Taint (Corruption) and Campaigns

[BriarMonkey]

As I work toward putting a campaign together, one of the ideas I've been toying with is that of Taint, or corruption if you will. Namely, a specific forest within the world is extremely corrupt and those who venture there are never the same - some die, some go mad, while others bear the scars and afflictions of a land beyond hope.

The e3.5 version of the Unearthed Arcana (UA) had some ideas on how to work with Taint, as well as the impact of that upon a character. Similarly, they had a couple prestige classes that were able to actually make use of Taint. And while the ideas had some interest to them, I felt they were somewhat, well, lacking. Mechanically, Taint was a penalty to both a character's Constitution and Wisdom, while also causing changes in appearance. The mechanics didn't go beyond this, nor did options.

So, as I look at various Google hits, and try to look through other systems, I am at a loss. Hence, I figured I would see if this audience had any ideas or suggestions. Does anyone know, have, or have used, a good system for modeling the corruption that could afflict one as they become Tainted?

(And while the system is D&D/Pathfinder, the version doesn't matter.)

 

[jedavis]

The first thing that comes to mind for me is Dark Heresy, which had a pretty serious taint / corruption system. I don't remember the details, though... I believe as taint / corruption increased, at certain milestones in the score, you had to roll to avoid gaining mutations. I'll take a look when I get home today.

I also used Mongoose Traveller's radiation rules to model demonic taint in a Traveller game I ran last semester, but they were uninteresting in a manner similar to D&D/UA's (which was originally from 3.0 Oriental Adventures, I believe...).

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

As hollowleg said, I think the original idea of Taint came from the Rokugan/Oriental Adventures book. There are some other options in that book than what are listed in the UA, if I recall correctly.

You can also look at the various Star Wars systems (WEG, Revised, Saga) that model the Dark Side. In Saga dark side Force Points have a stronger effect at lower levels than regular Force Points, but if used in regularity can cause the character to succumb to the dark side and essentially become an NPC.

Off of the top of my head, some ideas for a "tainted" PC:
Bonus to intimidate
Perhaps higher likelihood for critical hits, or more damaging crits
Being ignored by other tainted creatures/monsters in a fight
Bonus to defenses against enemies who are afraid
Resistance to being charmed/mind effecting spells
Increasing insanity
Chance of losing control and going into a violent rage
Lack of appetite for normal food, requiring eating bizarre/grotesque foods (such as blood)
Auras of Taint/Evil, for better or for worse in certain circumstances
Physical deformities/mutations
Increase of strength and intelligence, with a decrease to wisdom and constitution
Sickness, often contagious
Killing something makes it come back as a tainted undead
Defiling nature, causing mutations or decay

That's all I can think of for now, but perhaps I'll add more later.

 

[the Jester]

Taint (including some prestige classes and even the taint elemental!) also appears in Heroes of Horror with some interesting tweaks, IIRC.

 

[BriarMonkey]

Thank you to all who gave ideas and references!

I've managed to find or borrow all the books, now I just need to read through the various sections. I did get through Dark Heresy, and liked the ideas and how they worked it for the Warhammer 40K setting. So once I get through the Star Wars, Saga Edition and how they work the Dark Side, then the Heroes of Horror, I should have a good idea of how I want to work things.

Thanks!

 

[the Jester]

Good luck, I hope it goes smoothly.

OH- I just remembered, there's a similar corruption system in Fiendish Codex: Tyrants of the Nine Hells. It also discusses "falling" from chaos to law, as well as from good to evil.