Starting Sanity

Initial SAN is POW*5%. Max is 99%, min 0%

Losing Sanity

If you make your SAN roll you have absorbed the shock and lose little or no SAN. If you roll above your current SAN, you lose the full amount.

You can lose Temporary Sanity from a shock, e.g. an unnerving natural event such as a friend dying - regaining lost SAN in accordance with the SAN/Duration table below; or you can lose Permanent Sanity from an unnatural event which you cannot accept as a normal occurrence, such as meeting your dead friend as a zombie.

Temporary Insanity: Whenever you lose 10% or more of your SAN in one single experience, the shock may make you temporarily insane unless you fail an Idea roll (INT on d20). If you make the Idea roll you have realised the full significance of what you've seen and go insane for rounds , turns or hours etc., in accordance with your starting level:

SAN/Duration

51+/d10 rounds

26-50/ d10 turns [ 1 turn = 25 rounds ]

11-25/ d10 hours

1-10/ d10 days

This experience may well result in a phobia later. If the PC fails the Idea roll, they don't go mad but may not remember clearly what they experienced.

Indefinite Insanity: If a PC loses 20% of their SAN in one hour, they go insane until cured. The GM picks an appropriate insanity. If some of the SAN loss was temporary, the PC may 'snap out of it' when the temporary loss wears off.

Permanent Insanity: If a PC reaches 0 SAN or less, they are permanently, incurably mad (barring Divine Intervention).

Typical SAN loss rates

Gloranthan characters are familiar with tales of broo & other chaos creatures and only suffer permanent SAN losses on their first such encounters.

Effects of low SAN

Here are some character traits you may wish to consider if your PC's SAN is low - say, <25. They are not compulsory but I urge you to adapt the character's behaviour to his SAN level. Try modeling them on someone you know!

• - jittery; nervous and wild-eyed
• - talk too much about nothing
• - wild assumptions coupled with argumentative nature, unwillingness to change world view after leaping to conclusion
• - fits of temper
• - minor neuroses such as compulsive behaviour, annoying habit of tapping fingers
• - place undue significance on coincidences
• - use religion as an emotional crutch and justification for outrageous behaviour
• - exaggerated mood swings.

Valuing Insanity

A madman may gain an unnatural insight into a situation if they fail an Idea roll after going insane. Eg: realise that this monster doesn't like fire.

Gaining Sanity

• +d6 SAN for mastery in a new category (Knowledge, Stealth, Manip, etc)
• + 2d6 SAN for achieving Rune level + d6 SAN for extra Rune levels
• + d4 for reaching initiate level
• + d6 for first spell
• + d6 per 6 points of spells thereafter (not matrices)
• + d6 per point of POW gained
• +1 per point of stat raised, or gift
• +d4 at 50%, 75% and 90% with your primary melee weapon
• +d4 at 100% with PMW (new ability - 2 attacks / round)
• +d6 at 90% with primary missile weapon
• +1 per new Mastery.

Curing Insanity

Psychoanalysis skill (shamanic speciality): Takes 1 week - will not increase SAN above POW*5 . A successful roll gives the patient 1 SAN; an Impale, d3; and a Critical, 3. A roll of 96-00 loses d4 SAN. Indefinite Insanity can be treated - taking d6 months - and a successful skill roll cures it .Here an Impale gets a patient d6 SAN; 96-00 loses d4 SAN and means the patient cannot be cured by that "psychiatrist". -4% modifier for every point of SAN below 15.

Spells :

• Calm Mind - Spirit Magic, duration 10 rounds, 3 points, range 40m, increases SAN by 1.5 to max.99% for duration. Can be cast on others.Cost 500L.
• Restore SAN: - specialist Rune Magic, restores permanent SAN (about 1-3 points). Cost??
• Morale (Humakti Rune spell): - acts as a Calm Mind too, for duration of spell. Cost??
• Creating a Lune:
The Lunar cults can suck the madness out of a permanently insane sufferer to form a Lune. This is not a trivial ritual. In effect, the priest sacrifices POW to create the Lune: where an Orlanthi priest might decide to use his spare POW to sacrifice for the ability to summon a Sylph, and go to a windy mountaintop to pray to his god, the priest will find someone who has been Moonstruck and attempt to separate the purity of the Goddess from the blessed Chosen One.

This is a controversial ritual within the Lunar cults, some holding that one should not strip the touch of the Goddess from such a holy person, and not all priests will do it. Even those that do will study the lunatic carefully: the most profoundly touched ones are saved as valuable members of society and cared for in special sanctuaries where they utter prophecies on Lunar holy days. Lesser lunatics may be considered as not worth sacrificing for as they would not give rise to a sufficiently powerful Lune to make the priest's sacrifice worthwhile.

The priest must make a POW vs POW (not MP) roll against the lunatic.

A Moonstruck one who is so cured loses all permanent insanities (the more he had, the better the Lune, goes the doctrine) and gains +1d5 SAN per insanity cured.

This process will not work if your SAN is below zero. It must be in the range 1-9.

Later Rule changes for Genest Campaign

If a character loses 10% of his current sanity in one go, or 20% in the space of 1 hour, he goes temporarily insane. This lasts for:

If your sanity drops below 10, you are classifyably insane until it rises to 10 again.

If your sanity drops below 1, the only thing that will cure you is DI (which will bring you back to 1 SAN)

Extra ways of increasing SAN:

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