Dark Cults

About this board game

Dark Cults is a two-player storytelling card game with an approximately 60-minute play time, first released in 1983. One player represents Life, while the other represents Death, and each attempts to guide a horror story toward their corresponding outcome.

The game focuses on creating a story through cards, making it an early example of the storytelling card game format. It foreshadows Once Upon a Time: The Storytelling Card Game, while offering a distinctly horror-oriented setting and opposing narrative goals.

• Two-player competition between Life and Death
• A storytelling card game built around guiding a narrative
• A horror theme with suggested science-fiction and mystery possibilities
• An approximately 60-minute play time

Although the creator suggested that Dark Cults could also support science-fiction or mystery stories, the available cards may be poorly suited to those themes. The central experience remains the contest to shape a horror story toward either a life- or death-aligned conclusion.

The second edition was packaged with a magazine called The Cultist. That edition proposed solo and four-player variants, along with additional “object” cards for the game, expanding the ways its storytelling concept could be approached.

Designed by a co-designer of Divine Right and Knights of Camelot, Dark Cults presents an early take on competitive narrative play. Its simple premise—two opposing forces guiding one story toward different outcomes—makes it a notable entry in the history of storytelling card games.