History AxCrazy / TabletopGames

** Khorne's greatest mortal servants in the [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}} 41st millennium]] are the [[EvilCounterpart Chaos]] [[SuperSoldier Space Marines]] of the World Eaters Legion, [[ChainsawGood chainaxe-wielding]] [[TheBerserker berzerkers]] who voluntarily undergo lobotimization to become more effective killers. The most famous and Axe Craziest of their number is Kharn the Betrayer, so named because he has a one in six chance of attacking any friendly models in close combat.Other Berzerkers are terrified of him and [[EvenEvilHasStandards refuse to associate with him]]. Kharn is single-handedly responsible for breaking the World Eaters as a coherent fighting force; when a battle against rival Chaos Marines of the Emperor's Children Legion (serving rival god [[SenseFreak Slaanseh]] ground to a halt due to an otherworldly blizzard, Kharn grabbed a flamethrower and torched every shelter, then went about taking the skulls of any soldier he found. Khorne evidently agreed with Kharn on this. As for Angron, the Primarch-turned-[[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Daemon Prince]] of the World Eaters, before he himself went completely crazy (instead of only mostly crazy as he was before the World Eaters fell to Khorne worship) ''Kharn was considered a calming influence on him'' and the intervening ten thousand years of near constant battle has not helped at all.

** Khorne's greatest mortal servants in the [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}} 41st millennium]] are the [[EvilCounterpart Chaos]] [[SuperSoldier Space Marines]] of the World Eaters Legion, [[ChainsawGood chainaxe-wielding]] [[TheBerserker berzerkers]] who voluntarily undergo lobotimization to become more effective killers. The most famous and Axe Craziest of their number is Kharn the Betrayer, so named because he has a one in six chance of attacking any friendly models in close combat. Kharn is single-handedly responsible for breaking the World Eaters as a coherent fighting force; when a battle against rival Chaos Marines ground to a halt due to an otherworldly blizzard, Kharn grabbed a flamethrower and torched every shelter, then went about taking the skulls of any soldier he found. As for Angron, the Primarch-turned-[[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Daemon Prince]] of the World Eaters, ''Kharn was considered a calming influence on him''.

** Taking that UpToEleven... there's [[TheDreaded Adam Smasher.]] A full-body cyborg who is so utterly insane to begin with he can effectively NoSell CyberneticsEatYourSoul because he never had one to begin with. Smasher only exists to kill, and does so with the same lazy ease a normal person blows their nose. He only takes missions that offer him either the chance to score new cyberware or rack up ridiculous amounts of collateral damage.

** Orks ([[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} and Orcs]]) are [[AnAxeToGrind Choppa Krazy]] as a species, violent brutes who live only to wage war on anything around them or, failing that, each other.

** The Eversor Assassins of the [[StateSec Officio Assassinorium]] are infamous for being this. Calling them "assassins" is generally considered a bit of a stretch, as they are fully capable of ''decimating entire armies'' once released onto the field. This is primarily as they're hopped up on so many combat drugs that it's impossible for them to feel anything except bloodlust. [[KillEmAll And the Imperium designed them to be precisely like this.]] And should someone manage to kill them, ''[[DefeatEqualsExplosion they explode]]''.

