Mental Symptoms

growths develop on your organs, or tiny limbs or heads bud beneath your skin. Reduce your Constitution score by 2. Some prestige classes allow a character to take this symptom in place of any other one. This symptom allows you to hide your corruption because it is all internal. This symptom can even be taken to replace a mild or moderate symptom if desired. No extra bonus feat is granted if this symptom is taken to replace a mild symptom (see page 67).

Lich Eyes: Your eyes rot away, leaving eerie green fl ames in their empty sockets. You gain darkvision out to 60 feet, or add 30 feet to the range of your existing darkvision. You also gain light blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light (such as sunlight or a daylight spell) blinds you for 1 round. On subsequent rounds, you are dazzled as long as you remain in the affected area.

Lungs Eaten Away: Your lungs are eaten away from the inside, resulting in wet, labored, painful breathing. Your physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution) are each reduced by 1.

Nose Rots: The fl esh of your nose rots away, leaving skulllike openings. Reduce your Charisma score by 2.

Shriveled Flesh: Your fl esh shrivels and clings to your bones, making you unnaturally gaunt. When you manifest this symptom, subtract your Hit Dice from your hit point total. Thereafter, subtract 1 from the number of hit points you gain at each level. This effect can reduce the number of hit points you gain to 0 (but not below).

Skin Lichen: A black, lichenous growth spreads across your skin, causing a constant itching that interferes with any physical activity. You take a –2 penalty on Strength-, Dexterity-, and Constitution-based ability checks and skill checks.

Skull Deformed: Your skull becomes enlarged, distorted, and deformed. Reduce both your Intelligence and Wisdom scores by 2. You also take a –3 penalty on Will saves.

Spine Twists: Your spine twists and your back hunches. Reduce your Dexterity score by 2.

Wrigglers: Parasitic worms protrude from your sores, sapping your strength. Reduce your Strength score by 2. You gain a +2 bonus to Intimidate checks and take a –4 penalty on other Charisma-based checks.

Table 4–3: Depravity Effects d10 Mild Moderate Severe

1 Aggressive Treacherous Murderous 2 Bestial Deranged Unbalanced 3 Compulsive Hysterical Unresponsive 4 Crazed Jittery Craven 5 Disoriented Hallucinating Paranoid 6 Mildly phobic Moderately phobic Severely phobic 7 Neglectful Distracted Enthralled Opinionated Solipsistic Hubristic Prophetic Delusional Apathetic 10 Sycophantic Weak-Willed Fatalistic

Depravity manifests as mental symptoms: growing paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations, and other problems that could be described as madness. It is important to note that madness in fantastic horror is not an illness that affl icts good and evil alike: It is an expression or a result of evil gnawing away at the mind and soul. Mild Depravity Effects

Aggressive: You are easily angered and cannot hide your feelings. In combat, you try so hard to hurt your enemies that you neglect your own defense, and you take a –1 penalty to

Armor Class.

Bestial: You take on a ferocious, wild demeanor. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Handle Animal, Ride, and wild empathy checks. You take a –1 penalty on other Charismabased ability checks and skill checks.

Compulsive: Pick a compulsive ritual to adopt. For example, you and your equipment are never clean enough.

You can only break out of the compulsive pattern by eating bugs, which sometimes disagree with you. Once each day, make a DC 10 Fortitude save; if you fail, take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage.

Crazed: You can no longer easily cope with sudden changes in circumstance. If you are surprised at the outset of an encounter, for your fi rst action you have an equal chance of charging the foe or running away.

Disoriented: You lose track of events. If you are surprised at the outset of an encounter, you are dazed for 1 round.

Mildly Phobic: You gain a mild phobia, which requires you to succeed on a Will save or become shaken whenever you encounter the object of your phobia. The DC of the save equals 12 + the CR of the challenge that is the object of the phobia. (Treat

CRs of less than 1 as 0.) See page 61 for more about phobias.

Neglectful: You disregard hygiene and cultural mores.

You take a –2 penalty on Charisma-based ability checks and skill checks.

Opinionated: You are so wrapped up in commenting on everything you hear that you are often caught off-guard. You are always fl at-footed in the fi rst round of combat.

Prophetic: Your dark dreams torment you with strange visions of things that might occur in the future. You zealously proclaim a different prophecy each week, making sure everyone you meet knows what is about to transpire. Your

DM determines what prophetic insight you envision each week (10% are actually accurate!). In addition, you take all the usual ill effects of continual nightmares (see Dreams and

Nightmares, page 52).

Sycophantic: You fi ll the air with a torrent of unctuous fl attery of your companions, opponents, or imaginary friends.

You take a –2 penalty on Listen checks and Spot checks.

Enemies gain a +2 bonus on Listen checks to hear you.

Moderate Depravity Effects

Delusional: You’re convinced that the world is an illusion and that you and your companions are being controlled by inhabitants of a distant, alien realm. You take a –2 penalty on Wisdom-based ability checks and skill checks.

Deranged: Your grasp upon reality becomes tenuous. You take a –2 penalty on Intelligence-based ability checks and skill checks.

Distracted: You pay more attention to the whispers in your mind than to your surroundings. You take a –2 penalty on skill checks.

