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 feels isolated, vulnerable and alone when not in the presence of animals. Kindred and kine are untrustworthy, two-faced and wicked. Animals are honest and dependable. While, in most cases, your character is able to make do with her discomfort provided she is not too far removed from wild creatures, when frightened, pressured, or imperiled, she seeks out or summons the reassuring presence of mundane animals just for her own peace of mind.
This derangement most often manifests in the minds of Kindred who practice the Discipline of Animalism, though no particular level of ability in that Discipline is necessary to open the door to this disorder. A Kindred with the power to summon animals may be more likely to recover from her discomfort, but the anxiety does not wait for the Kindred to gain that power before it deranges her.
In any scene set in an environment where your character cannot expect to see or hear wild animals (even squirrels or birds), roll Resolve + Composure to avoid a bout of anxiety. If the roll fails, the character suffers a -1 penalty to all dice pools for the remainder of the scene. Not actually seeing a wild animal isn’t enough to trigger the mild effect of this derangement; if the character can see a patch of ground or sky where animals would be able to reach her, should she call for them, that’s usually enough to ward off anxiety. GM discretion should dictate what environments are problematic for the character.
The mild effects apply, but in addition your character feels trapped whenever she is uncertain if her calls to nearby animals will be heard. It’s not enough to simply see sky or ground, at this level of derangement – the character cannot function unless she knows that some form of animal life can hear her. If the player fails the Resolve + Composure roll to overcome the character’s anxiety, the character must spend one Vitae and activate the Call of the Wild power (Animalism •••), just to get a sense of how well she can be heard by nearby animals. If the dice pool to activate the power is penalized by the Storyteller due to the nature of the physical environment (sealed windows, secure foundations, etc.), that same penalty affects all the character’s dice pools for the scene if she fails to summon any animals (or if the summoned animals fail to reach her).
This derangement sometimes strikes Kindred who have experienced (and survived) traumatizing events while using the Discipline of Resilience, even if that Discipline isn’t why the character survived. If your character suffers from this disorder, he imagines himself to be much tougher than he actually is. When your character first suffers lethal or aggravated damage in a scene, reflexively roll Stamina + Composure. This dice pool is penalized by the nature of the damage dealt: –3 for bashing, –2 for lethal, –1 to aggravated. (The amount of damage suffered does not affect the dice pool.) If the roll succeeds, the character keeps his head about him.
Mild Effect: If the roll fails, the character is unable to appreciate just how serious his injury is. Instead, he convinces himself that he’s better off pushing through any pain and presenting a strong front. For the rest of the scene, the character cannot Dodge unless you spend a Willpower point.
If the roll fails, the character is unable to appreciate the seriousness of his injury and feels practically invulnerable to harm. The character cannot Dodge or voluntarily stop the action causing harm (e.g., he continues fighting or holds on to a speeding car) unless you spend a Willpower point.
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.
This derangement sometimes affects practitioners of the mind-altering powers of the Ventrue clan. If she suffers from this disorder, your character no longer trusts that her memories are genuine. She suspects that hostile Kindred are rewriting her recollections with Dominate or that her every impulse is actually a missive coded into her psyche by some shadowy Lord. Whenever your character fails a Mental action to recall some detail or scan her own memory, she becomes suspicious and paranoid.
For the rest of the scene, your character suffers a –2 penalty on all Mental rolls as she struggles to overcome her own self-doubt and wastes time double-checking her instincts and rational thought. “Wait,” the paranoid doctor might say, “I’m trying to think if that’s really how the pulmonary arteries work.”
At this level of derangement, your character is quite certain that her memory has been altered, either maliciously or as a side-effect of her own usage of Ventrue blood. She suffers a –2 penalty on all actions for the rest of the scene, at least, as she is rattled by doubt and anxiety. This penalty persists into the next scene, as well, until she has gone over her memory sufficiently enough to convince herself that she is not the victim of someone’s Ventrue blood. The process of double-checking her memory requires an extended Intelligence + Composure action, with each roll taking one minute, versus a target number of 10 successes.
Your character erroneously believes that blood of a certain quality is essential to his wellbeing. He might think that only the blood of virgins (or of successful executives, or of Latinos, or of children, or whatever else) is sufficient for his delicate system. Or perhaps he believes unsuitable blood will soak up his mystic energy and rob him of his vampiric powers. Folkloric wisdom among ancient Ventrue has led some to think they must sup from a series of athletic, intelligent and sexy vessels in a precise sequence, lest the delicate cocktail of Vitae within their undead bodies be thrown out of balance and their Aenead powers be diluted. (“No! It is the second Monday! I must have someone strong of leg or back! Keep her until the Sabbath, when I can drink of the wise.”)
Your character’s feeding restrictions must be defined when this derangement is taken, and cannot be changed unless the derangement is “cured” and then reacquired.
Your character simply won’t satiate himself with improper Vitae. He will not take more than two Vitae from a vessel who does not meet his particular feeding restriction, even if hungry or starving, unless driven to frenzy.
Your character’s delusions overpower even his Beast. He cannot satisfy himself from an improper vessel, even if hungry or starving, even in the throes of frenzy. If faced with the dilemma of consuming improper Vitae or suffering frenzy and torpor, your character drinks only if driven to frenzy, and even then he expends one Vitae per minute just to flush the unwelcome blood from his system. (Vitae spent in this way can be used to enhance Physical dice pools, simulate the blush of life, or simply be vomited up, but it cannot be used to activate Disciplines.)