** If you want a more specific example from the fantasy version of the game, there's Konrad Von Carstein. Vampires tend to be a bit off-their-rocker anyway, but Konrad took this well into TooDumbToLive territory. Konrad would have whole towns exterminated because "they smelled bad", often used the feline population of Sylvania as target practice for his crossbow, and also had his own mother bricked up in a tower because she gave birth to him without his permission. He also had necromancers and underlings killed on a whim (mostly because he perceived them as mocking his lack of talent with necromantic magic), which eventually got him killed in 2121 to the combined forces of the Empire and Dwarfs; the necromancers got sick of him and abandoned him, most of his army crumbled and Konrad's already scrambled brain was thrown out the window, so he ran into the woods screaming like an animal until Thane Grufbad and the son of the Count of Marienburg found him and beheaded him.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' both feature Khorne, Chaos God of mindless violence and senseless bloodshed. His mortal followers try to kill something every day, and have been known to take their own lives if no other targets present themselves - after all, Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, so long as it flows ("Blood for the blood god!"). [[LegionsOfHell Daemons of Khorne]] are the embodiments of rage and bloodlust, and number among the most terrifyingly effective warriors in the game.
** Khorne's favorite daemonic servant is the Bloodthirster known as Skarbrand, who was manipulated by rival god [[MagnificentBastard Tzeentch]] into attacking Khorne himself. This ended with a more-furious-than-usual Khorne grabbing him by the throat and hurling Skarbrand from his citadel so that he fell for seven days and lost his wings in the crash-landing. The experience left Skarbrand with no other emotion than pure, distilled hatred and fury, and a mission to roam the mortal and immaterial universe and kill anything he finds in a vain attempt to appease his god - for Khorne is so impressed with Skarbrand's work that he prefers his rampage across reality. Skarbrand is ''so'' contagiously Ax Crazy, in fact, that any creatures nearby are also overcome by insatiable bloodlust, compelling them to tear apart their enemies in hand to hand combat.
** Khorne's greatest mortal servants in the [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}} 41st millennium]] are the [[EvilCounterpart Chaos]] [[SuperSoldier Space Marines]] of the World Eaters legion, [[ChainsawGood chainaxe-wielding]] [[TheBerserker berzerkers]] who voluntarily undergo lobotimization to become more effective killers. The most famous and Axe Craziest of their number is Kharn the Betrayer, so named because he has a one in six chance of attacking any friendly models in close combat. Kharn is singlehandedly responsible for breaking the World Eaters as a coherent fighting force; when a battle against rival Chaos Marines ground to a halt due to an otherworldly blizzard, Kharn grabbed a flamethrower and torched every shelter, then went about taking the skulls of any soldier he found. As for Angron, the Primarch-turned-[[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Daemon Prince]] of the World Eaters, ''Kharn was considered a calming influence on him''.
** On the subject of Chaos Space Marines, [[MiniMecha Hellbrutes]] have a special Crazed! table they must roll on each turn, giving them a chance to lunge into close combat or unload their ranged weapons on the nearest squad, friend or foe. They're such demented killers that outside of combat, even after the pilot's [[EmergencyTransformation sarcophagus]] has been removed, the empty war machine is kept chained to a wall, just to be safe.

*** Even among the Orcs, Grimgor Ironhide stands out. Other Orcs think Grimgor's a blood-crazed sociopath, and mostly only stick around him because he wins. If Grimgor goes without a fight for a day, he'll start picking fights with everything in sight. Two days, and he won't bother with the formalities, he'll just attack. His followers hurl themselves onto his axe rather than see what happens after three days.
*** Painboyz, the doctors and medics of ork society; they frequently run their subjects through MeatgrinderSurgery with no anesthetic short of the occasional mallet to the head, will sometimes lose track of what they were supposed to be doing and start operating on another limb, swap out their subject's brain for that of a Squig, or just bug out and start chopping up the patient ForScience. Orks will go out of their way to avoid going to a dok for whatever reason. Special note is "Mad Dok" Grotsnik, considered mad by ''painboy'' standards, who does all of the above but on a more regular basis when he's not planting bombs in the skulls of his rivals.
** Even heroic factions are subject to this. The Blood Angels' Death Company consists of Battle-Brothers who have fully succumbed to the chapter's flawed gene-seed, hallucinating themselves as their lost Primarch during the final battle of the Literature/HorusHeresy. Not only are they so consumed by bloodlust that they must charge into close combat, but their minds are so far gone that they FeelNoPain as well. They're not expected to survive their battle, and any that do are {{mercy kill}}ed by the chapter's [[BadassPreacher Chaplains]]. Their successors, the Flesh Tearers, are just as crazy even before the Red Thirst and Black Rage are factored in (and are noted to be more susceptible to both than other Blood Angel Chapters), slaughtering everything in sight (friend or foe) when unleashed on the battlefield.

