The inspiration for this essay was an (untested) idea concerning the Wish spell, namely: there should be one requirement to cast a Wish spell, beyond those listed in the Player’s Handbook, and that requirement is the life of the caster. The idea is that if one casts “the mightiest spell a mortal creature can cast” and “alter[s] the very foundations of reality in accord with [their] desires,”1 the resulting effects should be of a greater magnitude than, say, a hangover.The consequences should be more than those of being in a fight, or a war, or a even total massacre. They should be catastrophic.
This idea is subject to, and intended for, debate. However, the notion that trafficking in the alien, the unimaginable, or the unintelligible as a vocation would have progressively more harmful consequences seems appropriate not just to horror settings, but to any fantastical adventure. This essay will provide some background and guidelines on how the relationship between sanity and the uncanny can be adjudicated in our games.
Of the many contributions which Call of Cthulhu has made to the arena of tabletop roleplaying games, perhaps one of the best-known and most significant is the Sanity mechanic. Its use is often and noticeably lacking in other game systems, though they are also filled with horror, maybe not of the same type as that in Cthulu (the alien, the unimaginable, etc.), but horror nonetheless, whether it is war, murder, torture, or other forms of trauma which are not necessarily macabre, but certainly dreadful. While a sanity mechanic could be used in many games and in many instances, at the discretion and desire of the DM and players, this essay will focus on its relation to magic.
Could...a gradual revelation of the deep mysteries of the universe...drive one mad by degrees?
In Call of Cthulhu, temporary insanity can occur when an investigator “encounter[s] the horrors of the Mythos” and “fully understands what has been seen.”2 This mechanic flows from Lovecraft’s notion of cosmic Indifference, the idea that the universe is a vast, inscrutable, and mechanical place with no regard for humanity. This idea is touched on by Douglas Adams as well, albeit with a bit of humor, when he describes a mechanism called the Total Perspective Vortex3 which gives one a “momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says ‘You are here.’" According to both authors, the trauma of realizing the insignificance of humanity, how little we know of the universe, and how ill-equipped we are to comprehend it, results in anything from indefinite madness to complete annihilation of the brain.
Working within this framework, could it not follow that a gradual revelation of the deep mysteries of the universe might drive one mad by degrees, with the consequences of acquiring each new piece of divine or arcane knowledge doing harm to a mind that is unfit to process it fully? While the argument that madness begets genius seems to have been fairly well debunked4, can genius, or a certain sort of genius, beget madness? Can a person acquire knowledge so profound or alien that their brain is unable to cope with it?
Divine revelation has long been associated with mental instability, from the drug-induced visions of the Oracle at Delphi5 to miraculous encounters of holy people in every major religion.6 It seems fitting that divine spellcasters in roleplaying games would also suffer mental trauma the more they are in contact with the divine, the immortal, or the Outer Planes. This stress could stem from experiencing a thing or a being with no worldly analog, which our brains do not possess the apparatus to comprehend, or from possession, similar to when a Muslim is tormented by a jinn or a Vodou practitioner is “ridden” by a loa. In sum, if divine magic is alien or unimaginable, then one who acquires and utilizes such knowledge repeatedly over the course of a lifetime will suffer consequences.
According to Jeremy Crawford, “arcane power at its heart is really in a way about hacking the multiverse.”7 And, while he claims that “arcane magic and divine magic are storytelling categories,” it seems useful for the present discussion to determine what detrimental effects could result from learned knowledge vis-à-vis revealed knowledge. For, if there are side effects to divine revelation, as discussed above, could there be similar pitfalls to learning too much, or about things too reality-altering or too profound? Further, since the
arcane mage need not serve a deity, could being the sole arbiter of the use of their ever-growing power eventually create a sort of moral catastrophe and lead to mental degradation in that way (power corrupts, etc.)? There seem to be real world examples of both possibilities.
