Hello everyone... I have been working on this for QtR for a while now and it is just one of the many ideas I have been developing lately. Still considering at last count I have close to about 35 projects for QtR in varying states of completion I figured I should start to post a few of them here to try and lighten the load and get them finished and in our communities hands for use.
I have just finished my first round of edits due to the responses and lack of responses on this race so that it can better work in Ravenloft so I hope this version will catch more interest.
I still want advice on balance, crunch, setting flavor and the like but any thing you wish to add to help is appreciated and desired on any of my posts so please feel free to tell me whatever you wish.
So please check again at the alterations!
Madling Race FIRST EDIT
Pronunciation: Mad-ling
Race Description
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Known also as Chaos Kin, the Mad Born or Wildlings the strange race of creatures seemingly born from madness usually is known to other races simply as Madlings. They came into existence by those souls whose minds touched a distant plane of insanity while the walls of sanity were thin around them. Asylums and other places where the insane gathered slowly led to more and more of them being created and seemingly becoming a new creature while being the same. This sudden change has never fully been understood and little is known as to why the fabric of sanity became thin or how these things used that to enter into the bodies of the mad. Why these Madlings came to exist or how they can be connected with each other in their insanity is also not fully understood but eventually these strange occurrences were noted by some physicians and healers. Only with time have many Madlings begun to adapt to living among those whose minds are so different and yet the same in their sanity. While they have no real communities of their own as their race is so odd and also diverse they are constantly crafting an individual place for themselves and perhaps find a balance to their chaotic minds.
A Madling may look like any race of being for they are “born” when this foreign mindset invades someone who has become so lost in insanity that they become connected to some realm beyond ours. This strange occurrence happens rare enough but those families that are known to have insanity run in their veins might produce the rare born Madling. Even in this trait however Madlings are frustratingly different in some ways as some will remember their host bodies lives and may even continue to act similar to the person they once were, while others may become entirely different people and lose all of the past knowledge of their bodies forming as new and disturbingly complete individuals with maddening ideas of perhaps imagined or horrifying backgrounds. Some have questioned if perhaps Madlings are even really a race or just some strange mental phenomena or magical curse that has spread but no proof for these theories of their existence seems conclusive. Madlings however all suffer from a permanent insanity that leads them to behave off of normal and also know how to speak a language so hard to understand that only the insane may even attempt to understand it let alone learn it.
Madlings appear to follow few cultural trends, and these can defer with no rhyme or reason except their own strange and insane individual perspectives of neutrality but that does not mean that they are completely random or without any logical understanding. True some take to their insane natures and lose control of themselves becoming estranged from the sane people around them or a danger to all. Other Madlings have a semblance of reason or at least enough to function somewhat stable for a time. Many, desire to try and relate and communicate with those whose perspectives might not be as twisted as theirs for they often understand us about as much as we understand them. Most are the majority of the time only slightly mad and despite some odd behaviors or reasoning can manage to live with others most of the time, but others hide their madness only to have it erupt. The majority of them see the value of continued healthy living, relative peace with or at least tolerance of others and a respect for the existence of people and things. While others may be far too mad to care about such most Madlings are thankfully not so far gone and the strange lives some build for themselves might continue to stabilize if supported.
Madlings as a people cannot be sorted by behavior. They as individuals might be able to be occasionally predictable but each individual Madlings insanity may vary from one to the other completely. While some behaviors may be in bad taste or taboo to other people or cultures, to a Madling any behavior might seem acceptable or unacceptable simply because they decide it is so in their own mind. Madlings may or may not choose a religion and even then they may not understand how to properly worship their chosen god, goddess or even pantheon. Some Madlings favor mad gods or madness itself, or the far realm as their pseudo religion or philosophic ideal but others follow their faith the similar to their sane neighbors though not perfectly so usually. Madlings often but not always, find it hard to be clerics unless their alignment closely matches their chosen dieties alignment. Many Madlings also find that they must unbalance themselves even as their chosen faith or profession might call for a focused effort to resist their insane nature. Allowances while not expected by some Madlings are appreciated. Any groups, organizations or movements flexible enough to try and include and understand Madling members will likely find that they will be known by many the Madkin and the insane they speak to.
