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.
If your character fails or succeeds at an important action such as leaping between buildings or making a getaway in a sports car, he might fixate on his loss or victory.
Roll Resolve + Composure after such an event for him to avoid this unhealthy obsession.
Effect: If your Resolve + Composure roll fails, roll a single die. The result is the number of scenes in which your character is focused on the offending or inspiring event or task, to the possible exclusion of more important goals. He fixates on what he believes caused him to lose or win his goal, whether it’s an opponent, a broken shoelace or the model of car driven. In the case of a defeat, he cannot help but simmer in anger, cursing a circumstance or trying to devise a method of circumventing it in the future. In the case of a victory, he becomes a fanatic, spending much of his time researching, observing or acclaiming an activity or factor that allowed him to succeed.
The Storyteller rules on how this derangement affects your character’s dice pools or behavior. It might cause him a -1 on any task not related to his fixation, or he might refuse to engage in an activity if it doesn’t somehow tie into his obsession. Since this derangement is potentially active for many scenes, rather than one, its effects should be mild but persistent.
People with this neurosis try to drown their anxiety through activities that comfort them, especially food. Doing so leads to a binge-and-purge cycle. The bulimic stuffs himself to relieve stress, then self-disgust at his own gluttony drives him to vomit out what he’s eaten. The bulimic soon seeks to feed again, though, and the cycle repeats.
Vampires face a special temptation toward bulimia because feeding is the strongest physical pleasure left to them. A bulimic vampire relieves his fear and guilt by gorging himself on blood, perhaps feeding several times a night and burning the Vitae as fast as he can. The character can augment his traits for frenetic activity or wound himself as a form of punishment, then heal the wounds so that other Kindred won’t see his weakness and self-loathing. At severe levels, the vampire might even will himself to expunge Vitae by vomiting — no small feat and a noteworthy act of will, since vampires don’t store blood in their stomachs.
Effect: A bulimic vampire becomes hungry more easily than other Kindred and has a harder time resisting the urge to feed. Whenever the character feeds, the player must succeed at a Resolve + Composure roll or the vampire feeds until full, whether or not he really needs the extra Vitae. Additionally, the character must use that Vitae frequently; the player must spend at least one Vitae per scene for the character until the character rests for the day, even if circumstances wouldn’t otherwise warrant it. A player may, for example, devote Vitae to Strength for a turn in which no Strength roll is necessary, or spend a Vitae to heal a single point of bashing damage even though Vitae normally heals two points of bashing damage. A bulimic character also suffers an automatic -2 penalty to resist hunger frenzies. Forcibly preventing the character from drinking his fill might provoke a rage frenzy (no modifier to difficulty).
The character feels the urge at least once a night to perform some sort of divination. He could read tea leaves, or examine a newspaper horoscope page, or read the Tarot, or get a divination from a 70s mass-market paperback capitalizing on Mayan prophecies. He might perform the Sortes Virgilianae, which is where you take a significant book – a copy of Virgil, or the Bible, or Shakespeare, or Milton, or the Bhagavad Gita, or the Qu’ran, or anything else – and open it on a random page, point at a random sentence and take that as a divination. He could shave the head of his ghoul and perform a phrenological analysis of the imperfections in her scalp. He might even find a cat and disembowel it, reading his future from the spatters its guts make on the floor. Players are encouraged to find interesting ways to read the future.
In game terms, it might be helpful for the Storyteller to have some divinations prepared; perhaps having a collection of clipped newspaper horoscopes for this very purpose. Divination methods and sample divinations appear throughout this book.
Essentially, if given the opportunity to act on the divination (to do what it says) in any way, the character will. For example, if the divination says that a fair-haired stranger will bring good luck, the character may put his total trust and confidence in the first blond he meets, even if she turns out to be working for the enemy, and refuse to believe that she is bad news. If the player considers following the divination to be stupid, or dangerous, the player must roll Resolve + Composure with a -2 penalty to avoid doing what the divination says. If the roll fails, the character has no choice but to act on the divination, and will follow the literal word of the divination as closely as possible.
