Corruption in Conan Exiles

## **Corruption in Conan - Deadlands Edition**

Almost all characters in the Hyborian Age are capable of being corrupted if they face sufficiently severe challenges to their integrity.  If one consistently jeopardizes the well-being of others for the promotion of their own power, wealth, or status, they are more likely to stumble into the corruption of this world. Many people begin with no integrity whatsoever, and seem to seek out self-corruption as a form of fuel, entertainment, validation of the weakness, the suffering, of demons from beyond. Even those with stringent codes of honor may fall from their principled stance, usually without any hope of regaining it. This is because the worldview portrayed in the Conan stories is essentially bleak. There are no cosmic forces for ‘Good’. Even the supposedly good gods, such as Mitra, are few and far between. The only good is that which is to be found in a few human beings of high moral standing, though even they are far scarcer than the self-serving or actively evil humans who make up the majority of ordinary people and great heroes and villains alike.

On the other hand, ‘Evil’ exists in a very real and concrete manner. Dark forces are always afoot. The foul sorcerous knowledge of evil priests and the vile demons they conjure up are far more powerful than any magics or defensive prayers to which their supposedly ‘Good’ counterparts might have access to.  These ‘good’ magics break the same laws of mortal, natural life and attract the same attention from the demons from beyond.  Many folk, who might otherwise be moral, take the first steps on the road to damnation when they realize that even if they behave virtuously, there is no paradise in the next life, no guarantee of salvation; they might as well take what they can here and now.  In the exiled lands, this is even worse - terrible magics bind spirits and prevent them from being released to their gods, to their afterlives - it is truly a terrible place.

Corruption is a more serious problem for magicians and other scholars than for most characters. Their research typically causes them to make more saving throws against corruption than most adventurers; moreover, even those who successfully avoid being corrupted have a tendency to grow madder and madder as they gain more and more unnatural knowledge. For the amoral sorcerer, with some insight into just how powerful and dangerous are the forces aligned against humanity, there is a stark choice between simply giving in to those forces and giving in to despair or madness at the recognition that those forces will someday win.

Almost every high-level sorcerer is likely to be either corrupt or mad, at least to some degree.

## **Corruption FAQ**

### **What is corruption?**

Corruption is effectively an enduring curse of semi-permanent sorcery.

### **What does corruption do to a person?**

Corruption steadily saps away at one’s health and sanity, eventually causing them to succumb to sickness and die, or to despair of their emotional state and having lost their will to thrive they get themselves killed.

### **What does corruption -feel- like?**

Corruption is a terrifying lie that enslaves the senses.  Corruption is the cacophony of voices that whisper in the darkness, the shadows that creep at the corner of your vision.  To your tongue it tastes of bile and decay, and to your nose it is an acrid smoke that steals the breath from your lungs.  To touch corruption is to feel every hair on your body stand on its end, and to feel as though you are being crushed by an invisible weight of dread and anxiety that you cannot move out from under.  It is the dread that haunts your sleepless nights and the fatigue that hunts you throughout the day.

### **How do you get corrupted?**

One can become corrupted from arcane attacks, from enchanted (accursed) relics, artefacts, or weapons, staying in an area that has become corrupted, or through peaceful contact with demons or very powerful sorcerers.

**How long do these things take or last in RP time, considering in RP scenes or RL weeks?**

Becoming corrupted is semi-permanent, and with few exceptions will last indefinitely for the life of your character.  During admin/advocate/actor overseen events if you are trafficking with demons, travelling in close proximity with extremely corrupt sorcerers, or handling accursed artefacts, relics, or weapons the DM may call for you to make a willpower saving throw to determine whether or not you have become corrupted by its accursed influence.

### **What are the risks of gaining corruption?**

As you become more corrupted the risk to your character becomes more severe.  Insanities and illnesses apply upward toward your permanent demise.  During a scene, when you have died 3 times in PvE or PvP, or are currently at the level of “severely injured”, the next time you die you must roll a willpower save minus your corruption vs DC 15.  If you fail this roll your character dies)

## **Mechanics of Corruption**

Corruption offers no benefits.  Corruption makes socializing and relating, focus and thinking, and moving around and enduring more difficult.  It warps someone physically and mentally the more corrupt they are.  This is not an incentive to run out and get a physical and spiritual plague for the sake of getting cool glowing eyes, horns, and an easy excuse to be inconsistent and crazy.  If someone has glowing eyes, horns, claws, or other strange and inhuman effects - *they have done Some Bad Shit* that involve *magical forces breaking the laws of nature and reality*. There is no ‘oops I was chosen by my god and now I have cool white eyeballs and ice wings’.  If someone’s eyes are glowing, they speak and wisps of fire come out their mouth instead of puffs of air, or snakes get mesmerized by their gaze - they meddled with or descended from something otherworldly, demonic, and ultimately they thrive off of mortal sacrifice and suffering in some way or another. Innocent people have been murdered, tortured, and made to suffer when demonic traits are visible.

