Cultist Simulator News

Veteran player Systemchalk - one of our earliest adopters, the man with the velvet voice, and possibly the only person who's actually beaten New Game+ - is once again tackling Cultist Simulator as part of Steam's Tabletop Fest.

We'll have a bunch of exciting things to announce at the start of his stream, so hope to see you there!

"You’ve been summoned to Alexandria, a city of coloured lights and curious histories. An old friend needs you to track down a woman. She’s probably in trouble. Probably trouble herself. Plus ça change.

Mirrors glitter at the Cecil, Berbers whisper in the El Bab Cafe, and statues keep their secrets in the cold depths of the bay. Something’s in motion, from the Arab Quarter to the Rue des Soeurs. Somewhere, the Serapeum stirs. The Hours have taken an interest.

Cherchez la femme, the saying goes. But what does the lady look for?"

Cultist Simulator's long-awaited tabletop RPG is finally here, in physical and digital form!






The limited physical edition launches on Thursday 21st October at 6PM BST / 10AM PDT. We're only making 100 boxes, so keep a sharp look out! (Though we have contingency plans if they sell out in an instant.)

We can't share many photos without spoiling the game, but here's a smattering of non-spoilery previews:



You can play (almost!) all of Cultist Simulator's characters: the Aspirant, the Bright Young Thing, the Dancer, the Detective, the Exile, the Medium, the Physician and the Priest. Every character has a unique character sheet and questionnaire, helping you flesh out your creations. The above is the Exile's questionnaire. DOES CRIME PAY?



Each box also contains eight unique character pins in silver and gold.



The events of The Lady Afterwards take place in Alexandria, Egypt in 1920-something. You'll need a detailed map of the city, its main attractions and some genuine photos from the era to get you in the zone.



Finally, about 70% of the contents of the box! I can't wait to photograph the whole thing together. For now, you can read more about The Lady Afterwards here.



We’re running an AMA on the Weather Factory subreddit on Thursday 21st October at 6.30PM BST / 10.30AM PDT. Join us to celebrate The Lady Afterwards‘ release, ask us about That Damned Library Game and wonder at AK’s ability to avoid answering lore questions!

We’ll keep the AMA ticking over the whole weekend, so if you can’t make it on Friday feel free to leave a question and we’ll answer as and when.

We’ll be back in person on the subreddit on Monday 25th October at 4PM BST / 8AM PDT to wrap the weekend up. A weekend-long AMA!!!! No, we don’t have anything better to do with our lives. 🤩



Steebies? Freams? Whatever their name, we're releasing a bunch of fun free things on Steam to celebrate Cultist's evolution into a tabletop game. Right now they're a mix of freebies, semi-freebies, a special Skeleton Songs and some news – so keep your eyes on our Steam page, developer page and/or social media. If you’re signed up to our mailing list, you’ll get it all direct to your inbox.



We've uploaded a new and only slightly borked build of Cultist Simulator, reflecting months of back-end work we've been doing to prepare the codebase for BOOK OF HOURS. It's about an 80% complete rewrite, but there are a couple of important things to note:

• The modding community has been asking for a DLL loading hook, for a long time. It’s in there, and it might even work. Check MODDING_README.TXT for details.
  
  
• There's no backwards save compatibility right now. To fix some horrible, stubborn save bugs that have been in there from the beginning, we needed to change the format completely. We'll (95% certainty) write a save format converter before it gets to the beta branch.
  

This is particularly relevant for those who've contributed to our Steam Workshop or downloaded a mod. (We have jolly modding plans for BOOK OF HOURS, and our work starts with Cultist Sim.)

The new build is on the GATE_OF_IVORY_ALPHA_UNSTABLE branch, and AK wrote a horrible blog about it talking about “a sort of quasi-digestive self-immolation” because of course he did. Please send bugs and feedback to [email protected]. Thank you! ♥



Finally, we're big on mental health (cf. “Everything is remembered somewhere” or “Living with depression that isn’t yours”). Today is World Mental Health Day, so we’re donating 100% of our revenue to mental health charity Mind.

If you’d like to donate by buying Cultist Simulator for a friend, today’s a good opportunity to make a difference!

Now... GET HYPE FOR THE LADY AFTERWARDS!

Cultist Simulator's indebted to weird fiction, and weird fiction's indebted to H.P. Lovecraft. So we're celebrating his birthday with a Lovecraftday giveaway! The prizes are:

GRAND PRIZE: Illopoly's Pack and Sibyl's Leaves fortune-telling deck (worth £80 / $110!)





