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Chapter Two:
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If you find you are falling into madness - dive. - Malkavian proverb I keep on dreaming during the day. I thought that was supposed to stop - not that any of the others ever talk about dreams, so I don't really have anything to base that assumption on other than a little common sense. At least, I think it's common sense. I'm 20 years dead. I shouldn't have dreams. But then again, it's not like I can really call what I... we do during me day "sleep." Sleep is a restorative. You're supposed to wake up with more energy, but that doesn't happen unless... That's the part that bothers me most. When the sun goes down, I can usually feel it. Partly it's the return of my strength, however much of that I may have; mostly it's the hunger. Waking up hungry... it hasn't gotten any better with time. But even when what's left of my innards are clawing at me, I think that's better than when I wake up around midnight or so, and I'm not hungry at all. The others keep saying, at least when they think I don't hear them, that everyone in my... family is insane. Mad. I've never thought of myself as insane, not when I was alive and not when I became... this. But it's so hard to be sure. What happens when I'm dreaming? Am I actually awake, and doing things I can't remember? Are they right? Am I insane? The Family MalkavianSaw Fitzgerald, of all people, last night. He looked rather better than he has any right to, all things considered, but there was something around the comers of his eyes. I can't really say what it was, but it felt... strange. I can pick a killer out of a crowd from 20 yards away, and I'm used to smelling that on Fitzgerald; it's just in his nature. But this extra something didn't seem like his nature as I'm used to it; it was like a bad spot in a potato, or a touch of blight. Probably something he just picked up over the last several years - God knows I've changed myself, and plenty. It still makes me uncomfortable, though. I know I can't trust Fitzgerald very far, and even then only on family matters, but this new wrinkle is... disturbing. It was a stupid idea, all things considered, but I ended up asking him about dreams and whether they were something I should be worried about or not. I thought he'd blow me off, but he actually sounded pretty interested. Maybe I told him more than I should have, because by the end of it all, he'd kind of guessed what I was getting at, what I wanted to know. Go to the heart, he said. If there's any sort of disease in the blood, you'll only be able to find it at the heart of the family. So that's what I've got to do. I think I'm sane. I don't believe that my rationality was stripped from me when I was turned. Anything that's happened between then and now is no more or less than what's happened to any other of our kind, blood relations nonwithstanding. If anyone's seriously, provably mad around here, it's our elders, and that could be senility as much as anything else. So I think I'm sane. I'm a little frightened, though. I know I'm not depraved like Becker or Drew or whoever Ringall's friend was back in Waterford. I can see how Fitzgerald or Pearl might be a little touched, but they're not really any worse than most of the withered things that flit around in Elysium or the local Rack. But there's no telling how old either of them are... they lie, after all. And I know that there's not a Kindred among us who wouldn't stoop to slander, so it's not like I have to believe those stories about Malkav's blood - but I have to wonder. That's a good sign, though. If you question your sanity, that's a good sign that you're probably sane after all. I can't remember where I heard that. The EmbraceStart at the root. That's the sensible thing. Find a pattern. Unfortunately, it's so hard finding patterns here, when you're talking about the family. Most of the rest don't like talking about their... their Embraces. Some have a different story every time you ask them. So it's hard to see where the common threads lie. What little I could get to come together came together in Philadelphia, where I managed to get into Pack's mind for a while. He was crystal clear after a few sips, much more so than for any of those self-proclaimed "sane" clans it's been my misfortune to associate with. I wasn't happy to hear about the "reality busters" at all. I'd never met one myself, but the fact that they were out there explained a lot. These creatures, for whatever reason, are textbook stalkers. They select their targets a long time in advance, then systematically start rearranging their victims' (yes, victims, there's no need to kid myself here) lives. Maybe they start by rearranging their victims' apartments. Then they graduate to hypnotizing friends and relatives into temporarily acting strangely or forgetting about their prey. Inducing hallucinations isn't beyond them, either. Basically, it's like Gaslight all over again, only the point is to somehow soften up the victim for the Embrace, to get them "used to" their new reality or something. Sounds like bullshit tome. That's probably how Becker and Pearl got their hangups, come to think of it. Pack didn't know where this tradition got started - I hate to think of some would-be guru starting this whole movement, and then instructing his childer to do likewise. No wonder so many other vampires think Malkavians are insane. They've seen these assholes' work. Then, too, there's the fact that we sometimes work in groups. I have no idea how usual that is - if the Brujah or whoever have "coming-out parties" for their new childer, I've never been invited. But I've assisted in - what is it, four? - sirings over the years - never providing blood to the infant, of course, but always there for moral support, extra muscle, whatever. It seems right; after all, an Embrace is a family event. But look at the patterns - is that a common habit, or specific to us Malkavians? Wait. Largely unimportant, either way; that's just methodology. Motive, now - no patterns at all, not that I can see. If there are any, I'm sure they're not specific to our bloodline. I've heard about cults of enlightenment - isn't there a better term? - and how they keep on trying to focus on our supernal perception and such. But how's that any different than those Tremere freaks? Everything else - well, as near as I can figure, it has to do with advancing a sire's specific agenda or cause. There's no overall agenda to the family; if there's some sort of conspiracy among our line, I haven't been notified of it. ...Even then, there was the part when Pack began talking about "the infection." It was a strange way of putting it, too; I mean, you can't just accidentally make a vampire. I've never made one myself. There's nothing contagious about it. About us. Still, he was completely convinced. If I'd focused hard enough to look right through his face and down into wherever he keeps himself, I'm sure I'd see the same conviction. He's absolutely sure there's some kind of disease in us, and that we can't help spreading it along. He says sometimes we deliberately help it along. And that attitude bothers the living hell out of me. I mean, when I was Embraced... Hmm. Strange. I've got to start sleeping better. I can't tell my dreams from my memories right now. Before and After The Book of Nod claims that Caine forbade the Embrace of "those who are diseased, insane, or full of ill humors, or they will taint the Blood." The Malkavians, of course, ignore this tenet freely. On the other hand, they don't always flaunt it. Basically, it doesn't matter whether or not a candidate for the Embrace is mad beforehand or not, neither from a rules standpoint nor from the clan's perspective. The Curse is the Curse, and all Malkavians wind up in the same boat. Sometimes the derangement you had in life is the one you wind up with in undeath; sometimes it's replaced by another affliction, and sometimes you retain your previous dementia and gain a completely new derangement post-Embrace. The most obvious example is that of mental disorders that stem from chemical imbalances or other problems that just don't exist in the vampiric body. If a vampire's endocrine system doesn't work at all, it would make sense that any side effects of a damaged endocrine system wouldn't manifest in an undead form. However, sometimes such a disorder remains after the Embrace; whatever mark it's made on the person's intellect is apparently quite deep. These disorders can take a very different form in a vampire than they would in a human; for instance, a pedophile in life might become a Malkavian with an almost Ventruelike compulsion to feed only from children, or a strangely passionate jealousy that drives him to assault vampires who somehow "threaten" children. The practical upshot is that the Lunatics who were clinically insane before they became vampires tend to suffer a little more than those who were sane before the Embrace, but that's really neither here nor there, is it? The Gnawed I wonder. Was Pack talking about the ones who come through... wrong? ![]() I should've thought of them sooner, I suppose. I'd kind of written them off as failed experiments; I mean, I'd seen two of them birthed and dragged away, and I suppose it's no wonder I didn't try to think much about them afterward. Sometimes the mind just doesn't make it. If there's some kind of latent disease in