration, Vertigo comics' "Hellblazer" is jam-packed full of juicy story lines, including, as its (anti)hero, the wonderfully cynical John Constantine: a magus with

the ability to see beyond the illusion, and a wicked array of one-liners to cope with the Truth. Check it out: a must!

Has anyone seen the movie Event Horizon yet? If that isn't a Kult movie.. I don't know what is! (Okay, well, I really do.) anyhow.. It';s wonderful.. And very hard to describe. Please, If

you can.. get out and see it.

I can second that. Definitely Kultish....

Has anyone seen the British film "Rasputin", with Alan Rickman in the title role? He seemed to portray an adept of the lores of Passion & Death, but with little idea as to the origin of his powers, a pawn in the Archon's Universal chess game. Definitely some good ideas for NPC

magicians, and an example of how one man used by the Archon's can bring about the total restructuring of an entire world's ideas (through the rise of Communism after the Russian Revolution).

Did you know that Stalin had *many* doubles, who performed official party functions like receiving visiting dignitaries? Some have suggested that they were all golems. And on that note, let me close by recommending that Kult fans rent the classic 1930s French film *Golem*, about Rabbi Loew's creation. Damned if when non-animated the statue doesn't look just like a statue of Lenin. And as if that's not enough, the spell that animates the Golem is "The Oppressed Have the Right to REBEL!" No kidding! It's right there in the subtitles!

Has anyone actually ran a complete Kult story that didn't feature nasty monsters ? I'm just intrigued as to how it was done. I mean anyone can do X-Files, but capturing Kultyness without resorting to monsters or copying X-Files (or cloning the AWFUL Millenium) would really be something.

A friend of mine recently turned me on to the television series Twin Peaks. I somehow missed it when it was a first run, but a local video outlet rents the episodes. For the last week I have immersed myself in the weird wonderful world of David Lynch. Just a few extraneous thoughts, if you are looking for good mood music to Awaken by, you can do worse than picking up the soundtrack for the tv series. I also have the track for the movie, Fire Walk With Me, but I

prefer the television soundtrack. Also good is the score to The Crow.