MADness Magician OCCUPATION

Psychiatrist, homeless, escaped mental patient, sect

NAME
Come up with a name according to your background
leader, stage magician, politician, confidence artist, drifter, and setting:
architect, urban explorer, drug dealer, neurosurgeon, guru.
The Madness Magician seeks to find power in insanity. Often afflicted by a variety of
mental illnesses herself, she has realized that sanity is a lie and there is no true ‘normal’. DARK SECRET
There are hidden wisdoms to be found in the compulsions that affect the human mind, and
power in the ability to control them. In her search for enlightenment, she seeks to tear down Choose 1 or more Dark Secrets:
the walls of his own perception, breaking through to what lies beyond.
Whether what she finds on the other side are indeed Divine Truths, or merely the horrors ◊ Chosen One LOOKS
Select or come up with your own distinguishing
born of his own twisted mind - or if both of those are really the same thing - is for her, and
only her, to find out.
◊ Mental Illness features for your character. Some suggestions:
◊ Pact with Dark Powers
◊ Victim of Experiments Clothes: Shabby, cheap, unique, attention-grabbing,
ill-fitting, selfmade, or immaculate clothes.
◊ Visitations
Face: Ravaged, filthy, grimacing, pronounced, sober,
DISADVANTAGES cute, emaciated, tattooed, or disproportionate face.

Choose 2 Disadvantages. Suggestions:

Eyes: Mesmerizing, mischievous, twinkling,
◊ Bad Reputation ◊ Schizophrenia spellbinding, glasses-framed, hollow, suspicious, or
sarcastic eyes.
◊ Depression Body: Sinewy, huge, lanky, obese, deformed, average,
◊ Fears made Flesh broken, stiff, trembling, or pierced body.

◊ Mental Compulsion
◊ Broken ALLIANCES

◊ Obsession Choose one Power broker as your ally and another

ABILITIES
Choose 3 Abilities:
◊ Initiate [Obligatory]
◊ Journeyman (requires: Initiate)
◊ Adept (requires: Journeyman)
◊ Master (requires: Adept)
◊ Aura of Madness
◊ Whispers in the NIght
◊ Experienced
you are in conflict with.
LIMITATIONS:
◊ Field of Expertise RELATIONS
Everyone introduces their character by name, looks,
and personality. Take your turn. Write down the
other player characters’ names. Go around the table
again to establish your Relations.
◊ One of the characters is your ally. Take +1 Relation
with them.
◊ One of the characters has gotten in trouble
because of you.

◊ Improviser ◊ You and one of the characters have a history of

◊ Talisman of the Eternal City psychiatric treatment together. Take +1 Relation with
them, and they take 0, +1, or +2 Relation with you.

ATTRIBUTES ◊ One of the characters fears you.

Assign the modifiers +3, +1, and +0 to the three passive

Attributes: Fortitude, Reflexes, and Willpower. ◊ One of the characters is your enemy.
Assign the modifiers +4, +3, +2, +1, +0, −1, and −2 to the
other seven active Attributes: Charisma, Coolness, Decide the nature of three additional Relations: One
Intuition, Perception, Reason, Soul, and Violence. neutral (0), one meaningful (+1), and one vital (+2).
 Attributes Stability DARK SECRET
& Personal Drives
 Composed Can't Perform Rituals

 Uneasy −1 to Disadvantage rolls

 Unfocused

 Shaken −1 Keep it Together +1 Perform

Willpower  Distressed −2 to Disadvantage rolls a Ritual
Keep it Together  Neurotic

 Anxious −2 Keep it Together +2 Perform

Fortitude Reflexes  Irrational −3 to Disadvantage rolls a Ritual
Endure injury Avoid Harm
 Unhinged +1 See Through the Illusion

 Broken GM makes a Move

Reason Intuition
WOUNDS Dramatic Hooks
Investigate Read a Person
Serious Wounds (−1 ongoing) Stabilized

Perception 
Observe a Situation


ADvancement
Coolness Violence
Act Under Pressure Engage in Combat 

Critical Wound (−1 ongoing) Stabilized

Charisma When you accumulate 5 xp, choose an advancement option:

Influence Other
Increase one active Attribute by +1 (max +4) 

Gear Increase one passive Attribute +1 (max +4)

Increase any one Attribute +1 (max +5)



 Hand-drawn map of the true layout of the city’s subway system. Select a new Ability from your Archetype 
Soul
See Through the Illusion After 5 Advancements You May Also Choose:
 Photograph of a building that isn’t always there when you go
looking for it.
Increase any one Attribute +1 (to max +5) 


Relations 
Select any new Ability or Advantage. 
End your character’s story arc as you see fit, and 
create a new character, who starts with 2
 Advancements.