The trauma, guilt or inner conflict that causes this derangement forces your character to focus nearly all of his attention and energy on a single repetitive behavior or action. Obsession relates to an individual’s desire to control his environment — keeping clean, keeping an area quiet and peaceful, or keeping undesirable individuals out. A compulsion is an action or set of actions that an individual is driven to perform to soothe his anxieties — placing objects in an exact order, constantly checking to make sure a weapon is loaded, praying every few hours to give thanks for surviving that long.
Effect: Determine a set of specific actions or behaviors that your character follows to the exclusion of all else (even if doing so interferes with his current agenda or endangers his life or others’). The effects of obsessive compulsion can be negated for the course of one scene by making a successful Resolve + Composure roll at a -2 penalty. If your character is forcibly prevented from adhering to his derangement, he may lose control among enemies or allies and attack either (or both) indiscriminately.
A character with this derangement focuses her attention on a single repetitive behavior or action as a way to distract herself from feelings of anxiety or inner torment. The compulsive character turns everything into a ritual and feels utter dread of any disruption of her behaviors.
Many European vampire legends say the undead suffer from an obsessive need to count collections of small objects, and so a mortal can protect himself by leaving piles of grain where he sleeps. A marauding vampire, legends say, feels compelled to count the grain before he feeds, and this can keep the vampire occupied until dawn. Kindred who believe in the stories mortals tell about them might suffer from this kind of fixation.
Effect: Determine a set of specific actions or behaviors that your character follows to the exclusion of all else (even if doing so interferes with his current agenda or endangers his existence or others’). The effects of obsessive/compulsive behavior can be negated for the course of one scene by making a successful Resolve + Composure roll at a -2 penalty. If your character is forcibly prevented from adhering to his derangement, he may lose control among enemies or allies and attack either (or both) indiscriminately. An obsessive-compulsive vampire is subject to a frenzy roll in this situation.
Whenever your character is threatened with violence or suffers extreme tension by being persecuted, challenged or accused, she might react without logic or reason. Roll her Resolve + Composure to keep her cool.
The persecution, challenge or accusation needs to bear some realistic threat to your character’s wellbeing, whether related to finances, emotional security or social standing. A hobo threatening to sue is no real threat, but a rich executive who says he’s going to ruin your character qualifies as a threat. Likewise, a society-page gossipmonger who threatens to expose your character’s faults is a threat if your character relies on that crowd for social acceptance, but not if he is a bicycle messenger who’s never been inside a penthouse.
Effect: On a failed roll, your character’s only way to comfortably deal with confrontation is to act crazy or over the top, in wild hopes that she will scare away her oppressor or at least mitigate her own fears. This behavior persists for the remainder of the scene. Ironically, she takes dangerous risks that might harm her worse than the actual threat posed. If a bouncer demands to know what your character is doing in an off-limits part of a club, she might overreact and get in his face. Make a Wits + Composure roll for her to be able to take any action that removes her from the scene or that directly diffuses the situation (such as accepting a hand offered in a conciliatory handshake). The truly ironic part about this behavior is that during such a bout, your character cannot initiate violence, only respond to it if it occurs. She can threaten or cajole challengers, but can’t take the first swing. (That, in fact, is what her crazed behavior tries to avoid.)
This derangement can emerge because of centuries of torpid dreams, or simply a strong desire for the world to be the way a character wants. Delusional obsession consists of a fanatical belief in something that just isn’t true. Lots of people hold beliefs that other people find absurd, of course, but a delusional obsessive structures his life or unlife on them. Classic examples include the survivalist holed up in a cabin with canned beans and a shotgun, the street-corner preacher ranting that “The end is near,” and the dotty old lady with a hundred cats. Nearly any hobby, belief or interest can seem dangerously crazed when it takes over a character’s existence. Delusional obsession might be dismissed as fanaticism, but it is even more extreme.
Effect: A Willpower point must be spent to resist whenever an opportunity arises to act in accordance with the character’s obsession, or whenever he must act in direct opposition to his obsession. For instance, a gardening fanatic might have to expend Willpower to stay out of a florist’s shop. A Kindred who believes that every instance of a crescent or lunar reference indicates Lupine activity might need to expend a Willpower point to step into an Islamic cultural center or to stay in the same room as someone named Moon.
This emotional derangement most often afflicts ghouls or blood-bound Kindred. The character becomes utterly dependent on his regnant or domitor. He resists making even the most trivial decision for himself. This disorder might arise from fear of abandonment (especially strong in the case of ghouls who know that sudden aging or death awaits them if they lose their supply of Vitae). It might also grow from an exaggerated fear of displeasing a harsh or demanding master.