Madlings are very expressive and while much of what they do might be reasonably comprehensible, a good amount of their communication is literally something only another madman could understand. This is often expressed in their art, their work and perhaps mostly in their strange native tongue which has been named by most countries and races simply as Gibberish. This language is built around allowing Madlings and other insane creatures who learn it, to talk to each other in a way that both defies logic and yet has its own twisted rules and logic. Gibberish is thought to be an almost infinite language but needlessly so and its complexities change from circumstance to circumstance so much it is wondered if it is not some sort of strange mind to mind communication. The only thing certain about the language is that anyone who wishes to speak or understand it must be insane. Those who are cured of their insanity are surprised to find they can no longer communicate in the strange tongue, until they are insane once more. Many asylums and institutions have hired on case by case basis reasonably trustworthy Madlings (Who are most likely long term patients themselves) to teach Gibberish to individual patients so as to facilitate therapy and communication with some measure of surprising success. Still most doctors in such fields remain skeptical of trusting such strange methods and most fear the damage that could be done if the language spread to all the patients. The possibility for abuse by violent or manipulative patients should they gain control over or make plans with other suggestible patients is frightening enough for some to dismiss the idea completely.
It remains with individual Madlings to decide if they do care about and protect or even reign themselves in at times when they wish to defend something or work toward something. They will never be sane but they do not have to be crazy all of the time either. It is in determining if they can control their madness long enough that many people have trouble with dealing with Madlings for any length of time on something serious. In any place where Madlings are allowed to live beside other sane people it can become hard to apply the law to such random reasoning or behavior.
Madlings are often jailed or committed to institutions if they are unable to reign in their behaviors though most Madlings find this to be almost a necessary evil or a strange puzzle when dealing with other races. One thing all Madlings understand is that the other beings around them claim they are different because they are sane but say that Madlings are insane. While Madlings may agree or disagree they do acknowledge that to live with others requires a balance, even in them and thus they may or may not prevent such when other races judge they have been wronged by them by this arbitrary standard. This want of balance is another aspect of Madlings that seems to support their connection for all Madlings for some reason seem to favor this idea of balancing their nature with their lives. What this can mean from individual to individual can vary wildly but by all accounts it may just be a way that they understand trying to live in our world now that they are a part of it. However the reverse of this in that some Madlings wish to hold sane people and even other Madlings to their odd or twisted individual laws as well. While this can seem scary and is depending upon the Madling in charge, most times Madlings can make and administer their strange personal laws fairly and some lawfully inclined members of the race even claim that the madness of laws might be a way to bring their race to agree on how to live with these mostly sane people. Still woe to the soul who falls under the insane judgments, of a Madling who has given in to the chaos in their hearts, for their punishments may range from the absurd to the horrifyingly cruel or even to the point of inflicting madness upon those they torment.
Madlings are for lack of a better word, mad. No two are insane in exactly the same way, and while many can restrain their impulses, the practice of restraint is not something most if any of them would want to maintain forever. Madlings, usually agree on the whole, that their insanity is a fundamental part of what makes them both Madlings and individuals even if they do not believe themselves insane. They try to balance their preferred mad natures with their curiosity and drive to live and thrive in a reality that often is confusingly dangerous and harsh. They have trouble working with others or fitting in but they are insanely tenacious by nature when they choose a course and despite their oddities they are as intelligent and capable as any other race.
Madling Racial Traits
-2 to any one ability score, +2 to any one ability score. As creatures of Chaos, Madness and yet also the struggle of balance and imbalance, Madlings tend to potentiate seemingly at random in one area more than any other and decline more in another but some show no talent or disability at all in their natural abilities.
