Delusions
“Faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other.” Thomas S. Monson
Delusions are parasites about the size of a raven and the shape of a virus. They are invisible, intangible creatures that float through the Astral Plane looking for troubled minds on which they may feed. Delusions propagate by attaching to a character’s skull and whispering wrong ideas in a character’s head. They feed off the strong emotions created by their whispers, and spawn a new delusion, which may attach itself to a new creature. The original delusion will not willingly release its hold on the character’s psyche, and can not be harmed by normal weapons. Anyone who can see invisible creatures can see them, and any attack that affects insubstantial creatures can affect them.
Group, Small, Invisible, Insubstantial, Planar Power
Invoke Migraine (d4-1); 1HP, 0 armor
Special Qualities: Can be killed by heal spells if directly targeted.
Instinct: To drive its host mad, to feed on its host’s madness
Special Moves
Feed on its host’s anguish
Convince its host of danger where none exists.
Twist a host’s bond so as to cause harm
Convince its host to perform a meaningless ritual
Spawn a new delusion
Very nice. I love these kinds of ‘special’ monsters. Much more depth to them
Love the monster. The quote by Monson is bullshit. 🙂
Here’s why I think that. Faith and doubt must exist in the same mind. If there was literally no doubt, then it wouldn’t be a matter of faith. I have no doubt I will fall when I step off a ledge, that’s why gravity is a scientific principle and not a belief. If I could know whether or not there is a God, there would be no point at all in faith. I’m going to quote scripture now just because I know one that, interestingly, applies. Don’t chalk me up as a religious nut please! Mark 9:24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (NIV)
Having said all that, I do believe they are present in inverse proportion. If you “have faith” it means that some overwhelming % of your thoughts trend positive. “I am 98% certain my wife wouldn’t cheat on me.” The remaining % is doubt. The opposite is true when you “have no faith in me” – you are 80% sure I’m full of shit and feel it is only 20% likely that you have missed something and what I’m saying really does have merit. 🙂
I agree with you. I just wanted a quote about doubt.
David Sousa Great monster! It’s so insidious. The quote works for the sake of the monster.
Ray Otus Thanks for that. I was going to make the same point until I scrolled down a bit. Doubt is essential to faith. Unfortunately there are a lot of people confusing faith with an unwillingness to think (I have encountered religious friends AND atheist friends who make the same assumption). Most of the major religions actually address this. In order to be a blind follower, you have to ignore the text.
The quote definitely works for the monster! I just had to get my two cents in. 🙂
And doubt has a special place in my world…
“In order to understand the nature of psionics, one must first understand this: The universe imagined itself into existence. Before the races of men, before the Dragons, before the Gods, before the stars, there was the Thought.
The Thought was whole and pure, and contained both the infinite and the void.
Scholars argue about what happened next: whether Doubt attempted to separate itself from Thought, or whether Thought had cast Doubt out. But they all agree that Thought became fragmented, and in that instant the universe was born. In the beginning, everything shared the fragments of thought equally. Every flame, every rock, every drop of water, every gust of wind was filled with deep thoughts. Only Doubt was separate from the world and their thoughts. Doubt moved from flame to flame, rock to rock, drop to drop, and gust to gust. Doubt made each discrete thing fearful of the others, and jealous of the thoughts they contained. Many ages passed, and Doubt was there, stealing thoughts from the world to hoard for itself.
Today, true Thought is scarce. Very few pure elemental particles retain the use of thought, and the creatures they imagined have in turn imagined new creatures, who in turn imagined other creatures, so that the creatures who inhabit the material plane are shadows of shadows of shadows. Very rarely, though one of these shadows is born with a fragment of original Thought.
These creatures are generally misunderstood, and not well liked among their own kind. They instinctively seek out other thinkers. They enjoy the synergies they experience with like thinkers, and even respect and enjoy battling those whose thoughts are antithetical to their own.
For these people their thoughts retain the ancient powers. Their thoughts influence reality in a more direct way than Magic. Magic is, in and of itself, a powerful thought, and magic users draw on this thought’s power to change the world, and to defend against other thoughts. But true thinkers may change the nature of the universe with a single thought. True thinkers are only hampered by Doubt, which permeates all thought, and seeks to destroy the thinkers.”