Effect: If a character has this derangement, the player does not include Resolve in contested dice pools when the domitor attempts to Dominate him (although Blood Potency still applies). Indeed, the character often follows up on any statement that might be construed as a request for the character to do something.
This emotional derangement most often afflicts ghouls or blood-bound Kindred. The character becomes utterly dependent on his regnant or domitor. He resists making even the most trivial decision for himself. This disorder might arise from fear of abandonment (especially strong in the case of ghouls who know that sudden aging or death awaits them if they lose their supply of Vitae). It might also grow from an exaggerated fear of displeasing a harsh or demanding master.
Effect: If a character has this derangement, the player does not include Resolve in contested dice pools when the domitor attempts to Dominate him (although Blood Potency still applies). Indeed, the character often follows up on any statement that might be construed as a request for the character to do something.
Kindred Intermetamorphosis arises almost exclusively after long periods spent in torpor. The vampire suffering this derangement confuses the identities of mortals and Kindred he has known over the ages, often swapping those that he knew in life (or before his bout of torpor) with those who greet him in the modern world. For example, a vampire arising from a 400-year torpor might mistake his neonate grandchilde for his long-destroyed sire, or a living woman for his centuries-passed mortal wife. Most who observe this derangement in action believe it is caused by the vampire’s overpowering nostalgia for nights (and days) long gone, working in conjunction with the befuddlement prevalent in those arising from decades or centuries of torpor.
These Kindred may or may not be aware that the people they are dealing with cannot possibly be who they seem, but they cannot deny the identification. They feel as if the target of their derangement is actually someone else, even if it doesn’t make any sense. Some construct elaborate systems of belief to explain the phenomenon, ascribing it to reincarnation, telepathic body-swapping, miraculous “second chances” or more bizarre occult phenomena. They will not accept evidence to the contrary, and may even attempt to “save” a contemporary who denies “the truth.”
The mistaken identity will influence and supersede a vampire’s opinion of the modern subject. If the vampire believes that a neonate female is really his former lover, he will not accept acts of aggression at face value, always attempting to explain it in terms of his “real” relationship to her. If he can’t dismiss her actions out of hand, he will assume that she is acting against her will or is somehow unaware of his identity.
Effect: The character suffering from Intermetamorphosis will instantly draw associations between modern individuals and those from long past based on the flimsiest of similarities. Hair color, certain mannerisms, tone of voice or even gender could be enough to set off the Kindred’s derangement. Once a mortal or vampire is associated with a figure from the sufferer’s past, nothing (short of the actual interference of the figure in question) will convince him otherwise. He may spend Willpower to shake off the delusion for one scene, but must operate under its infl uence at all other times.
Your character feels trapped by his superiors and may lash out when he feels persecuted, accused or smothered. This disorder causes your character to feel personally threatened (see Irrationality) by seemingly harmless instructions and orders given by people with authority over him, especially when the deeper reasons behind such instructions aren’t revealed. Roll Resolve + Composure to keep his cool.
If the roll fails, your character undermines his own attempts to carry out the action instructed or ordered, no matter how innocuous or even beneficial it really is. For the rest of the scene, your character suffers a –5 penalty on dice pools for actions that contribute to the fulfillment of the order or instruction. How this manifests through your character’s behavior depends on the nature of his derangement. In the style of Irrationality, your character may fume and overreact, complaining loudly the whole time. On the other hand, your character may passive-aggressively acquiesce, and then seethe and procrastinate, before finally delivering only half-hearted work.
The trauma that spawns this derangement fractures your character’s personality into one or more additional personas, allowing her to deny her trauma or any actions the trauma causes by placing the blame on “someone else.” Each personality is created to respond to certain emotional stimuli. An abused person might develop a tough-as-nails survivor personality, create a “protector” or even become a murderer to deny the abuse she suffers. In most cases, none of these personalities is aware of the others, and they come and go through your character’s mind in response to specific situations or conditions.
Effect: A character with multiple personalities can manifest different Skills or perhaps increased or diminished Social Attributes for each identity (the number of dots allocated to your character’s Social Attributes are rearranged by anywhere from one to three).
