Derangements are behaviors that occur when the mind is forced to confront intolerable or conflicting feelings, such as overwhelming terror or profound guilt. When your character is faced with impressions or emotions that he cannot reconcile, his mind attempts to ease the inner turmoil by stimulating behavior such as megalomania, schizophrenia or hysteria as an outlet. People in the World of Darkness, unwittingly tormented, persecuted and preyed upon by incomprehensible beings, often develop these ailments by the mere fact of existing. Alternatively, regret, guilt or remorselessness for inflicting abuses eats away at mind and soul. The night’s creatures are not immune to such pressures, either. Existence as an unnatural thing overwhelms what little humanity these beings might have left, driving them mad.
The primary means by which your character may develop derangements is by performing heinous acts and suffering the mental or emotional repercussions. See “Morality,” earlier in this chapter, for more details.
Otherwise, the Storyteller may decide that a scene or circumstance to which your character is exposed is too much for him to bear and he breaks under the pressure. A bad drug trip might reveal too much of the monstrous reality of the world for a person’s mind to bear. A drug overdose could imbalance a character mentally. Or witnessing a creature in all its horrific glory might make an onlooker snap.
Ailments caused by fallen Morality can be healed through your character’s own efforts toward treatment or contrition (by spending experience points). The Storyteller decides if a more spontaneously inspired condition is temporary or permanent. A spontaneous ailment might be temporary, lasting until the character resolves the situation that triggered the condition. It might become permanent if reconciliation is refused, the condition goes untreated or the trigger that caused it is insurmountable. With Storyteller approval, a starting character might have a spontaneously inspired derangement as a Flaw (see p. 217), gaining experience in stories in which the condition or problem is prominent. Spontaneous ailments developed during play might be represented in-game as evolutionary Flaws, not ones established at character creation.
It must be noted that people who are “crazy” are neither funny nor arbitrary in their actions. Insanity is frightening to onlookers who witness someone rage against an unseen presence or hoard rotten meat “to feed to mon- sters.” Even something as harmless-sounding as constantly talking to one’s self can be disturbing to observers.
The insane respond to a pattern only they grasp, to stimuli that they perceive in their own minds. To their skewed perceptions, what happens to them is perfectly normal. A character’s derangement is there for a reason, whether she committed a crime or saw her own children devoured. What stimuli does her insanity inflict upon her, and how does she react to what happens? Work with the Storyteller to create a pattern of provocations for your character’s derangement, and then decide how she reacts.
Your character has blocked out the memory of the event that caused this derangement. She might not remember pulling the trigger and killing that man. She might remember walking into the old house, but have no recollection of the horrors she saw there. In any event, only through intense therapy or memory-altering supernatural powers will she regain those memories. The character is aware that something happened, and is potentially open to discovering what, but cannot call up the memories herself. In addition, if she finds herself in a similar situation, the player must roll Resolve + Composure or else the character blocks out the memory of that scene as well.
Your character not only represses the memories that trouble her but has constructed a potentially elaborate scenario to replace them and grows hostile if someone tries to persuade her otherwise.
Whenever someone tries to educate the character as to the truth of what happens, the character’s player rolls Resolve + Composure.
If the roll succeeds, the character’s delusion remains intact, and the character becomes irate and refuses to discuss the matter.
If the roll fails, her internal commitment to the safety of the delusion weakens a bit, and she is at least willing to listen.
Your character, usually following a supernatural event, has become convinced that the supernatural influences every facet of life. “The supernatural” here is defined by the character in question.
He might become devoted to a particular religion, and see the hand of whatever God he chooses in every aspect of life. He might believe that aliens or secret government masters control everything. In any event, he believes that the world has a secret set of rules and codes that, if he abides by them, he will go to Heaven/have good luck/be safe from harm/etc.
At least once a scene, and more often if significant events occur during a scene, the player must roll Resolve + Composure.
If that roll fails, the character must perform some action appropriate to his beliefs. He might utter a brief prayer, mumble into his wallet (which he’s sure contains a communication device), line his hat with tinfoil to prevent the aliens from reading his mind and so on.
Because this derangement is so pervasive, it shouldn’t cause major disruptions to the character’s life, but its effects are almost constant.
Your character has decided that his spiritual or supernatural beliefs are so important than everyone should share them. He proselytizes to everyone he meets, given only a few minutes of conversation. He might ask people if they have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior, or he might simply warn people engaging in “sinful” behavior that they are bound for Hell. He might snap pictures of agents of the government conspiracy and warn other people to “stay away from them.” He might occasionally curse while looking at sky, as though expecting the aliens to arrive any moment.
The game system for this derangement works similar to Supernatural Fascination, but the effects are more extreme, as described.