Insane Cleric [Archive] - Wizards Community

Insane Cleric [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
TheFlyingAsian
01-20-08, 06:01 PM I'm planing on playing a 1st level Cleric with the Madness and Slime domains, who is sort've insane, but I need help on how to roleplay him until he hits a high enough level to be truly insane/corrupted by forbidden knowledge/whatever.

Obviously, at this low a level, I can't play the stereotypical powerful insane type.

I was thinking he could be a power-hungry, deluded type who is alway searching for more weird knowledge, or maybe a low-level cleric who stumbled across a forbidden text, and now is slightly corrupted and is searching for more.

So...any interesting role-playing quirks or background suggestions for me?
Lichtouch
01-20-08, 06:20 PM Multi-personalties.

Get your DM to roll a D% every now and again and compare it to a list of personalities, depending on which ones are more dominant. Then he passes you a note with that personality and you roleplay it.

An example could be:

1-25 - Plain, normal man who could best be described as beige. He just wants to get on with his life. True neutral.
26-30 - Zealous crusader who punishes everyone to extremes for whatever acts they commit. Thieves lose hands, murders lose their lives, etc. Righteous fury. Lawful neutral
31-40 - He loses connection to any sort of social norm. He's more than happy to crap in the street in front of everyone - he doesn't see why he should. Same with walking naked, hurting people who annoy him and generally being a rude social pariah. Chaotic neutral.
41-60 - A saint of a man. This man is willing to charitable acts for anyone and is in fact, a pacifist. He refuses to harm others whatsoever. Lawful good.
61-75 - This person is zealous against any form of corruption. He's willing to bypass the law and strike down evil men who do use the law to shield themselves. Chaotic Good.
76-100 - This person's pure evil. He kills because he can. He tortures because he can. He does things that he knows are thought of as wrong and taboo because he can. All in all - he's a right bastard. Chaotic Evil.

You could roll it yourself if you want - when, you decide. Perhaps once every IC hour, once every OOC hour, perhaps at the start of every session, perhaps after every time you rest in-game. That's just an example by the way.
Aaarrrgh
01-21-08, 01:35 AM Another classic thing when it comes to madness is paranoia. Always keep an open eye to make sure the other party members won't steal your precious scriptures...

If you're loking for something more unique, make him believe he is the chosen prophet of a forgotten god, and have him interpret all of his dreams as holy visions, that he will never stray from. For example, if he dreams he's walking naked into town, he will walk naked into town. Of course, the "visions" are nothing but ordinary dreams.
CrimsonDeath
01-21-08, 01:17 PM Pick a couple of perfectly normal things to be afraid of/disgusted by, and pick a couple of unusual things to be obsessed with. (For example, a friend of mine once played a demented halfling who was obsessed with collecting teeth. Of course, that was mostly so that he could, late in the campaign, offer to buy the lost teeth of some NPC children for 1sp apiece and start the legend of the Tooth Fairy...)
TheFlyingAsian
01-22-08, 10:41 PM Wow. I never thought of that. I think I'll try and combine all three of those into one weird, schizophrenic, paranoid, obsessive cleric.

So here's what I have so far: my cleric (Madness and Knowledge domains, instead of Slime) was a cleric of <insert boring deity here>, until he stumbled across an ancient, forbidden text in the temple library, describing some heresy of the deity involing Venca, or something (details are being thought about as I type). The forbidden text scorched his puny sanity, and now he's obsessed with this heresy and is always searching for more forbidden texts concerning this heresy and Venca and The Outer Plane and stuff. He's heard about this certain adventuring group and joined as an opportunity to "get out more" and gain exposure to more weird things, asn well as new places

(I need a better story for why he joined the adventuring group, 'cause my DM kinda assumes we're all together at the beginning of the campaign.).

Obviously, this is not completely refined, and so suggestions (especially on the background story) are welcome, and in fact sought after.
arjomanes
01-28-08, 06:37 PM This is the section on the unearthed arcan sanity rules. If you read through them you may get some really good ideas on conditions or phobia you could develop over time.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm

For background story, I recommend linking him to one or two other characters.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Maybe he's a colleague or acquaintance of the wizard in the group -- both sharing or competing over ancient texts.

Blood runs thicker than water. Maybe he's a relation or close affiliate of another character -- the paladin's black sheep nephew, or the rogue's fellow guild brother.

I'd recommend talking to another player and see if you can work out a relationship, either business or family or clan.
Aceon
02-01-08, 03:05 PM Do you have some concept of how long the game will be running for?
If you have sufficient time, one of the most rewarding experiences is roleplaying your character's growth.