Multiple-Personality Disorder (MPD) results from traumas so severe and prolonged that the victim’s mind splits into several personalities. When a vampire suffers this derangement, the Storyteller and player need to agree on a set of alternative personalities for the character, as well as on what situations call each personality to the fore. Each personality should have some connection to the trauma that fractured the character’s mind. Alternate personalities might believe they belong to different clans, bloodlines or covenants, or even not be aware that they are undead.
Effect: A character with multiple personalities can manifest different Skills or perhaps increased or diminished Social Attributes for each identity (the number of dots allocated to your character’s Social Attributes are rearranged by anywhere from one to three). The character does not actually possess more Skills than other characters, he merely switches personalities when he needs to use certain Skills. For instance, a tough-guy “protector” persona might emerge whenever the character needs to fight, so the baseline identity doesn’t need to face the moral and emotional stress of combat. The “protector” persona takes possession of the character’s combat Skills, while the other personalities don’t admit that they know how to fight.
This is an extreme derangement. The character must experience a life-altering trauma or supernatural tragedy to manifest it. The ailment cannot normally be acquired by failing a Humanity roll unless the sin performed is truly ghastly. MPD is an elaborate derangement, and a challenge to roleplay. Its symptoms are frightening and the suffering it exacts from its victim is monumental. It should not be an excuse for slapstick, wacky, foolish or childish behavior.
Some Kindred, overwhelmed by the demands of vampire society and unable to keep up with the complexities of Status, intrigue and predatory warfare, sometimes suffer an overwhelming urge to withdraw completely from the world around them. Severe trauma can lead to the dissolution of rational bounds on this urge, resulting in an absolute abandonment of social interaction and obligation regardless of the detrimental effect on the vampire’s own existence.
Vampires suffering from Withdrawal avoid leaving their havens and interacting with others as much as possible. They do not attend any Elysium events, and they allow all friendships and alliances to wither, never bothering to initiate communication. The Requiem of a vampire in Withdrawal is one of solitary nights spent in silent retreat. Some turn to scholarly pursuits, losing themselves in dusty tomes and occult research, but most just take on idle hobbies, accomplishing little of value and waiting until hunger demands that they strike out in search of blood.
Withdrawal is not a derangement for characters in play. It should be restricted to Storyteller characters only, because Withdrawal isolates the vampire and threatens to destroy all of the work he’s done to establish himself in Kindred society. A player may wish to add Withdrawal to his character’s history, as a cured derangement (or one that awaits him if he drops again to a formerly low Humanity rating) to explain a long absence from Kindred society, but should be aware of its implications if he does so.
Effect: The character must succeed on a Resolve + Composure roll to leave his haven each night. He suffers a –3 dice penalty on all Social Ability rolls (except for resistance on contested ones) because of his extreme unwillingness to speak to others, and his obvious attempts to get away from public dealings as quickly as possible.
A person who suffers from a phobia has an unreasoning fear of something. A phobia can result from a traumatic experience associated with an object or condition, or might be a purely neurotic way of hiding from a real source of anxiety. Common phobias include a fear of open spaces, leaving one’s home, of enclosed spaces or germs, but nearly anything can become the focus of a phobia. Kindred are especially prone to phobias of fire, sunlight or hunger. A phobic vampire might avoid going outdoors for fear of sunlight, even if she knows dawn is hours away.
Effect: Your character moves away from the object of her phobia. If she must be near it, she can tolerate being no closer than her Speed in yards. If it approaches her, she must move away at least her Speed in distance in her next action. She cannot easily target the trigger with close combat or ranged attacks. Such attacks suffer a -5 penalty as your character shakes just looking at it. If space or circumstances don’t allow her to maintain her distance, she freezes like a deer in headlights until she finds an opening by which to escape. (Her Defense still applies if attacked and she can choose to dodge and can take cover from Firearms attacks, but she can take no other actions while “frozen.”)
A successful Resolve + Composure roll must be made for a phobic Kindred to simply approach the subject of her fear. Any sort of shock or surprise associated with the subject of the phobia can cause Rötschreck. Roll normally for the character to resist, suitably modified by the degree of exposure.
Kindred hysteria operates much like that of mortals, except it rises to new heights, as would be expected for a mental ailment of the undead. The vampire’s emotions run high and stressful situations can cause fits of rage, weeping, fainting or other emotional displays.