us... Kindred, then maybe that's how it comes through. Those two poor bastards... The girl in El Paso, in particular. She just kept shrieking and shrieking, even after we'd fed her. For hours. And she fought like the devil, too. Strong enough to lift me off my feet at least once until we secured her better. And she just wouldn't stop - she just screamed and screamed, even while Fitzgerald stood across her and stared into her eyes, and I could feel his mind reaching out from where I was. "She's Gnawed," he said. "Nothing left but bones." And me, I didn't ask any questions. I held her while he drove the stake in, and I helped load her in the van, and I watched him drive her off. Funny. They took the kid away, too. I asked then if he needed to be put down - how would a catatonic feed himself? - but no, just a shake of the head for an answer. Where do they go? I'm afraid to ask. It would be all too easy to drain them dry once more without a prince ever finding out, and the corpse wouldn't be any different from a mortal's. For whatever reason, someone farther back along than me must need them as they are. Maybe they're kept as private feeding stock for elders; I know that I've been tempted by the smell of another kin's blood. I keep getting these flashes, though, of great pits with iron bars, part zoo cage and part asylum. The thought of those psychotics' cold hands clutching at stone, thrusting through the bars, pleading for release... and why would they be kept there, and not killed outright, if someone wasn't planning on releasing them someday? My imagination's kicking up something fierce. It's my fucked-up rest cycles. If I'd ever seen such a thing, there's no way I'd forget it. GatheringsThe Call came tonight. I didn't need that; I have too much to figure out already without having to spend time with the rest of the family in this city. In whatever city this is... it's so damn hard to tell at night, from the ground level. And my dreams keep fucking up my recollections, so I'm no longer sure which city came first and which came second. It wasn't the first time, of course. I mean, it wasn't the first time the Call had come for this gathering. I'd heard it a week ago, faint like an echo, about a thousand miles away. I was already on my way, though - I didn't come here for the gathering, I came here on my own business. But the Call came again in a few days. It was louder, of course - loud as whispering gets, but louder than that cobwebby sound it was before. And tonight - again, still whispering, but practically in the same room. I mean, comparatively; I know it isn't actually in the room, it's in the blood - And it would have been a major breach of etiquette to miss the gathering, but I went because I didn't want to hear the Call fluttering continuously all night in my head. If the gathering's on in the city you're in, you can hear the Call all night - probably it's reinforced from having six or 10 or 50 of us in one place at one time. I understand some of us - Ringall, for instance - can ignore the Call, or don't hear it as loud as I do. Lucky bastards. Becker was the one who'd called the gathering. Which, of course, meant we were in St. Louis. Funny how I just remembered that - how it becomes easier to remember cities by who's in charge rather than the landmarks and the food. Hadn't seen the Gateway Arch yet, and of course I don't eat. So. Becker. Never any telling what's going to go on at a gathering, and this wasn't any different. Ran for at least an hour without any direction, before Becker started addressing us all. At least nobody obvious from any of the other clans showed up. Yeah, yeah, I know the spiel - anyone who wants to come and open their eyes is free to come get an eyeful - but I just don't feel comfortable with some half-decayed Nosferatu or swish Toreador looking down their nose at the family. I wonder how much goes unspoken at these meetings? Sometimes it seems like the gatherings are called for no point whatsoever, except for a few of the older ones to contact each other and plot in full view of the rest of us. Mindgames, played with the family. When we are called on business purposes, it's usually some crusade or another - show this prince the other side of reality, smite that anarch down for his trespasses, drive these mortals completely bugfuck. Funny thing is, I don't think I've ever seen one of those crusades voted down. It's like only the interested parties would ever hear the Call in the first place, but l know that's bullshit. I've disagreed with the crusades myself now and again, really. Heaven only knows why I wound up going along with them. Self-preservation, I guess. St Louis has its share of freaks, too. At least it's not Philly. The CamarillaIn trying to discover exactly what I am, I seem to be uncovering quite a lot of what I'm not. Um... that doesn't really make sense, but it's hard to... Right. Back to the basics. I've spent almost all of my nights in Camarilla cities, and that's hardly surprising; most of the family has wound up in the Camarilla, after all. It's really not so much a matter of choice for most of us, I think; I mean, you don't get to choose which sect your sire or grandsire sided with back in 1400 or whenever it was. They sort of... seem to like it there. It's not for me - sometimes I just get that itch at the back of my skull when I've been in one place too long, or the dreams start getting a little worse, and that's a sign that I've just gotta go, y'know? - but the system seems to suit 'em. There's a lot more talk about human endeavor, art and thought and the like, in the Camarilla - stuff the Sabbat just doesn't seem to appreciate, or so the stories go. People are more receptive there, at least to open discussion. Question the prince and there's still a good chance he'll mark you down in his ledgers as a potential challenge to his authority, and with that usually comes some form of retribution. But at least it's not guaranteed. I don't know if it would be fair to say that the Camarilla trusts Malkav's line. Most of the vibe I've gotten is that they would rather have the family working for them than against them. It's not really much of a matter of trust; it's an arrangement of practicality. I imagine we're much like the Tremere to the rest of them - not someone they'd prefer to have on their side, but with talents that they can use. They sure don't like Malkavian princes, I'll say that much. It's probably that same damn prejudice toward some imagined "infirmity" - but a Malkavian in power is presumed to be nothing more than a figurehead, ably manipulated by someone behind the throne. Oh yeah, but we're too unstable for even that; we can't be trusted to jump any which way, so we're not even any good as puppet governors. Bastards. It sure is amusing when the occasional family member takes power and does a good job of it. They probably don't expect that to happen too often - or maybe they're afraid that it will happen more often than they'd expect. They don't like to talk about Antediluvians in the Camarilla. A point of etiquette? Or fear? It's an attitude that seems largely exclusive to those outside the family, though. Pack didn't have any difficulty discussing matters of heritage, and neither did Amy-Lynn. It's hard to ignore legends of the founder when you've got something in your head that sometimes pulses with what you can only assume is his shifting consciousness, or memories of his old dreams. The SabbatI swear, I could get in so much trouble for this. If word got out that I was talking with Sabbat, then I'd be banned from the city at best, and devoured at worst And on the other hand, any Sabbat pack who caught me in their territory would probably nail my intestines to a lamppost and drag the rest of me three streets over. This is a sure mark of desperation, which I am not taking as a good sign. But I'm good. I know what I'm doing. I've done worse than this before. I don't know what it is about the Sabbat, but those of the family who've sided with them are the ones who turn out the worst. It sounds like the reality busters have a real foothold in the "antitribu" culture, because it really seems that they're making sure anyone they Embrace is good and crazy beforehand. I was lucky to run into Pearl, really; maybe it's because she's a good bit older than me (and it's the younger generation who really seems to get it in the ass in the Sabbat, probably on account of there being so damn many of them), but she's just about as stable as you could ask for. From the Sabbat, that is. It was one of those serendipity things; that, or maybe she had lookouts watching for me. I'm thinking the former, though. We do tend to find one another "accidentally" an awful lot. Okay, so it might have been a mistake to turn the conversation around to politics. But I needed to open the door, to get her started. Once we'd shared a few stories and I'd agreed with her enough to relax her (but not so much that she'd get suspicious), then I could ask the questions I really wanted to ask. It turned out all right, though. I listened between the lines, focusing on the things she'd never form into words. Her tongue bent around in such a way that it became pretty obvious that whatever she's doing, it hasn't been cleared with most of the ranking princes and such of the Sabbat. Something covert, something unspoken between cousins... I leaned in, and listened more closely. She talked about the silliness of vampire sects making war on one another, and behind her words was hiding a scene of fire and earth, of the ritual mass Embrace of 10, maybe 20 newcomers all at once, all of our family. She laughed and talked about the trip to Amsterdam she wanted to take someday, and in her laughter was a tale of entire packs, all of the clan, all bound to their superiors second and the antitribu's purpose first. She mentioned that sometimes she missed Chinese food, and something... huge was looming behind that little anecdote. And then she seemed to guess that I was seeing what she was leaving unspoken, and the conversation stopped there. Before we split up again, though, I bit the bullet and outright asked if she'd seen any sort of signs of madness in the blood... stuff that couldn't be explained away by particularly harsh Embrace rites. She laughed in my face. What a bitch. "I'm sorry," she said, "but that just sounded so fucking funny coming from you." Then she left a nice tip on the counter and she got up and walked out. