Koa the DM
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The Flame of Lunacy! A rules-lite mechanic for combat insanity!
🕑 Added 2024-03-13 21:00:04 +0000 UTCHello everybody! I've recently been replaying Elden Ring (in lieu of the hype for the new DLC) and I once again fell in love with the imagrey and concept of the Frenzied Flame and of Shabriri! And, being a D&D creator, I thought to myself, why not translate this into D&D! D&D doesn't really have a 'progressive' status effect other than Petrification so I thought this would be a really interesting thing to add to games!
Obviously Elden Ring is the major influence in terms of imagrey, however whenever I try to run 'madness' within my games, or play in a game with madness, it feels underwhelming and oftentimes the effects of madness feel narratively unsatisfying and mechanically unsatisfying.
Having a player suddenly 'be unable to speak' or 'become irrationally fearful of showing your hands so you hide them no matter what,' honestly create for more comedic moments than anything else, and don't really add to a sense of insanity or depravity. Furthermore their mechanical influence is often lacking, missing, or just straight out stops a player from being to play their character. Obviously, we are not all voice actors either, so telling a player that their character breaks down and sobs is hard to roleplay as well! Although some games are like that, there are better systems for really leaning into that idea of hunting down the eldritch and being faced with incomphrensible horrors.
So, with this inspiration, I came up with the Flame of Lunacy. A mechanic that can be used by DMs whenever something that warrants a loss of sanity rears its aberrant head. Designed to be fairly simple, just extra damage with some added restrictive effects, it hounds players in 3 different levels and can be easily roleplayed (or not roleplayed) by players that does have a significant mechanical influence as it can limit and damage players pretty fast!
Of course, i didn't want to just give you all a mechanic, so I developed a bunch of spells and I'm currently working on them now, as well as new enemies that can use this mechanic! So, here are a few of the beginner level spells, with more to come!
Stay tuned, and I hope you enjoy!
UPDATE!
I've since been working on the Flame of Lunacy and was able to add in all of the spells! So enjoy all 13 spells of Lunacy as well as accompanying art!
UPDATE!
I've now added three spellcasting NPCs/cultists/lunatics that will utilize the Flame of Lunacy! I still have more plans, but now you have a way to work this against your players beyond asking for Intelligence saving throws!
UPDATE!
Another update to the Flame of Lunacy, this time, with 2 new added creatures that represent the lower CR beasts and humanoids that have been afflicted with lunacy!
Although the Flametouched Beast serves mostly as a narrative tool to hint at lunacy affecting a nearby area in a 'natural' sense, the Scorchmarked are fun additions to add to an a social or combat encounter; humanoids completely afflicted and broken with Lunacy! Throw these Scorchmarked in with a few Lunacy Cultists and you have yourself a very dangerous encounter as when Scorchmarked are brought to Screaming Lunacy, they pack quite the punch!
Therefore your players will be forced to either, A; kill off the Scorchmarked as fast as possible before they immolate and erupt dealing more damage but not hurt the main source of damage, the cultists, or B; run straight after the cultists but have to tank Scorchmarked eruptions and potientially get stunned and limited from the Lunacy buildup!
UPDATE!
Hello everybody! Apologies for the wait, but here is the final document and update to the Flame of Lunacy! This most recent addition added a table of contents to help navigate the various new spells, and 12 new magical items! I think the idea of reliquaries is crazy and so eldritch to me, so I decided to take that awesome idea and intergrate with most of these magical items; as they are all some manner of reliquary of Kormos, the Frenzied Saint!