Effect: This condition operates as a phobia (see above), but on a failed Resolve + Composure roll your character cannot be in the same room with the object of her fear. She must run away from it immediately, and cannot tolerate being within sensory range (sight, sound, smell) of it. If the trigger comes within sensory range, she must move away at full running speed as soon as she can take an action. She cannot target it for an attack under any circumstance. If it touches her, make another Resolve + Composure roll for her to not freak out and run as far away as she can, thinking of nothing else until she’s left the subject far behind. (Even if this roll succeeds, your character must still leave the room or area.) If any of your Resolve + Composure rolls suffer a dramatic failure or your character is unable to escape, she faints and loses consciousness for the remainder of the scene. If your character is unaware of the object’s proximity until it touches her, a Resolve + Composure suffers a -3 penalty. If it touches her where she can’t see it but she can feel it — a spider dropping on her neck or in her hair — the penalty is -5.
For a Kindred character, you must roleplay most aspects of hysteria, above, but also suffer a -1 penalty on all rolls to resist frenzy that relate to the object of fear. Any action that relates to the object and that results in a dramatic failure automatically causes your vampire to frenzy.
If your character fails to achieve a goal (not just fails a roll, but fails to accomplish some personal, desired end such as getting a job or saving a friend’s life), he might go into a bout of depression for the remainder of the scene. A dramatic failure that occurs in any activity might also bring on a bout of depression. Regardless of the circumstances, make a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll.
Effect: If the roll fails, your character loses one Willpower point and cannot spend any Willpower points for the remainder of the scene.
Severe mood swings characterize this derangement. It occurs in two forms, one psychological and one a defect in brain chemistry. The psychological form is a modified form of hysteria. The victim can swing from an enthusiastic, confident, even ecstatic state to lethargy and despair. The mood swings can happen any time, but any success can push the manic-depressive into exaltation, and any failure can plunge the person into depression. The second form of manic-depression is an organic disorder. It follows a regular cycle that can range from hours to weeks. The manic phase begins with an excess of energy and confidence, then proceeds to a sort of ecstatic frenzy as the person’s mind races faster and faster. Eventually the person calms down and then slides into a depression as lethargic as the manic phase was energetic. This form of manic-depression can mimic the effects of schizophrenia, and lead to a near-suicidal state.
Effect: Whichever form of the ailment your character has, whenever he fails a task, the Storyteller may secretly roll his Resolve. A failure means the character lapses into depression for the rest of the scene. The character also goes into depression whenever the player makes a dramatic failure on a roll, or the character has less than two Vitae.
While depressed, the character loses half his Willpower points (rounding fractions down), to a minimum of 1. A depressed vampire cannot expend Vitae to gain dice for Physical tasks, either.
Each scene thereafter, the Storyteller rolls one die. On a success, the character throws off the depression and becomes upbeat, energetic and obsessively active for as many scenes as he was depressed. He regains the Willpower points he lost before, and all rolls to resist frenzy suffer a one-die penalty.
Severe depression. In addition to the above effects of a failed Resolve + Composure roll, all dice pools suffer a -2 penalty for the remainder of the scene.
Whenever your character succeeds at a goal (not simply succeeds in a roll, but achieves a desired end such as knocking a challenging opponent unconscious or hacking into a well-protected computer), it might go to his head and pump up his overweening ego. Roll Resolve + Composure to avoid a bout of vanity.
Effect: On a failed roll, your character does not work and play well with others — even if the victory that brings on a bout of narcissism was partly won with their aid. For the remainder of the scene, when called upon to aid in a task your character does so only half-heartedly, unless it’s a task focused on him or his own needs or wants. He suffers a -3 penalty when participating in teamwork efforts (see p. 134). And he’s such a self-obsessed bore that Social rolls all suffer a -1 penalty.
The effects of Narcissism apply, except that the penalties intensify by one. Your character is also highly competitive. He cannot allow himself to fail a contest (even a contested roll). If he does, he obsesses about it and works to arrange a rematch when it’s most beneficial for him. If, for example, he fails to pick a lock while an ally succeeds, he doesn’t let it go. He constantly insists that he did the job and that his successor took the glory, and demands that similar efforts be tried again, even under inappropriate circumstances such as at an office or restaurant.