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Autarkis I think I've got more cause to worry. "You don't know how lucky you are," Hector said. He said, "Most of the rest of us, we need protection and a solid hunting ground. I don't know how you do it, moving from city to city like that." Shit. He's got an excellent point. I am one of the lucky ones. I can usually find someone to vouch for me in any Camarilla city, and I know enough to keep my head down in Sabbat territory. I've got a bank account large enough to fund the occasional red-eye or to hire someone to drive a truck one or two cities down the road. (Can't remember the last time I made a deposit on that I sure as hell picked the right funds when I made those investments way back when, or maybe I've got the most steadfast accountant in the world plugging away for me.) At least I'm not fully alone, though. Blood runs a little thicker than... well, the blood in the other clans, it seems. Except maybe the Tremere, but, well. Sure, some of the family have tried to do me in shortly after introductions, but I think I was getting treated much the same as any other person would have been. We put up with each other a little better, probably because of the shared burden - I mean, the basic prejudice that other clans have for us, what with them thinking we're all crazy and stuff. (Am I? I still don't think so. I'm still questioning.) Not a hell of a lot of autarkis out here, though. You kind of get isolated from the rest of the family, and that can get scary. Plus, there's that latent terror that if you stay too far away from others of the clan, maybe a little too much of the madn - the supernatural qualities left over in the world will come pooling into you. We draw strange shit; all the lunatics come out of the woodwork around us, and all the strange accidents start happening near us. Better to have company. The CobwebHere's kind of an obvious thought. I wonder: Most of our bad reputation must come from the Network. I mean, what is it that LeRoi called it? Yeah. The "Malkavian Madness Network," as if it were some sort of radio station or television channel or something. That's not our name for it, of course. Come to think of it, we don't really have a name for it. The connection is the clan; the clan is Malkav; Malkav is the connection. Or at least, that's the story. ![]() Well, that's not specifically true. We have names for it, but they're all different. Metatron; the Mouth of God. The connection. The Cobweb. The nerves of Malkav. Babel. The weavery, some say. "Our name is Legion, for we are many" - and from that, the Legion-mind. I've heard Gnostic blathering about encoded sephiroth, stories about racial memory so advanced it allows us to remember things that are still happening - actually, I kind of like that last one. Racial memory - if that's true, it explains a lot. For me, that is. When you get right down to it I wouldn't be surprised if over half of us had no real idea that the Network exists, or at least in the form that I understand it. It just doesn't need an explanation, at least if you're living - um, wrong word - with it. I'm actually surprised that none of the other clans seem to have something like this - or at least, if they do, it's odd that nobody has ever, ever let slip. It seems so obvious that if you're all connected with the blood ties, that you should all have this link of some kind. Like, say, the blood bond. Hmm - hadn't thought of that before. Is the Network something similar to that? It's not like the messages come every night. I hear a flutter of a voice maybe once a week or so; more often as a gathering approaches, of course. Rosegarden's a lot worse off than I am, though; she says she gets those voices every couple of nights. She was the first one to the gathering back in '92, so I guess she's right. On the other hand, take Becker; he almost has to be physically fetched if a gathering's coming. Completely blind to the connection, and kind of fucked up for his trouble. Pack says he thinks that it's Malkav's little clever stunt on all of us; that he's wired us to be his security system, so he can spy through our eyes and run his portion of the Jyhad all the more effectively. That's bullshit. I refuse to believe that Malkav is still out there and awake, much less plugged into all our eyes. If he were awake, there'd be no way we could not know about it. Unless... he woke up during the tide a couple of years back? I kind of feel a little better - no, no, I guess I don't. I should feel better, though, because the "voices in your head" thing comes from the connection, and maybe that's where we get some of our bad publicity. But I can't shake the feeling I'm missing something. It must be because of that shit-eating grin of Becker's, and that habit Drew has of slicing away bits of his skin now and again - as long as they're part of the family, it's hard to say with any conviction that we're not all that bad off. And if they weren't driven mad by overexposure to the Cobweb, then where did it come from? Malkavian PracticesPranking All right, relax: There's an outside chance that all of this - my sleep schedules, these "somnambulistic feedings" or whatever they are - is just a prank. If that's true, it's neither fanny nor appreciated. I suppose whoever's doing it - if they're doing it, don't get unnecessarily paranoid - is probably trying to get me to doubt my sanity, to question my role in the clan, to figure out just why it is that I belong. Maybe it's working, then. Maybe. I don't see as how I was being particularly obtuse before, though. The pranking - that's something we direct at people who are a little too secure in themselves and their perception of "their place in things," not - Huh. Okay, look again at that. Maybe I am being pranked. The best ones are always subtle, that's true. Matter of pride. Get the target thinking that maybe he's going crazy, or maybe he's just opening his eyes for the first time. Make him wonder which it is. Make him think about the fact that even he's made of skin and bone that can burn - get a feel for his own mortality. Get him thinking outside the box. "Practical joke" is just such a bad term for it. It goes so beyond pratfalls. God, what was that howler that Netchurch stuffed in one of his theses? It's not even really meant to be funny, really, not even to us - well, the better pranks are, but that's not the point. Painting all the marble in Elysium in those bright colors that the Greeks used to favor; you don't really do that to see the faces of the Toreador. Well, maybe you do, but it's more to see that slow seeping realization that they've become such creatures of habit that they - Getting restless now. I'm getting that kind of itch, I guess because I've been thinking about this so much. Who's set for a little eye-opener around here? Keslo? Maybe. Takes a lot of guts to go after the big targets. Maybe I'm soft, but I get real nervous when the local cousins start putting an entire clan in their sights. It's only happened twice, sure, at least as far as I've seen-but God damn, if it wasn't just about the same thing each time - and this in cities a few thousand miles apart. The cousins were in character, so to speak, the minute they walked into the gathering space. Even the locations were kind of atypical, although they made a sort of sense if you think like a bastard. The children's library seemed like a really stupid place to hold a gathering, but when everyone started acting like the local Warlocks, it was kind of funny in hindsight. It must involve some serious surveillance beforehand; I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that Canterer never spoke with a clipped Dover accent before the Oakwood Street gathering, and she hasn't used it since. She wasn't playing the part of anyone I saw in the Elysium, either - probably one of the lesser lights. Damn, but I wish they'd provided nourishment that wasn't a little spiked. I really wish I could remember exactly what I was doing then, and who I was hanging with for the duration. I feel they might've scammed me into playing a part, too, but I don't remember anyone approaching me about it or giving me my instructions. Fucking memory lapses... Nobody said anything afterward, or really called it to anyone's attention, but I get the feeling that both times this happened, the gathering was being watched. Probably by a member of the appropriate clan each time. That makes sense; what's the point of putting