Madness

Various magical effects can inflict madness on an otherwise stable mind. Certain spells, such as contact other plane and symbol, can cause insanity, and you can use the madness rules here instead of the spell effects of those spells. 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.

Going Mad

Each time a character is exposed to a Madness effect, they must roll an opposed Mental Resistance vs. the effect's Potency value as a number of dice. On a failure, they gain a Madness of the applicable type and rank. Characters may be affected by multiple forms of Madness.

Madness Effects

When a character would be affected by a Madness, they roll 1d10 on the appropriate chart to determine which madness affects them. 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 Rank rounds.
• A character afflicted with long-term madness is subjected to an effect from the Long-Term Madness table for 1d10 × 10 hours.
• A character afflicted with indefinite madness gains a new character flaw from the Indefinite Madness table that lasts until cured.

Short-Term Madness

Number	Effect
1	The character retreats into his or her mind and their speed drops to 0 for the duration. The effect ends if the character takes any damage.
2	The character becomes Flatfooted and spends the duration screaming, laughing, or weeping.
3	The character becomes Panicked and must use his or her action and movement each round to flee from the source of the fear.
4	The character begins babbling and is incapable of normal speech or spells requiring verbal components.
5	The character must use his or her action each round to attack the nearest target.
6	The character experiences vivid hallucinations and suffers a -6 penalty to skill checks.
7	The character does whatever anyone tells him or her to do that isn’t obviously self-­destructive.
8	The character experiences an overpowering urge to eat something strange such as dirt, slime, or offal.
9	The character is stunned.
10	The character falls unconscious.

Long-Term Madness

Number	Effect
1	The character feels compelled to repeat a specific activity over and over, such as washing hands, touching things, praying, or counting coins.
2	The character experiences vivid hallucinations and suffers a -6 penalty to skill checks.
3	The character suffers extreme paranoia. They suffer a -6 penalty on Charisma-based skills.
4	The character regards something (usually the source of madness) with intense revulsion desiring to either flee or destroy it.
5	The character experiences a powerful delusion. Choose an ability. The character imagines that he or she is under its effects.
6	The character becomes attached to a "lucky charm," such as a person or an object, and has suffers a -2 on attack rolls, skill checks, and resistance rolls while more than 30 feet from it.
7	The character is blinded or deafened.
8	The character experiences uncontrollable tremors or tics, which impose a -4 on all skill rolls that involve Strength or Dexterity.
9	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.
10	The character loses the ability to speak. This includes casting spells with verbal components.

Indefinite Madness

Number	Description
1	“Being drunk keeps me sane.”
2	"I keep whatever I find."
3	“I can’t take anything seriously. The more serious the situation, the funnier I find it.”
4	“I must bend the truth, exaggerate, or outright lie to be interesting to other people.”
5	“Achieving my goal is the only thing of interest to me, and I’ll ignore everything else to pursue it.”
6	“I find it hard to care about anything that goes on around me.”
7	“I’ve discovered that I really like killing people.”
8	“I am the smartest, wisest, strongest, fastest, and most beautiful person I know.”
9	“I am convinced that powerful enemies are hunting me, and their agents are everywhere I go. I am sure they’re watching me all the time.”
10	“There’s only one person I can trust. And only I can see this special friend.”

Recovery

• Rest & Therapy: One week of downtime with a healer, priest, or counselor can reduce Madness by 1 Tier (long-term or indefinite only)

• Control Emotion can suppress the effects of the Madness for the duration.

• Regenerate cures Madness entirely.