Hallucinating: You see things that aren’t there, and often have trouble sorting reality from your imagination. You take a –6 penalty on initiative checks.

Hysterical: Everything you meet is hilarious. It takes a short time to perceive the humor; then a laughing jag

overwhelms you. During the second round of a combat encounter, you can take only a single move action or standard action.

Jittery: You are easily startled and spooked. If you are hit while fl at-footed, you become panicked.

Moderately Phobic: You gain a moderate phobia, which requires you to succeed on a Will save (DC 14 + the CR of the challenge) or become frightened whenever you encounter the object of your phobia. This symptom replaces your previous symptom of mild phobia. See page 61 for more about phobias.

Solipsistic: You believe that you are the only thing that matters in the universe. As a result, whenever you are struck in combat, you have to make a DC 20 Will save. If you fail the save, you take an additional 1 point of damage per die of damage received.

Treacherous: Any time the chance to make an attack of opportunity presents itself, whether against an opponent or an ally, make a DC 20 Will save. If you fail the save, you must make the attack of opportunity, even if the target is your closest ally. If presented with multiple targets, determine randomly which you attack.

Weak-Willed: The constant presence of demonic voices whispering in your ears has sapped your will. You take a –3 penalty on Will saves.

Severe Depravity Effects

Apathetic: You withdraw into yourself, losing contact with the world. Reduce both your Charisma and Wisdom scores by 2.

Craven: You become a lily-livered coward. When casting, you must always cast defensively. When attacking, you must always fi ght defensively.

Enthralled: You are drawn to and fascinated by evil. You no longer have the will to strike it down. Whenever you fi ght an evil opponent, you always attack at –4 and any damage you do counts only as nonlethal damage.

Fatalistic: You become oppressed by negative, defeatist thinking and are convinced there’s little you can do to save yourself from a horrible fate. Take a –3 penalty on your saving throws.

Hubristic: You regard yourself as superior to all things, even the gods. Divine healing has no effect on you.

Murderous: You experience irresistible murderous urges. If an opportunity to deliver a coup de grace is available, you must take this action. You cannot distinguish between an ally and an opponent—if anyone is helpless, you must deliver the coup de grace.

Paranoid: You grow overly suspicious, even of your closest companions. In combat, you cannot avoid watching for signs of treachery. Whenever one of your allies engaged in combat makes an attack and fails to hit, you become suspicious that the ally is secretly a traitor to your party. You take a –1 penalty to any rolls you make during that turn, since some of your attention is focused on monitoring the suspected traitor’s activities. If more than one ally fails to hit, the penalty is cumulative.

Severely Phobic: You gain a severe phobia, which requires you to succeed on a Will save (DC 16 + the CR of the challenge) or become panicked whenever you encounter the object of your phobia. This symptom replaces your previous symptom of moderate phobia. See page 61 for more about phobias.

Unbalanced: Your unstable mind makes you unpredictable, particularly in combat. You are automatically confused on your first turn in any combat and every other turn thereafter.

Unresponsive: Your senses are dulled and you lose the ability to discern the truth of the world around you. Reduce your Wisdom score by 2.

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TAINT AND ORIENTAL ADVENTURES

The taint system presented in this book is derived from a similar system that originally appeared in Oriental Adventures, with some modifications introduced in Unearthed Arcana. The rules in this book are an update and revision to the earlier rules, and replace the earlier system. If you wish, you can easily use monsters, maho (“blood magic”) spells, and other rules from Oriental Adventures with this taint system.

The Shadowlands: Spending time in the Shadowlands increases a character’s corruption score, which can be resisted with successful Fortitude saving throws, as described in Oriental Adventures.

Magic Items: Oni armor and tainted weapons both increase the target’s corruption score.

Monsters: Creatures with the Shadowlands subtype are considered to have corruption and depravity scores equal to half their Charisma score. Undead creatures add +1 to this number, while outsiders add +2. Creatures that have taint scores specified have corruption and depravity scores equal to the specified taint score. The attacks of a mamono increase the target’s corruption score. The akutsukai’s command the taint ability functions on characters with corruption or depravity scores. If neither the target’s corruption nor his depravity is severe, he gains a +2 bonus to resist being rebuked or commanded. If both his corruption and his depravity are no greater than mild, he gains a +4 bonus to resist being rebuked or commanded. The akutenshi’s breath of taint ability increases the subjects’ depravity scores.

Maho and the Taint: Each time a character casts a maho spell, she must make a Will save (DC 10 + spell level) or increase her depravity score by 1. (This is identical to the “evil spells and taint” variant rule presented on page 125.) The cloud of taint and tainted aura spells increase their targets’ corruption scores.

Taint Suppression: Characters with the maho-bujin and mahotsukai prestige classes no longer manifest physical symptoms of their corruption. Their depravity manifests in the normal range of mental symptoms, but they can replace any physical symptom of corruption with the internal corruption symptom. If such a character enters a tainted area, his corruption immediately manifests externally again, and he regains the physical symptoms he exchanged for internal corruption, if any. These physical symptoms disappear again 1d4 days after he leaves a tainted area. Otherwise, it is impossible to tell from external appearance that the maho-bujin or maho-tsukai carries corruption.