[Merits] Madness Helps

[amechra]

Fragmented Vision (• - •••)
Prerequisites: Integrity 6 or lower
Effects: You may reflexively spend one Willpower when confronted by a supernatural phenomena to ask a number of questions equal to your dots in Fragmented Visions from the following list. Alternatively, you may forgo asking a question to instead gain a +1 bonus on the next Breaking Point it would force you to roll.
• How is this a danger to me?
• How can I make sense of this?
• How can I get it to leave me alone?
Drawbacks: Unfortunately, the cracks show - you suffer a penalty equal to half your dots, rounded up, on all Breaking Points from non-supernatural sources. In addition, you suffer a -1 penalty on Social rolls as long as you have two or more dots in this merit.

Jaded Cultist (•••)
Prerequisites: Integrity 6 or lower, Mystery Cult Initiation ••+
Effects: Your world-view has been shaped by your initiation - you gain a second Vice related to your mystery cult's teachings, which does not necessarily need to be a human Vice. You gain a +1 bonus on any roll made when Summoning or Binding ephemeral beings related to your second Vice, and treat it as a Virtue for the purposes of any Breaking Points related to the supernatural.
Drawbacks: Your cult programming has warped your original personality - double the penalty from your second Vice when facing non-Supernatural breaking points. In addition, you cannot spend Willpower to resist the Urged Condition if the urging ephemeral being is related to your second Vice.

See The Signs (••)
Prerequisites: Integrity 6 or lower
Effects: You can sense the side effects of the little rituals of human occultism as if they shed an impossible light or wailed out a faint siren. As a result, you can determine whether or not something has been "blessed" with a normal perception roll - in general, blessings consist of Abjuration and other effects that are modified by Integrity in the same manner as Abjuration.
Special: If you happen to have the Taste merit, you can treat blessings as items within your area of expertise, using Occult as the most appropriate skill.

Madman's Insight (••)
Prerequisites: The Madness [Persistent] Condition
Effects: You regain a point of Willpower whenever the Storyteller spends dice from the Madness condition - you regain an additional point if you fail the penalized roll.
Drawbacks: Subtract your dots in this merit from your Integrity when determining how many dice the Madness condition grants the Storyteller. In addition, you take a Beat and add a die to the Storyteller's pool instead of resolving the Madness condition when you gain or lose a dot of Integrity.

=---=

See The Signs technically should also allow you to do stuff like just note in passing that the house at the end of the road has been warded against a spirit. It doesn't have an explicit drawback because reacting to things that no-one else can see is already going to make you odd.

Think of these as being in the vein of the Hardened Exorcist merit - they represent mortal characters who aren't new to the Supernatural Rodeo.

[Deionscribe]

Okay, this is an interesting set of Merits you cooked up. I can actually see a few of these working for those Banishers that have Integrity in place of Wisdom.

[amechra]

Excision of Reason (••)
Prerequisites: Fragmented Vision •.
Effect: You may reflexively add your dots in Fragmented Vision to your dots in any supernatural merit you possess for the purposes of determining that merit's dice pool or effects. If you do, you suffer a Breaking Point for using that supernatural merit - you are no longer protected by your own familiarity.
Special: You may use Fragmented Vision on yourself whenever you use a supernatural merit augmented by Excision of Reason.

That Hideous Light (•••)
Prerequisites: Madman's Insight, Mortal
Effect: You've learnt how to leverage the cracks in your mind, nursing them and filling them with something else. You may spend dice from your Madness condition as if they were points of willpower - if you do, you suffer a Breaking Point roll at the end of the scene, with a penalty equal to the number of dice you spent this way. Whenever you regain willpower, you also add that many dice to your Madness condition, up to the limit determined by your Integrity score.

- - -

Because "occultist who draws power from their own cracked worldview" is an archetype that isn't really supported.

[Stupid Loserman]

Looks good to me. I do think I'd suggest reducing those Integrity thresholds to 5 or lower, or maybe even 4 for the more supernatural ones. But it's good stuff and appropriate.

[Heavy Arms]

I'm actually of the opposite opinion. The Integrity prerequisites make no sense to me, and if anything are generally too low.