There are competing theories in neuroscience regarding whether we ought to view the brain as a computer or not.8 But whether the metaphor works or not is immaterial to our endeavor. For if the brain functions like a computer, processing information in a series of linear, binary steps, then in the face of something as counter-intuitive and alien as, say, learning how to shoot balls of fire from your finger, the mind might very well get bogged down in processing, or return a “some files may be missing or corrupt” error when it tries to navigate this new input. This processing error, to continue the metaphor, might look just like temporary insanity.
If, on the other hand, we view the brain as “an active organ, part of a body that is intervening in the world, and which has an evolutionary past that has shaped its structure and function,”9 then the shock of acquiring knowledge which evolution has not prepared it for could have the same effect as first contact might have on an alien race in Star Trek. And though the Prime Directive, which forbids Promethean interference in alien cultures, seems to be a rule more honored in the breach than the observance, it stands as a warning against too much knowledge too soon.
This warning has emerged from a history littered with examples of power outstripping knowledge of that power: biological warfare, nuclear energy, global warming, and so on. If entire societies, with their attendant checks and balances, have fallen prey to the temptation of utilizing a new and inordinately powerful resource before sufficient reflection on the consequences of its use has occurred, then it seems likely that one individual, subject to their own wants, needs, or desperate desires, is likely to do so as well. And this capitulation can lead to a Faustian subservience to unintended consequences, or to a sort of Madness of Justification, wherein one’s ability to reason is subsumed by the desire to rationalize their inordinate power.
In 2nd Edition D&D, “[c]asting a wish spell ages the caster five years.” In 3.5, Wish costs experience points! And in 5th Edition, the caster’s strength can be reduced to 3 for 2d4 days, with a chance that they will never be able to cast Wish again. It is not much of a stretch to conceive of Wish, or any other high-level spell having deleterious effects on the caster.
The practical upshot of this article is that, if the DM and players so choose, a simple mechanic can be introduced into their game which mitigates the tremendous power wielded by mages (particularly at high levels): the learning and use of magic comes at a price, namely, the caster’s sanity. This mechanic can be directly tied to the character’s casting level, since the more uncanny their magical knowledge, the looser their grip on reality. In addition, the number of times high-level spells can be cast could be finite, as is effectively the case for WIsh in 2E, since it ages the caster. Note also that this mechanic will present new narrative opportunities, if not strategic choices as well.
Here are a few ideas using Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition stats, but which are easily adaptable to other systems:
1. This method relies on a simplified Sanity score of 0-10, with each character starting at 10 (sane), unless otherwise determined by the DM and player. Sanity scores can be affected and adjusted similar to the ways in which they are in Call of Cthulhu, but it is recommended that the DM use this mechanic sparingly. In any case, the sanity of magic users will already be affected by the act of learning more complex spells, as discussed above. Their decreasing sanity will increase the likelihood that they will have to roll on a chart to determine the effects of their spell. The Wild Magic Surge table from the Player’s Handbook would suffice for this purpose, or you may find others or create your own.
The spellcaster’s Max Sanity will decrease by 1 each time they attain a new spellcasting (not class) level, starting at 2nd level. For instance, a 3rd level wizard will lose one point of Max Sanity, since they can now cast 2nd level spells, making their Max Sanity 9. A 9th level sorcerer would have a Max Sanity of 5, and so on. It is at the DMs discretion whether Sanity can be restored in some way but, again, it is recommended that altering Sanity be a rare occurrence. Starting at spellcasting level 2, mages will roll a d100 Sanity check after each spell is cast.
Here is a chart showing how Sanity could affect spellcasting:
Sanity Effect
10 No effect
9 3% chance Sanity roll fails (1-3 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
8 6% chance Sanity roll fails (1-6 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
7 9% chance Sanity roll fails (1-9 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
6 13% chance Sanity roll fails (1-13 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
5 17% chance Sanity roll fails (1-17 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
4 21% chance Sanity roll fails (1-21 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
3 25% chance Sanity roll fails (1-25 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
2 30% chance Sanity roll fails (1-30 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
1 35% chance Sanity roll fails (1-35 on a d100); if failed, roll on Wild Magic Surge table
0 Character is completely insane and unplayable
These numbers can be tweaked as DMs and players see fit and, as mentioned above, there are countless tables available, from a simple “the spell fails” on a failed Sanity check, to more flavorful tables, such as that for Wild Magic Surge and its many variations.
