Insanity and Alignment

[Kraven_Redcloak]

Right I got a question about insanity and alignments

During the climax of our last adventure one of the PC's being driven insane from an insanity spell and captured by Brazzemal the Burning to pop up at a later date as an NPC.

From what I gathered reading the spell the effects of insanity are permanent however outside of it being a stronger version of confusion I haven't really been able to gleam any real useful information about characters suffering from this condition. I've gone through Heroes of Horror, the DMG, Lords of Madness, and Unearthed Arcana however none of them have really supplied the information I'm looking for.

My question is this, how does one determine the alignment for a character that has become insane? Would they be required to change their alignment to cope with their newfound condition and if so how far off would it have to be from their original alignment? Furthermore how does one go about deciding the exact nature of the afflicted's psychosis?

The character in question is a Chaotic Good cleric of Kord who I'm considering converting to a follower of Kyuss depending on what I can learn here.

[Starglim]

Insanity doesn't necessarily bear any relationship to alignment (apart from perhaps distracting the sufferer's mind enough that he's unable to hold a consistent commitment to any complex philosophy and should tend towards a partly-neutral alignment, but that's just one interpretation). He certainly could change his alignment and religious belief suddenly and radically as a symptom of his madness, if the player finds it interesting.

[blackbloodtroll]

Intent is everything.

[Adamantine Dragon]

+1 to Starglim.

[DanQnA]

By the rules?

"The affected creature suffers from a continuous confusion effect, as the spell.

Remove curse does not remove insanity. Greater restoration, heal, limited wish, miracle, or wish can restore the creature."

It's just a permanent Confusion spell:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/confusion

I'd say no Alignment change at all from the rules. Given the % dice for the effect I'd also say the character wouldn't survive very long if not cured.

Have you perhaps considered using an intelligent weapon/item to dominate the ex-PC instead...something he perhaps picked up while trying to escape, it was conveniently just sitting there...

It also lets you avoid the possible "My character would never change sides!" from the player, AND you could probably leave the character's insanity intact so when the PC's confront him down the track and remove the intelligent item/weapon he's still as mad as a hatter.

Just some thoughts.

EDIT: For clarity, I thought the OP meant the character was no longer a PC and had moved into NPC status

[Jak the Looney Alchemist]

It could also function as

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/afflictions/madness

[Kraven_Redcloak]

Well the character was captured and has been effectively removed from play for the time being. The party itself kinda broke apart during the last fight with two of the PC's relocating themselves halfway across the continent with no way of finding the rest of their party, two PC's teleporting themselves outside the immediate city they were in and being the primary target for being in possession of Dragotha's phylactery, one PC dead, and the last PC being driven insane and captured by the opposition. Since the campaign has been running for so long everyone kinda agreed to put the adventure on hiatus for a while and move on to something else but in the mean time we're still establishing everything that's going on with the PC's. Likewise since this particular PC has been involved in the campaign since it began and is rather crucial (he is one of the remaining three characters from the original party, now down to two) the PC's will have the oppurtunity to decide if they want to rescue him when they resume the adventure (at least the two characters close enough to what's going on to be involved in the adventure) though with everything that's happened I've been thinking about using the character as an opposing NPC. Barring that the only thing I can think to do with him is have him locked away somewhere as a prisoner or just kill him out right.

Don't really think that being a stronger form of confusion really covers the ramifications of what Insanity could possibly do all that well given all the possibilities you see from all of the demented characters you see running around. Haven't really seen any insane characters running around that were good aligned which is why I want to know if it would really effect alignment at all, think the closest I've seen has actually been Chaotic Neutral.

Jak the Looney Alchemist wrote:

It could also function as

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/afflictions/madness

This will be most useful.