Hi all.

Our Psyker player (rank 4, Legate Investigator) recently asked me whether he should learn FL (Cults) or FL (Heresy) and what I think is more relevant to the game. I contemplated a little about this question and looked through some of the DH publications. Still, I am not sure which I would recommend. The two skills often seem to be mixed up and sometimes it is enough to have one OR the other. In Rogue Trader FL (Cult) is not existant for example and I sometimes wonder whether it would have been better for DH either to just have one skill for more or less both. According to DotDG you need FL (Cults) to have knowledge about Ateanism, which I see more as a heretical phlosophy rather than a true cult as such. For the Temple Tendency you need FL (Heresy) and even though they are certainly a heretical sect, they also are a cult as such.

Has anyone of you ever thought about this 'problem' and have an idea how to better differentiate the two skills? I tend to allow the player to de facto get both skills for 100 xp as I am happy that at least one (maybe a second one) of my players invests in Lore skills instead of Mighty/Crack/Deadeye/Whatever Shot talents.

Thanks.

I think the two lores are actually quite distinct substance-wise once you think of it a bit...

Forbidden Lore (Cult) Deals with different kinds of cults, their organizations, their resources and abilities.

Forbidden Lore (Heresy) Deals with the heretical belief-systems and philosophies.

Think of it like Warhammer 40K analog, Lore (40K Armies), similar to Forbidden Lore (Cult), lets you roll if you can remember what kind of units Dark Eldar armies get or what are the specific abilities of Khornite Bloodletter. Lore (40K Fluff), similar to Forbidden Lore (Heresy), lets you roll if you remember what are the main philosophical and political differences of Dark Eldar and Eldar or what is The Greater Good.

Polaria has the right of it, Luthor.

Consider this scenario:

Your players run into a group of Imperial worshippers that seem a little strange... their behaviour is somewhat cult-like but it is difficult to put a finger on exactly what is going on with them. Forbidden Lore (Cult) reveals nothing useful about them, because they are in fact followers of an obscure branch of the Imperial Creed... one that would certainly stand out to an Acolyte with Forbidden Lore (Heresy) .

Basically, are your players facing off against subtle enemies or more blatant ones?

By the by, I give synergistic bonuses on rolls when an Acolyte has both skills and I know they both apply.

Not much left to say... unless in case of your question "which is more game relevant":

I would normally stick to "Cults". As soon as the grox dung hits the ventilation, the knowledge of what might be turned against you (or how this will be organized) is a little more "worthy" to me.

If the players likes his figure to be more "learned & investigative", I would use "cult". This won´t allow to tell what´s in the arsenal of the "Logician Cult", but it will help to tell a Logician appart from a "Minor Heretek" and to discern between a rather hardline Ministorum Member and a follower of "Temple Tendency"... if you grapped some evidence first, of course!

Addition:
One might even say that you need "FL (Heresy)" to identify the "Cult" before "FL (Cult)" can be used in proper ways.

Knowlege of 101 cults of the Imperium isn´t that good if you do not know if you are actually up against Logicians, The Serrated Query, a splinter of the Diciples of Thule or the Amplificators of Men!

Polaria said:

The distinction seem to cause more problems than it solves if you ask me.

For instance, let's say that a character has FL (Cults) but not FL (Heresy), this would mean that the character knows a lot about different cults, but doesn't have a clue about what their beliefs are (you'd think that if you read up on cult activity you'd a least learn something of those cults' beliefs at least in a passing note). Imagine asking that character something like this:

-"Okay mr smarty pants, tell me which cults have been seen operating on planet X."

-"Well there's the Brotherhood of the Thorn, The Estoeric Order of the Bladed Fate, The Fellowship of Orfea, The Burning Dawn and last but not least The Scourge of Oberon Nine"

-"Ah, I see. What's the difference between them?"

-"Huh? What do you mean 'difference'? They're cults! Do you mean like what kind of robes they like to wear or if they are armed with shotguns or lasguns?"

-"No, I mean what are the different cults trying to achieve? What do they believe in?"

-"Well, I... uhm."

-"Seriously, you actually went to such great lengths digging up these obscure names, but you didn't even bother to check out what they're all about?"

-"I... Err... No I guess I didn't. Silly me "

To me, this doesn't make much sense. Some Lore skills I can understand why they are distinct, others simply seem to have been made to fill the lists with as many Lore skills as possible. Some of them should really be baked together into one single skill instead of staying distinct if you ask me.

Thank you all for the helpful answers. I really appreciate it.

Polaria said:

Gregorius21778 said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

from france.

i agree my friend. the two can be related but not always, especialy if the cult has a secret doctrine. if you have the knowledge of a heresy you may not have a secret cult. moreover. secret cult can be legal and has such are not heretical.

if you have both knowledge my house rule is (it depend on the rechearch) you get a bonus on the tes that you want. for example if you have a good knowledge of a secret cult on scintilla but vague knowledge of their heresy, you get a +10 bonnus to have more clues.

Varnias Tybalt said:

I've actually had almost exactly the same conversation, in Real Life, considering what criminal organizations are operating on certain geographic location. And yes, the other guy could rattle all the names of the organizations, their strenghts, the names of the key players, the crimes they were involved with and the symbols used to distinguish one gang from another.