Change Archetype to another Enlightened one 


After 10 Advancements You May Also Choose:

Awake (retire your character to godhood) 
 Abilities
Madness
As a Madness magician, you gain boni to your Perform a
Ritual move the less Stability you have. But If you're
Composed, you can't Perform Rituals.
Perform a Ritual
When you perform a ritual, explain what you intend to do
and the GM will say what's required based on the list below.
You will always be required to make some form of sacrifice,
be it a living or inert offering.
◊ The ritual takes several hours or even days to complete.
◊ You need one or more assistants to complete the ritual.
◊ You must perform the ritual in a particular location, or at a
particular point in time.
◊ You need a particular object in order to complete the ritual.
For every condition you cannot fulfill, you must take –1 to
your roll.
Then Roll +Madness to determine your degree of control. On
15+ choose 2 options from below, on 10-14 choose 1. On 9-
choose 1 but the ritual has unexpected consequences: it gets
either more powerful or weaker than anticipated, causing the
magician to attract extra-dimensional beings, or tearing the
Illusion.
◊ The ritual affects other dimensions.
◊ The ritual’s effects last for as long as you actively uphold
them.
◊ The ritual doesn’t become unstable (cannot be chosen on
a (–9) result).
◊ Journeyman or higher: You have protection from creatures
and magical energies for as long as you remain within the
protective circle.
◊ Adept or higher: The ritual affects several beings.
 Initiate
You are an amateur who recently started experimenting with
magic.
 Journeyman (requires Initiate)
Your studies and experiments in your school of magic have
granted you new insights. Chose 1 new Field of Expertise. When
you Perform a Ritual , you may always choose this option:
◊ You have protection from creatures and magical energies for
as long as you remain within the protective circle.
 Adept (requires Journeyman)
You’re starting to reach deeper insights into your school of
magic. Choose 1 new Field of Expertise.
When you Perform a Ritual , you may always choose this option:
◊ The ritual affects several beings.
 Master (requires Adept)
You are one of the few people alive with magical abilities akin to
beings from the supernatural realms. Choose 1 new Field of
Expertise. Additionally, you may always choose 1 additional
effect when you Perform a Ritual.
 Whispers in the Night
You have infected a whole network of people with a spark of
Madness, and can whisper to them in their minds, even when far
away. They may or may not know each other and may be close by
or far removed. When you whisper to your network while it's night
where they are, roll +Soul: On 15+ gain 3 options, on 10-14 gain 1
option. On 9- choose 1 option, but the afflicted people get out of
control. Use your options to instill a handful of them with the
overpowering impulse to:
◊ Come to you, intuitively feeling where you are.
◊ Start looking for someone or something. You will know when one
of them found it and which one it is.
◊ Go to a location of your choice and gather there, unknowingly
awaiting your arrival or further "orders".
◊ Capture or attack someone.
◊ Start to generally riot in an area (like a park, street, or building), or
destroy something specific (like a company office).
◊ Affect up to a dozen of them instead of just a handful.
Name and briefly describe everyone you affect. You need to have met
them no more than once, and they don't have to know (or remember)
who you are - but you know about them. They will follow the
impulse(s) until they either succeed or some time (between several
days and a week perhaps) has passed.
 Aura of Madness
You have an aura of debilitating influence surrounding you.
When you're close to someone and let your aura touch
her, roll +Madness. On 15+ choose 2 options, on 10-14
choose 1. On 9- choose 1 option but you leave a trace of your
aura with the affected person - who gains a magical bond
with you.
◊ You learn one of your target’s mental weaknesses. Take +2 to
your roll against her when exploiting this weakness.
◊ You can feel your target’s soul, and can ask if it has been
marked or tainted by supernatural forces of madness.
◊ You curse your target, agitating their traumas and neurotic
tendencies, giving them the Broken or Mental Compulsion
Disadvantage (your choice), which will not go away until she gets
professional treatment or finds a way to break the curse.
NPCs get insecure, jumpy, and prone to mental breakdowns. PCs
take +1 to mess with them if they hit the right triggers
Experienced