** The Dark Eldar, in general. There is nothing they love more than the pain and suffering of others, they revel in carnage and death, and they have no control over their urges. Part of the reason they take part in realspace raids (besides [[YourSoulIsMine souls]] and [[MadeASlave captives]]) is to relieve these urges on whoever gets in their way, and they don't care who these victims are; they view the entire galaxy as filled with prey organisms and playthings, basically. Given they're also {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s who possess the technology to regrow and recover from most kinds of physical death, what would be a horrific life-or-death struggle for any sane human being is seen as nothing more than a bit of fun by them.
** The Barghesi, a minor xenos race, are apparently so hyper-violent that they make ''Orks'' look well-adjusted by comparison. They're named after the Barghests, malevolent spirits of English folklore who often take the form of monstrous black dogs, and they live in the Grendel stars. Several Space Marine chapters are dedicated entirely to keeping them there, and apparently the Dark Eldar have taken interest in capturing them for Commorragh's fighting pits.
** Even before they became the World Eaters, the War Hounds had a reputation for slaughter. The entire reason they were called War Hounds was because they reminded the Emperor of the vicious war hounds a warrior tribe on Terra used. Things got worse for them when their Primarch Angron took command of the legion. One of the first things he did was to have his Butcher's Nails copied and implanted in most of his Marines' heads. The Nails more or less enforced Ax Craziness since they made it nearly impossible for their recipients to feel joy from anything ''but'' rampant slaughter.
** If you want a more specific example from the fantasy version of the game, there's Konrad Von Carstein. Vampires tend to be a bit off their rocker anyway, but Konrad took this well into TooDumbToLive territory. Konrad would have whole towns exterminated because "they smelled bad" and also had his own mother executed because she gave birth to him without his prior consent. He also had necromancers and underlings killed on a whim (mostly because he perceived them as mocking his lack of talent with necromantic magic), which eventually got him killed in 2121 to the combined forces of the Empire and Dwarfs; the necromancers got sick of him and abandoned him, most of his army crumbled and Konrad's already scrambled brain was thrown out the window, so he ran into the woods screaming like an animal until Thane Grufbad and the son of the Count of Marienburg found him and beheaded him.

* ''The TabletopGame/IronKingdoms'': Kommander Orsus Zoktavir, TheButcher of Khardov, is a very literal case of ax crazy. [[ICallItVera Its name is Lola]].
* Cyborgs who get too many implants, in settings where CyberneticsEatYourSoul. They're known as "cyberpsychos" in ''[[TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}} Cyberpunk 2020]]'' and C-SWAT's special Psycho Squad gets called in when one goes on the loose.
* Anything AlwaysChaoticEvil in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. ''Especially'' the [[OmnicidalManiac Demons]].
** In the fourth edition of the game, Gruumsh is changed from the axe crazy god of the orcs, to simply being the ''god'' of axe crazy-ness.
** The OmnicidalManiac GodOfEvil Tharizdun is completely insane, and so are most of his worshippers. Insanity is pretty much a prerequisite to worshipping him.
** In addition to Gruumsh, ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' has Garagos, a practically nonsentient deity of bloodlust and destruction (materials that discussed Netheril and the gods indicated this was partly because that's just the kind of god Garagos was from the beginning, partly because he is really, ''really'' pissed off that the newcomer Tempus usurped the position of [[WarGod god of war]] from him, and partly because focusing on those aspects of war is what he did when he had to re-invent himself in a lesser niche after he lost the god of war position -- the alternative to that last would have been bolting for another pantheon, except there wasn't one with a convenient hole around).
* Surprisingly rare among darklords of ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'', as most aren't truly insane, and hence are wholly responsible for their own evil actions. The Hive Queen, Tristessa, Malken, and Duke Gundar have all shown strong Ax Crazy tendencies, however, as do quite a few non-darklord villains like the Midnight Slasher. One Darklord who is very insane - which is no secret to his subjects - is Essan the Mad of Vechor. This is actually [[PowerBornOfMadness a benefit to him]] in many ways.