2 RUNNERS UP: Adept's Bequest (worth £50 / $70!)



10 WILDCARDS: Cultist Simulator Steam keys (worth £15 / $20!)



There's 10% off everything in our shop, too, for the duration of the giveaway.

Enter via Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, with full details and FAQ here. Good luck! 🐙



In case you missed our recent updates, Lady Afterwards development continues apace. We shared a lot of Lantern-lore, which may change the way you feel about Cultist's Diarist. PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT MANSUS-SPOILERS, DON'T HOVER OVER THE BELOW! For everyone else, Lantern-long...

…can send dreams to trouble an enemy. The better idea the fulgent has of the enemy’s nature and real-world location, the more likely they are to find them. [Each of these is a bonus from Trivial to Major.]

– If the fulgent knows what city the target is in, that’ll help. If they know their address, that’s much better. If the fulgent has visited the address, that’s best.

– If the fulgent knows what the target might dream of – their hopes and fears – that’ll help. If the fulgent knows what the target has been doing recently, who they’ve met or what they’ve eaten, that’s better. If the fulgent has met the target recently, in dreams or in the world, that’s best.

– If the target has fulfilled potential requirements for entering the Mansus – e.g. someone’s been murdered in the room recently, or if they’re a Know – then they’re more vulnerable. If they’re in the Mansus, they’re most vulnerable.

– However, if the target has fulfilled requirements for entering the Wood, they’re safer. These include cutting a lock of hair; wounding the sole of the foot; or sleeping in the presence of as few colours as possible other than white and black (including hair and clothes).

– The more light there is in the place the target sleeps, the more likely the fulgent’s sendings are to find them.

Fulgents can enter a mirror, lens or light-source in the physical world: a process that has been called ‘transinhabitatation‘ by the Church of the Unconquered Sun, ‘alighting‘ by the Tragulari, and ‘scrining‘ by the Obliviates. An inhabited item of this kind, then, is a ‘scrine‘…

+10 Fascination.

Here're some WIP photos of The Lady Afterwards limited boxed edition, as it comes together:







We'll announce an official release date for The Lady Afterwards soon. Keep your eyes peeled, and make sure you're signed up to the mailing list! Happy culting, Believers.

Want more Cultist Sim? Well..... SO DO WE but we're busy making BOOK OF HOURS. But we *do* have updates on the upcoming The Lady Afterwards, our Cultist Simulator TRPG, which we hope will feed your Fascination.

We mentioned that part of the mechanics – the ‘Regard of the Hours’, specifically – require a tarot deck, so in case anyone doesn’t have one we’re including a mini pocket-deck called the Essential Hours. Here’s a mock-up!



Each deck’s a portable A7 size and includes the 23 Hours we know and, possibly, love, from the Moth to the Mare-in-the-Tree. No minor arcana, no messing about, and the only way you can currently get a God-from-Nowhere on a card. Who wouldn’t want a God-from-Nowhere in their pocket?

I’ve also been working with a new supplier on our character pins and have a test run in the works. They’ve told me we have to change the design slightly to cater to ‘reality’ – pfft – but it should still maintain the 1920s feel. I’ll share pictures of the real things when they arrive!



And the biggest part of my sprint’s been on writing the whole Game Runner’s Guide, which I can’t show you at all yet. So in the meantime, as everyone seemed to enjoy the Dancer’s, have another character questionnaire! This time for the BYT.



If you still want more, there's a deep-dive into BOOK OF HOURS's Wisdom tree and a new Skeleton Songs episode on D&D and TRPGs' enduring legacy over on the blog. Enjoy!

It’s Cultist Simulator’s anniversary weekend, so we have some big things to announce! We’re running a mega Daily Deal on Steam, with the honey-voiced Systemchalk broadcasting the game for the uninitiated. Go watch him try not to die!

We’re also running a half-price sale on the Nintendo Switch port, and have a new game, a new book and updates on our stained-glass tarot deck to share. Read on...





“You've been summoned to Alexandria, a city of coloured lights and curious histories. An old friend needs you to track down a woman. She's probably in trouble. Probably trouble herself. Plus ça change.

Mirrors glitter at the Cecil, Berbers whisper in the El Bab Cafe, and statues keep their secrets in the cold depths of the bay. Something's in motion, from the Arab Quarter to the Rue des Soeurs. Somewhere, the Serapeum stirs. The Hours have taken an interest.

Cherchez la femme, the saying goes. But what does the lady look for?”



