On the Madness of Wizards

If you came up with that, I've gotta say I appreciate the effort to start a thread with more than a single line greentext prompt.

From your examples, though, it seems clear to me that these wizards were not mad but were engaged in complex protection rituals. Twenty-three is a mystic number by the law of fives, and blood (especially to a healer) is a powerful magic reservoir. If Seer Tarthryn stared too closely into the flames, it was because he was watching for something coming in them. Likewise Vallan, with his ritual walk, knew that an unseen enemy followed close behind.

A spell is not a mindless thing. If we were to take two men, and cut their brains in half, and somehow heal them so each had the half of the other - would you say that they would be sane? A mage does something of that every day, and the powers he use grow hungry for more of their host's mind.

I have magic inherently have dangerous effects if the ritual fails or isn't properly constrained. This includes mutations like horns or goat's eyes, and stuff like losing your shadow or being followed by vermin. It also includes various mental abnormalities and compulsions, like being unable to cross running water, being unable to look at your own reflection, etc. In my setting, powerful and long lived occultists are crazy mutated creatures who hide from the light of day, but who are sought out for their extensive knowledge

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By writing magic in a psychological context and having the practice of magic and it's consequence be analogous to drug use and various forms of psychosis.

Luckily at one point in my past, I was a meth head Neo Nazi who developed amphetamine psychosis and believed that his consciousness had ascended through Luciferian ritual meditation, spiritual channeling and concentration techniques and was privy to lost knowledge of ancient magical power, so I just write based off of those experiences.

>>49424950
By flavor? Going with your quote, people who seek extrasensory knowledge gather lots of shit (figments of memory/emotion, random arcane energies giving affinity to various things, to minor demons, dream larvae and the like) in the process of honing their senses, and by the time they can "see" and understand what's helpful and what's harmful there's already lots of garbage in their consciousness/energy bodies/soul/whatever you call it. The other option is through a monastery-like path, with years of studying/practicing the basics under an experienced master, which avoids most of the major pitfalls. But that's not a path many adventurers would've taken.

contd next post

>>49425601
Mechanically, have them roll when acquiring spells. Critical failure means contamination of mage's energies with something attuned to the spell (e.g. crit-failed to learn fireball, he might be impulsive or have minor fires randomly start around him from time to time). Normal failure means the spell is learned, but in a corrupted way. Said fireball might also ignite tinder/paper/other most flammable substances on mage's possession, so you'd get a fire mage who shaves their head and wears flame-retardant clothes as basic precautions, even if many other fire mages don't have to do that.

Fucked up when learning a teleport spell? Have the soul teleport to some astral plane and make a one-player session of the journey back (before the connection fades or their body starves). Thes may or may not leave trauma depending on how the journey back went. Remember Planescape: Torment? There was a woman who'd been avoiding any single bounded space (door/window/arch/trees with crossing branches) for 30 years due to a nasty portal fuckup.

Vancian casting? Make the spell's energies leave imprints in caster's aura/emotions/attitudes every time they cast. Not noticeable with casual use, but it accumulates with repeated casting. A few hundred lightning bolts and you'd reflexively start avoiding random metal objects/water. Magical healing? Get innate regeneration but trim your hair/nails every day, also have to eat much more. And so on.

>>49425066
Thanks, it's part of my attempt to get into creative writing. In this case, this is an excerpt one of the first documents actually instructing formal arcane technique. Probably some "required reading" for aspiring wizards.

That's a good take on these anecdotes. The challenge to the outside observer might be differentiating between strange but necessary behaviors and plain neurosis.

Since this is taking from a Vancian style of magic, memory is one of the expended material components. That alone could have cumulative lasting effects.

>>49425279
Shit, talk about "writing what you know".

>>49425601
A good point, that certainly some casters will have taken years of time and care in their learning to stay mentally intact, while the typical adventurer would be more haphazard, but rewarded with quicker progress. If you were to line up a bunch of wizards of all ages but similar skill levels, they will all have different states of mental health, but perhaps ironically, it's probably the old ones that are still mostly right in the head.

>>49425775
>>49425180
I think consequences for failure make immediate sense. I could also test how well they learn spells. As they cast it more, they are likely to become more familiar with it, and cast it more safely. Perhaps I roll in the background for mishaps? It's all bookkeeping, but could be very interesting.

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Someone once posted that his mages developed mania and narcisism, beyond what one would expect from using awesome powers all the time. No matter one's mental health, magic would affect them like that. Colateral hubris.

I also once read a story where a mage would record the same spell twice, because he was terrified of the way his memory disappeared once it was cast. The party would sometimes be mad at him for having two "feather fall" instead of one plus whatever they needed.

In my case, I once made a character which behaved quite madly because the things that magic does made him treat the world and its constants as preferences. Gravity, death, all pudding that others base their lives on. He would ocasionally throw a javelin to check graity and ramble about being the midwife of a prophecy's progeny. He would never be more than "almost sure" of anything, including himself.

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>>49427452
If a key component of the spell is the memory of the spell itself, you can only ever know you cast it by its results. That would have to be a constant mindfuck. As if time had been erased.

Also a good point when magic alters the constants of reality that the vast majority of people take for granted. Why wouldn't that have psychological ramifications?

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I like the discussion here so far. Any systems actually using sanity/mishaps with magic that might be worth grabbing from?