Madness Domain Remastered
Mental health is an important modern issue, and in our quest to remain sensitive and current, we’ve remastered the cleric with a very particular mission; ruin the mental health of everyone they meet. As a Madness cleric, you are a devotee of insanity itself, and thus twisting the minds of everyone within reach is you holy calling. We hope you enjoy playing as the arch-nemesis to all therapists.
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Madness Domain
Insanity brews in the recesses of even the most seemingly sane folk. Clerics of the Madness Domain serve deities who expand the cracks in the fragile minds of mortal creatures, pushing them to embrace irrational thought, paranoia, or outright delusion. Rarely, a cleric serving another deity who is driven to madness can adopt the Madness Domain without changing allegiance, though acceptance of their new practices amongst fellow members of their faith is unlikely.
Gods of madness delight in the uncanny and demented. Such deities are as varied as one might expect, but all are unified in their unwinding influence on sanity. Examples of such figures might be gods of the moon, creeping darkness, poisonous influences, or otherworldly horrors. Work with your GM to determine what deity best suits your cleric.
Madness Quirks
Madness Domain clerics all suffer from some form of mental affliction, whether through service to a mad god or stemming from more mundane mental divergences.
Choose from the Madness Quirks table or work with
your GM to create an insanity that is interesting and fitting
for your character, their godly association, and your interests.
Madness Quirks
d6 Insanity
1 You constantly speak to yourself in a quiet mutter or audible babble.
2 When left to your own devices, you craft unsettling trinkets and totems.
3 You repeat common activities a number of times to ensure they are done properly.
4 You experience memory loss, though never forget anything significant. You think.
5 You hold dialogues with creatures that no one else can see.
6 Your sleep is plagued by disturbing nightmares that sometimes become waking hallucinations.
Domain Spells
1st-level Madness Domain feature
You gain domain spells at the cleric levels listed in the Madness Domain Spells table. See the Divine Domain class feature for how domain spells work.
Madness Domain Spells
Cleric Level Spells
1st hideous laughter, unravel*, vicious mockery
3rd detect thoughts, suggestion
5th fear, hypnotic pattern
7th confusion, phantasmal killer
9th dream, modify memory
Spread the Madness
1st-level Madness Domain feature
Whenever a creature fails a saving throw against one of your enchantment or illusion spells or whenever you inflict psychic damage on a creature, you can cast the vicious mockery cantrip as a bonus action targeting a second creature that you can see within 30 feet of the first creature.
Channel Divinity: Unwind the Mind
2nd-level Madness Domain feature
As an action, you present your holy symbol and speak a prayer cursing the sane. Creatures of your choice that can see or hear you within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw. If the creature fails its saving throw, it is maddened for 1 minute or until it takes any damage. A creature with an Intelligence score of 4 or lower automatically succeeds the save.
While maddened, creatures cannot speak coherently or understand languages and must start its turn by using its full movement to run in a random direction if able.
If a creature fails the saving throw by 5 or more, roll on the Short Term Madness table (DMG pg. 259). All maddened creatures are subjected to that madness while they are maddened.
Food for Thought
6th-level Madness Domain feature
When a creature that you can see within 30 feet of you makes an Intelligence or Wisdom saving throw, you can use your reaction to change the target of the effect from that creature to yourself or another willing creature that was not subjected to the same effect. The new target has advantage on the saving throw and gains a number of temporary hit points equal to your cleric level.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Potent Spellcasting
8th-level Madness Domain feature
You add your Wisdom modifier to the damage you deal with any cleric cantrip.
Mind Prison
17th-level Madness Domain feature
You add feeblemind to your list of domain spells. Like your other domain spells, it is always prepared and counts as a cleric spell for you.
In addition, as an action, you can cast the feeblemind spell with a range of touch and without expending a spell slot. If a creature fails its saving throw against this spell, it becomes afflicted with an indefinite madness. Once you cast feeblemind in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
Additional Spells
Unravel
1st-level enchantment
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Components: V, S, M (smoothed stone wrapped in multicolor strings)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Classes: Bard, warlock
You strain the mental makeup of one creature you can see within range. The target makes a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed saving throw, it takes 1d8 psychic damage and cannot take reactions for the duration. At the end of each of its turns, the target can make another Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the creature takes 1d8 psychic damage. On a success, the spell ends.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell at 3rd level or higher, the initial and ongoing damage increases by 1d8 for every two slot levels above 1st.
