Madness

Something is wrong with the world. You can feel it. There have been signs. A darkness hides behind the thin, peeling veneer, slowly eating away at all things good and pure. You can fight it, but eventually you will succumb to its curse and it will consume you. But maybe there is another way. Maybe you can understand enough of it that it might only fracture your mind, instead out of shattering it outright. Then the fight may go on.

“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”

-Philip K. Dick

In Rage of Demons, the demon lords of the Abyss have been unwillingly summoned into the Underdark of Toril. Each of the demon lords brings with it a unique form of contagious insanity that has been amplified by the faerzress, that strange radiation of the Underdark. Experiences that a hardened adventurer might once have shrugged off with nothing but a few nightmares have now started to wear on your psyche. As you travel further and further into the Underdark, you witness things that no one was meant to see and you are becoming the worse for wear. Personalities are starting to change as your grip on reality fractures. Insanity is your only refuge. Prepare to welcome it as a cherished friend.

Madness Saving Throws

At the best of times, the Underdark is a bizarre, alien, and inhospitable world, but the influence of the demon lords has transformed it into a domain of madness and chaos. Faerzress acts as a catalyst, spreading the demon lords’ madness throughout the Underdark. Things your character might have been disturbed by before may now force you to make a saving throw. These saving throws will typically be Wisdom- or Charisma-based, but in some cases if the source of your horror is not readily apparent or understandable the adventure might call for you to use your Intelligence instead. The DC of the saving throw will vary based on the dreadfulness of the scene and how deep you have traveled into the Underdark. Realizing your new paramour is a succubus while having drinks in The Stop’s Plodding Plow Inn might only be DC 5, but conversing telepathically with an aboleth about the horrors of the demon lords that it has witnessed while crouching in the shadows of the Lowerdark might be DC 20, or worse.

Some examples of things that might require you to make a Madness saving throw include:

• • You encounter or witness something particularly alien or disturbing (such as a demon, aberration, or the mutilation of your ally’s corpse).

  • You stay in a faerzress-suffused area for a long time (eight or more consecutive hours).

  • You take psychic damage, particularly in an area suffused with faerzress.

  • You make direct contact with the mind of an alien creature.

  • You are targeted by a madness inducing spell, such as the Insanity option of a symbol

  • You magically transport through, or attempt to use a divination spell on a target in, an area infused with faerzress.

  • You read a tome the topic of which is completely alien to your mind.

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 in the Player 's Handbook. 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.

Madness Levels

Madness is measured in levels. 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 longterm or indefinite madness.

1. Short-term madness: A character afflicted is subjected to an effect from the Short-Term Madness table for 1d10 minutes.

2. Long-term madness: A character afflicted is subjected to an effect from the Long-Term Madness table for 1d10 x 10 hours.

   1. Indefinite madness: A character afflicted gains a new character flaw from the Indefinite Madness table that lasts until cured. If you should acquire an indefinite madness, you record it in the notes section of your logsheet, and it stays with you from adventure to adventure until it is successfully removed.

Your madness level starts at 0. When you fail a madness saving throw, your madness level increases by 1, and you immediately suffers the level’s effect as determined by rolling on the Short-Term Madness or Long-Term Madness tables below, as appropriate to your new madness level. For Rage of Demons, there is a unique table for Indefinite Madness included in the adventures, themed appropriately to the demon lord that plagues the Moonsea and the lands below it. For these adventurers, you use the included chart for Indefinite Madness instead. When a madness effect ends, your madness level doesn’t change. Any time your madness level increases, you suffer the effect of the new level.

As an example, Alan’s paladin fails a madness saving throw after finding a quasit hiding in his bed and suffers short-term madness for 3 minutes during which he runs screaming from the inn. His madness level rises from 0 to 1. Several hours later, he reads a despicable tome and fails another madness saving throw. His level is now 2 even though he has shaken off the fright of seeing the quasit. Alan’s paladin is slipping rapidly towards permanent insanity.

Just because you have reached level 3 doesn’t mean your character is safe from further insanity. If your Madness Level is 3 and you fail another madness saving throw, your madness level becomes 1, and you immediately gain a new, short-term insanity. You still keep your first indefinite madness, but begin working on your second! In this way, you can potentially accumulate multiple forms of madness.

Please note that you incorporate the madness into your own character and still role-play your own character. The DM does not take control of your character no matter how far you slip into insanity, though your DM might make suggestions on how you might deal with your insanity. Also, role-playing your insanity does not give you the right to ignore the Code of Conduct rules.

Short-Term Madness

• d100 Effect (lasts 1d10 minutes)

  • 01-20 The character retreats into his or her mind and becomes paralyzed . The effect ends if the character takes any damage.

  • 21-30 The character becomes incapacitated and spends the duration screaming, laughing, or weeping.

  • 31-40 The character becomes frightened and must use his or her action and movement each round to flee from the source of the fear.

  • 41-50 The character begins babbling and is incapable of normal speech or spellcasting.

  • 51-60 The character must use his or her action each round to attack the nearest creature.

  • 61-70 The character experiences vivid hallucinations and has disadvantage on ability checks.

  • 71-75 The character does whatever anyone tells him or her to do that isn't obviously self-destructive.

  • 76-80 The character experiences an overpowering urge to eat something strange such as dirt, s lime, or offal.

  • 81-90 The character is stunned.

  • 91-100 The character falls unconscious.

Long-Term Madness

• d100 Effect (lasts 1d10 x 10 hours)

  • 01-10 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 disadvantage on ability checks.

  • 21-30 The character suffers extreme paranoia. The character has disadvantage on Wisdom and Charisma checks.

  • 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 disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws 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 disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws that involve Strength or Dexterity.

  • 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 Wisdom saving throw or be affected as though he or she failed a saving throw against the confusion spell. The confusion effect lasts for 1 minute.

  • 91-95 The character loses the ability to speak.

  • 96-100 The character falls unconscious. No amount of jostling or damage can wake the character.

Indefinite Madness

• d100 Flaw (lasts until cured)

  • 01-15 "Being drunk keeps me sane."

  • 16-25 "I keep whatever I find ."

  • 26-30 "I try to become more li ke someone else I knowadopting his or her style of dress , mannerisms, and name."

  • 31-35 "I must bend the truth, exaggerate, or outright lie to be interesting to other people."

  • 36-45 "Achieving my goal is the only thing of interest to me, and I'll ignore everything else to pursue it."

  • 46-50 "I find it hard to care about anything that goes on around me ."

  • 51-55 "I don 't like the way people judge me all the time."

  • 56-70 "I am the smartest, wisest, strongest, fastest, and most beautiful person I know."

  • 71 -80 "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."

  • 81-85 "There's only one person I can trust. And only I can see this special frie nd ."

  • 86-95 "I can't take anything seriously. The more serious the situation, the funnier I find it."

  • 96-100 "I've discovered that I really like killing people."

Curing Madness

Once madness takes root, it is hard to eliminate.

• • Calm emotions: A calm emotions spell can suppress the effects of madness for the duration, in those that fail the saving throw against the spell.

• Lesser restoration: The effects of short- and long-term madness can be cured by lesser restoration.

• Remove curse & Dispel evil: Given the demonic source of the madness, remove curse and dispel evil are also effective as cures.

  • Greater restoration: While all of these cures end the effect, they do NOT reduce your madness level. A greater restoration spell or more powerful magic is needed to cure indefinite madness. In addition, greater restoration resets a creature’s madness level to 0. 

  • Factions: Some of the factions may also have ways of dealing with or preventing madness