Variable Race and Size: All Madlings are created by an infusion of madness into a creature to the point they connect to the farplane and become permanently bonded with such. Choose a base race to determine what race, types, bonus languages, base outcast rating and size the Madling starts with as well as their starting age, aging effects, height and weight. These traits are the same as those of the chosen base race selected. For example an elf that becomes or is born a Madling loses all other racial traits but counts as an elf for all relevant purposes of race as well as being a Madling. They would be medium in size and would be able to select the same bonus languages as an elf but would also start with gibberish as one of their starting languages and would have a base outcast rating of 3.
Born of Madness: A Madling must have at least one of the two axis of their alignment be neutral. Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Neutral Good, Neutral Evil or just Neutral. A Madling may not change the neutral part of their alignment nor may anything else change it short of divine intervention. Any effect that would make them sane or cause them to ignore the neutral part of their alignment they are automatically immune to. The non-neutral part of their alignment may still be affected normally. However as they are insane all Madlings suffer a -4 to all madness saves as they have trouble dealing with such. To seemingly compensate for this however madlings treat the duration and penalties of all madness’s inflicted upon them as if they were minor effects. If a creature attempts contact with the insane mind of a Madling, the DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 the contacted Madling's HD + Madling's Wisdom modifier.
Mad Resilience: Madlings gain benefits based on their current alignment. They automatically receive the benefit of being considered neutral, for one side of their alignment. Both halves benefits are added to their traits but keep in mind that true neutral Madlings add the neutral benefit twice to their character. Should the half of their alignment that can change, ever does in a permanent fashion, remove the old alignments benefit and replace it with the new alignment descriptors benefit.
• Chaotic: Madlings who are part Chaotic receive +2 to their Charisma score. They also gain DR 1/Lawful which increases by 1 every 5 levels.
• Lawful: Madlings who are part Lawful receive +2 to their Intelligence score. They also gain DR 1/Chaotic which increases by 1 every 5 levels.
• Good: Madlings who are part Good receive +2 to their Wisdom score. They also gain DR 1/Evil which increases by 1 every 5 levels.
• Evil: Madlings who are part Evil receive +2 to their Constitution score. They also gain DR 1/Good which increases by 1 every 5 levels.
• Neutral: Madlings are all neutral so they receive a +4 bonus to will saves against any spell that would influence them mentally. They also gain a randomly fluctuating elemental resistance of 2 which increases by 1 every 2 levels. Each day roll 1d6 to determine which type of resistance applies for the next 24 hours. Roll 1d6: Fire, Cold, Acid, Electricity, Positive, Negative.
Power of Madness: Madlings as a race are attuned to all things and the magic that runs in their veins is as random as they are. A Madling chooses one 0th level spell every day from any spell list to cast at will as a spell like ability for 24 hours. Once chosen each day they cannot change it for another 24 hours but they can choose to wait until they first decide to use it for a day to choose which spell they pick for the following 24 hours. A Madling cannot pick the same power two days in a row and must wait 24 hours before selecting a power they selected the previous day. The Madling must have a Charisma of 11 or higher. The caster level for these effects is equal to the madling’s level. The DC for these spells is equal to 10 + the spell’s level + the madling’s Charisma modifier.
Imbalanced Behavior: Madlings are by nature insane and often this can cause problems for them with other races than their own. A Madling suffers a -4 penalty to all Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive checks when dealing with any creature that is sane. However due to this they receive a +4 bonus to all Diplomacy, Bluff and Sense Motive checks when dealing with any creature that is considered insane.
Mental Outcast: To Madlings hiding their insanity is hard or for some close to impossible but they are often able to be viewed simply as a member of their parent race by most if they do not reveal such right away. A Madling who is revealed as insane to others increases their base outcast rating by 2 when interacting with those who know what they really are.