on a fancy show like that for our amusement? Thing is.. if I'm being pranked, a lot of cousins must be in on it, and it's going on outside sect boundaries. I've had these dreams and lapses on both coasts, and even outside the States. I have to wonder why they're bothering. Prophecy LeRoi is really starting to act like a dick. I have told that motherfucker repeatedly that I'm not going to go scurrying back to help him out with his little Elysian schemes, that I'm on a goddamn mission here. I said to him, "Use this number only for emergencies, got it?" And what does he do? He promptly calls me up, not even a year into my fact-finding mission, whining about he's starting to get these bad feelings, and that I need to start getting all oracular for him so he knows which way to jump. "Look," he said, "there's really nobody else I can trust. And you have the Sight - that is what you call it, too, right? You have the Sight, and it's strong inside you. I know you don't think of yourself in that way, but you have to believe me. You can see. The... the you inside, it has vision that you have yet to tap. And I need that vision." Yeah. I'll admit it. I've got the Sight. I'm one of the family, so that means I'm not completely fucking blind. But I swear to God, I have no idea why he thinks I'm the Delphic Oracle all of a sudden. There are family members out there who make a living at foretellings and interpretations, sure. Personally, I think they're pranking the outsiders half the time, and that's damn sure why I'm not going to any of them to run some dream interpretations for me. Odds are, they're in on the prank that's running me ragged out here, so that'd be useless. ![]() I guess it must have something to do with the family's history, but I still don't get where this whole "Malkavians as seers" thing comes from. Admittedly, it's a lot less widespread than the whole "crazy" rumor - or maybe it isn't, and the outsiders who want to court a seer's services just keep it under wraps. Maybe it's because of that Umeda guy who started foretelling the Camanlla's birth, or whatever the story is. It might have something to do with fishing information off the weavery, but that's just ridiculous - how in the world are you supposed to deliberately fish around in what essentially amounts to a pack of voices speaking in tongues in your head every now and again? It's not the goddamn Internet. I suppose there are reasons that it's us, and not the Toreador or the Tremere. The Toreador just don't focus enough on the ugly and the broken; what little Sight they have is so fine-tuned that it's not really that useful. And the Tremere? I suppose it's easier to trust the neighborhood "Lunatic" than it is to put your faith in a butchered cat and some star charts. Anyway, I gotta admit that I was really damn pissed - maybe more pissed than LeRoi deserved, maybe, but he's just got to realize that I've got something that needs doing here. I guess it was a little spiteful of me to feed him that cock-and-bull story about lying down on his own funeral pyre, but he'll get over it. Pranks and Prestige Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of Malkavian pranks isn't to gain clan prestige. In fact, there's no guarantee that the architect of a particularly inspired prank will gain any regard at all amongst his peers. Pranking is actually part compulsion and part intellectual exercise; to the Malkavians, it's as natural as teaching a child to read or pointing out a brilliantly plumed bird to a friend who doesn't see it. It's almost a method of sharing - sharing the ability to see more of the world for what it is. Any vampire who's a compulsive creature of habit is ripe pickings for a prank; for example, if he goes hunting in a cycle of the same three clubs each Friday, a Malkavian who knew him would probably try having his car towed, barring him from entrance or otherwise disputing his routine. Vampires who are overly set in their ways are just ripe for picking. The exception is the fellow Lunatic whose derangement makes him a stickler for order; such a vampire isn't really due a pranking, as he already sees "something other than the cave walls," and his behavior is just a reaction to the greater reality that other clans don't see. Twisted logic, to be sure, but nobody ever accused the Malkavians of anything else. A final note: Being a Malkavian, and being expected to prank somebody every now and again, doesn't grant the equivalent of diplomatic immunity. There's an unspoken agreement between the Malkavian elders and the elders of the other clans that only so much "levity" will be tolerated. If an idiot childe decides that it's a good idea to pull down the prince's pants in the middle of Elysium, and the prince decides to exact immediate retribution, the other Malkavians probably won't lift a finger on the prankster's behalf. The shrewdest Lunatics know when to say when. Reality Busting With what Angheliki said the other night, it's kind of tempting to assume that pranking is part of what gives the family our... reputation. Pranking doesn't really explain it all the way, though. Maybe there are more reality busters out there than I'd thought. No, not necessarily. There doesn't have to be that many of them for word to get around-I mean, those damn Tremere still talk about the demon Salubri until sunup, and has anyone seen a Salubri in the last 200 years? So if the Salubri are just about the equivalent of a vampire urban legend - and if they're supposed to have three eyes, it's hard to take 'em seriously - it's feasible that the "Lunatic" label might've sprung out of the stories of Malkavians who like to drive other people mad. Driven bastards, I'll give them that much. At least if Ringall is any example. They do have a point in that we can see things that mortals and even most other Kindred can't. I doubt that madness is the key to opening those doors, though. After all, insanity is an internal thing, right? It's not connected to any outside forces - crazy humans aren't hooked into the Cobweb, right?- it's purely in your own head. It's something trying to get out of you, not the world trying to get in. Ringall disagrees, of course. And if I didn't know better, I'd say he's crazy. Wait. One problem there. The reputation for... insanity, it's old. It would have to have started back with the elders, and I've never even heard of one of the older ones playing at this kind of game. I bet that doesn't mean they wouldn't do it. More like they do it the long way, over time. If that's true, then I guess the only people who could pick up on it would be other elders. So it makes sense. It does make sense. Maybe I've found the answer. Elders and ChilderGod, I don't know what came over Hoxha tonight. I'm lucky he had that ghoul handy. Okay, I'm going to have to force myself to say it, but I honestly don't recall ever meeting an elder uncle that wasn't just a little fractured. Time grates on the old ones, I guess. Maybe it's not so much a pattern of insanity that the others talk about, but more a pattern of senility. Or maybe it's just because of the time period they were taken. Combination of both, even. ![]() They don't fit real well into all that Freud/Jung stuff I was fed in college. Years on years of convincing themselves that they're crazy, without any of the terms of modern-day psychiatry - no wonder they're bent in ways I can't really empathize with. If you listen to the others, you can hear them talking back and forth about Malkavian seers, kind of pretending that they don't believe all the stories but not doing a real good job of covering it up. The elders, that's probably where that reputation comes from. If you get the Sight and you deal with it every night for centuries, yeah, that qualifies as being a prophet or something. No wonder they sometimes figure that they're given their visions by God or some substitute. Angheliki's sire was something like that, or at least I think she said so. It's kind of rubbed off on her, anyway. And there's Marleybone, the Puritan. He's got that Biblical fixation that would give me goose pimples, if, well. I heard that it was the same with most of the older ones. Comes of growing up in a time when the Church is what you eat, drink, sleep, breathe; wasn't there a study about how multiple personality disorder as we know it wasn't recorded until a certain century? And then everything else before then that was even close was cases of "demonic possession." Urgh. I'd forgotten Mantius. The ancillae tend to be a little more recognizable. I suppose it's a byproduct of modern medicine; they're able to cope with the mental shift into becoming... this... without having to believe that the voices in their heads are demons or something. And the ancillae of the other clans are fond of quoting Jung and Freud when they think we aren't listening. This is also, God help us all, where the serial killers start popping up. Okay, I know they're not exclusive to the family. I've heard stories of that Nosferatu organ collector in Detroit and the Gangrel who kept slicing single mothers into thin strips. Not to mention the Sabbat... But yeah, the family's had its share, from what I've heard. Drew's borderline, but I doubt he has the same kind of need to kill - he doesn't try making his own opportunities. Maybe it's got something to do with the Industrial Revolution and what city life became; Jack the Ripper didn't crawl from the woodwork until the 1800s, and he's the earliest serial