Sanity vs Trauma - reviewing CoC7e,

Learning the Sanity mechanics of COC I get to reflect a lot on my own mental quirks.

Note: Spectrum of Behavior and probability. Some dice rolls make somethings all equally probable but our experience and if we do some research some behavior is more likely than others. Most importantly they manifest in subtle ways. 

 

Comments on the Rules

1. Sanity Points: 0:50 - basically Sanity HP. 
1. Trauma mechanics in Mneme Variant for Cepheus Engine I have uses "Conditions" instead of hitpoints since Conditions are: 
1. simplifies the range of deterioration to a qualitative measure instead of a quantitative measure. 
2. more flexible for GMs and Players if things have de-escalated or escalated through the conditions. 
3. Allows for compounding Conditions. 
2. Sanity Saves 2:45 -  % roll equal to Sanity Score.
1. Clarification of Sanity loss is for the Experience and not the Quantity of the experience. 
2. Any Loss of sanity is a involuntary reaction determined by the keeper. 
3. What is a 99% Sane? Some deep discussion about human nature and the mind with this. Does it mean a perfectly working brain? A sociopath is perfectly sane and rational is that 99% Sane? Guilt and the Irrationality of Empathy is "Insane?" but Altruism can also be perfectly rational and irrational if a person behaves mostly consistently to prevent unnecessary suffering? How do you know sane is not in some form of denial, willfully ignoring things that don't compute?   
3. +5 San loss. Roll INT, success causes Temp Insane. 1d10 hours of Temp Insane.
4. Indefinite Insanity. Losses 20% (1/5) SAN in a "Day" 
1. protip: mark the 20% of SAN. 
2. Up the Keeper
5. Stages of Insanity:
1. Bout of Madness. Its interesting that characters just have it - there is no filter or resistance to the Trauma (which coping mechanisms and our world view is for, some world views allow us to better process disturbing thoughts and experiences).
1. Change one element of backstory except for the special one of the PC. Whats interesting is the EQ of the group who can identify changes and the implications of the backstory and personality. 
2. 1d10 rounds if there are people to get them out of it. or 1d10 hours if everyone else is suffering or alone. 
3. See bout of Madness Charts help. See alternate tables and insanity dice. 
2. Underlying Insanity. Back in control but still insane. 
1. Any SAN loss triggers a Bout of madness. 
2. Any failed push rolls has new consequences. 
3. Delusions and Hallucination. 
1. Players can ask for a Reality Check (Another SAN roll). I realize that if the player triggers this or if the PC triggers this based on their backstory and psychology. If its the player and its testable that the PC will want to accept this delusion or Hallucination this might raise problems in the game. 
3. Encounters with Strange Entities. Write entity, loss and maximum loss. This maximum loss goes down. 
4. Insane Insight. free successful idea roll. 
5. Mythos Hardened. When the Mythos is higher than the SAN, they lose half as much SAN from mythos. This is a threshold which once reach is a permanent trait even if they recover SAN and go higher than their Mythos. 
6. Interesting about the randomness of the Shock and Stress of Trauma. Straight to Delusion and Denial, and the stronger manifestations of a source of stress. Forgetting the other symptoms that lead to this stronger manifestation: Confusion, Distraction, Agitation, Hostility, and Apprehension and Hesitation.
1. Coping and Defense mechanisms - like bad habits and agitation to avoid or numb the experience typically happen first. 
2. This would be a handy chart.   
7. And in Game mechanics, when your this is a penalty to the Skills or anything that Needs Attention, Willpower, and Initiative. 
8. Recovery: 
1. Sanity Rewards. Catharsis - resolving an issue. killing or ending a threat, and uncertainty, or removing a source of stress gives a release. Seth had to remind Keepers that you recover as much as you lose from a source. 
2. Raising a skill 90% or higher. 
3. Psychotherapy. If you follow mental health as a hobby or for your own mental health realizing that the coping mechanisms and institutions had a lot of abuse and mismanagement this allowing the PC to recover is a dubious way to get better - with the following as the primary sources of getting better: loving and supportive family (biological or non-biological), a counselor, a place to work on ourselves and allow us to distract ourselves (a job that has a lot of idle mental time and easy repetitive tasks). I think Asylums are a kind of 
4. Cost of living and Wages is the fall back technique for Seths challenges 4 years ago. I'm sure he's figured it out by now 2022.  

Trauma 

I can't say I have something Traumatic in my life, but there are certain experiences that lead me down dark paths and I cant seem to escape from. I've seen people who are changed or calcified by these experiences.

If I have mental quirks, pauses where I have to wrestle with my emotions, and I don't have a particularly traumatic life who am I to judge harshly people who have gone through worse or what dark thoughts other people are grappling with. 

If you talked to me about Psychological Trauma 10-20+ years ago, I wouldn't understand how such experiences cause Trauma. The thing is Sanity is not a good word to describe this and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or simply Trauma is better in explaining how a character can be rendered "unplayable". 
 

If we started talking about Trauma and how it can debilitate anyone - then I would understand how an experience can make someone lose control. And just even the small things that cause us Trauma - for me in particular - remembering my experience with gaslighting and compulsive liars and how they make me believe the worse in me and doubt myself is painful and traumatic for me. it causes me to pause, it creates the dark path for my mind to and I have to consciously avoid and control my thoughts to prevent myself from going there. Then there are other concepts like "aggregate human behavior is an illusion of a mind" that a group of people - a stereotype - an organization - or people who share a common belief - and their behavior makes them act in a way that my brain tries to simplify as a "being" which is wrong. Its an illusion of a mind, and thinking its a mind - that it can control itself and avoid doing harm - is the scary part of this realization. A well-intentioned Institution or Organization - an aggregate of human behavior - is not a mind that can exert autonomy to avoid harm. 

