Human [Ravenloft]

Some survivors of the misty dread realm have simply seen too much. The shock stays printed on them: features knotted in old pain, eyes with no light left in them. A lost one barely registers the world, drifting until it finds a corner that feels safe and then sitting there for days in a near-catatonic stupor. When one speaks at all, it is a mumbled warning or a sudden shriek of fear.

Attack a lost one and it will not defend itself; it almost never starts a fight. The exception comes when something echoes the horror that broke it. A mother who watched a vampire kill her children might hurl herself in a berserk fury at a stranger who resembles the monster, clawing barehanded or snatching up whatever lies near. The outburst is so abrupt that the target rolls surprise at -1.

Lost ones wander everywhere, usually ending up in towns as pitied, avoided figures who live on charity. Their tie to the dark powers of the realm makes them immune to magical cures. Only facing the cause of their ruin helps: if one sees that thing destroyed, there is a 25% chance it starts to heal, a slow climb that may last many months. Severed from reality, they produce nothing and matter little to the world around them.

Others crack outward instead. Bent toward evil, the madman hunts by night, often among the very friends and neighbors who trust him. By day he may look and live like anyone else, his clothes and habits matching the community, until something kindles the hidden insanity and he tries to drown his memories in blood.

He prefers small, hideable weapons such as a knife, hand axe or garrote, and he disarms victims with charm before striking, so the victim rolls surprise at -2. A surprised target takes triple damage, as from the backstab of a 5th-level thief. If someone fights back in earnest, he usually bolts.

Many madmen leave a signature, whether a particular killing method like one thrust to the heart or some odd object at each scene. This taunts the local watch into a cat-and-mouse contest, and the killer's buried conscience often seeds the signature with hints about who he is or who dies next. Between murders, he goes on with his everyday life.