killer I can think of. The elders, when they kill - they just think differently. Products of a different time. I'm totally against giving the Embrace to maniacs, but apparently others disagree. And God, the stories are getting frightening. Cities are so huge and dense, and the TV keeps flooding the kine's heads with stresses and superstitions they wouldn't have had before, and religion is fighting with science, and people don't know what to believe - and that's the latest generation of vampires we're getting. Overdosed on stimulation, with so many different visions of the world competing that they snap and start carving out their own visions - things I could never imagine. The youngest childer, they frighten me. What's really funny is how the modem world seems to think that being crazy is no real drawback. It's the in thing to have a therapist. Prozac will make you feel better. There's no real emphasis to just buckle down, to just cope. People are willing to admit that they're dysfunctional, repressed, oppressed, chemically unbalanced - anything to shift the responsibility for their actions onto the convenient little scapegoat of being "just a little out of whack." And they'll gladly suck down any chemical or undergo just about any "treatment" that doesn't involve too much work on their behalf. Pretty soon, people won't be learning to cope at all - just to take their medication on a regular basis. Not me. No way. I'm not crazy, and it wouldn't be an excuse, anyway. The "Antitribu" Perspective We are torn, torn in two, There is a great weight of filial loyalty that presses on our collective breast; for, after all, are not the insights and enlightenment given to us by our collective father Malkav? And yet, should he stir to wakefullness, the gift he has given each of us would tear loose from our very skulls, fly from our very veins. He would pool into consciousness, rise from our scattered bodies - but where would that leave us? Even if what they say is true, and his body remains whole and unguarded somewhere, we would all lose part of ourselves to feed his activity. It is the sacred duty that we hold, the task of all true children of Malkav, that we spread his mad seed as far as possible, amongst as many of us as we may. If we are fruitful, and we are strong, then we can spread his blood and disease so thinly that, he will remains in slumber. If we reduce his soul to finely minced gobbets, so small that we will at last be the infection's master rather than slave, then we can devour his essence, his delirium, his wisdom, all the fragments of his divinity that have been left in our blood. There is a term, so very modern, yet so accurate that I regret it was not coined sooner: Bite-size portions. Even our wayward children in the Camarilla know our purpose, and they share it; after all, why is it that they do not destroy every last one of the infirm and broken amongst themselves? No, they agree to keep the line sound. For every foolish, squawking madman that is condemned to Final Death, they Embrace two more. Such is wisdom. Such is the means to mastery. We are really not so different, you see. We are all Malkav's get. And we will yet be Malkav. - Drozodny, pack priest, Malkavian antitribu Pockets of Madness I swear to God, I think the alley outside is whispering. There's nobody in it at all, and I've looked so hard I'd see an ant take a piss at the other end. Maybe it's ghosts; they say we can hear them, now and again. We. Vampires. Not Malkavians. We're not some different species of vampire. Not like the Nosferatu. Maybe I'm not making it up. Pack was fond of talking about how Malkav's illness transcended not only distance and bodies, but even the blood. He said that it could even get into a house, a street, a city - that it would pool in some places that had the kind of psychic indentations necessary. Like water rolling downhill. Hill House. Standing by itself, not sane. Unpleasant thought. Now I have to wonder what such a place would be like. I've heard of the Well of Mirth, but I'd presumed that its waters caused hallucinations because of some fouled chemical composition, but that doesn't explain why the German cousins hold it almost sacred. Maybe they know something I don't; maybe the water's only part of the answer. Would a place like that, a mad place, would it drink blood that was spilled there, soaking up the power in the vitae? Would it need to? How would it power its broadcasts of delirium? I mean, the street down in Paris where they dragged out those daughters and - ... Am I remembering this? Clan TraditionsStabbing into the heart of the clan again. Fitzgerald, the bastard, keeps on playing keep away with the answers. Everyone's playing some kind of giant game, and I can't find out what exactly they're working toward. It's all about the tools. The methodologies. Thought that was unimportant, but I see differently. Now. They have agendas. Of course they do, we all do, but there's patterns. Always patterns. Infection. They like to use that word a lot. It's like we're all playing this giant morbid joke on the rest of the world. Like we want to be the guy who scrawls "WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF AIDS" on his one-night-stand's bathroom mirror or something. It seems like a pretty fucking juvenile stunt when it all comes down to it. But most everyone I know is too smart to buy into that whole "Embrace everybody until the world's full of vampires and we, uh, have nothing left to eat" line. Drew. The bastard. That's what he proposes. Whatelse? Anarchy. No government, no Sabbat or Camarilla or anything. Self-empowerment for every last vampire in the world. Only it's a long, slow plot, way beyond what those adolescent anarchs consider apropos methodology. And the slaughtering of the sacred cows - what's the word - Iconoclasm. Dash people's treasures to bits and force them to sift through the shards to find what's important The tricksters gather here, under this. Iconoclasm is their icon. Pearl. She's one of these. She's here to destroy. And that leads to Illumination. The need to teach. To open up the doors of the mind. Ringall, that's what he wants. And lots of other cousins with him. They don't want to illuminate me, though. They don't want to tell me the truth. What makes them think that I'm somehow in the know, just because I've got the family blood? So many cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles - so many perceptions and truths. God, I must be floating on the Network, I must not have realized it... so many ideas, so many traditions, so many goals... Take it easy. What else is there? What about Rosegarden...? Yeah. Detachment. That's it. Use the material goods; don't let them use you. Don't get too attached. Don't get attached at all. Withdraw. Break the chains of the body, of flesh, living or dead. Transcendence can't come if you're shackled to things; nothingness can't find you then, either. Flashes. I can see the divisions. Marleybone-he stands for Divine connection. He and the uncles and aunts and cousins like him, they find a link between themselves and the sublime. The elders call to be chosen; the young ones want to be the ones who choose. I understand too much... Can't shut it out. That's another trap. Ignorance. If I decide to ignore what I've learned, I fall with these ones. Zen psychotics. Rejection of thought and rationality, nothing left but physical action. Malkavians on autopilot. Terrifying. No guilt, no shame - no choice. You can't be punished for your choices, because you didn't choose, you only acted. You can't be faulted for your reflexes. No ideas. Nihilism. The ultimate breakdown. I can feel them out there. I don't dare reach out for them; they're so cold, my fingers would freeze and snap off. They're the ravens waiting for Gehenna, the hounds at the gates. So many more of them in these last few years before it all ends; they must sense the finality as it's coming, and give themselves over to it. Most of them young, younger than me; the elders, though, the ones who've been waiting for centuries and centuries, and are grinding their teeth against whetstones, they're starting to move... Come on, think! Where do I fit into all of this? What's my agenda? The Real Clan Tradition Traditions are nice, but you really don't have to have any. Salvation Is it possible? I've dug up so much else. Found so much. Found I'm not whole. No, I am whole! But I feel so weak. I don't know how to classify those rumors of redemption. I mean, you hear them the fast time, and you want to believe them. Then, later on, once you've heard some of the other insane bullshit - no, don't use that word, they're not necessarily crazy - but once you've heard some of the theories that go rampaging around the family, and some of the anecdotes, you learn not to take just any rumor at face value. But the word. The name. It rings, and it rings right - like I've heard it before. Golconda. It'll purge the infection, they say. If you free yourself from the Hunger, you free yourself from the demands that your mind forces on you. (Who are they? I don't know for sure. Voices on the Network.) All the powers of the Sight, but the ability to drink it all in at once. The ability to stare at the sun without blinking. I swear, I wish I could believe in rumors right now. The World OutsideTwenty years dead. Twenty. I'm sure of it. It's the Sight, that's what's causing me problems. I can see textures - I couldn't do that before I