Gibberish: Madlings as a race are connected in their madness to the point that their communication between themselves is bizzare but somehow makes sense to them. A Madling starts play knowing the secret language of Gibberish. Only Madlings know this language in most cases but those of any race who go insane and stay insane can learn to speak it. Gibberish however only works as a spoken language for it is done using verbal, physical and situational cues and is too random and complex to be written understandably. Gibberish can be understood by spells such as tongues or comprehend language or spoken with speak language or other spells but the speaker or listener must still also be insane or they cannot effectively speak or understand anything. To any who cannot understand the language, it seems to be a discordant mess of expressions and emotions as well as strange combinations of sounds, vocalizations and actions that can change meaning to the point where two completely different strings of communication can mean the exact same thing. It is said that the language follows a sort of pattern only the insane can unconsciously follow. Insane listeners to those speaking Gibberish who have not learned the language may still attempt to make sense motive checks to try and interpret the basic intent or emotion behind what someone speaking Gibberish means or desires but they must be taught to understand any concrete true meaning from it.
Languages: Madlings begin play speaking the starting languages of the base race and Gibberish. Madlings with high Intelligence scores can choose any bonus languages their base race could, (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
A Madling may look like any race of being for they are “born” when this foreign mindset invades someone who has become so lost in insanity that they become connected to some realm beyond ours. This strange occurrence happens rare enough but those families that are known to have insanity run in their veins might produce the rare born Madling. Even in this trait however Madlings are frustratingly different in some ways as some will remember their host bodies lives and may even continue to act similar to the person they once were, while others may become entirely different people and lose all of the past knowledge of their bodies forming as new and disturbingly complete individuals with maddening ideas of perhaps imagined or horrifying backgrounds. Some have questioned if perhaps Madlings are even really a race or just some strange mental phenomena or magical curse that has spread but no proof for these theories of their existence seems conclusive. Madlings however all suffer from a permanent insanity that leads them to behave off of normal and also know how to speak a language so hard to understand that only the insane may even attempt to understand it let alone learn it.
Madlings appear to follow few cultural trends, and these can defer with no rhyme or reason except their own strange and insane individual perspectives of neutrality but that does not mean that they are completely random or without any logical understanding. True some take to their insane natures and lose control of themselves becoming estranged from the sane people around them or a danger to all. Other Madlings have a semblance of reason or at least enough to function somewhat stable for a time. Many, desire to try and relate and communicate with those whose perspectives might not be as twisted as theirs for they often understand us about as much as we understand them. Most are the majority of the time only slightly mad and despite some odd behaviors or reasoning can manage to live with others most of the time, but others hide their madness only to have it erupt. The majority of them see the value of continued healthy living, relative peace with or at least tolerance of others and a respect for the existence of people and things. While others may be far too mad to care about such most Madlings are thankfully not so far gone and the strange lives some build for themselves might continue to stabilize if supported.
Madlings as a people cannot be sorted by behavior. They as individuals might be able to be occasionally predictable but each individual Madlings insanity may vary from one to the other completely. While some behaviors may be in bad taste or taboo to other people or cultures, to a Madling any behavior might seem acceptable or unacceptable simply because they decide it is so in their own mind. Madlings may or may not choose a religion and even then they may not understand how to properly worship their chosen god, goddess or even pantheon. Some Madlings favor mad gods or madness itself, or the far realm as their pseudo religion or philosophic ideal but others follow their faith the similar to their sane neighbors though not perfectly so usually. Madlings often but not always, find it hard to be clerics unless their alignment closely matches their chosen dieties alignment. Many Madlings also find that they must unbalance themselves even as their chosen faith or profession might call for a focused effort to resist their insane nature. Allowances while not expected by some Madlings are appreciated. Any groups, organizations or movements flexible enough to try and include and understand Madling members will likely find that they will be known by many the Madkin and the insane they speak to.
Madlings are very expressive and while much of what they do might be reasonably comprehensible, a good amount of their communication is literally something only another madman could understand. This is often expressed in their art, their work and perhaps mostly in their strange native tongue which has been named by most countries and races simply as Gibberish. This language is built around allowing Madlings and other insane creatures who learn it, to talk to each other in a way that both defies logic and yet has its own twisted rules and logic. Gibberish is thought to be an almost infinite language but needlessly so and its complexities change from circumstance to circumstance so much it is wondered if it is not some sort of strange mind to mind communication. The only thing certain about the language is that anyone who wishes to speak or understand it must be insane. Those who are cured of their insanity are surprised to find they can no longer communicate in the strange tongue, until they are insane once more. Many asylums and institutions have hired on case by case basis reasonably trustworthy Madlings (Who are most likely long term patients themselves) to teach Gibberish to individual patients so as to facilitate therapy and communication with some measure of surprising success. Still most doctors in such fields remain skeptical of trusting such strange methods and most fear the damage that could be done if the language spread to all the patients. The possibility for abuse by violent or manipulative patients should they gain control over or make plans with other suggestible patients is frightening enough for some to dismiss the idea completely.