### **Effects of Corruption**

**Corruption Level 1-2 or “trace corruption”**

*Troubled*. 0 dice roll penalty. The character may have occasional nightmares in which he commits atrocious acts, or may begin to develop a drinking problem or a taste for some lotus-derived drug.  Often this is not so much a direct effect of the corruption, as a means of attempting to control it or avoid thinking about it. This can be reduced through rare and likely magical means in roleplay - reducing or curing this is unavailable to players through mundane gameplay and items.rare methods known only to esoteric masters.

**Corruption Levels 3-4 or** **“mild corruption”**

*Disturbed.* -1 dice roll penalty. The character begins to question the value of acting correctly or ethically, feeling pessimistic about the future. He is likely to toy with the idea that demons or evil gods would be better to worship than the established religions, feeling that at least evil is honest in its selfishness and more effective at accomplishing goals. Keeping to a Code of Honour will be very difficult at this point.

**Corruption Levels 5-6 or “moderate corruption”**

*Detached.* -2 dice roll penalty. The character no longer cares about others’ feelings or comfort, seeing them as no more than tools to be used in his personal pursuit of pleasure, power, knowledge or whatever else it is that motivates him. The thought of a Code of Honour, if he ever had one, is quite ridiculous to him. Interpersonal relations tend to fall apart or become far more manipulative and obsession or goal feeding. These characters will do whatever they can to attain their goals and further their agendas, only sparing others of mercy and cruelty because doing so may inconvenience them too greatly. It is essentially functional sociopathy.

*Corruption levels beyond 6 will require discussion with an administrator and a magic application. We still reserve the right to reject magic applications as necessary, even if they are a result of corruption.*

### **Corruption Saves**

Any time a character comes into contact with a demon, an evil god, or an unusually powerful and corrupt sorcerer, if the character is not actively attacking them or fleeing from them in terror, they must make a corruption saving throw. This is essentially a Willpower saving throw.

Are you facing a corrupt being? Did someone just cast a strong magical spell? Did you encounter a twisted and corrupted item or location?  This is when you make a **Corruption Check.**

**Corruption Check:**

Make a willpower roll. If your character has corruption points, subtract that amount from the willpower roll (this is a situational penalty, called a **circumstance penalty**).  Once you start on the steady slope towards corruption, it is more and more difficult to stop.

Your adjusted roll goes against the being/magic’s **Sorcery Attack roll**.  If you beat the roll, you are not corrupted. If you lose the corruption check, you may either take a point of corruption, **or** instead take an insanity.  You should inform the storyteller with **[corruption gain]** or **[take an insanity]**.  The insanities will be chosen from a list, tailored somewhat to your character, and not be convenient to your character but may be entertaining, but ultimately are expected to be played out. Characters that take no losses are rarely any fun to play with.

Failure of a corruption check causes a person to become **shaken** (-2 penalty on All rolls) for 1d6 rounds (or for 1 roleplay scene if it is not a scene of intense activity such as combat or multiple skill checks).  The character also gains a permanent, minor insanity as agreed by the player and Games Master from the list below, or from elsewhere if desired. A sorcerer who already has a minor insanity and fails a second insanity saving throw becomes shaken once more, this time for 3d6 rounds (or for three scenes). He also gains a permanent major insanity, as agreed by the player and Games Master from the list below. It is always possible to opt to fail the save against Corruption, if one would prefer to become corrupted rather than mad.

**Repeat Corruption Checks**

A character who successfully saves against corruption usually does not need to make another Corruption saving throw due to the presence of the same creature or in the same area in a roleplays scene. However, if he has close, peaceful contact with the creature, the Games Master may call for another corruption saving throw at their discretion.

If any sudden uses of corruption and magic are used though, they may have to make another corruption save.

