Olympus 2249 Karma Guide: All 5 Karmic Types Explained

By Teodor Klimek · Updated October 4, 2026

Karma in Olympus 2249 is not a good/evil meter that ticks up in the background. It is a type you pick at character creation, and it decides what you can say. The Steam page calls it your Karmic Type and says it “shapes the entire playthrough”. The details below come from the Steam page and the studio’s first devlog.

The five Karmic Types

In the order the developers list them, from one end of the scale to the other:

1. Asshole
2. Rascal
3. Neutral
4. Optimist
5. Moralist

The Steam page puts it this way: you can start as a Moralist, an Asshole, or somewhere in between.

Which dialogue lines you can pick

In a conversation you have access to:

• the lines of your own type,
• the lines of the two types next to it on the scale,
• and lines from your peacetime specialization.

The developers’ example: a Neutral character also gets the Rascal and Optimist lines.

*The devlog only says “the two adjacent ones”. It does not say whether the scale wraps round at the ends, so we list one neighbour for Asshole and Moralist until we can check in the game.

Karma shifts as you talk

Each time you pick a line from a neighbouring type, you accumulate points for that type, and over time your Karma can move. The Steam page: “The person who starts this story doesn’t have to be the person who finishes it.” Because you can only ever reach one step either side, moving from one end of the scale to the other means drifting through the types in between.

What Karma changes

According to the devlog and the Steam page, your Karmic Type affects:

• Dialogue: which replies you can choose.
• Quests: which ones you are offered and how you can solve them.
• How people treat you.
• Jobs: some close, others open, “to the point that you might never even see some locations.”

The Steam page adds that conversations have no endless “Tell me about…” lists, and that you can say exactly what you want. Sometimes that is the smart move, but it can come back to bite you: “a faction that won’t take you in, a quest you’ll never be offered.”

Is there a “good” playthrough?

Yes, in the sense that Moralist and Optimist are full options rather than a token “nice” reply. That answers a common worry from players of the mod, where some felt the dialogue leaned hard toward being the bad guy. The game is still grim: the Steam content notes warn of frequent violence, blood and gore, dismemberment, crime and other mature themes, and a developer described the world as closest to Fallout 1 in brutality.

Choosing a type

• First run: pick the type you would naturally play. Since you also get both neighbours’ lines, the middle types (Rascal, Neutral, Optimist) see the widest range of replies.
• Replays: the developers point to second and third runs with different builds. Switching type is the biggest change you can make, because it changes which jobs and locations you see.
• Combine with your peacetime specialization: its dialogue lines come on top of your Karma lines, so a talker profession widens your options whatever your type.

See also: character builds and the beginner guide.