Long-Term Madness Table
In a typical campaign, characters aren't driven mad by the horrors they face and the carnage they inflict day after day, but sometimes the stress of being an adventurer can be too much to bear. If your campaign has a strong horror theme, you might want to use madness as a way to reinforce that theme, emphasizing the extraordinarily horrific nature of the threats the adventurers face.
Going Mad
Various magical effects can inflict madness on an otherwise stable Mind. Certain Spells, such as contact other Plane and Glyph of Mortality, can cause insanity, and you can use the madness rules here instead of the Spell effects in the PG. Diseases, Poisons, and planar effects such as Psychic wind or the howling winds of Pandemonium can all inflict madness. Some artifacts can also break the psyche of a character who uses or becomes attuned to them.
Resisting a madness-inducing effect usually requires a Mind Contesting Roll.
Madness Effects
Madness can be short-term, long-term, or indefinite. Most relatively mundane effects impose short-term madness, which lasts for just a few minutes. More horrific effects or cumulative effects can result in long-term or indefinite madness.
A character afflicted with short-term madness is subjected to an effect from the Short-Term Madness table for minutes.
A character afflicted with long-term madness is subjected to an effect from the Long-Term Madness table for × 10 hours.
A character afflicted with indefinite madness gains a new character flaw from the Indefinite Madness table that lasts until cured.
| Effect | |
|---|---|
| 1 - 10 | The character feels compelled to repeat a specific activity over and over, such as washing hands, touching things, praying, or counting coins. |
| 11 - 20 | The character experiences vivid hallucinations and has DIS on Skill Rolls. |
| 21 - 30 | The character suffers extreme paranoia. The character has DIS on Awareness, Empathy, and Influence Skill Rolls. |
| 31 - 40 | The character regards something (usually the source of madness) with intense revulsion, as if affected by the Antipathy effect of the antipathy/sympathy Spell. |
| 41 - 45 | The character experiences a powerful delusion. Choose a potion. The character imagines that he or she is under its effects. |
| 46 - 55 | The character becomes attached to a "lucky charm," such as a person or an object, and has DIS on Attack Rolls, Skill Rolls, and Contesting Rolls while more than 30 feet from it. |
| 56 - 65 | The character is Blinded (25%) or Deafened (75%). |
| 66 - 75 | The character experiences uncontrollable tremors or tics, which impose DIS on challange rolls that involve Body. |
| 76 - 85 | The character suffers from partial amnesia. The character knows who he or she is and retains racial traits and class features, but doesn't recognize other people or remember anything that happened before the madness took effect. |
| 86 - 90 | Whenever the character takes damage, he or she must succeed on a DC 15 Soul Contesting Roll or be affected as though he or she failed a Contesting Roll against the Puzzling Confusion Spell. The Puzzling Confusion effect lasts for 1 minute. |
| 91 - 95 | The character loses the Ability to speak, and is Silenced. |
| 96 - 100 | The character falls Unconscious. No amount of jostling or damage can wake the character. |