You have life experiences and skills from your life prior to
becoming Enlightened. Choose any 1 Advantage from an Aware
Archetype.
 Improviser
You suffer no penalties to Perform a Ritual when outside your
sanctum.
 Talisman of the Eternal City
You discovered a talisman with a spirit bound to it; for example, a
rust-coated cogwheel, a fragment of spray-painted concrete wall,
or a stained mirror shard. The talisman can guide you in
Metropolis. When you allow the talisman to guide you, roll +Soul:
On 15+ choose 3 options, on 10-14 choose 1. On 9- the Talisman
fails you. The GM makes a move.
Options:
◊ Find a particular place in Metropolis.
◊ Find a portal back to Elysium.
◊ Steel your senses against the influences of The Eternal City
or the magic of its inhabitants.
 Disadvantages
 Limitation: Field of Expertise
Field of expertise denotes what aspects of Madness magic the
magician has insight into. Whenever you Perform a Ritual in a
field you have expertise in, you don't need to choose the
option “the ritual doesn’t become unstable.”
At character creation, choose 1 Field of Expertise for your
Madness Magician:
◊ Open portals to Metropolis.
◊ Summon creatures of madness
◊ Bind and Exorcise creatures of madness.
◊ Perceive madness.
◊ Transfer madness.
 Fears made Flesh
In one of your deepest descensions into madness, you have
given birth to some horror, or several horrors, from the
depths of your subconscious. Your deepest regrets and most
fiercely repressed fears have taken monstrous material forms
and entered into the world. Now they are hunting you. At the
first session, and whenever you lose enough Stability to
cross the threshold to the next lower Stress Level, roll +0.
(15+) You are safe for now.
(10–14) The GM takes 1 Hold.
(–9) The GM takes 3 Hold.
The GM can spend a Hold to make a Move for the character’s
materialized fears, shames, and regrets. Depending on what
they are, they may threaten or violate people close to the
character, break things or set places on fire, sabotage the PC’s
enterprises, get in league with their enemies, or attempt to
capture and abduct the character in order to torture, rape, kill,
dismember, or eat them.
 Bad Reputation  Broken
For some reason, you have attracted the public’s disapproval Some experience in your past has broken your psyche so
– even animosity. Perhaps you’ve been spotlighted in the badly you’ve been unable to recuperate from it. As a result,
tabloids as a pedophile or murderer, falsely or otherwise. your Stability can never increase beyond Distressed (6).
In the first game session and whenever you attract the public’s
attention, roll +0:
(15+) You blend in. Nobody is out to get you.
(10–14) You have been recognized. The GM takes 1 Hold.
(–9) Several people have recognized you. Anger and fear control
their actions. The GM takes 3 Hold.
The GM can spend Hold to make a Move representing how
 Obsession
your bad reputation sticks to you. For example, people might You have discovered a conspiracy or supernatural phenomenon,
react with fear and suspicion towards you, a lynch mob forms
and you can’t stop yourself from getting to the bottom of it. At the
to bring you to justice, your property is vandalized, your allies
first game session and whenever you encounter something
turn against you, and you can lose your job, agreements, and
relationships. associated with your obsession, roll +0:
(15+) You overcome your obsession for the moment.
 Schizophrenia (10–14) Your obsession influences your behavior. The GM takes 1
Hold.
You struggle with recurring psychotic episodes and terrifying
hallucinations. In the first game session and whenever you go
through difficult experiences, roll +0:
(–9) Your obsession takes over completely. The GM takes 3 Hold.
The GM can spend Hold to let your obsession creep into your daily
(15+) You maintain control of your insanity. life. You may be forced to choose between either engaging in your
(10–14) The GM takes 1 Hold.
obsession or losing Stability. You may forget about important
(–9) Schizophrenia overtakes you. The GM takes 3 Hold. tasks, miss meetings or neglect your interpersonal relationships
to solely focus on your obsession. Your obsession may even
The GM may spend Hold to make a Move for your schizophrenia. influence your dreams, giving you visions and revelations. In
For example, one of your hallucinations takes on physical form,
you view your current surroundings as being hostile to you, you’re turn, the object of your obsession may also take note of you and
afflicted by terrifying hallucinations, you’re subjected to dark try to stop your investigations.
visions (true or false), or someone in your vicinity turns out to not
actually be real.
 Depression
You are constantly struggling with depression, which is only
worsened by dejection and discouragement. Whenever facing
personal setbacks, roll +0:
(15+) You remain in control.
(10–14) You experience temporary anxiety, decreased self-
confidence or lack of will. Take −1 to your next roll.
(–9) You succumb to the sense of hopelessness or blame and
punish yourself; reduce Stability (−2). Your lethargy and
self-destructive urges do not go away until you numb your
depression with medicine, drugs, or alcohol.
Design by Lessavini with art assets from Helmgast and contributions by Auburney,
Jrmariano, Julle, Crystal, Victor the Villain and Mechanoreceptor. KULT is a
trademark by Helmgast.