Explain to me the whole Cultists vibe within pulp

[Will Bailie]

So:




 

Hey, wait, does anyone make those in 15 mm!!!   

Try here: https://www.tictac.com/us/en/flavours/tic-tacr-mint-flavors/#tic-tacr-mint-flavors-tic-tacr-spriter

[Will Bailie]

Playing a game where you command the humble and selfless cultists against the evil murder hobos who can not stand people making the world a better place should be a nice twist.

The Mummy movies (Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weisz version) had both the followers of Imhotep and the Medjai - both could be presented as cultists depending on how they are presented.  Medjai are born and raised in the service of preventing Imhotep's return, and the cult of Imhotep are, well, a cult!  Point is they both have motives that encourage them to behave as they do.

[Cat]

Any number of different cults can share the time-honoured battlecry of: "Death to the fanatics!"

[Daeothar]

Playing a game where you command the humble and selfless cultists against the evil murder hobos who can not stand people making the world a better place should be a nice twist.

So basically a pulp version of Dungeon Keeper...

[Freddy]

So basically a pulp version of Dungeon Keeper...

I actually have a self-developed dungeon keeper game using dungeon tiles and my fantasy figures. The concept can easily be adapted to any setting if you have suitable tiles and figures.

[FifteensAway]

Well, dungeons seems to stray out of topic a bit.  So, let's get back to troglodytes!   

How would you use troglodytes in your pulp games?  And no fair saying, "I wouldn't."  Defeats the question.  So...?

[Cat]

Troglodytes certainly work in any Hollow Earth story.

Or simply crawling out from a bomb blast or archaeological dig.

Movie Trog (1970), archaeologists find one in a cave.
 
(Many pulpy problems can be traced back to those darn archaeologists...)
 
Mad Scientist working on devolution formula.

Ships crew land on a mysterious volcanic island.
 
Those darn Cultists dressing up in troglodyte suits...
 
Our heroes stop those darn Cultists from performing their required ritual at the appointed time, and then the aforementioned Cultists are cursed for their failure, and in the next episode they are all transformed into Troglodytes.

[jon_1066]

Well, dungeons seems to stray out of topic a bit.  So, let's get back to troglodytes!   

How would you use troglodytes in your pulp games?  And no fair saying, "I wouldn't."  Defeats the question.  So...?

So first - are you having a pulp setting but no supernatural powers or are there supernatural events?

So are the troglodytes simply another different branch of evolution found dwelling in a cave or are they of some supernatural origin?  Or are they just a corrupt cult of degenerate humans sneaking out at night to abduct and eat their fellow man?

So next are the troglodytes basically humans or are they more like D&D trogs and are lizard people?  If the latter then you could build a cult around the troglodytes.  eg they are tunneling and scheming to take over the world using useful idiots to further their ends.

[carlos marighela]

Troglodytes? You'll need killer shrimp as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW4Gdsnr2Bg

[Will Bailie]

Well, dungeons seems to stray out of topic a bit.  So, let's get back to troglodytes!   

How would you use troglodytes in your pulp games?  And no fair saying, "I wouldn't."  Defeats the question.  So...?

well, if you aren't too squeamish to follow the weird racist stuff from the original Tarzan stories, there are the ape-men of Opar.  Lost city in the jungle (or other distant place, say, inside the hollow Earth, or in a Land That Time Forgot, or wherever).  The ape men are guarding a treasure that the heroes want to steal, or the trogs have captured someone who must be rescued before suffering a fate worse than death (whatever that is...).  Or maybe the trogs attack the heroes attempting to capture a suitable sacrifice to placate the even bigger, badder and scarier beastie (Kong or similar), and then the heroes need to rescue the sacrificee from whoever that ends up being!

[Khusru2]

Or those odd creatures that pop up out of the ground in the last version of Time Machine.

[terrement]

If you wanted to have them, some possibilities could be:

In isolation

1. In a small town in the middle of nowhere.  It has essentially been taken over by a cult, though there are a few non-cultists who are essentially prisoners unable to leave as there's nothing within walking distance and the nowhere they are in the middle of (desert, swamplands, jungle) all provide their own menace.

2.  A minority faction - could be a more radical group stemming from a known opposition group to the government.  Like the IRA was the violent arm of the Irish opposition, consider a splinter group who didn't think the IRA was doing enough fast enough, big enough.  Or labor union thugs who wanted to hit harder than the regular thugs.  Or cops who felt that the corrupt politicians don't support them and don't let them enforce the law - so they become vigilantes.  Or a new but small anti-establishment group that can't afford to be identified.  Yellow peril anyone? 

The cult aspect could be from the aspect of a situation where the members know there are others who feel the same way, but when recruited into the cult, they don't know the recruiter and at any gathering, they protect their identity from each other.

But I think you're right that there is no compelling reason for them to be cults.  Could just be anarchists, thugs, gangsters, or any other group with a common objective and beliefs outside the main of society and government where they are



2.  An old time religion that has been outlawed and decimated by

[carlos marighela]

2.  A minority faction - could be a more radical group stemming from a known opposition group to the government.  Like the IRA was the violent arm of the Irish opposition, consider a splinter group who didn't think the IRA was doing enough fast enough, big enough. .......  Yellow peril anyone? 

Not sure that requires much imagination, the only question is whether you mean PIRA (split from OIRA for exactly those reasons), the INLA (also split from the stickies for the same psychotic reasoning) or the so-called Continuity or Real IRAs  who split from the wash up of PIRA cos being a gangster is more fun than just drawing your giro. They all existed.  Surely a cult requires a cult leader? Unless of course you are thinking of Klement Gottwald's Czechoslovakia and it's famous description as a personality cult without a personality. Anything based on Gerry, Mar'n or Dominic McGlinchey could at best be described a Cult of Personality Disorder.

I do hope you don't mean the Sax Rohmer style trope when you mean 'Yellow Peril'. There's enough racist cuntery about in the real world without porting it into games with toy soldiers.

[area23]

Outside of that need for anonymity, a cultist could look like anything and be up to anything if you want it in a game.  They could be:
- 5th columnists for some warlord (though most of the literary examples are pretty offensive nowadays)
- religious oddities, the theosophists fall under here and can be amped up as you wish, they're the gift that keeps on giving
- 5th columnists for space aliens (theosophists can work here again)
- working for a capitalist coup under a religious guise
- political separatists
- cult of personality types, religion-over-the-airways preachers in the 20s and 30s gone bad

Up until the birth of general suffrage in Europe secret societies were the only way to organise political change. It's often overlooked that until the 1920's most political and revolutionary movements had a spiritual or religious side too.
Only after the Russian Revolution and the communist international, revolution and atheism became the norm. 19th century anarchists and socialists groups were too organised in masonic inspired structures to avoid discovery as conspiring against King and state was a capital crime of course. Also those groups more often than not had a spiritual approach and could be viewed as an Evil Cult.
I suppose the idea of The Conspiring Cult remained a strong popular cultural image throughout the Pulp Era.

[ErikB]

My take on this is that, like zombies, cultists are a type of bad-guy who is morally acceptable for the heroes to kill, when necessary.

Zombie-disease and insanely dangerous religous beliefs both seem to count as creating a threat to society and change the person into something sub-human.

Same with the cliche Nazis, though I would put Communists way higher as an evil bad-guy.