It remains with individual Madlings to decide if they do care about and protect or even reign themselves in at times when they wish to defend something or work toward something. They will never be sane but they do not have to be crazy all of the time either. It is in determining if they can control their madness long enough that many people have trouble with dealing with Madlings for any length of time on something serious. In any place where Madlings are allowed to live beside other sane people it can become hard to apply the law to such random reasoning or behavior.
Madlings are often jailed or committed to institutions if they are unable to reign in their behaviors though most Madlings find this to be almost a necessary evil or a strange puzzle when dealing with other races. One thing all Madlings understand is that the other beings around them claim they are different because they are sane but say that Madlings are insane. While Madlings may agree or disagree they do acknowledge that to live with others requires a balance, even in them and thus they may or may not prevent such when other races judge they have been wronged by them by this arbitrary standard. This want of balance is another aspect of Madlings that seems to support their connection for all Madlings for some reason seem to favor this idea of balancing their nature with their lives. What this can mean from individual to individual can vary wildly but by all accounts it may just be a way that they understand trying to live in our world now that they are a part of it. However the reverse of this in that some Madlings wish to hold sane people and even other Madlings to their odd or twisted individual laws as well. While this can seem scary and is depending upon the Madling in charge, most times Madlings can make and administer their strange personal laws fairly and some lawfully inclined members of the race even claim that the madness of laws might be a way to bring their race to agree on how to live with these mostly sane people. Still woe to the soul who falls under the insane judgments, of a Madling who has given in to the chaos in their hearts, for their punishments may range from the absurd to the horrifyingly cruel or even to the point of inflicting madness upon those they torment.
Madlings are for lack of a better word, mad. No two are insane in exactly the same way, and while many can restrain their impulses, the practice of restraint is not something most if any of them would want to maintain forever. Madlings, usually agree on the whole, that their insanity is a fundamental part of what makes them both Madlings and individuals even if they do not believe themselves insane. They try to balance their preferred mad natures with their curiosity and drive to live and thrive in a reality that often is confusingly dangerous and harsh. They have trouble working with others or fitting in but they are insanely tenacious by nature when they choose a course and despite their oddities they are as intelligent and capable as any other race.
Madling Racial Traits
-2 to any one ability score, +2 to any one ability score. As creatures of Chaos, Madness and yet also the struggle of balance and imbalance, Madlings tend to potentiate seemingly at random in one area more than any other and decline more in another but some show no talent or disability at all in their natural abilities.
Variable Race and Size: All Madlings are created by an infusion of madness into a creature to the point they connect to the farplane and become permanently bonded with such. Choose a base race to determine what race, types, bonus languages, base outcast rating and size the Madling starts with as well as their starting age, aging effects, height and weight. These traits are the same as those of the chosen base race selected. For example an elf that becomes or is born a Madling loses all other racial traits but counts as an elf for all relevant purposes of race as well as being a Madling. They would be medium in size and would be able to select the same bonus languages as an elf but would also start with gibberish as one of their starting languages and would have a base outcast rating of 3.
Born of Madness: A Madling must have at least one of the two axis of their alignment be neutral. Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Neutral Good, Neutral Evil or just Neutral. A Madling may not change the neutral part of their alignment nor may anything else change it short of divine intervention. Any effect that would make them sane or cause them to ignore the neutral part of their alignment they are automatically immune to. The non-neutral part of their alignment may still be affected normally. However as they are insane all Madlings suffer a -4 to all madness saves as they have trouble dealing with such. To seemingly compensate for this however madlings treat the duration and penalties of all madness’s inflicted upon them as if they were minor effects. If a creature attempts contact with the insane mind of a Madling, the DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 the contacted Madling's HD + Madling's Wisdom modifier.