If your character ever loses a contest to someone he feels is socially inferior, he loses one point of Willpower due to shame and self-loathing (which is at the heart of his megalomania; he secretly fears that he’s a fraud).
Clinical megalomania can consist of a delusion that the individual is some famous and powerful person, contemporary or historical, or even that he is God. A megalomaniac vampire might imagine that he is some famous or infamous Kindred, or the Devil himself.
A romantic form of megalomania might be called “James Bond Mastermind Syndrome.” This sort of megalomaniac obsessively seeks ever-greater wealth and power. Such individuals hide their anxiety (even from themselves) behind a mask of arrogance and supreme self-confidence. The character may seek power by means ranging from intricate conspiracies to brutal murder and terror. To this sort of megalomaniac, everyone is a minion who should do what he’s told, or a competitor who must be destroyed. This belief extends to even members of the vampire’s own coterie.
Effect: If your character ever loses a contest to someone he feels is socially inferior, he loses one point of Willpower due to shame and self-loathing (which is at the heart of his megalomania; he secretly fears that he’s a fraud).
Anytime your character suffers intentional misfortune at the hands of another, he might become extremely suspicious of everyone’s motives toward him. He might crash as a result of being cut off in traffic or receive little help from assistants in a teamwork effort (see p. 134). Roll Resolve + Composure for your character to resist the suspicion compulsion.
“Misfortune” is characterized as failing an important task due to the intentional intervention of another person — even if it’s a friend or ally. Those people whom your character already mistrusts for good reason can still trigger his suspicious nature if they successfully foil his task — everyone then becomes a suspect, plotting to do him wrong. Combat does not necessarily trigger this derangement. A Resolve + Composure roll is made only if combat is the means by which someone intentionally prevents your character from achieving a goal. (Note: A roll for a task might fail and your character chooses to blame someone else, but that doesn’t necessarily trigger this derangement’s effect. Only if someone directly causes him to fail is a roll made to avoid triggering his suspicious nature.)
Effect: Your character’s trust is undermined for the remainder of the scene, regardless of whether or not the person or persons who did him wrong meant any harm. He questions everyone’s sincerity and doubts that anyone tries to help him, even if someone saves his life. He suffers a -1 penalty on all Social rolls. Note that, even though your character is suspicious, he can still be taken in by con men and hucksters. He gets no special bonus to resist their attempts to sway him even though he suspects them of being as bad as everyone else.
Your character believes that her misery and insecurity stem from external persecution and hostility. (That would be an accurate assumption in the World of Darkness, if people actually knew of monsters’ existence.) Paranoids obsess over their persecution complexes, often creating vast and intricate conspiracy theories to explain who torments them and why. Anyone or anything perceived to be “one of them” might be subjected to violence.
Effect: A character who suffers from paranoia automatically suffers a -2 penalty on Social rolls. The character is distrustful and wary of everyone, even close friends and family. The slightest hint of suspicious behavior is enough to provoke a Resolve + Composure roll to retain control (made at a -2 penalty). A failed roll indicates that your character flees or attacks an offender.
Paranoia is a species of delusion. The paranoid believes that enemies persecute her and make her miserable. As a paranoid’s delusions intensify, she spins out elaborate conspiracy theories to explain who’s doing the persecution, and why. Everything goes into the conspiracy. Do the neighbors stay up late? They must be spying. Does she have headaches? Her enemies have dosed her with some insidious toxin. Did she lose her job? The conspiracy arranged it... and of course, they want other people to believe she’s crazy. As paranoia deepens, the sufferer might plot to strike back at her persecutors, whomever she imagines them to be.
This derangement can be hard to diagnose among the Kindred because they really do have enemies in the Danse Macabre. A paranoid vampire, however, can’t tell a real enemy from one that exists only in his head. Imagined enemies can range from the CIA to Satan himself. Paranoid Kindred often turn obsessive-compulsive as well and adopt complex feeding precautions to prevent their enemies from “tainting their blood supply.” They also parse every question or comment for hidden motives and meanings. Suspicion extends even to progeny and thralls subjected to Vinculums — maybe they’re only pretending to be loyal!
