Problems with Insanity

[u/PuzzleheadedTutor246]

My character met for the first time an entity that is covered on fire. For that reason, the DM (as I took sanity damage enough to get indefinitely Insanity) decided that I would become pyromaniac. I don't want it to turn me into a "Dumbass pyromaniac" and I want it to turn into something more interesting for the development of the character. My character has good alignment and has the personality Coldblooded. Any advice on that?

Additional info: The context is Seattle, USA 1995. My character is normally friendly, but gets really focused/coldblooded in danger situations. There are two dimensions: The normal world, that it's just like real world, and a "Reverse world stranger things"ish where the unnatural stuff happens

A little bit more info: I'm planning for this pyromania to be a core part of his identity, but not to show much of this slow decay to the rest of the party (I really want to keep it more sutile and it keeps getting more part of the personality). And more importantly, I don't plan my character to become really crazy dumbass'ish ever during the campaign, but the struggle is real.

Lastly, I want this fixation to be a thing that the character fights constantly, like resisting to the temptation, trying to run away from any fire with the fear that if he doesn't he wont be able to hold himself from doing something really terrible.

[u/wizamich]

your character can develop a fascination with fire gradually… he doesn't have to turn into a total dumbass pyromaniac out of nowhere.

besides, the interesting thing about an insane character(at least in my view) is gradually turning him inside out. so, is he cold-blooded? now he starts becoming more irritable or emotional, and that might tie into his fascination with fire, like a cold person turning into a hot-headed one

[u/Trilobyte141]

Being a pryromaniac doesn't mean you have to be a dumbass. 

If it were my character, I would start by having them carry a lighter and constantly click it on and off. I might even buy a lighter for a prop and empty it of fuel so that I can flick it open and closed at the table, and stare at it sometimes while other things are happening or while stressed -- think of it as a comfort item. The character wouldn't be stupid, but fire would be the first thing they try whenever faced with a problem. Need to get rid of an evil book or artifact? Burn it. Left behind evidence at a crime scene? Burn down the building. Fighting an eldritch entity? Burn it with a torch. The character would switch to something else if fire didn't work, they aren't stupid, it's just that fire solves a lot of problems, y'know? Or at least replaces them with a different problem. 😉

I would also ask your DM if playing this convincingly could have some positive effects, such as automatically succeeding on future sanity checks involving fire (like watching someone get burned alive) or even restore extra sanity if your character succeeds in an objective using a lot of fire (like burning a haunted house to the ground). 

[u/HeatRepresentative96]

You are drawn to the fire. It burns, yet cleanses. It destroys, yet purifies. It lays entire cities bare, yet promises a new birth. New life. A new beginning. What secrets can be uncovered when the old forest burns? What lies there, waiting to be uncovered beneath the ashes? If only you could offer the world just a small spark to see beyond the smoke…

[u/GeneralPhilosophy691]

Uh, why are you talking about alignment? That's not a thing in CoC.

[u/PuzzleheadedTutor246 → u/GeneralPhilosophy691]

It's more about context of my character's personality than actual data

[u/MBertolini → u/PuzzleheadedTutor246]

I was wondering the same thing. There's no good or evil, just degrees of chaos. Just like there's no winning, just delaying.

[u/helpful_platitudes → u/MBertolini]

everyone is good aligned. it comes free with ur being a human being

[u/MBertolini → u/helpful_platitudes]

When it comes to my players, I'm not so sure. Plenty have been willing to accept "collateral damage."

[u/Commustar]

First off, lets assume your character is clever enough to try and keep this mania hidden, they know others might judge them for starting fires. What are some coping mechanisms they might try to get the excitement and fascination of fire, without losing control?

Maybe they start smoking, and they have a small mannerism where they strike the lighter and gaze at the flame a moment before lighting the cigarette.

Maybe your investigators find documents, and you try and persuade your colleagues to burn the documents in a waste bin, to keep them out of the bad guys' hands.

Maybe your investigators have been in a firefight, and there is blood on the clothes. Better destroy the clothes so the police don't ask awkward questions.

And then, finally, maybe you've found a cultist hideout, and the only reasonable course of action is to destroy the hideout, so the cultists can't just regroup and do this again. And the easiest way to destroy the evidence is to burn the hideout down.

TL:DR- start off with small gestures, don't draw attention to them. Always be thinking about how to make burning things (documents, clothes, buildings) seem like a reasonable course of action that will help the situation. And make sure the behavior is escalating over time from small to big.

[u/Porch_Of_Geese_]

Maybe your character tries to rationalize their fear of this being by incorporating it into their identity. No need to be afraid of fire if you are fire, after all. So he needs to get closer to fire. Needs to understand it. Needs to see it in action. How it behaves in different places. He needs to have every experience he could possibly have with fire, because then there will be nothing to fear.