Mad Resilience: Madlings gain benefits based on their current alignment. They automatically receive the benefit of being considered neutral, for one side of their alignment. Both halves benefits are added to their traits but keep in mind that true neutral Madlings add the neutral benefit twice to their character. Should the half of their alignment that can change, ever does in a permanent fashion, remove the old alignments benefit and replace it with the new alignment descriptors benefit.
• Chaotic: Madlings who are part Chaotic receive +2 to their Charisma score. They also gain DR 1/Lawful which increases by 1 every 5 levels.
• Lawful: Madlings who are part Lawful receive +2 to their Intelligence score. They also gain DR 1/Chaotic which increases by 1 every 5 levels.
• Good: Madlings who are part Good receive +2 to their Wisdom score. They also gain DR 1/Evil which increases by 1 every 5 levels.
• Evil: Madlings who are part Evil receive +2 to their Constitution score. They also gain DR 1/Good which increases by 1 every 5 levels.
• Neutral: Madlings are all neutral so they receive a +4 bonus to will saves against any spell that would influence them mentally. They also gain a randomly fluctuating elemental resistance of 2 which increases by 1 every 2 levels. Each day roll 1d6 to determine which type of resistance applies for the next 24 hours. Roll 1d6: Fire, Cold, Acid, Electricity, Positive, Negative.
Power of Madness: Madlings as a race are attuned to all things and the magic that runs in their veins is as random as they are. A Madling chooses one 0th level spell every day from any spell list to cast at will as a spell like ability for 24 hours. Once chosen each day they cannot change it for another 24 hours but they can choose to wait until they first decide to use it for a day to choose which spell they pick for the following 24 hours. A Madling cannot pick the same power two days in a row and must wait 24 hours before selecting a power they selected the previous day. The Madling must have a Charisma of 11 or higher. The caster level for these effects is equal to the madling’s level. The DC for these spells is equal to 10 + the spell’s level + the madling’s Charisma modifier.
Imbalanced Behavior: Madlings are by nature insane and often this can cause problems for them with other races than their own. A Madling suffers a -4 penalty to all Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive checks when dealing with any creature that is sane. However due to this they receive a +4 bonus to all Diplomacy, Bluff and Sense Motive checks when dealing with any creature that is considered insane.
Mental Outcast: To Madlings hiding their insanity is hard or for some close to impossible but they are often able to be viewed simply as a member of their parent race by most if they do not reveal such right away. A Madling who is revealed as insane to others increases their base outcast rating by 2 when interacting with those who know what they really are.
Gibberish: Madlings as a race are connected in their madness to the point that their communication between themselves is bizzare but somehow makes sense to them. A Madling starts play knowing the secret language of Gibberish. Only Madlings know this language in most cases but those of any race who go insane and stay insane can learn to speak it. Gibberish however only works as a spoken language for it is done using verbal, physical and situational cues and is too random and complex to be written understandably. Gibberish can be understood by spells such as tongues or comprehend language or spoken with speak language or other spells but the speaker or listener must still also be insane or they cannot effectively speak or understand anything. To any who cannot understand the language, it seems to be a discordant mess of expressions and emotions as well as strange combinations of sounds, vocalizations and actions that can change meaning to the point where two completely different strings of communication can mean the exact same thing. It is said that the language follows a sort of pattern only the insane can unconsciously follow. Insane listeners to those speaking Gibberish who have not learned the language may still attempt to make sense motive checks to try and interpret the basic intent or emotion behind what someone speaking Gibberish means or desires but they must be taught to understand any concrete true meaning from it.
Languages: Madlings begin play speaking the starting languages of the base race and Gibberish. Madlings with high Intelligence scores can choose any bonus languages their base race could, (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
I hope people like what I am working on and I would love to hear from my favorite community!
Thank you to Mortavius for helping with this!