** "Madman" actually had its own entry in the 2nd Edition ''Ravenloft Monster Compendium''.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Talislanta}}'', any [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Ahazu]] in the throes of "shan-ya" counts. Actually, most Ahazu are [[BloodKnight pretty edgy to begin with]].
* Even going beyond [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity the Great Curse]], it's possible for the ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' to reach these lofty heights. Take Raksi, Queen of Fangs, who Exalted in her pre-teen years and was forced to flee into [[RealityIsOutToLunch the Wyld]] during the Usurpation. She came out changed in several ways. Way number one? She took the city of Speremin by force and renamed it "The City of a Thousand Golden Delights," bred an army of ape-men [[BestialityIsDepraved herself]], ran up a reputation as a cannibal sorceress queen amongst the local tribes, decided to ''cement'' it by [[EatsBabies making babies her favorite meal]], and now spends her days desperately trying to learn the secrets of a style of sorcery ''way'' beyond her means and willing to do ''anything'' that will get her closer to revelation. The other way? [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Her fingers now bend backwards]].
** Amongst the Yozis, Adorjan may be the model of Ax Crazy. She views silence as a gift and [[{{Yandere}} loves everyone]], so she wants to kill them all to show her love. Her Charm set for her Infernal subjects reflect this, including such options as "Social Influence attempts are blocked by all noise turning into a wretched discord that makes you want to kill" and "you can only verbalize laughter, but gain telepathic communication with allies."
** A number of Limit Breaks, notably Berserk Anger and the Torment of Malfeas, send their bearers into a psychotic killing rage that doesn't end until everything around them is dead, on fire, or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs dead and on fire]].
* [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orcs]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}''. [[HalfHumanHybrid Half-orcs]], however, are not necessarily so; in fact, one of the two half-orcs iconic is a NeutralGood Inquisitor of [[DontFearTheReaper Pharasma]] and the other is ChaoticNeutral Warpriest of [[WarGod Gorum]].
* The ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' RPG's Crazys are just as easily Ax Crazy as they are batshit insane.
* ''TabletopGame/ArkhamHorror'''s maniacs. In particular, while most [[EldritchAbomination Ancient Ones]] have rules changing how the cultist enemies function, [[MadGod Azathoth's]] cultists are completely insane and count as maniacs.
* In ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye'' the men and women who form a [[DealWithTheDevil pact]] with Belhalhar, the demon of Bloodlust and Murder, tend to become this, if they weren't like this before, after a while because of the effects of the pact. The [[BloodKnight priests]] of the demi-god Kor act the same way, but they won't attack anyone who surrenders or is unarmed.
** Almost all demons under the rule of Belhalhar act the same way, to the extent that getting them to stop fighting is quite hard.
** The [[LizardFolk Maru]], a race of crocodile people, almost all act the same way as directed by their god Kr'Thon'Chh; [[spoiler: he and Kor are one and the same god, despite many humans' fear that the Maru follow a demon.]]
* You get these from time to time in ''TabletopGame/BattleTech''. A few notables include Romano Liao, a violent paranoiac who took all her lessons in rulership from Stalin, apparently; Brett Andrews of Clan Steel Viper, known as "The Bloody [=IlKhan=]" for his almost wanton slaughter of political opponenets; Katherine Steiner-Davion, who murdered her own mother and brother and deposed two other siblings to ascend to power; Jinjiro Kurita, who ordered the massacre of ''an entire planet'' after a sniper shot his father on said planet; Thomas Marik proper, AKA the Master of Word of Blake, AKA the man responsible for the horrors of the Word of Blake Jihad... and that's the short list.
* The defining trait of Heroes in ''TabletopGame/BeastThePrimordial'' is that they are always, ''always'' a combination of this and KnightTemplar. Heroes were never stable to begin with, but their exposure to a Beast drove them into obsessive psychosis, totally fixated on killing the Beast to the point they can -- and always will -- justify just about ''anything'' if it serves the pursuit of the Beast. Abandoning friends and family, whipping up frenzied mobs as sacrificial CannonFodder, burning down occupied houses; if it will give them some advantage against the Beast, then they'll do it.
* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', one of the Guilds on the cityscape plane of Ravnica is the Cult of Rakdos, who get a kick out of slapstick comedy, fire-based performances, and brutal murder. As if the ''flaming death knife clowns'' weren't already terrifying enough, here's the flavor text for Madcap Skills, showing a Rakdos cultist performing with fire: ''The larger the crowd, the harder it is for them to run away.''