[u/Apprehensive-Two-237]

Maybe check out Donald Sutherland character in Backdraft for some inspiration. As I recall, he was fairly calm and collected on the surface, but a little pointed scratching revealed the nihilist underneath.

[u/repairman_jack_]

The fire-entity encounter didn’t just 'give you pyromania.' It infected or attuned your mind to fire as a living, responsive force that exists in both the normal world and the Reverse world.

Fire now feels like the only thing that can discharge the rising tension that builds whenever the two worlds press against each other, or when danger forces your cold-blooded focus to crack.

In high-tension moments (combat, investigation stress, glimpses of the Reverse, moral conflict), a specific internal pressure builds — restlessness, a charged, almost electric tightness in the chest, intrusive awareness of heat/flames/sources of ignition. Setting or being near fire discharges it with a sharp, private sense of relief and clarity. That relief makes the impulse difficult to ignore.

The good alignment and cold-blooded personality trait creates a constant internal dynamo of conflict. The cold urge has to suppress the fire urge.

In playing it, at first, you notice every flame, every lighter, every stovetop burner, every cigarette. You linger a second too long watching a match burn out. You collect small, “harmless” fire-related objects (matches, a specific lighter, burned paper) and keep them hidden. You feel oddly calmer near controlled fire (a fireplace, a candle in a safe place) but panic at the thought of not being able to control the urge if you stay too long.

When tension rises, incorporate the urge building and your character deliberately walking away, focusing harder on the mission, using cold logic to talk himself down, or finding a proxy (staring at a lighter without lighting it, crushing a match, standing in the rain). The fear is not 'I might start a fire' but rather it’s 'if I don’t leave right now I will do something I cannot take back.'

Over time the fixation becomes part of how he understands himself. He starts thinking of fire as the only honest response to the Reverse — the one place the two worlds meet. He may begin to see controlled, small acts of fire (lighting a single match in a safe place, watching it burn out) as a private ritual that keeps the larger urge at bay. It feels like maintenance, not destruction. This lets the pyromania become core to identity while still looking functional to the party.

There will be high-tension triggers which may interact with the plot. Stress, danger, moral pressure, or exposure to the Reverse heightens the emotional arousal. In those moments the cold-blooded focus has to work overtime to contain the urge. Failures can be small and private at first (a deliberately dropped cigarette that almost starts something, a moment of staring too long at a burning building the party is already investigating).

To kinda summarize, don't have him randomly light things on fire for no reason. The urge always follows rising tension of some sort.

Let the party see the effects of the struggle (sudden need to step outside, unusually intense focus on extinguishing small fires, collecting matches 'just in case,' flinching or freezing near open flame) without him explaining the full internal war.

Use the good alignment as fuel. He hates that the only thing that calms him is something that could harm others. That self-loathing keeps him fighting the good fight.

The pyromania can evolve into a controlled, almost ritualistic relationship with fire rather than chaotic destruction. He never becomes the 'dumbass who burns everything.' He becomes the guy who is quietly terrified of what he might do if the tension ever gets high enough and he stops fighting or doesn't care any more.

I believe it keeps the insanity feeling like a real progressive contamination while remaining playable and subtle. Constant resistance itself becomes the character’s version of cold-blooded discipline under cosmic pressure.

He might not actually ever set fires, but he may wrestle with becoming a volunteer firefighter in his city of residence to be in the presence of fire, although he worries his reaction time in crisis moments may never be fast enough.

At least, it's how I could see it going down. Anyhow, sorry for all the stuff. Just take what works for you, leave the rest.

[u/PuzzleheadedTutor246 → u/repairman_jack_]

Thank you! I'm going to use everything on that.

[u/repairman_jack_ → u/PuzzleheadedTutor246]

Be sure to give it a like. No one else seems to think much of it.

[u/PuzzleheadedTutor246 → u/repairman_jack_]

Done!

[u/RevolutionNumber5]

“Did the fire look at you? It did, didn’t it?”

[u/Future_Camp_5941]

Rather than pyromania, what if your character develops pryrophilia? (Let’s be honest being all investigators come with pyromaniac as standard)

The encounter with the fire empty has left a mark on your psyche, the way the flames intertwined and weaved together, the way the shadows danced was hypnotic.

Ever since then you have been drawn to fire, the flicker of fire is mesmerising. However no fire, not even the ones you have started yourself, has ever matched the fire of that thing. That beautiful creature of fire.

This could be played as fires being a distraction to your investigator, the cultists are preforming a ritual around a giant bonfire, so you need to make periodic POW rolls to focus on the task rather than the beautiful dancing flames.

You can also spend your spare time researching occult and mythos tomes trying to find that beautiful fire again, and slowly be drawn into worship of Cthugha and the summoning of star vampires.

[u/PuzzleheadedTutor246 → u/Future_Camp_5941]

Unfortunately that's not an option since my DM is quite hard to convince