Magic for some is a wild and chaotic thing. Some try to use the power of Chaos itself to gain an advantage over others. This however is a dangers choice, as Chaos Effects are likely to occur.
A Chaos Effect has a chance to occur when one of the following conditions has been met
• A Chaos Mage cast’s a spell
• A follower of a chaotic deity calls upon divine power
• A Chaos psionist unleashes their mind powers.
• A spell is cast in Wild/Chaos zone
• A Chaos artefact or item is used. This can affect non-magic users as well.
• A curse that has been placed on the subject by an item or spell activates
• A follower of Chaos rolls a critical
The chance of a surge occurring is 1 in 20(5%) per use or activation of chaos tainted power or item.
But what kind of effects are there?
As the name suggests, there is a thousand possible effects that occur to torment or bless your followers of chaos. To determine what effect your subject receives is simple. Take 3 d10s.Nomitate one to be the hundreds, one to be the tens and the last to be the single number. Using 3 different colours is helpful for this, but not essential.
Rolling the dice gives you a number that should range from 001 to 000 (aka 1,000). Then it’s a simple matter of checking the appropriate table. The list has been broken down into 10 handy sub-tables that range 1-100, 101-200,201-300 etc.
Examples:
Rolling the 3d10 we end up with a 9, a 3 and a 6, for 936. Checking the table gives as the result “The clothes of the next NPC of a sex the caster is attracted to, start to disintegrate rapidly”. Now you may be thinking this could be of a benefit to the caster or subject. But the caster is rarely aware that they are under the effect of a chaos effect. Now picture the scene. They finally get a chance to meet the noble they have found attractive. As they are talking to them, the nobles clothes start to disintegrate. The noble flees the scene. Word gets around about the incident and the caster is blamed for this, tarnishing their reputation and making sure that no nobles will meet with them for the next few weeks.
Results of 8,0 and a 2 for 802 gives the result of “Next spell cast within 100 feet teleports the one casting it to a random safe location 1d10 miles away”. This could be either something very helpful or very bad. Imagine the cleric in your party about to cast a life-giving spell and suddenly finding themselves 3 miles away. The flip-side is that the Big Bad Evil is finally about to cast the spell that makes them into an immortal lich and bring about a new dark age, when they find themself 10 miles away and stuck inside a locked , but luckily well ventilated vault.
The nature of chaos is fickle and can be both a blessing and a curse, but rarely deadly. Almost as if the deity in charge of chaos enjoys the random effects it can bring…
There is a planned update of this this, along with a Chaos Effect Generator that takes the effects listed in the 1kCE and gives each of them more options and tweaks, so keep an eye out. In the mean time check out “1000 Choas Effects” today for a list of 1000 chaos egffects ready to be used in any game or setting that features chaotic magic and supernatural forces.