The Lady Afterwards is a limited edition Cultist Simulator TRPG, based on Chaosium’s Basic Role-Playing system - think Call of Cthulhu or story-driven DnD, without us getting sued. We’ve streamlined the experience so you don’t have to be a TRPG aficionado to play, and we’ve filled it with Dread, Fascination and the invisible arts.

Track down Audrey Leigh Howard, a woman of high standing and dubious morals. Seek the Serapeum. Investigate the Society of the Noble Endeavour. Abort a plan. Avert a crisis. Protect the heart of the House Without Walls - or let the blow fall.



The Lady Afterwards is a boxed physical edition, containing everything you need for several evenings’ occult entertainment with friends (and/or cultists). Each edition includes:

• The Lady Afterwards, a Cultist Simulator TRPG scenario set in 1920s Alexandria
  
• A game-runner’s handbook, incorporating all story, locations, lore and mechanics
  
• An exultation* of clues, curiosities, clippings and collectibles
  
• "The Essential Hours", 23-card pocket tarot
  
• Eight customisable character sheets, complete with secret agendas
  
• Eight art deco character pins in silver, brass, copper and gold
  
• A scented Serapeum candle, to evoke that which cannot be seen
  
• Three Mansus candles, for important plot points
  
• A full-colour map of contemporary Alexandria
  
• A set of seven antique TRPG dice in a velvet dice bag
  
• A Steam key for Cultist Simulator, in the unspeakable instance where someone hasn’t played it yet
  
• A 50% discount token for the Church o’ Merch
• Access to a custom-built mood-music playlist, to further SET THE TONE
  

All together, it’ll look *something* like the image at the top of this section! Though please note that this is all mocked-up right now - as you can, er, probably tell. It’ll likely look a smidge different in the flesh.

The Lady Afterwards comes in a custom-built 1920s-styled recyclable box mailed directly to your door. We’re making just a hundred copies to start with, though we’ll expand the limited run if we see enough interest. We expect to release the game in October, in time for Halloween - but we’ll confirm a release date later down the line. Sign up to the mailing list to keep up to date. Now we can talk about this, we’ll have a lot more to share in future updates. :)

*Yes, this does mean I haven’t finalised the actual final number of findables in-game. BUT IT WILL BE A NICE SATISFYING NUMBER OKAY.





Alexis has spent over a decade making games, from Fallen London to Sunless Sea to Cultist Simulator, with a lot of other work in between. He’s finally releasing a book on it all, compiling 200+ pages of the best of his pieces on narrative, design, development and why ‘worldbuilding’ busts his nut.

"There are sentences in Fallen London and Cultist Simulator that make me freeze in my seat. This collection of essays is generally not Alexis in freeze mode... It's Alexis being funny, pragmatic, charitable and humane. It's like getting to sit down over a plate of enigmatically-sourced goat goujons and a cup of Thracian wine, and be told a bunch of good stories."

- Introduction, Matt Hosty

Against Worldbuilding is available now in Kindle and paperback format, costing £5.65 and £7.77 respectively. Enjoy!





We announced we’re making a second tarot deck, after The Tarot of the Hours proved so popular. This time it’s a world-first: we’re making a stained-glass-window-inspired deck, opaquely printed on transparent PVC. This means light (candlelight; moonlight; King Crucible) shines through some parts of each card, but they have an opaque back so you can’t see the image on the other side.

The deck features new, custom-made art of the Hours and Cultist Simulator cards that draws on existing lore but follows traditional systems like the Rider-Waite much more closely than the Hours deck did.

We’re calling it The Lucid Tarot. People seemed to get excited about it when we teased it last time, so the cards above are all never-before-seen, to whet your appetite!

The Hours have been around for centuries in every History. They’re a syncretic pantheon, like the loa of Haitian Vodou or the weirder Greco-Roman deities, and they change over time to reflect the current world. You’ll notice that the art style as well as the depiction of the Hours in The Lucid Tarot is sometimes quite different from their original depictions. For example, here’s Justice / The Meniscate from both decks:



These differences are deliberate, and we hope it’ll shed some more lore-y light on things. The new images also suit the abbey-like stained-glass aesthetic, which you’ll see more of in BOOK OF HOURS...

We can’t specify a release date yet, because it turns out making a tarot deck from scratch is a lot of work. 😅 But it’ll be sometime this year! Sign up to the mailing list for news, and/or keep your culty eyes peeled here for news.

Happy birthday to Cultist Sim, and have a lovely weekend, everyone! Stay culty, stay classy, stay cool.