can almost tell colors with my eyes shut, by touching them and feeling how much heat they reflect. It's living - no, wrong word - with that kind of perceptions that's making me think I remember things that I couldn't possibly remember. A hyperactive imagination. Like dreams - NO. Mustn't think like that. I don't dream when I'm awake. I do not hallucinate. I am only 20 years dead. I can remember only 20 dayless years, and 31 sunlit years before then. I cannot remember the 19th century, or any time before. It's my imagination. Listen to me. I'm rationalizing. I don't actually believe everything I'm saying, do I? No. I don't want to believe that I'm insane, but I still wonder. That's a good sign, wondering. Wondering whether I'm sane or not By rights, that should mean that I am sane. But they aren't memories. Assamites Listen here, child. Here's a secret. For free. You see, Assam or Hakeem or Mustafa or whatever those blood-parched devils call their primordial god-monster father, he's a severed god, too. Just as was Malkav, he was hewn into bits and scattered into the mouths of his younglings. The same thing. Only - and this is an "only" you should pay careful heed to, O best beloved - Assam did not settle into the minds of his childer. Where did he go? Well, what does an Assamite love best? Learn this, and you learn where their own forebear dwells. But that's why they're not the beasts they once were He stirs in them, just as Malkav stirs in us. And oh, I feel sorry for us all when the Assamites start vomiting up their father-god into a communal vessel so that he can stand on bare feet under the night sky once more Brujah Good animals, the Brujah Good animals. Not herd, by any means, not wolves or cats. Dogs. Angry dogs, but smart dogs They can watch you take out your keys, and they know you'll be opening the door. They can watch you unlock the door and work the handle, and they know what you're doing. But they never think to work the handle themselves. And they probably don't have the thumbs to do it, either. We could probably give them thumbs, but we'd likely get in trouble with the other animals for that. This is scaring the piss out of me. Why is this stuff coming to me? Caitiff I tnink I shall start a collection, and I think l shalI collect Caittiff. They are raw, unformed, they are untainted by the Traditions, the fetters of blood. They have no prejudice, no confidence. They acknowledge their own ignorance. They are in need. Followers Of Set Encounter one Setite, and what you might see is a vampire with a poignantly acute eye for opportunity. Encounter two, and you see a partnership in vice. But look at all of them, the whole bloodline, and what do you see? Us. Faith, madness, the same. For a very good reason, a terrifyingly simple reason. Remember. Upon your death and rebirth, while you were drifting in the void, Malkav's blood called out to you You looked to see where the voice came from. To use a simple metaphor, where other vampires were still scrunching their eyes shut, refusing to look at what lay between worlds, you looked to the left, and you saw. Now you see, when a Setite is brought across the threshold, Set's blood calls to him. The not-quite-dead, not-quite-undead childe hears the voice, and looks to the right. And he sees. Keep that in mind. No bloodline understands us and our insights better than the Followers of Set, and no clan excels so greatly at keeping the heart of their knowledge a secret, hidden under layers of propaganda and slander worn like cloaks. They are our great co-conspirators, even if they shall never admit it. Further, they are irritable regarding the subject, so remember not to press the point. Gangrel What a bunch of preteens. Hanging around in their leather jackets, too cool to talk to anybody else. Too cool to care. And if you don't pay enough attention to them, then they just make this big show of stomping off and sulking, trying to convince us that they don't need us, that they're so big and tough and cool and mighty that they don't need anybody. And they keep looking back over their shoulders as they go, but only in little glances so you don't see that they're looking. What they want is, they want us to go running after them like some jilted cheerleader, plucking at their sleeves with tears streaming down our faces, begging them to come back, telling them that if they come back and stay with us then we'll never ignore them again, that we'll always be faithful and true. Fuck 'em. Giovanni Children of a dead god. Eaters of the dead, of the dead who ate corpses themselves. Feasters on corruption. They have spent too much time dead, dead like stones. Are corpses afraid? They should be. The people on the outside, the people that they let in only when they feel like it, are pounding very hard on the glass. I hear them striking at the glass. 1 heard the glass crack. I think they're coming in. The Giovanni should be afraid. The glass is cracking. And the people on the other side hate them. ![]() Lasombra They don't know. They really don't. I can only guess that they think they're the ones in control. They gesture, the Void moves in that direction, they presume that they are giving orders. I suppose that the honey guide believes that it orders the ratel to destroy the beehive, kill the bees and feast on the honey, all purely so that the honey guide has its choice of leftovers . It would probably like to think that the ratel is obeying its commands. So it is with the Lasambra. Strings run from their hands off into the blackness, and they believe that they are the ones who do all the pulling. Nosferatu It's very hard not to like the Nosferatu. For all their creeping and skulking, they are so very, earnestly sincere. The younger ones treat me with pity that I don't require; the elders treat me with respect. We play a little game together, a little game of conspiracy. It wasn't my idea or theirs to begin the game, but since the others liked to leave both of us out to one side, we started our game for something to do. It's particularly charming when they try to creep up behind me when they think I'm not looking, as if I'm going to drop something absent-mindedly or reveal my ankle as I hop a mud puddle or something. They get very offended when I notice them, though, so I usually pretend they aren't even there. They really are a little too attached to their fleshly bodies, though. It's vain of them to disfigure themselves as they do. Perhaps someday they'll grow bored with their mortifications and then we can chat like adults. Ravnos I held Delizbieta's hand as she died. Poor child. Her only crimes were being descended from a monster that gnawed itself hollow long ago, and being ignorant. When it woke, she was unprepared. I should have reached her sooner. If she'd been ready, she might have survived. But she couldn't endure the pain of her clan's broken minds. She wasn't accustomed to it. The cross is broken now. The devil's tenth head has been severed. The demon king has bled out his life, and Golden Lanka is toppled and burnt. Beware. Beware. Delizbieta's fate is my own. We must be ready - we cannot be ready - we must be ready, or we will die their deaths for them all over again. Toreador It isn't such a difficult thing to understand the Toreador's obsession, if you try. Think - they too have the Sight, even if their lenses are some what fractured. They see beyond the realm of human senses; they run their fingers along the weave that so many others blindly ignore. Even their fetes and dances and social games - those trace out a greater pattern, the sigil of their own identity. They know who they are. Their fault lies in their weakness, regrettably; a Toreador would rather slice his own flesh than slice a beautiful section of pattern. They can see beyond the Lie, but so many prefer the Lie's beauty to the things, ugly or not, that lie beyond the paper walls of perception. I loved a Toreador once, most ardently. 1 loved him because he could speak to me, because he understood the compulsions that the Sight brings. Of all the things that have withered and broken from remaining too close to my accursed self, I miss him most all. Tremere The Warlocks are half-awake. They cast out with childlike fingers, feeling the texture of things. They touch and they taste and they smell the world, looking for the connections. They see that the moon changes, and that the tides change, and that women's blood shifts, and they see a pattern. They see the bright new star that bleeds in the vaults, and they see the blood falling on concrete, and they see a pattern. They believe that all things are connected. That is where they draw short. They believe. They do not know. Yet. Watch the Tremere. They do not see as far as we do, but they see things that are so near as to escape notice. Watch them, and listen to what they believe they have learned. Eventually, they may notice us imitating them - and then they might became wise enough, to imitate us. They are very close. Tzimisce Diseased. Filthy, diseased, crawling things. Plagued with the infection of flesh. Disgusting. Dirty. Diseased. Weeping sores. Slice them away. Slice their bodies away before they are lost in the meat. No. Don't touch the meat. Let them boil in their prisons. Don't touch them, the filthy, crawling creatures. Keep away from them. They share their infection. They think they have carved out their cancer, but it grows. It grows in them. It waits until Gehenna to eat their