Effect: A paranoid character has difficulty with all social interactions because of her reflexive suspicion of everyone. A character who suffers from paranoia automatically suffers a -2 penalty on Social rolls. The character is distrustful and wary of everyone, even close friends and family. The slightest hint of suspicious behavior is enough to provoke a Resolve + Composure roll to retain control (made at a -2 penalty). A failed roll indicates that your character flees or attacks an offender. Additionally, among Kindred, the slightest hint that someone might be an enemy can provoke a frenzy check, with the number of successes required set by how threatening the trigger event seems. A casual remark that seems to show someone knows a bit about the character’s activities might require only one success to avoid frenzy. Finding an intruder in his haven would almost certainly require five.
Your character physically awakens and brings his nightmares with him. Upon encountering a specific trigger (agreed upon by player and Storyteller when the character acquires this derangement), the character finds himself facing the creatures or situation from his nightmares. The player must roll Resolve + Composure, with failure indicating that the character is lost in his nightmare vision. He passes out, unconscious, for the remainder of the scene. A dramatic failure is much the same, except that the character doesn’t simply lose consciousness. He begins attacking anything and anyone around him, believing he is fighting off the creatures or enemies from his dreams. During this state, he is fully capable of using whatever abilities and Disciplines he possesses, but he is also susceptible to frenzy or Rötschreck, depending on the events of his dream.
Although Kindred value their supernatural powers, their Disciplines and Vitae expenditures remind them of their undead state. Some Kindred project their powers onto an object, so they don’t have to take responsibility for them. Other Kindred develop the “power fetish” delusion as a stronger form of good-luck superstition. Whatever the reason, the character believes she cannot use her supernatural powers without the help of a special object. In folklore, for instance, the Swiss vampire called the Alp became powerless without its hat. A character with this derangement might believe that she cannot use her undead powers without the dress she wore when she was Embraced, her lucky bracelet or some other article.
Effect: Any attempt to use Disciplines or expend Vitae without that object reduces any dice pools for an activity by three dice.
Only Kindred can suffer from this special derangement. This delusion grows out of a vampire’s fundamental awareness of guilt about feeding on mortals. Kindred with this delusion believe they take part of victims’ minds or souls along with their blood. For hours after feeding, the Kindred hears a victim’s voice in his head, berating him, begging for mercy or making demands. The vampire even experiences ersatz memories from his victim’s life, all concocted by the vampire’s unconscious mind, but seeming very real. Weak-willed or especially guilt-stricken Kindred might even carry out actions on behalf of their victims. Whenever a sanguinary animist feeds on a mortal, the player makes an Intelligence + Composure roll. If the roll succeeds, the imaginary voice and memories of the victim torment the character for the rest of the night, but the character can function adequately. If the roll fails, the images in the character’s mind are so strong that the other personality can influence the vampire’s actions. The angry victim-personality usually means to harm the character, but the vampire might silence the victim’s voice by doing something he imagines the victim would like. If the player cannot roleplay the possessing victim’s personality, control of the character can pass to the Storyteller for short times. Control automatically reverts to the vampire just before dawn.
For all the anguish that sanguinary animism causes, it illustrates how derangements work (badly) to relieve guilt and stress. As long as the victim’s voice continues, she isn’t really dead — or so it seems — while the vampire supplies her own punishment.
Effect: Sanguinary animism becomes particularly severe when a vampire kills his vessel. In this case, the Intelligence + Composure roll is at -3 dice. A dramatic failure means that the ersatz personality of the victim becomes a permanent fixture in the vampire’s mind. Under stress, the victim’s voice becomes more insistent. The Kindred might distractedly respond aloud to the voices in his head. Further shocks could drive the vampire into multiple-personality disorder (see above), with the Kindred taking on the fantasized personalities of victims. Diablerie is an especially bad idea for sufferers of this derangement!
Whenever your character is stymied by a quandary and must make an important decision about a course of action, or is under extreme stress, she might talk to herself without realizing it. Roll Resolve + Composure to avoid this discomforting habit.
Examples of important decisions include:
Effect: On a failed roll, your character vocalizes her internal monologue but only realizes it if it’s pointed out by others, at which point she can stop for one turn per dot of Wits that she has. After that period, she forgets herself and starts doing it all over again. This behavior persists for the remainder of the scene.
