Anna stared in horror as the demon lunged its greasy black claws towards Detective Aames. Its joints clicked as its spindly arms unfolded, and the long, serrated nails sank into the detective's exposed neck. Aames jerked the trigger of the shotgun he held level at the creature's disgusting, bloated belly and it exploded in a shower of thick black blood. The creature's body, hurled back into the corner of the room, sunk limply to the floor, a curl of dark smoke rising from the gaping hole in its torso. Aames' body too dropped heavily to the floor, his head falling from his neatly decapitated body. It bounced twice, then rolled to a stop at Anna's feet.

"I don't think that went very well," the head said.

"No," said Anna, "I don't think that went very well at all."

xxxxx

"You do what?" Jerry asked, looking up from his "Detective Aames" character sheet, where he had just finished crossing out all the wound boxes.

"I pick up the severed head," said Tracey, "and I say to it 'No, I don't think that went very well at all.' Then I walk calmly out of the room."

"Are you crazy?" asked Jerry.

"Yeah," Tracey replied, "look -- the GM said I had to take two more points of insanity damage. That bumps my Delusions up to level three. It says here that a person from my past that has no earthly business here appears and I have conversations with them. His severed head fits the bill, right?" she asked, looking up at the GM. The GM smiled and nodded from behind his screen.

"Why would you do that?" asked Jerry. "Look at all these cards you could still play as tells. You know you don't have to sink them all into delusions right away, right?"

"Sure, but there's only thirty minutes left in the game," said Tracey. "I thought it would be more fun to end the night talking to your severed head."

Jerry looked at his watch. She was right. "Can I spend the last thirty minutes playing the voice of the delusional severed head?" he asked.

"That would be hilarious," added Tracey.

All eyes at the table turned to the GM. He looked around at all the grinning faces. "Yeah," he said, "I'm cool with that."

Description

Insanity Cards are a generic and easy to use insanity mechanic that can be incorporated into any roleplaying game.

Players draw cards as they take insanity damage and allocate points towards the insanity cards they find most interesting to their character's development. They control the pacing - should they dive deep into one insanity type and suffer severe effects, or try to spread it out to keep their cool longer?

The rules for each insanity are printed directly on each jumbo-sized full color card. No need to reference other books - the cards are all you need!

Insanity Cards include enough cards and player guides for up to 6 players. Decks can be combined to support more.

NOTE: Insanity cards are not a stand alone game. They are intended to be used with existing tabletop role-playing games.

DISCLAIMER: Mental Illness affects millions of people. This work is not designed to trivialize the nature of their condition and is presented here for entertainment purposes only.