Madness

The mind can only stand so much pressure before it breaks. There are things no one was meant to see, or do, or know, and they can bring on a creeping madness, leading to total insanity.
==Acquiring Madness==
Characters suffer madness from exposure to traumatic events. These events require a Will check with the Difficulty Class of the check set by the intensity of the trauma, ranging from DC 10 (suffering a painful injury or receiving a sudden shock) to DC 30 or more (prolonged torture or witnessing Things Man Was Not Meant to Know). In a game where the supernatural is rare and utterly horrifying, most or all supernatural beings should have ranks in the Induce Madness FX in addition to their other abilities.
A failed check results in a Taint Die and any number of other maladies. A successful check means there's no effect this time. Once acquired, Madness eats away at a character's sanity and Will. A character must make all Will checks with his or her Taint Dice. As it affects a single trait (Will), Madness is considered to be Challenge Rank 1. However, if foes which can Induce Madness are particularly common, and characters will be making many more Will checks, you may wish to increase the Challenge Rank to 2.
==Madness and Drawbacks==
Madness will almost exclusively impose Mental Drawbacks, most of which are based on psychiatric disorders in the first place. Since many of these Mental Drawbacks demand increasingly-frequent Will checks (which Madness will weaken), characters will need to be very careful to manage their Taint Dice, often being forced to "trade in" for more and more Drawbacks. Having more than a handful of Taint Dice will make it extremely difficult for a character to pass the Will checks associated with Mental Drawbacks.
==Madness and FX==
In settings where madness is linked to certain FX (particularly when they have the Psychic or Magical Descriptors) Madness may increase a character's level of power. For example, perhaps Magical FX in the setting are only available to characters with Taint Dice and any individual FX can't have a rank greater than the character's Taint Dice total (or total times some multiplier like x2 or x5). In such games, FX with this limitation might have the Madness Required Flaw.
Further, in games where the supernatural is terrifying and unnerving, many (if not all) supernatural creatures have ranks in the Induce Madness FX, which allows them to actively and passively drive mortal men insane. In such games in particular, it may be more appropriate to consider Madness to be Challenge Rank 2 instead of 1.
==Eliminating Madness==
Eliminating Madness takes time, rest, and usually some form of psychotherapy or psychological treatment (with an Academics check, or Science checks for more modern psychiatry with psychiatric medications). Madness should generally be treated as Chronic Taint, which takes 3 months to make an Academics check to remove even a single Taint Die. Any occasion where the patient has to make a Will check against Madness again means no progress during that time. And without specialized help like this, it takes 1 year of dedicated work before a character can make even his or her first Will check to shed a Taint die.
Category:Rulebook
Category:Action
Category:Taint
Category:Madness