Editing Call of Cthulhu (section)

===[[Sanity]]===
Sanity or SAN represents your mental stability. It is capped at the inverse of your Cthulhu Mythos skill; that is to say, you ''cannot'' know what is really going on and remain sane. When you experience something terrifying you make a SAN check; if you fail you lose a random amount of SAN, and often a small amount if you succeed as well. If you lose a substantial amount (five or more in one go) you can have a panic attack, flee or any other sort of madness, though you have to roll to repress the memory of the thing you see first. If you lose a very large amount (one fifth in a game hour) you can develop phobias, mental conditions, or go insane for months on end. If you run out entirely you become an NPC, who may go insane and gibber in a corner for the rest of his life, or he may go and join the bad guys. It's not all bad though, as going insane from something mythos-related actually gives you insight into the thing you have seen.

Sanity loss is a source of both frustration and good roleplaying opportunities, as on the one hand playing out multiple personality disorder can be good fun. On the other hand being trapped in a hole with a monster is bad when one character has a darkness phobia and is curled up in the fetal position, one is claustrophobic and has fainted and one with a snake phobia who refuses to use the rope to climb out can be either [[Butthurt|frustrating]] or [[TPK|Fun]] for player and keeper alike.

SAN is arguably ''the'' contribution to RPG settings at large - in reverse. We will find Taint in [[Avadnu]] and Insanity in [[Tanares]].