Your character vocalizes even if opponents or rivals can hear. It’s hard to keep her thoughts and feelings secret when she speaks them aloud. For example, a rival might demand that she reveal the location of a hidden heirloom. She smirks and think to herself (and unwittingly speaks aloud), “You’ll never find it in my hidden wall safe.”
There are some Kindred who are so shattered by an explosion of the unthinking Beast that they never really seem to return to their fully rational selves. Driven over the threshold of madness by degeneration or torment, they lose the capacity to understand and form speech, seeming more the mute animal than the thinking man. Rising from torpor, frenzy or torture into uncomprehending psychosis, they wander through a world of gibberish, unable to draw meaning from anything they hear.
This is a purely psychological derangement. The vampire can still hear everything that is being said and has all of the physical faculty necessary to form words, but just doesn’t understand what comes in and seems to have no control over what comes out. His speech is reduced to meaningless babble or clicks and smacks.
This is a horrifying derangement, especially for Kindred who tend to rely on their wit and charm for survival. Frustration and resulting frenzy always threaten a vampire who suffers from Aphasia, arising whenever he is forced to acknowledge that he can no longer comport himself normally in social situations.
Effect: The vampire is unable to communicate via speech. A Wits + Empathy roll must be made to get the basic emotional gist of conversational dialog, and cannot be undertaken at all if the speaker is not visible. He cannot speak intelligibly, and must resort to sign language, written text or telepathy to get his meaning across. The expenditure of a Willpower point allows the vampire to comprehend and form speech for one scene, but he descends back into his sorry state within minutes or hours, at the Storyteller’s discretion.
Conflicting sets of feelings and impulses that cannot be resolved can cause your character to develop schizophrenia, which manifests as a withdrawal from reality, violent changes in behavior and hallucinations. This derangement is the classic sort, causing victims to talk to walls, imagine themselves to be the King of Siam, or to receive murderous instructions from their pets.
Roleplaying this derangement requires careful thought. The Storyteller must determine a general set of behaviors relevant to the trauma that causes the condition. Hallucinations, bizarre behavior and disembodied voices stem from a terrible inner conflict that the individual cannot resolve. Establish a firm idea of what that conflict is and then rationalize what kind of behavior it causes.
Effect: A character with this derangement is unpredictable and dangerous. He automatically suffers a -2 penalty on all Social rolls and may be aggressive or violent toward people who confront him with trauma such as accusations, disturbing truths or heated arguments. Make a Resolve + Composure roll for your character to avoid escaping or attacking the source of trauma.
Schizophrenia is the most severe of all derangements. This mental illness includes hallucinations, delusions, radical mood swings, manic or obsessive babbling on certain themes, and outbursts of violence. The victim constantly hears strange hums, roars or voices in his head. People on TV or passing by seem to look at and threaten him. Delusions of grandeur are common: The schizophrenic thinks he’s Jesus, Napoleon (no, really, it happens) or the president.
Unlike most lesser derangements, schizophrenia has a proven organic cause, an imbalance of brain chemistry that drugs can treat in mortals. Stress also plays a role in sending a latent schizophrenic over the edge, though, and mortals need both drugs and psychotherapy to recover from the disease (if they can at all).
Schizophrenia presents a formidable roleplaying challenge. The player must decide on a general set of delusions, hallucinations and behaviors that relate to the trauma that causes the derangement. The Storyteller, meanwhile, should prepare to include hallucinatory details in her descriptions to the player. The character doesn’t know what’s real, so the player shouldn’t either. The player can probably guess that when the TV weatherman looks at the character and says, “Your sire wants to kill you. You have to kill him first,” that isn’t real. When he waits at a bus stop and someone pulls a dagger from under a coat, however....
Effect: A character with this derangement is unpredictable and dangerous. His player automatically suffers a -2 penalty on all Social rolls, and he might be aggressive or violent toward people who confront him with trauma such as accusations, disturbing truths or heated arguments. Make a Resolve + Composure roll for your character to avoid escaping or attacking the source of trauma. The player and Storyteller should also designate a set of conditions that trigger the character’s mood swings and delusions. Under these conditions, a -2 penalty applies to resist frenzy and Rötschreck as the vampire’s mind is racked by imaginary horrors.
Your character must experience a life-altering trauma or supernatural tragedy to acquire this extreme derangement. It cannot normally be acquired by failing a Humanity roll unless the sin performed is truly gut wrenching or horrific.