Integrity isn't a measure of how sane your character is. High Integrity characters as defined seem like they should be able to get the most of out the Madness Condition or similar representations of mental trauma because of their stronger sense of self, where low Integrity characters would be struggling more to put the pieces together.

My character lost a dot of Integrity because they shot someone in self defense... which qualifies them as meeting the prerequisites for three of these six Merits (four if they're also a member of a Cult). It seems to not fit the intent here.

[amechra]

The prereq isn't a sanity thing - it's a broken-ness thing. The whispers can't come in if you don't smash the windows, you know.

[Vent0]

Yay! You're back.

Because "occultist who draws power from their own cracked sanity" is an archetype that isn't really supported.

What about something that interacts with the Investigation sub-system, regarding Clues (and/or their elements)? Leaps of reasoning actually turning out to be right seems like another unfilled niche (See the Signs and Madman's Insight are close).

[Heavy Arms]

The prereq isn't a sanity thing - it's a broken-ness thing. The whispers can't come in if you don't smash the windows, you know.

Which I object to on a few grounds. I'm not opposed to CofD content where madness can have mechanical bonuses attached to it, but conflating Integrity "broken," to "mental trauma broken," or worse, "mental health disorders broken," is really bad in my eyes.

Or to co-opt your description here rather than discuss myself in detail: the whispers started coming in all on their own when I was 17. I didn't ask for them, I didn't smash a window open for them to come through. I was always going to have to deal with them. When I'm emotionally weak they're stronger and I have trouble not listening to them in ways that are bad for me, and when I'm feeling stronger I can absorb them, and sometimes even realize that they're saying things I should be listening to.

You're not serving the "occultist who draws power from their own cracked sanity," archetype, if the prerequisites aren't built off of sanity.

[amechra]

Which I object to on a few grounds. I'm not opposed to CofD content where madness can have mechanical bonuses attached to it, but conflating Integrity "broken," to "mental trauma broken," or worse, "mental health disorders broken," is really bad in my eyes.

Or to co-opt your description here rather than discuss myself in detail: the whispers started coming in all on their own when I was 17. I didn't ask for them, I didn't smash a window open for them to come through. I was always going to have to deal with them. When I'm emotionally weak they're stronger and I have trouble not listening to them in ways that are bad for me, and when I'm feeling stronger I can absorb them, and sometimes even realize that they're saying things I should be listening to.

You're not serving the "occultist who draws power from their own cracked sanity," archetype, if the prerequisites aren't built off of sanity.

As someone who has also been hearing things for a while (I've been swinging back and forth between manic and depressive since I was six), I feel for you. That was thoughtless of me, and I apologize.

I think I'll swap Madman's Insight and Fractured Visions, namewise - the implications are a bit off from what I wanted. I'm keying off the whole "lowered Integrity = easier for things to get in" part of the rules - Spirits can claim you more easily and you are less able to hide. I will, however, separate Integrity and (the new) Madman's Insight.

I'd be happier if there was, you know, a better system here for this kind of thing... but Integrity is what we've got.

@Vent0
Not sure if I'm back permanently. I could do something that messes with the Clue subsystem, I guess - I was never really a fan of it.

[Vent0]

I could do something that messes with the Clue subsystem, I guess - I was never really a fan of it.

I've been experimenting with using the Investigation system for a few related, but different things - like modelling "Recovery and Research" similar to XCOM (what with scavenging, and using those components for research). "Tainted" Clues representing damaged materials, etc.

Anyways, I've had it on my mind recently, and "insane" leaps of logic seem fitting here, so...

[Heavy Arms]

That was thoughtless of me, and I apologize.

I think I'll swap Madman's Insight and Fractured Visions, namewise - the implications are a bit off from what I wanted.

I appreciate that, thank you.

I'd be happier if there was, you know, a better system here for this kind of thing... but Integrity is what we've got.

I feel you. And I do think that the revisions from today help things a bit. But I think you hit on a good idea from the get go: Conditions. Integrity loss can lead to Conditions (so lower Integrity would be implied without being a prerequisite), but you could have them from other sources (even having them at character creation as part of the character concept). Let the players and STs bring them in as appropriate to what they're trying to do.