In this case your starting character might be more or less normal, at least on the surface. Then over time, you can try to tie in some in game events with your descent into madness. I would work with your dm on some of these events. Other in game events might be more of a surprise and how you react to them.

One favorite character that I played many years ago in 2ed at a time when death was relatively final and scrolls of true res were hard to come by...I played a kensai who valued his own life and played combat in a pretty defensive way, while still managing to be heroic. I was fairly well ****** off when the @&& DM killed off my favorite character and brought him back to life as if nothing had changed. As a result of this traumatic experience my character slowly went mad. While I was away IRL for a few months, when I returned to the gaming table the players found my character with a group of like minded insane sword wielding monsters. I forget the name of these creatures, and which 2nd ed monster book they are found in, but they basically look like humans covered in tattooes and and wearing only a loin cloth and constantly sharpening their longswords with a strange magic stone which, when used caused the weapon to be a +3 sword of sharpness. When you disturb the monsters at this activity they go beserk and attack anyone.

So when they found me, I didn't recognize the party much and was unresponsive. Just sitting there sharpening my sword and occasionally cutting myself with it and smearing blood all over the length of it, then licking it clean again.

After the battle the players brought me out of this place and that state and my Oriental character decided to completely adopt the persona of one of the 3 Musketeers- D'Artagnion. He insisted on wearing white lace shirts and french military attire and also insisted on calling his friends by other names. I would only call the orc fighter Porthos and the human ranger Aramis.