[[quoteright:335:[[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ork_codex_art_7524.jpg]]]]

[[caption-width-right:335:"Green iz best! Fink different, do ya? Come on, 'ave a go den ya gits! WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"]]

* The Wayward creed in ''TabletopGame/HunterTheReckoning'' are all Ax Crazy, even if they weren't ''before'' the imbuing. The trauma of the Wayward imbuing is such that the options are psychic annihilation or insanity; every Wayward who survived the imbuing came out insane. Furthermore, other Hunters show a preference to protect humanity from unruly supernatural forces; Waywards, on the other hand, are more likely to blow up any supernatural creature they encounter (no matter how harmless), and shrug their shoulders if any humans die as a result of "collateral damage." Making it perhaps even worse is that, despite their insanity, Waywards are ''planners'', and quite, quite deliberate in pursuing their goals - specifically, the complete elimination of the supernatural. The biggest Ax Crazy is Joshua, AKA "God45," who is implied to have [[spoiler:stolen a nuclear weapon]] during the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Time of Judgment]]. He becomes a player character in the video game ''[[VideoGame/HunterTheReckoning Hunter: the Reckoning: Wayward]]'', where Fanatic656 displays the traditional Wayward traits.

** Khorne's favorite daemonic servant is the Bloodthirster known as Skarbrand, who was manipulated by rival god [[MagnificentBastard Tzeentch]] into attacking Khorne himself. This ended with a furious Khorne grabbing him by the throat and hurling Skarbrand from his citadel so that he fell for seven days and lost his wings in the crash-landing. The experience left Skarbrand with no other emotion than pure, undistilled hatred and fury, and a mission to roam the mortal and immaterial universe and kill anything he finds in a vain attempt to appease his god - for Khorne is so impressed with Skarbrand's work that he prefers his rampage across reality. Skarbrand is ''so'' contagiously Ax Crazy, in fact, that any creatures nearby are also overcome by insatiable bloodlust, compelling them to tear apart their enemies in hand to hand combat.

** [[SpaceElves Eldar]] Exarchs are warrior-priests of Kaela Mensha Khaine, their bloody-handed god of war. Though the Eldar Path leads each member of the race to foster [[SplitPersonality multiple personalities]] as they master one occupation at a time, the Exarchs are those who have become trapped on one of the Warrior Paths. Forsaking their past identities, they take up the mantle of the last to wear their armor and live only to wage battle on the Eldar's enemies. Biel-Tan [[GenerationShips craftworld]] is ruled by a council of such Exarchs, and known for its zealous and xenocidal campaigns to rebuild the ancient Eldar empire.

** The OmnicidalManiac GodOfEvil Tharizdun is completely insane, and so are most of his worshippers. (Insanity is pretty much a prerequisite to worshipping him.)

* In *Magic: the Gathering,* one of the Guilds on the cityscape plane of Ravnica is the Cult of Rakdos, who get a kick out of slapstick comedy, fire-based performances, and brutal murder. As if the ''flaming death knife clowns'' weren't already terrifying enough, here's the flavor text for Madcap Skills, showing a Rakdos cultist performing with fire: ''The larger the crowd, the harder it is for them to run away.''

* The defining trait of Heroes in ''TabletopGame/BeastThePrimordial'' is that they are always, ''always'' a combination of this and KnightTemplar. Heroes were never stable to begin with, but their exposure to a Beast drove them into obsessive psychosis, totally fixated on killing the Beast to the point they can -- and always will -- justify just about ''anything'' if it serves the pursuit of the Beast. Abandoning friends and family, whipping up frenzied mobs as sacrificial CannonFodder, burning down occupied houses; if it will give them some advantage against the Beast, then they'll do it.

** On the subject of Chaos Space Marines, [[MiniMecha Dreadnoughts]] have a special Crazed! table they must roll on each turn, giving them a chance to lunge into close combat or unload their ranged weapons on the nearest squad, friend or foe. They're such demented killers that outside of combat, even after the pilot's [[EmergencyTransformation sarcophagus]] has been removed, the empty war machine is kept chained to a wall, just to be safe.

** Even heroic factions are subject to this. The Blood Angels' Death Company consists of Battle-Brothers who have fully succumbed to the chapter's flawed gene-seed, hallucinating themselves as their lost Primarch during the final battle of the Literature/HorusHeresy. Not only are they so consumed by bloodlust that they must charge into close combat, but their minds are so far gone that they FeelNoPain as well. They're not expected to survive their battle, and any that do are {{mercy kill}}ed by the chapter's [[BadassPreacher Chaplains]]. The Minotaurs also have a reputation as vicious berserkers. Games Workshop has hinted that they were an experiment in using "purified" World Eaters gene-seed to create new Space Marines, which would make sense.

* The Wayward creed in ''TabletopGame/HunterTheReckoning'' are all Ax Crazy, even if they weren't ''before'' the imbuing. The trauma of the Wayward imbuing is such that the options are psychic annihilation or insanity; every Wayward who survived the imbuing came out insane. Furthermore, other Hunters show a preference to protect humanity from unruly supernatural forces; Waywards, on the other hand, are more likely to blow up any supernatural creature they encounter (no matter how harmless), and shrug their shoulders if any humans die as a result of "collateral damage." Making it perhaps even worse is that, despite their insanity, Waywards are ''planners'', and quite, quite deliberate in pursuing their goals - specifically, the complete elimination of the supernatural. The biggest Ax Crazy is Joshua, AKA "God45," who is implied to have [[spoiler:stolen a nuclear weapon]] during the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Time of Judgment]]. He [[TheyJustDidntCare becomes a player character]] in the video game ''[[VideoGame/HunterTheReckoning Hunter: the Reckoning: Wayward]]'', where Fanatic656 displays the traditional Wayward traits.

* [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orcs]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}''. [[HalfHumanHybrid Half-orcs]], however, are not necessarily so; in fact, the one half-orc iconic (so far) is NeutralGood.