**Corrupted Artefacts**

Certain magical artefacts, cursed treasures and sorcerous practices can also force corruption saving throws. If the artefact or treasure in question is cursed or magically tainted in any way, a Corruption Save must be made. Any character who fails will become obsessed with that treasure, artefact, or area on a more long-term basis, spending at least the next hour concerned only with securing, counting, or looking at the treasure, as appropriate. While in this state he/she is at a -2 circumstance penalty to all attack rolls and skill checks other than Appraise checks. After an hour, he/she may attempt another save as before, success indicating that he shakes off the effects.

## **Insanities Table**

If someone must take an insanity, note whether it is a minor or major insanity, and then roll a d20 and just from the list below.

If an insanity is created or chosen that is unlikely to come up in RP or never does in practice, a new one should be added on rather than replace the old.

### **Recovering from Insanity**

A character who does not practice any sorcery or have contact with Corrupting influences for three months may make a Will saving throw (DC 15 for minor insanity, DC 20 for major insanity) at the end of that time to completely recover from his insanity.

### **Recovering from Corruption**

Nice try.  You don’t recover from corruption (excluding trace corruption).  It just keeps increasing until you forfeit your soul to some demon of the outer void or lose your sanity completely and get yourself killed.  Moreover, corruption is a blight upon your health.  Sooner or later the inability to sleep that accompanies the dark dreams and nightmares of despair, and the drugs and alcohol consumed in an effort to self medicate the effects will take their toll on your body and weaken you physically, emotionally, and psychologically.  That is the price you pay for trafficking with demons, or repeated and continued exposure to corrupt places and things.

### **The End Result of Corruption and Issue Resolution with Corrupt Characters**

If the Player who plays the character is unwilling to roleplay these kinds of changes, the Games Master should consider taking over the character as a Non-Player Character or the player should strongly consider killing off this character.

**Stat and Skill Ratings**

Skills are a way to measure what a character is capable of at any given moment. To test someone’s skill and whether they succeed or fail, and potentially how well they succeed or how heavily they fail at an action attempt, we roll dice and add or subtract numbers from the skill rating.

The dice represents all the factors that take too much to account for, or are just impossible to account for - like maybe a floor was wet or the character had a sudden thought of remembering they left luggage on a boat about to sail away as they were trying to seal some social deal, or perhaps it was windy and the smell of rotten fish blew by during someone’s riverside performance making it have less of an impact than it would otherwise.

Below are what the values of skill ratings represent in a general sense.  They follow the format of the number of a skill rating, and a general sense of how competent that person is or where they might stand in society with that sort of skill.

**[Skill Rating of 0 to 8 using the Roleplay mod by Stack]**

**0** is no knowledge, at best you can hope to recall something you’ve seen. For INT based skills you will have anywhere from a -2 to a -10 modifier. A grisled barbarian is not going to magically pull off a surgery on someone and keep their organs in place because they rolled high on someone severely injured.  Socially, someone cannot read social cues whatsoever or articulate their thoughts with any consistent hope. Physically they are sufficient enough for basic activity, but anything strenuous will probably tire them out or be beyond their reach.  **Untrained/incapable. Weak or ignorant.**

**5** is capable, familiar, you know the basics of the skill, have a functional sense and enough foundation to build on but are otherwise entirely unremarkable. **Average in trade or capability**

**9** is very skilled, someone who is probably locally known for their adeptness at the skill or trait.  They can council and train others effectively, don’t often miss the simple details and basics, but they still have room to improve if they can find the time to obsessively dedicate to. **Skilled professional.**

**14** is the peak of what humans can manage before truly supernatural influences come into play.  Some would casually remark that someone at this level of mastery is already beyond human, as they are several times more skilled than the average person. A person with a skill this high or slightly higher has probably done little else in life - much of their time and activity has gone to mastering this area, to the extent that they are probably deficient in many other areas and not likely to be wholly independent.  **Legendary/masterful.**

## **Definitions**

**Roleplay Scene:** A roleplay scene is roleplaying that takes place in an area that has a consistent theme or focus of activity. It could be a character’s entry and time in a bar, an adventure out on a hunt as well as another scene afterwards of finding an enemy and encountering them.  Its very difficult to attach real-life time values to what a roleplay scene counts as, but generally we try to aim for a RP scene to equal roughly one real life hour of roleplaying, even if the scene itself takes place over the course of a few in-story minutes.

Generally multiple roleplay scenes are separated by scenes where characters have the opportunity to rest.

Keep in mind that intense scenes such as action sequences between people may take a long time to play out, but in the story itself, those emotes and writing are happening in seconds.