Roleplaying: The Bleak Cabal

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*Bloodlines
Posts: 139
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Posted by *Bloodlines »


A faction who don't even bother to preach, the Bleakers just resign themselves to facing life as it heaps its woes upon them. There's no Grand Meaning of Life, no Hidden Truth, not even a morsel of Hope left. Life just happens, and then it stops. Happy now?


Being slapped in the face with your own insignificance and mortality doesn't do most cutters much good. In fact, the Bleakers take it upon themselves to look after the ones whose tiny insignificant egos couldn't face being pointless and lost the plot. They're all cared for in the Bleaker's Madhouse. Charitable sods, the factioneers also set up soup kitchens throughout the poorest areas of the Cage to care for the poor, the destitute and the down-on-their-luck. Just because there's no meaning to life, it don't mean you shouldn't help feed a hungry mouth, berk!

So the Bleak Cabal take events as they come, trying to keep a grip on their sanity in a Multiverse slowly losing its own head. In time people will realise, when they finally get sick of looking for the elusive Answers. They'll never be found because they were never lost, see? They never even existed. And the sooner cutters realise this, the less suffering there'll be in the end...

Roleplaying the Bleak Cabal

The question often arises as to why any Bleaker would bother to join a party of adventurers or undertake any sort of quest in the first place. Wouldn’t it be easier to remain in Sigil and perform charitable works to eae the pain and suffering of others, as well as one’s own? Wouldn’t it be more fitting to lie in bed all day and refuse to show interest in anything the world has to offer? Perhaps, but a true Madman welcomes his duty to embrace the pain of life, wrestle with the demons of insanity, and emerge the stronger for it all. For the same reason why the Cabal endures the tormenting winds of Pandemonium, so do Bleakers set out on adventures - the madness of it all moves a cutter farther along on the path toward self-awareness.

After all, the faction’s core belief says that a body’s got to find meaning within himself, but such meaning can’t come without first experiencing the intrinsic folly of the rest of the multiverse. Exploring the ruins of a castle or escorting an infant prince across a desert won’t mean much to a Bleaker other than what be can take away from it - bow the experience can help him look inward and find truth.

A Bleaker doesn’t dwell on treasure the way other adventurers often do, but that doesn’t mean be won’t take his fair share. He’ll hold on to it, prepared to spend it in whatever fashion he thinks best - perhaps to bolster a struggling orphanage or aid a sage’s medical studies toward relieving mental illnesses. But if he can’t think of a suitable use for a pile of jink, a Bleaker just might leave it where it lies - one of the many reasons why other factions call them Madmen.

Of course, all of this assumes that a Bleaker’s made his daily saving throw against the futility of existence. As stated in A Player’s Guide to the Planes in the PLANESCAPE Campaign Setting boxed set, a Bleaker must roll ld20 at the start of each game day. A result of 20 means the sod‘s thrown into a fit of melancholia, overcome by the pointlessness of life. He won’t take any actions unless his comrades can provide a convincing philosophical argument as to why be should bother. Demonstrating that the action will relieve the Bleaker’s depression may work, as might appealing to the sods charitable inclinations. However, the mere sight of a friend being menaced by a monster isn’t enough to rouse a Bleaker who’s failed his daily roll. What's more, a Madman who is role-played to the hilt is likely to steel himself against arguments that his cutters throw at him repeatedly, forcing them to come up with new and better reasons for the Bleaker to take action.

A Bleaker's daily roll can get him into trouble in other ways, though. A roll of 1 indicates a state of manic euphoria. The character's overcome with flights of fancy and free association, and he's likely to believe that he's some sort of messiah. Fortunately, this only lasts for one day. To role-play this manic state of mind effectively, a player can speak very quickly, jump from one thought to another without logic, and respond to everything he hears by word association. 

ALIGNMENT.   Bleakers can be of any alignment save lawful. Lawfully aligned characters can’t stomach the basic premise of the Cabal, that the multiverse doesn’t make sense, for without sense there’s no order.

However, further distinctions of alignment seldom trouble Bleakers. “Good” and “evil” aren’t necessarily the standard definitions to Madmen; instead, they prefer ‘sanity” and “insanity.” The thin line that separates these extremes for any given Bleaker is often a faint one, blurred by tying to live and keep at bay a body’s inner demons. A member of the Cabal can be quite sane one day, and a fortnight later he in the throes of a depression bordering on true insanity. It’s all a matter of outlook

Similarly, Bleakers of opposite alignments can work well together despite clashing viewpoints. If the factor assigns two Bleaken to tend the soup kitchens near the Foundry, they will. The chaotic evil fellow will dish up broth with as much speed and determination as his chaotic good partner, though his heart may not be as gladdened by the deed. The two Bleakers have a far more primal urgency to deal with - their own internal struggle for sanity. At one point or another, all Madmen share the pain inherent to their faction, and not even alignment can separate two Bleakers who know the tenors the other has endured.

CLASS. Intelligent characters - notably wizards, priests,bards, and other classes with scholarly inclinations - are particularly attracted to the Bleak Cabal, with its emphasis on the mental over the physical. Thieves and fighters can also join the faction, but these classes typically do so later in life. Perhaps a warrior sees too much killing, or a highwayman spends too many years on the run - whatever the case, the burden of life takes its toll and sends him a bit off the edge. Their haunted pasts drive them to even greater acts of sacrifice and compassion.


FACTION ABILITIES
RP Abilities only: Requires consent of a DM/EM or all players involved/affected by its use if no DM/EM is present. (per Server Rules)

Bleakers are immune to all madness-inducing spells such as chaos, confusion, delude, feeblemind, Otto's irresistable dance, and Tasha's hideous laughter. They're also allowed a saving throw vs. spell against all ESP spells directed at them.
 
Factotums and higher gain the ability that's a natural extension to their own immunity: the power to absorb artificially induced madness in others. This power works on people driven insane by spells or magical items, but does not work on those who have gone insane naturally. To use this power, a Bleaker must first meditate for one hour, cleansing his mind of all thoughts for one hour. The insane berk must hold still either voluntarily or otherwise when this is used and the Bleaker must perform the ritualistic massage on the victim's head. The massage can last up to 1d12+4 hours and exhausts the Bleaker. If they are interrupted, they must start over, otherwise success is guaranteed and the victim regains full mental strength immediately. The Bleaker that performed the ritual, however, will suffer mental anguish for two days, during which time he sorts out the absorbed insanity.
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