The other players eventually gave up trying to make me sane and just went along with it. It was pretty fun all along. That character after years eventually regained his sense of self and identity, and became the sword swinging Japanese Samurai - Kensai once more.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
In another game ...in Vampire, many years ago I played a character who was an Irish Roman Catholic priest from Boston. When he became a vampire he absolutely despised vampires and the fact that he was one. He tried hard to continue to be good and to do good, despite his need to feed and drink human blood. A powerful NPC took delight in finding ways to accelerate my descent into darkness. Eventually Father Ryan became Bishop Ryan and became wholly evil. Then he was assasinated by another player who feared his power. Except for the assasination, the growth of that character, and roleplaying his hatred of self and eventual descent into darkness was a pretty cool thing.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
TheFlyingAsian 01-20-08, 06:01 PM	I'm planing on playing a 1st level Cleric with the Madness and Slime domains, who is sort've insane, but I need help on how to roleplay him until he hits a high enough level to be truly insane/corrupted by forbidden knowledge/whatever. Obviously, at this low a level, I can't play the stereotypical powerful insane type. I was thinking he could be a power-hungry, deluded type who is alway searching for more weird knowledge, or maybe a low-level cleric who stumbled across a forbidden text, and now is slightly corrupted and is searching for more. So...any interesting role-playing quirks or background suggestions for me?
Lichtouch 01-20-08, 06:20 PM	Multi-personalties. Get your DM to roll a D% every now and again and compare it to a list of personalities, depending on which ones are more dominant. Then he passes you a note with that personality and you roleplay it. An example could be: 1-25 - Plain, normal man who could best be described as beige. He just wants to get on with his life. True neutral. 26-30 - Zealous crusader who punishes everyone to extremes for whatever acts they commit. Thieves lose hands, murders lose their lives, etc. Righteous fury. Lawful neutral 31-40 - He loses connection to any sort of social norm. He's more than happy to crap in the street in front of everyone - he doesn't see why he should. Same with walking naked, hurting people who annoy him and generally being a rude social pariah. Chaotic neutral. 41-60 - A saint of a man. This man is willing to charitable acts for anyone and is in fact, a pacifist. He refuses to harm others whatsoever. Lawful good. 61-75 - This person is zealous against any form of corruption. He's willing to bypass the law and strike down evil men who do use the law to shield themselves. Chaotic Good. 76-100 - This person's pure evil. He kills because he can. He tortures because he can. He does things that he knows are thought of as wrong and taboo because he can. All in all - he's a right bastard. Chaotic Evil. You could roll it yourself if you want - when, you decide. Perhaps once every IC hour, once every OOC hour, perhaps at the start of every session, perhaps after every time you rest in-game. That's just an example by the way.
Aaarrrgh 01-21-08, 01:35 AM	Another classic thing when it comes to madness is paranoia. Always keep an open eye to make sure the other party members won't steal your precious scriptures... If you're loking for something more unique, make him believe he is the chosen prophet of a forgotten god, and have him interpret all of his dreams as holy visions, that he will never stray from. For example, if he dreams he's walking naked into town, he will walk naked into town. Of course, the "visions" are nothing but ordinary dreams.
CrimsonDeath 01-21-08, 01:17 PM	Pick a couple of perfectly normal things to be afraid of/disgusted by, and pick a couple of unusual things to be obsessed with. (For example, a friend of mine once played a demented halfling who was obsessed with collecting teeth. Of course, that was mostly so that he could, late in the campaign, offer to buy the lost teeth of some NPC children for 1sp apiece and start the legend of the Tooth Fairy...)
TheFlyingAsian 01-22-08, 10:41 PM	Wow. I never thought of that. I think I'll try and combine all three of those into one weird, schizophrenic, paranoid, obsessive cleric. So here's what I have so far: my cleric (Madness and Knowledge domains, instead of Slime) was a cleric of <insert boring deity here>, until he stumbled across an ancient, forbidden text in the temple library, describing some heresy of the deity involing Venca, or something (details are being thought about as I type). The forbidden text scorched his puny sanity, and now he's obsessed with this heresy and is always searching for more forbidden texts concerning this heresy and Venca and The Outer Plane and stuff. He's heard about this certain adventuring group and joined as an opportunity to "get out more" and gain exposure to more weird things, asn well as new places (I need a better story for why he joined the adventuring group, 'cause my DM kinda assumes we're all together at the beginning of the campaign.). Obviously, this is not completely refined, and so suggestions (especially on the background story) are welcome, and in fact sought after.
arjomanes 01-28-08, 06:37 PM	This is the section on the unearthed arcan sanity rules. If you read through them you may get some really good ideas on conditions or phobia you could develop over time. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm For background story, I recommend linking him to one or two other characters. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Maybe he's a colleague or acquaintance of the wizard in the group -- both sharing or competing over ancient texts. Blood runs thicker than water. Maybe he's a relation or close affiliate of another character -- the paladin's black sheep nephew, or the rogue's fellow guild brother. I'd recommend talking to another player and see if you can work out a relationship, either business or family or clan.
Aceon 02-01-08, 03:05 PM	Do you have some concept of how long the game will be running for? If you have sufficient time, one of the most rewarding experiences is roleplaying your character's growth. In this case your starting character might be more or less normal, at least on the surface. Then over time, you can try to tie in some in game events with your descent into madness. I would work with your dm on some of these events. Other in game events might be more of a surprise and how you react to them. One favorite character that I played many years ago in 2ed at a time when death was relatively final and scrolls of true res were hard to come by...I played a kensai who valued his own life and played combat in a pretty defensive way, while still managing to be heroic. I was fairly well ****** off when the @&& DM killed off my favorite character and brought him back to life as if nothing had changed. As a result of this traumatic experience my character slowly went mad. While I was away IRL for a few months, when I returned to the gaming table the players found my character with a group of like minded insane sword wielding monsters. I forget the name of these creatures, and which 2nd ed monster book they are found in, but they basically look like humans covered in tattooes and and wearing only a loin cloth and constantly sharpening their longswords with a strange magic stone which, when used caused the weapon to be a +3 sword of sharpness. When you disturb the monsters at this activity they go beserk and attack anyone. So when they found me, I didn't recognize the party much and was unresponsive. Just sitting there sharpening my sword and occasionally cutting myself with it and smearing blood all over the length of it, then licking it clean again. After the battle the players brought me out of this place and that state and my Oriental character decided to completely adopt the persona of one of the 3 Musketeers- D'Artagnion. He insisted on wearing white lace shirts and french military attire and also insisted on calling his friends by other names. I would only call the orc fighter Porthos and the human ranger Aramis. The other players eventually gave up trying to make me sane and just went along with it. It was pretty fun all along. That character after years eventually regained his sense of self and identity, and became the sword swinging Japanese Samurai - Kensai once more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In another game ...in Vampire, many years ago I played a character who was an Irish Roman Catholic priest from Boston. When he became a vampire he absolutely despised vampires and the fact that he was one. He tried hard to continue to be good and to do good, despite his need to feed and drink human blood. A powerful NPC took delight in finding ways to accelerate my descent into darkness. Eventually Father Ryan became Bishop Ryan and became wholly evil. Then he was assasinated by another player who feared his power. Except for the assasination, the growth of that character, and roleplaying his hatred of self and eventual descent into darkness was a pretty cool thing.