On the 17th of January, 2020, me and my wife Larissa Darrah sat down to make a character for Kult: Divinity Lost. We used the game’s own tarot deck to concoct Dusty Williams and what would become his story. As game master, I spent one week writing some preliminary ideas I had for running a short scenario featuring Dusty. The gameplay took place over two sessions of about three to four hours each. We both enjoyed ourselves a lot. That scenario is what Instinct is based on.

Writing stories from role playing games is very fun, and sometimes difficult. The improvisational nature of it and the open-ended, player-first approach I prefer does not always lend itself to clean and engaging stories outside the personal experience. However, I was especially pleased with the end result of Instinct, originally just called Dusty’s Story, and once we were done playing I knew that I wanted to write about it in detail. I hope that as you read it, you can have some of the same fun that me and my wife felt in the winter of 2020.

Thanks to Auburney, Caphriel, Gabe, and other people who help me make things happen.

Read Instinct here

Read Instinct with dice roll footnotes here

Instinct is a horror story.

Additional thanks once more to Gabe, who created the PDFs. They look so damn good.