What if the same Investigator faces several different Mythos entities during his Investigations? Are his SAN losses affected? CoC RAW are silent about this. Inspired by Armies of Darkness (RPG), I have thought of a simple house rule for CoC that doesn't deviate much from CoC RAW. It goes as follows:
When an Investigator has lost a total of at least 5 SAN from a given type of cause of SAN loss (such as observing Deep Ones), he becomes Hardened against losses from similar causes of SAN loss. Some Insanities may also cause the Investigator to become Hardened in some way.
These are the categories in which an Investigator can become Hardened in:
- Violence (includes also witnessing the effects of violence, seeing mutilated bodies, &c.),
- Humanoids (includes all kinds of roughly man-sized creatures with bodies, heads, and a number of limbs, even if winged, for example),
- Monstrosities (include all things "monstrous", even if animal, such as things with tentacles, or basically anything disgusting),
- Paranormal / magic,
- Otherworldly (includes experiencing strange geometries, unearthly sights, the void, the abyss), and
- Self (loss of limb or a sensory organ, mutation, helplessness, hearing voices in one's head, acting against one's sense of self).
When an Investigator becomes Hardened, note that in his sheet with the applicable type and a number representing how hardened he has become; for example "Hardened / Humanoids 1". This means that maximum SAN loss from a failed SAN check caused by that type of cause of SAN loss is reduced by the number indicated.
If the Investigator becomes Hardened in more ways than one, also add a "Hardened / Total" score on his sheet. As he becomes more Hardened, the Investigator becomes less emotionally receptive, perhaps more cynical and pessimistic, and possibly even intentionally less sympathetic or attached to other people. This can be considered a form of insanity, of course. The game mechanical effect of this change in personality is a reduction in social interaction skill checks, such as Persuade and especially Psychology, and even including appealing to Contacts (see below for Humanity Rating).
Special rules apply to becoming Hardened in some categories.
For example, Violence:
Points in Hardened / Violence are gained also from (for example) the following causes:
- Witnessing the brutal death of a friend.
- Witnessing the brutal death of a loved one.
- Brutally treating a helpless person for the first time.
- Torturing someone brutally for the first time.
- Brutall killing (non-human) animals in order to toughen oneself intentionally.
- First kill (of a person comparable to oneself, usually another human).
- First kill not (strictly) in self-defense.
- Murdering someone.
Further use, or witnessing, of violence can cause additional points (for example participation in mass murders &c.). If the Hardened Rating is later properly reduced, the "first time" causes are considered unused, and can again cause an increase in Hardened Rating again.
More than one cause can occur at once. For example, brutally treating one's loved one, then torturing the loved one to death could cause up to 8 points at once. Killing another loved one in the same fashion would still increase the Hardened rating, but now "only" by a few points.
If one's Hardened / Violence rating goes above 5, the Investigator is in danger of becoming a psychopath. At 10 it is nearly achieved. Whether he can ever return to normal after that, I will leave open for now. If the Hardened / Total goes beyond 10, similar problems
When the Investigator become more Hardened, he becomes less humane. Investigators (and presumably CoC characters in general) have a Humanity Rating. This is a measure of how bening, empathic, and generally "humane" the character is. The rating can usually be assumed to be just zero. If, on the other hand, it differs from zero, it will influence the character's social interaction (slightly): the value of the Humanty Rating is added to social interaction checks (such as Persuade, Psychology, and other such skills, and appealing to Contacts for aid).
This means that a positive Humanity Rating will make the Investigator very likable (the bonus, even is small, applies to many skills and is thus very useful). Conversely, a negative Rating can be caused by becoming Hardened, thus making social interaction more difficult. There is, of course, a major down side to being very humane: a positive (not a negative) Humanity Rating influences SAN checks as a penalty. Humanity Rating of 10, for example, means that the Investigator will have a penalty of -10 to his SAN checks.
The initial Humanity Rating can be chosen by the player during Character Generation, but is limited to a maximum equal to the Investigator's POW.
Investigators usually have at least one Pillar of Humanity (something inspired by Trail of Cthulhu RPG). For every 5 positive points (or fraction) of Humanity Rating, the Investigator must have an additional Pillar of Humanity. The Pillar must be something that gives hope for the Investigator, but can be very abstract. If for some reason, that pillar should crumble, then a reduction in the Investigator's Humanity Rating would also occur.
Some Insanities may affect the Humanity Rating as well.
As long as the Investigator can be supported by Pillars of Humanity, he can resist becoming too Hardened: with (or possibly even without) psychological treatment, combined with the support of the Pillar, a point of Hardened can be removed, increasing simultaneously the Investigator's Humanity Rating.
It is conceivable that a truly unusual event would lead to the crumbling of a Pillar of Humanity, in order to protect the mind from total disintegration. This would reduce the SAN loss by 20 points, but the Pillar would be permanently gone. For this to be possible, the Pillar must obviously be plausibly challenged by the cause of massive SAN loss (such as witnessing the rise of Great Cthulhu).
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The above are so far only my musings and suggestions for house rules - I have not tested them yet.
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