He could not, however, produce a single line on why these organizations had been formed, what were their inner codes of conduct and rules and why they had become involved in certain types of crimes in particular. And, lets face it, as his job was just to kick in doors, arrest people and get them to court he didn't really even need that much information on "why" the gangs are what they are... He just needed to where to find them and how much men he needed.

For scientific minded person it is immensely illogical that somewould study the "what this is?" aspect without ever bothering to study the "why is it like this?" aspect. However, outside scientific community the mind-set I previously described is, believe it or not, actually more common.

I give another example:

Lore (Islamic Terrorist Organizations) & Lore (Theology of Islamic Sects)

Thanks to the media most of us actually know quite a lot of passing knowledge on Islamic Terrorist Organizations modus operandi, weapons, tactics and such. Surprisingly many can't answer a single question correctly if asked something on what these guys actually believe in.

The Cipher and Secret Language is simple, really. Ciphers are codes used to encrypt text. Secret Language is like any other language, except that as it is "secret" its use is restricted to certain group. There is nothing in common with Ciphers and Secret Language, really. Knowing how to speak german won't give you ability to decrypt ENIGMA code and decrypting an ENIGMA code into plain text won't still let you understand the text unless you also know the language it was written in.

As with everything in the game rules the GM is the king and god of his own campaign. If your campaign is very action/combat based, molding Cult & Heresy lores together could work and is ultimately your call alone. As I've run campaigns where investigations are in forefront and action and combat only happen comparatively rarely I've had no problem in getting players to invest on their Lore skills.

Polaria said:

I believe you.

However, would you really say that this person you spoke with had the Forbidden Lore (Gangs), or would it rather be something more along the line of Common Lore (Underworld)?

From the descriptions of the Forbidden Lore skills it seems that when something is "forbidden" it is when it both deals with a forbidden subject AND having an in-depth knowledge of the forbidden subject in question. Quite simply a person with Forbidden Lore, knows more than he or she should know about a forbidden subject.

The person you spoke with sounds like he or she just read some stuff on wikipedia about the criminal organizations in question, but without having any true and "forbidden" knowledge about the subject matter, wouldn't you agree?

If that was the case, then you'd expect the person to be able to answer some of those questions about why the organizations had been formed and what their inner codes of conduct and rules were, right?

So for instance, a booksmart person knowing about the things you listed would most likely have the Common Lore (Underworld) or Common Lore (Gangs) skill. That would represent the knowledge based on rumours and what is perfectly available to the common man not affiliated with these criminal organizations.

However an adept member of these criminal organizations who have become privy to the inner codes of conduct and rules and the true purpose of the gang/criminal organization, would (in game terms) have the Forbidden Lore (Gangs) or Forbidden Lore (Underworld). Mainly because knowledge of these things implies that you are an active and involved member of these organisations and would either be killed by your own gang if you revealed this information to outsiders, or might get arrested by the police if the authorities found out you have this knowledge.

My opinion here would be that if you have actually gotten to check the "skilled" box for a Forbidden Lore, you should justifiably have a rather encompassing knowledge of that field of interest. Also the game system seems to agree with me on this one, because if one were to look over the tables in Disciples of the Dark Gods, knowledge of certain cults, xenos and phenomena can actually be accessed by the same set of skills (i.e you can roll a lore check against either FL (Cults) or FL(Heresy) against most tables concerning different cults).

It seems to me that the distinction between certain forbidden lore skills are a bit... Redundant, and in order to create a more clear cut distinction, some Forbidden Lore's should be baked together with other Forbidden Lores instead of being separate.

For instance, Cults and Heresy could quite reasonably be one and the same skill, but Heresy/Cults and Daemonology or Heresy/Cults and Xenos would not.

I think these two skills should be stream lined into one; this is a game and sometimes simplicity should take precedence over factual accuracy.

Star Wars Saga edition made a similar decision in stream lining the plethora off skills from D&D 3.5. So for example, Spot, Listen and Search were amalgamated into a Perception skill and Move silently and Hide were merged into one Stealth skill.

Whilst I do see the distinction between FL Cults and Heresy the difference between them rarely means that only one is relevant in a game situation and therefore in the name of fluidity they should be merged IMO.

Hi Luthor,

sorry for confusing a confused matter even further.

My approach to this "FL-matter" is

"Forbidden Lore (Cult)" tells you what /where/how a certain forbidden group is doing something. In my book, it will help if

- you found a a strange device with a subject and try to figure out if a group is known for using such a stuff
- if you know you are up against [CULT] and you wonder what in general they might use to guard their hide-out
- if you wonder what the hierarchy / organization will be like

Example:
The group found a number of strange thorn-like item inside a number of different servitors that went "berzerk" over the last couple of weaks. The FL(Cult) tells the pc the Logicians are known to use such devices which cause that kind of effect. In addition, the skill tells them that this Cult is made up of hereteks know to be as efficient as roothless, professionals in there field with access to advanced and arcane forbidden technology with even some renegade tech-priests inside there ranks. They know that they should be on guard for "pro´s" and to be on the look-out for technical gadgets.