Going dark paths in the web also reveals this scary human nature, toxic social media as well, and all this harm that can be found makes me realize - as a Stat or a mechanic we are not respecting the importance of mental health and how fragile we are. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/225597/GURPS-Mysteries 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/224854/GURPS-Horror 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/128304/Call-of-Cthulhu-7th-Edition-QuickStart-Rules

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/167631/Call-of-Cthulhu-Investigator-Handbook-7th-Edition

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/150997/Call-of-Cthulhu-7th-Edition--Keepers-Rulebook  

Rationalizing my Elder Gods mythos

I was listening to Call of Cthulhu when I got inspired to make my own Elder Gods Mythos.

Since I a science geek, I can't not ignore that we evolved in this world. That's one of those reasons that gives me a hard time wrapping my mind around Traveller's Vilani and Zhodani. I've since devised other rationals why they exist.  

I am currently working on a kitchensink setting, a post apocalyptic world that has elements of the Twilight Zone in it. I got inspired by Silent Hill's alien and disturbing flow of time and how ghost zones is great dressing to be ported into how bridges into another world would appear.

This dark sci-fi fantasy world, the Kitchen Sink setting, is where the elder gods come into the story. A creature that fit the profile of the elder beings had to have some kind of rationale (something that is disallowed in CoC; so please bear with me).

The Elder god Virus

What if these dark beings were a virus so old and evolved, they came from the universe before this one. What if they struck a perfect balance destruction and captive growth, and evolved to a level of sophistication that they became sentient, but as a virus they needed to propagate and destroy.

They are a virus that existed so long, that they only evolved as other sentient species evolved. They need to consume and destroy, and even evolved beyond mere physical trappings, but extended to information, time, and concepts I can't imagine.

These viruses are not just single entity but evolved into multiple competing entities. Competition and evolving into deeper and more complex organisms made them stronger and slowed their growth only to make them stronger and more voracious.

What if these viruses needed sentient creatures to take form. The virus has individualistic aspects that allowed it to have a unique bond with a creature, and it searches the universe for more unique mutations of biology, psychology and information. Every Probabilistic variance mattered to the virus, that it began to exist in other realities.

When the previous universe ended, so did the dominance of the elder gods but the virus bled into dark places where nothing could exist and nothingness protected it against annihilation.

In the new universe, this one, they have come back from the darkest depth of sleep. The virus has spread and transformed and created creatures of maddening aspects. This is where the fiends of these elder gods come from.

More scientifically most of these creatures feed on human misery, in an existential way that is very difficult to grasp. When they consume beings, they consume them in their mind and in all the probabilistic states of existence they can have. Sentient creatures, because of their sophistication in how data, time, and biology interact attract the virus and feed its creatures.

The Mind Feeders

There is a creature that feeds on minds, impregnating a being with their own viral loaded enzymes and increasing their cognitive activity. They slowly consume a persons mind, with their tentacled kiss as the mind goes overdrive. The virus causes the brain to improve its plasticity, and begin to slowly move around its functions in order to keep the mind alive until every morsel is consumed.

The virus has enslaved a psychically talented race, and shaped it to meet its programmed desires.

The Blood Feeders

There is another creature that feeds off the brain through the blood. Its own virus loaded enzymes fills its prey's blood with euphoria, and a hormonal and neurological cocktail. This creature prefers to keep the prey alive as long as possible, but it burns out its prey's mind emotionally and physically. This virus can take many shapes and many hosts. Once taking on a host, everything beneath the skin melds into a homogeneous muscle-like system that has organ-plasticity (meaning it can easily adapt any part of itself for any specialized role) making it almost impervious to any injury. It has an adaptive programming in its design, that it takes the host's genes and biomorphicaly enhances the host's appearance to be at it's sweetspot. Its only vital organ is the brain of the host it has occupied, as it becomes the main digestive and energy storing organ of the virus. Its neurological functions has also plasticity.

Creatures of the Elder gods

The more primitive and unsophisticated viruses and hosts are merely tyrants and slavers. They are given hyper aggression, along with improved cognitive functions, and metabolic control. They provoke the most destructive and irrational side of its host, feeding off the pain, madness, agony and regret of its host.

Psionics and Magic.

The virus's multi-reality and space-time aspect makes Psionic and Magical minds a signal light in the darkness. Since the virus seeks to exist in all manner of reality, and Psionics and Magic tap these same spaces - this become a beacon to the virus. 

Another Creature of the Elder Gods.

The other creature of the Elder Gods are those who think they can tame, control or even harness the virus. what falls in this category are the Psychics and Mages, who replicate the sophisticated feats of the virus and bend space and time. There are also demons, powerful forms of the virus that are not exactly physical in nature, they can be understood and tamed to an extent...  

Some Insight on the Virus

The virus milks mirror neurons for the data feedback loop they can create, and all the empathic abilities of a sentient mind. The virus is weaker and less sophisticated in creatures that have a limit in these cognitive abilities. Social Animals are great food stock for the virus; the more neurological empathy load to weight of the animal, the more valuable to the virus.        

The kitchen Sink setting. 

GURPS Kitchen Sink is a Gdoc I'm working on, and in my previous computer I saved a Digest size (half of a letter sized paper) Random Character Generation Pamphlet. So its inspired by CoC and a lot of dark settings. You can choose to fight them, but since these creatures are not game balanced, they really will TPK if encountered... the way a party should not pick a fight with a dragon.