How to Cure Madness in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

Madness in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers isn’t just another status bar tucked away in your character screen — it’s a core risk-reward mechanic that shapes the flow of combat, resource management, and even exploration. As Wuchang pushes deeper into cursed territories, the Feathering corruption constantly tests your ability to keep Madness under control. Managing it well can give you a serious edge, but letting it spiral can turn every encounter into a gamble.

Below, we break down exactly how Madness works, how different enemies affect it, where to cleanse it, and why the Inner Demon becomes the ultimate penalty for reckless play.

Understanding the Madness System

Madness is displayed directly in your character menu, and it steadily grows or shrinks depending on your actions. The higher it climbs, the more aggressively the game rewards — and punishes — your decisions. While it’s tempting to push your Madness into higher thresholds for damage boosts, the price you pay on death becomes significantly steeper.

Before diving into the cures, it’s important to understand what each threshold actually means.

Madness Threshold Effects

Madness influences Wuchang on several fronts: combat, survival, and currency loss. Together, they create a tension that constantly pushes you to decide whether it’s worth playing “hot” or playing safe.

Combat bonuses and drawbacks

When your Madness rises past key checkpoints, you unlock several boosts and penalties:

• Around the mid-range (roughly the 50% zone), certain perks from the Impetus Repository take effect, amplifying your offense if you’ve built around Madness synergy.
• Approaching maximum Madness (near the 90% mark), you hit a dangerous sweet spot: you deal more damage, but you’ll also take a beating if an enemy touches you.
• This threshold also increases the amount of Red Mercury you earn, which makes high Madness tempting for players who want to upgrade quickly.
• If you’ve activated the Conversion perk, Swift Draw can heal you on hit, giving high-Madness builds surprising sustain.

It’s powerful, but one mistake can erase all your progress — literally.

Red Mercury penalties on death

Players often underestimate how punishing Madness can be when you die. Here’s how the loss scales:

• At moderate Madness, you drop a noticeable but survivable portion of your Red Mercury.
• At high Madness levels (but just under the maximum), you’ll lose a significant chunk — enough to stall upgrades.
• At maximum Madness, every single bit of Red Mercury is gone the moment you fall.

You can recover it, but only if you survive the next part of the system: the Inner Demon.

How Enemies Influence Madness

Your Madness bar isn’t static — everything you fight changes the needle. Before listing the cures, it’s crucial to understand what drives Madness upward and downward.

When you explore new regions or push into boss arenas, you’ll encounter three major categories of enemies. What you kill — or what kills you — directly affects how quickly you slide into dangerous territory.

Humanoid enemies increase Madness

Human-type enemies are your primary source of Madness buildup. Defeating them raises your current level, and dying with Madness already elevated will nudge it even higher. If you regularly fight humans back-to-back, expect your gauge to spike quickly.

Feathered and cursed enemies decrease Madness

In contrast, avian monsters and feather-twisted creatures help lower Madness. This creates an interesting loop: areas infested with corrupted enemies become natural “cooldown zones” for your gauge.

Why this interaction matters

These mechanics force you to think ahead. Entering a human-dominated region at high Madness can be devastating — but clearing feathered zones too early might deny you a natural pressure valve later.

Items That Modify Madness

Before heading to altars, you’ll likely experiment with consumables and Shrine purchases. These tools help you manage Madness in the short term, but they can also push you past thresholds if you’re not paying attention.

There are several items worth noting, each with very different purposes. Understanding them ensures you never accidentally lock yourself into max Madness before a major boss.

Consumables and Shrine offerings

Items that affect the gauge fall into two groups: those you find in the world and those you buy via the Shrine’s Invoke system.

Here are some important examples:

Maddening Incense

Temporarily boosts Madness and slows its drain, useful if you’re running a high-Madness offense build or need to activate perk bonuses during a difficult fight.

Plumed Branch

A purchasable item that grants Skyborn Might stacks and increases Madness by a moderate amount.

Feather Pearl

Returns you to your last Shrine without losing Red Mercury but pushes your Madness upward in exchange.

Golden Feather Pearl

Protects Red Mercury upon death once — but adds a hefty spike of Madness, making it a tool you should only buy when you’re prepared.

Before purchasing, check your remaining Madness headroom. If the added value pushes you beyond your limit, the Shrine won’t allow the purchase.

How to Cure Madness

Now to the part every Wuchang player needs: actually cleansing the gauge. While certain items slow buildup, the only reliable way to fully reset your Madness is through altars.

Before using them, make sure you’ve accounted for the items required to activate their cleansing ritual.

Altar Locations and Cleansing Items

Altars are found at key points in the world, including Shu Sanctum and a cliffside structure past the pavilion. Once activated, you can spend rare items to reduce or erase Madness entirely.

Fragment of the Divine Gift

Partially cleanses Madness. Ideal if you want to stay within a medium range rather than reset the bar.

Divine Gift

Completely wipe your Madness meter clean. Best used before entering new human-heavy zones or when preparing for a fight where maximum Red Mercury loss would be devastating.

If you’re running a Madness-focused build, cleansing too often might reduce your potential damage output — so choose your timing carefully.

Understanding the Inner Demon

The Inner Demon is Wuchang’s way of punishing maximal Madness. If you die with your gauge filled to its uppermost limit, a twisted version of Wuchang spawns at your death site. It’s fast, aggressive, and carries every drop of Red Mercury you just lost.

This mechanic isn’t just a punishment — it’s a skill check.

How the Inner Demon Works

When you return to the site where you died, your Inner Demon waits, guarding your currency. Defeat it, and you reclaim everything. Fail, and those resources vanish permanently.

Inner Demons that appear naturally in the world may also drop Stone Needles, which are required for Temper Acupoint upgrades — another reason they’re worth fighting, if you can handle the challenge.

If you understand how Madness builds, how it’s cleansed, and when to play around its thresholds, you’ll have a much smoother time navigating Wuchang’s most punishing encounters. Mastering this single system can mean the difference between losing hours of progress and carving a path through the game’s toughest foes with confidence.