"Forbbiden Lore (Heresy)" tells you why / for what a certain forbidden group is doing somethinig. In my book, it will help if

- you try to spot a follower of a haeretic dogma by what he is to sloppy to cover up for (or if you are observing him)
"He did not seem to give any reverence to the machine-spirts while using the devices... I heared that Serrated Query Agents act like that"
- you try to go undercover and pass as a member of said group (knowing their phrases and canon)
"...and he shall reign in internity, and we as his servants shall rule in his name"
- you find certain evidence and try to pin it to some group (like finding a forbidden text or ritual item)
"You see this? This feint engravement of windings in the blade of the mono-knife? Trade mark of the DeathCult known as the Her Thirsting Daughters."
- you try to figure out what the actions of a known group might be aiming against
"So we know these agents procuring the narco-shipment where from a The Cult of the Revivalist. The question is: how do a several dozen pounds of high puritiy narcotics help in bringing the dead back to unholy live?"

Shouldn´t some-one who is knowing their tactics and stratagems and structur although know about their believes as well?
Does a commander who knows about the tactics, general arments and assumed combat strenght of a certain guerilla group in some certain mountain ridge has to have a deeper understanding about their believes and customes besides "they are anti-imperial and worship chaos"? Will he be able to tell the difference between mutants sworn to Khorne and those sworn to Slaanesh and those just enrolling with the Throng for Rebellion?

In what way this knowledge will be "gamer helpfull" is a different question... hopefully, my examples give some hints for answers.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Correct. It all depends a bit on the kind of campaign you are running. I like to think Imperium as ultrafascist society with little or no free speech, no free media and increasingly paranoid attitude towards heretics, cults, mutants, xenos and so on. A kind of supersized ultraconseravtive christian state. As such in games I run Forbidden Lore knowledge is Forbidden because no normal Imperial citizen should possess it without a **** good explanation (and even then it is a bit suspicious). In the atmosphere of general paraoia it doesn't need to be very specific and it can still get you into trouble. Then again getting such knowledge isn't really easy unless you've already travelled off the beaten path... Libraries are closed to everyone but Adepts, all media is censored and even the concept of of something like Wikipedia (and, for that matter, modern internet) is heretical to utmost degree.

In Imperium a rank and file Adeptus Arbites Enforcer is not expected to know any specifics about cults or heresies. He is expected to know how much lead to take when leveling his sights on a running heretic and he is expected to know the right litanies to chant while squeezing the trigger of his combat shotgun.

If you'll accept another possibly helpful, but possibly confusing parallel I didn't see mentioned:

FL (Heresy) is the 'flipside' of Scholastic Lore (Judgement)

FL (Cults) is the 'flipside' of Scholastic Lore (Bureacracy)

This plays up the hard facts vs philosophical/academic side. If the acolyte knows the structure, methods and modes of a cult, they might well be able to identify by profile , be able to make a guess at what they do next. Like a law enforcer would have some structural/operational knowledge of oddball religions, 'superchurches' and folks like the Masons, Templars or whoever. Knowing the modes and whatnot.

But the player who knows intricate details of the Heresy, they know the dissention, the 'problems' with what they're doing; where they break the rules and where, though a rule isn't broken, there might be a moral threat. In terms of differentiating, one might disinguish the knowledge needed to examine, say, the Destiny Church of NZ or Scientology as FL (Cults), whilst knowing the intricacies of splintering and schisming of churches, seriously (oddly) criminal behaviour and so forth would be more akin to that of Heresy.

The parallels are by no means exact, but in explaining it to the player you might feel it simply better to say 'methods' versus 'whys'. It's not a concrete one and it doesn't indeed conflict with some of the uses in the adventures , but if a player was labouring under a different understanding: discuss it with 'em, clarify the matter within the group.

Agent Fox Mulder might have FL Cults & Heresy.

The differences seem to have been detailed fairly well...

Still, i generally agree with Tybalt that if you went out of your way (dipping into forbidden knowledge) to find out about the different cults (which information of, i suppose could have been suppressed) you'd learn something passing about their workings.

Maybe you could come up with a house rule for things that share a field of related knowledge?

Say for example, if you had FL cults, you could make a test in FL heresy as a basic skill with a quarter of the related stat bonus?

I'd say bringing in a rule like that implies a small amount of logic and reasoning within the acolytes that might not normally be present within the 40k populace. Such abilities towards abstraction are sometimes rare, and can lead to...HERESY!

There's an overlap, sure, but not all cults are heretical (some may simply be obscure or secretive - there's a variety of entirely legitimate, if somewhat scary, Death Cults devoted to the Emperor; they'd be covered by Forbidden Lore [Cults]), and not all heresies are committed by cults (many are committed by individuals, others might be unintentional deviations from the orthodox rather than acts of malice or sedition).

Thanks again for all the helpful input. The distinction now became even clearer in my vision and I won't merge them anymore. Maybe I will subsidize my player with a few XP if he chooses to take both skills and I will most probably give him strong bonuses for having both skills when appropriate (ie. investigating a heretical cult).