flesh. To consume the corrupted, stinking meat. CAN'T THEY SEE? Ventrue They sit on their thrones because their thrones are barbed. Hooks and wires spring from the chair and pass into their flesh, and not one of them will relinquish his seat. If one were to do so, then the barbs would pull away his skin, and he would be left naked - and they do not so much fear having others see their nakedness as they fear beholding their own selves unmasked. Even when a throne is vacated, its hooks and jags and barbs glistening with bits of the last king, the Ventrue will vie far the empty chair. "We are the finest," they say. "We can govern you. We can protect you from the Sabbat, from the Lupines. We can make things safe for all of you." I don't know how they can protect me if they can't protect themselves from the chair. Lupines What was that last bit? Lupines... Does that mean some kind of werew... the... oh Jesus, it... I... hrrk - AAH! Hnnngggh... ...they are the Lilin, the monsters begat of an angry mother and the demons of the field! They are our scourge... ...my arms! My arms! Please, spare me! Please... ...fools, all of them... should have known (that if you build a wall, something on the other side will want it to come down... ...AA-ANG! SYKORA! From the West he rises, from the corpse-seas, the Waksha-water... girt in black, robed in violet! AA-ANG! Master of the profane! SYKORA!... ... you can hear them crawling under the ground; you can hear them scratching at the door; you can hear them creeping across the roof. they are all around us. they want to kill us. oh god why am i out here where they can find me?... ... Daisy? Henry? Don't leave me. Don't leave. Please - DON'T LEAVE! DON'T GO - ...hhhh...hkkh. Guh. D - Dammit. God. If these are the scars they leave on the weavery, what must actually meeting one of those monsters be like? Mages Never listen to an idiot's ranting. It'll only make you angry. Stupid, stupid cow, bull, steer, whatever. No different from the rest of the herd. So damned convinced that reality is something that you can touch and hold and fold and spin like clay. Idiot! Backwards. He had it all backwards. So ready to accept that reality is what everyone tells you it is - worse, worse than that! Moron! Reality is immutable. There is no change in reality, there is only a change in your perception. Move your hand in front of the mirror all you want - you're not moving the mirror. You're not even moving a real hand, other than your own. You're just swallowing the mirror's little speech. Break the mirror. Break the mirror, idiot. You'll never get anywhere if you think that moving the reflection around is going to change anything. You can't change the reflection. Look beyond the mirror. Look at what the world is. Ghosts Have the dead begun to rise from the crocks in the earth yet? I cannot see for myself, but I feel certain that the dead must be walking by now. I had... visions, once, long ago. Can you tell me if they have torn themselves from the grave yet? I knew a dead woman once. She was so sad and so faint, I thought that surely if I were to tremble while she touched me, her fingers would snap off and drift away. She was hunted, and I could smell her pursuers on her - I could smell their obsession. The dead are obsessed, you know. They've forgotten everything they knew, forgotten their sense of perspective - only the obsession matters. I knew a dead woman. She didn't tell me anything about the fires burning in the underworld, even when I asked about them, when I told her that I saw them burning. That was so long ago. Now even my memory deceives me. I cannot hear her voice - what I hear is howling, a howling so loud it deafens me, drives me into hiding. The voices are so loud; she must have been torn to pieces, evaporated, erased by their force. Surely the howling has broken the earth by now; surely the dead are walking once more. Are you certain you cannot tell me? I want to know... Faeries Gone. And we cannot, could never follow. Hunters God damn it, what is this world coming to? LeRoi's dead, and the guy who did it was just this freaky little office worker with a can of kerosene and a match! He just stood there by the body while it was burning; he should have split a long time before I got there. It didn't make sense. What was he thinking? Uhn... was I trying to forget? Something... something was hanging over his shoulder. What the hell was that? Are there creatures out of the invisible side of things now coming across, out into the three-dimensional side of things? Was I just hallucinating? Dammit, it's been one fucking hell of a night if I think that seeing things that aren't really there would be the lesser of two evils. And... wait... LeRoi died a month ago... The Human ElementLost five hours tonight. There's a suitcase full of money in my trunk. I swear, I really need to talk to someone who isn't in the family, but who could I find to understand? I... we... the family, we'renot always so good with humans. We can't even really talk like equals to the others, the outsiders, the... (don't say "uninfected," don't say it, don't)... the other clans. The other families. They treat us like pariahs, and then they play ignorant to the things going on right in front of them just to try to make us think that we're hallucinating. ![]() So humans? Harder and harder. I mean, I had a family. A real family by birth, not by this liquid fostering. I know I had a family. I lost their pictures a long time ago, and there's these strange people in the house we used to live in, and I've changed my name so many times that I can't remember where I left my original papers, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. And I still have... well, friends might not be the right word, but plenty of acquaintances. Have to maintain some distance. They can sort of smell that there's something about me, I can tell; it's that way they look at me while they're kind of freezing in place, like a rabbit who figures if he doesn't move, the snake can't see him. But that's kind of a vampire thing, I guess, although I don't know how folks like Carmelita manage to avoid that predator/prey reaction. Must be some kind of Toreador family secret; whatever it is, she's good, because I've never sensed her work to overcome that "here I am, I'll goddamn kill you" kind of projection that the rest of us seem to give off. Not even a little bit. But yeah, I've got acquaintances. I still talk to people, even if they get a little unnecessarily attentive around me. And it's not just me. Look at Reeve; she's in so many social circles outsiders tend to think she's a Toreador at first glance. Pack keeps a girlfriend or five; not like he's a Mormon or anything, he just makes sure he's always got someone to fall back on, because it's hard keeping people close to you without destroying their lives. It's hard when you're not even alive yourself. Well, there's... options, of course. I don't keep a ghoul, and I've never had one. Rosegarden keeps, what, nine of them? She likes to be nurtured. Or so she says, even though she doesn't need a damn bit of nurturing, the psychotic - No. Not psychotic. Don't obsess. Ghouls. Right. You wouldn't think that people would want to stay near us, but they do. And it's not always a matter of the blood doing the binding. Sometimes it's the whipped-dog syndrome; all that built-up shame and guilt they've got, and they somehow sense that we're going to make their lives difficult, and they welcome it. Pack's women are like that - well, that or they're attracted to his aura. He does tend to project "dangerous bastard." So do Reeve, Pearl, Fitzgerald (fucking Fitzgerald, setting me on this fucking chase, making me fucking dig up all this fucking rot in the family) - they're all dangerous. You don't need the Sight to sense the sharp edges all around their personal space, and some people go for that. Some people want to get cut. Pearl's right. People can be such fucking cattle at times. No, shut up. Where were you? Ghouls. I don't want one; I'm mobile. A new city every month or so, at least as long as I'm on this chase. But then again, I'm kind of the exception in a lot of ways. I... kind of have these flashes, like I'm remembering these guys who used to... but that's part of the dreams, and I think I might be getting them through the... the links. But ghouls are... kind of popular among the rest of us. We're a family that likes to adopt. Sometimes the servant you take really does wind up inheriting the mansion; sometimes the help's like part of the family. Of course, Drew speaks for the other side - I pity the poor bastards who have to go limping back to him. You'd think the ones that survive would learn something, but they never do. They never do, really. Where the Malkavians AreDear God. I shouldn't have looked at the calendar. I'm missing days, weeks out of my life. (Life?) Maybe it's all the traveling. We're not supposed to move from city to city much. Don't do that. Lupines. Traditions. Maybe this is what jetlag does to vampires. Maybe you just oversleep a lot if you travel like I've been doing. And maybe you don't get hungry if you... no, that's not it! Where have I been all this time? Okay. One at a time. United States. Lots of cities there. Lots of Malkavians there, too. So damn many people, all coming to the States and trying to hold on to their cultures, reject their cultures, maintain family traditions, break with family traditions - it's a mess. Cities