2. The DM could determine that a finite number of spells of a certain level or school, or a finite number of particular spells, can be cast in a mage’s lifetime.There are many good candidates for this method among Necromancy spells. After all, this type of magic deals with blurring the line between life and death which, to most sane people, seem fairly well demarcated. Also, spells such as Plane Shift and Gate recall characters from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell or Alice in Wonderland, who seemed to require a sort of madness in order to encounter other worlds.
Rather than demand a 1,000 GP diamond to cast Resurrection, a DM can limit the number of times it can be cast by permanently reducing ability scores, charging a Sanity point, or simply establishing a maximum number of times it can be cast over a lifetime. This is done to reflect the psychic toll and the expenditure of will needed to cast high-level spells. Further, this method also seems more fair, in the sense that some game worlds may have no diamonds, while they may fall from the sky in others. Sanity, however, is a finite resource.
3. Sanity could be directly tied to a character’s Intelligence, the idea being that with superhuman knowledge comes a loss of humanity. If a character’s INT exceeds 19 (or even 18, at the DM’s discretion), they will automatically make all WIS checks and saves with disadvantage. Think of it as a wizard trying to calculate distance on a flat surface, but accidentally using a non-Euclidean method, resulting in a miscalculation. The mistake was not a result of a lack of knowledge, but too much knowledge and a lack of the wherewithal to access it in the proper circumstances, since their humanoid brain is not yet elastic enough to manage all of the information it contains.10 Roleplaying this type of character could range from the harmless hijinks of the absent-minded professor to the potent myopia of Sauron.
The notion that there is a connection between magic and sanity, much like the original idea concerning the Wish spell, is subject to, and intended for, debate. These alternate rules for adjudicating that connection are not for everyone, nor for every game. However, in light of the arguments made here, accounting for the effect that a magical vocation might have on one’s long-term mental health can be a way to add depth and nuance to our games, not only in terms of mitigating the power of high-level mages, but also by forcing players to balance the use of magic against the side effects of its knowledge and use, while affording more opportunity for the character development of magic users.
Crawford, Jeremy, Player’s Handbook lead. Player’s Handbook. Fifth Edition. Wizards of the Coast, 2014, 288.
Petersen, Sandy, Call of Cthulhu Quick-Start Rules, 7th Edition, Chaosium Inc., 2016, 11.
Adams, Douglas. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Reprint, Del Rey, 1995, 57. Also see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for an explanation of why the population of the universe is: None.
Dietrich, Arne. (2014). The Mythconception of the Mad Genius. Frontiers in psychology. 5. 79. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles
/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00079. (One among many articles on the topic.)
Broad, William. “For Delphic Oracle, Fumes and Visions.” The New York Times, 19 Mar. 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/03/19/science
/for-delphic-oracle-fumes-and-visions.html.
Scull, Andrew. Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine.
Reprint, Princeton University Press, 2016.
Kenreck, Todd. “Arcane and Divine Magic In Dungeons and Dragons.” D&D Beyond, 9 Jan. 2018, www.dndbeyond.com/posts/135-
arcane-and-divine-magic-in-dungeons-and-dragons.
Cobb, Matthew. “Why Your Brain Is Not a Computer.” The Guardian, 11 Mar. 2020, www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/27/why-
your-brain-is-not-a-computer-neuroscience-neural-networks-consciousness.
Ibid.
Cf. Kinds of Minds. (2021). Carlisle, D. for more on Intelligence and Wisdom in this context.
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Eco's Chamber
