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Modern jobs are messy. People arrive in the same role from very different directions, carrying different loyalties, skills, and baggage. I wanted the kits to acknowledge that without turning every occupation into a full class system.

That’s why each occupation comes with Career Paths.

A path is a way of saying, “Here’s one angle on this occupation, and here’s the kind of story it points toward.” It isn’t a branching tree of feats; it’s a set of thematic channels. When you pick one, you’re choosing a particular mix of institutions, relationships, and pressures.

Designing paths meant thinking about breadth, clarity, and Keeper value. Breadth, because a single role should support more than one kind of character: a tech specialist might be corporate, freelance, buried in law enforcement, or part of a darker network. Clarity, because each path needs a strong identity, not just a different shopping list. Keeper value, because every path should hand the Keeper at least one institution or faction they can spotlight.

The paths stay focused on those goals. They give players a way to steer their role toward a particular kind of modern pulp while telling Keepers what kind of spotlight to prepare.

Once play begins, the rest of the page takes over: skills, talents, archetype pairings, gear prompts, and Keeper hooks.

Skills and talents are chosen with the Pulp Lens in mind. They aren’t trying to cover every possible checkbox. They’re there to reinforce how this character approaches problems and where the cracks show when things go wrong. If you can look at a kit and immediately see how that role would try to solve a scene, that section is doing its job.

Archetype pairings are there to make Pulp Cthulhu character creation faster. Instead of staring at a long list of options, you can glance at the kit and see which archetypes naturally pair with this occupation. It nudges you toward combinations that hit genre tone quickly without locking you in.

Gear is handled as prompts, not exhaustive lists. In modern pulp, the gear that matters is the stuff that changes how a scene plays. The kits highlight the kinds of equipment and access that make this role feel distinct, rather than cataloguing every possible item.

The Keeper hooks are where the kit becomes a prep engine. These short prompts suggest ways to frame complications, introduce threats, stress relationships, and show how institutions react to the character. They’re written so you can read them while planning and immediately get ideas for scenes.

Taken together, Career Paths and Play Support turn an occupation into something you keep using. Choosing a kit shapes the campaign; the page stays relevant while you play.

And that’s really the point of Kits 1–6. They’re not just six pages of character options. They’re six ways of saying, “This is what modern mythos play can look like”—with enough structure under each role that your table can actually live inside those stories.

Find out more at Applegarth Games!

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Keith