Detect Mania (sage ability)

Detect Mania is an amateur-status sage ability in the study of Occultism which allows recognition of situations where groups of ten persons or more are acting without control, either due to mass hysteria, magical suggestion or control, madness or like condition. While an ordinary observer may see a crowd acting with high emotion and believe that the assemblage is an ordinary mob or rabble, persons with this knowledge will recognize there is much more going on than meets the eye.

The character will be able to recognize that mania is occurring if the following apply: 1) at least 10 persons are affected; 2) more than 20% of a given crowd are affected. The mania might be driven by a natural hysterical contagion, the influence of a powerful magical individual or force, a physical or mental disease, brought about by a plague or even by parasitic infestation, or it might have an otherworldly connection.

As the knowledge is investigatory and not a magical spell, the character with this ability will need to obtain full access an individual suffering from the mania. A close examination of less than a minute is all that is needed to identify someone affected and someone that is not — as many within a crowd will move along with the mania-driven crowd from confusion or curiousity. The affected person, thus identified, can be removed somewhere else and put under observation.

Each hour of observation — which consists of asking questions, manipulating the victim or otherwise poking and prodding, much of which will require the victim to be restrained — allows the character to make an intelligence check. If this fails, another hour of observation is needed.

A successful intelligence check will reveal the cause — but not the source — of the mania.