blown up out of control; people trading their sense of identity for whatever the TV's selling. A hive. Buzzing with kine, and with us. From what the others say, the elders tend to collect in New England - I don't know what's up there that they find so important. The Gnawed, maybe that's where they're shipped. The American Gnawed, I mean. There are princes among the family here. It's a good place for a cousin to be a prince, because the cities grow up and then start withering at the core, and some of them die off so fast. There's archbishops in the family here, too; I've heard the Call pulse out of Miami from hundreds of miles away, so Contreraz must have something going on in her favor. Yeah, the States are a good place to be if you're in the family. It's easy to fit in over here, no matter how messed-up your relatives are. Europe. I've been to Europe. Grand gatherings - more often in Europe than anywhere else, but they move. The grounds of St Mary's or Bicetre; Vienna, in the shadow of the Lunatic's Tower; Marseilles, at the tumbled gate to the Library of Valentinus; old Charenton; even Thorns. A lot of places in Europe that are almost holy to the European cousins, or even to the rest of us. The others are superstitious and don't allow family members into positions of too much power over there, but there's still a few cities with a cousin in charge, like in Ravenna. Europe's... good to us. The strands - widely spaced, but strong as steel. The others keep their distance, but stretch a protective hand over us. They don't want us to turn on them. Africa... no. I've heard that sometimes the Call comes up from there, but it's faint - there probably are only a few of us there to amplify it. I'm... I'm kind of afraid of going to Africa, but I don't have any idea why. No, not Africa. I'd sooner go to Mexico, and that's a pit. The cousins down there - there's nothing keeping them in check. They run wild, wilder than you'd expect from a Sabbat city. The things I heard behind Pearl's speech... they kind of bubble up when I think of Mexico. And I get the feeling that there's something older there, too, something old and hateful. Maybe there's more grooves in the land; maybe that's one of the places that's gone strange from the power. Further on south, to South America? Um. Not quite family territory down there. Sometimes there arc echoes of old blood spilled, and fire - but they're so old and faded. The Call doesn't come up much from South America; rumor from both Camarilla and Sabbat sides claims that a couple of the grandparents have decided to set themselves up down there. Not lots of room for newcomers to make their mark. India. That's where they're fighting over territory, all the cities that went missing their princes in the Week of Nightmares. I know I haven't been there. The Call went out - I didn't hear it from here, but I know people in Europe who did. It must be a nightmare if Malkavians are flocking there from hundreds of miles away. I think Vasantasena's going back there, too - although I don't know why I think that. I don't even know who she is. I remember her face, but... Asia. No. Stay out of Asia. That reality doesn't belong to us. It's being shaped, folded, eaten... Australia... lots of ghosts there. Lots of blood spilled. Strange craziness brews up in the cities down there, and it spills out from the Outback, I think. When I... was it me? Someone else? When I went there, I couldn't sleep peacefully for so much as an hour. The dreams, countless dreams, always beating in my skull - no such thing as a peaceful day's slumber in Australia. Ghosts and dreams, and bloodstains that creep around the corners of the buildings down there. Other vampires can survive well enough down there, but those of us with the Sight, those of us in the family - it's harder. I've even heard something like the Call when I was down there, but it wasn't right. It was like something was mimicking the Call, trying to bring me over to it, but it wasn't one of the family. I'm sure of it. Something very real lives in the dreams down there. I wonder what would happen if it got into a waking dream, like those that... God. Oh. God. I can't have been to all of these places. I can't have all of these memories. Something is going on here. Were they feeding me these memories? Is it Pack's fault? Fitzgerald? Rosegarden? Where is this coming from? * * * Oh God. It's an hour until dawn, and the last time I remember being awake was 10 days ago. I just woke up. I don't know where I am - I don't recognize any of this furniture. I don't recognize this room. I don't know who this woman on the floor is. I have to go and hide. The sun will be up soon. But I'm afraid. If I go to sleep, I might never wake up again. I don't want to go back into the dark forever. Please, whoever you are. Please stop doing this to me. Please, just let me be awake and see my friends and drink when I'm thirsty and do what I need to do. Just to get by, that's all I ask. I don't deserve this. I'm so young. Please. Don't put me away again. Please. The Anatomy of MadnessThe Malkavians are a very misunderstood clan, and that's partly because people tend to believe that if you've seen one Lunatic, you've seen them all. That's completely untrue, of course - the murderous psychopath isn't representative of the obsessive scientist, and he doesn't reflect the half-dreaming artist, and she's like the fervently religious ancient only by virtue of blood. This is what makes the Malkavians so difficult to define - and difficult to roleplay, too. It's a difficult balancing act between portraying someone who is believably, convincingly unstable and roleplaying a madness so debilitating or aggravating that people wonder why the Lunatic hasn't been done in yet. Obviously, only functional Malkavians make it past the fostering; but at the same time, they're all bent somehow. And given that this is a storytelling game, a Malkavian character's derangement needs to be not only believable, but evocative. Nobody cares about the Malkavian who believes that the earth is flat - that has nothing to do with the themes of Vampire. So with all this in mind, how do you roleplay an insane vampire in a way that's satisfying to you, your fellow players and your Storyteller? The Real Thing There is no single cause for mental disorder. Many disorders are biologically based, whether it's due to biochemical imbalance, actual abnormalities of the brain, aging, injury, drug abuse or disease. Heredity can play a part in this; so can simple bad luck. Obviously, disorders of this nature are almost impossible to treat on a purely psychological level; medicines and other physiological treatments are often necessary to achieve any real progress. On the other hand, many disorders have their root in outside influences. Some are almost exclusively triggered by environmental cues - typically traumatic influences such as abuse. In fact, scientists used to believe that almost all mental disorders came from environmental influences, and it's only recently that hereditary and organic causes became more commonly recognized. Mental disorders technically include everything from small, relatively minor anxiety-related disorders, through more severe ailments such as autism and ADD, to wholly incapacitating disorders such as catatonia. There are frankly far too many variants to list here, but it is worthwhile to bear in mind the true scope of psychopathology. Roleplaying a Lunatic Of course, when you're roleplaying a character, particularly a vampire, realism has to take a back seat to drama and story. Choosing and roleplaying a derangement shouldn't be a choice that depends on "what is most likely" - it should depend on what's most appropriate. First off, there are plenty of mental disorders that are just plain unplayable; delirium, dementia, catatonia and the like don't allow much room for a functional character. (What's more, from a story perspective, the sire would be likely to deem such a creation a failure and start over - after disposing of the botched material, of course.) Psychosexual disorders can be inappropriate, both because it's all too easy for such a derangement to be too disturbing to fellow players, and because Malkavians, like most vampires, don't have much desire for sex as we know it (Of course, some troupes might be perfectly fine with such derangements in play - if so, more power to you.) Finally, some disorders just aren't sufficiently gripping. A phobia of the number 13 or of trees is technically fine, but it just doesn't really go well with a honor story. Naturally, few Malkavians think of themselves as "mad," just as few elders of any clan - no matter how cruel - think of themselves as "evil." Many clan members do recognize they are somehow far removed from what all of humanity, and most of Kindred society besides, considers "normal." However, they ascribe this to possessing a certain... understanding about the world and all it holds, not to a disease or infirmity. Some accept that their understanding is going to be branded as madness by outsiders, but they also tend to view themselves as the only ones thinking and seeing clearly; it's the rest of the world that's living a lie. (Ironically, some Malkavians recognize that there is a certain amount of insanity inherent to the line, particularly where the Methuselahs are concerned. A few clan legends hold - somewhat accurately - that Malkav's power and insight were so great that when he took childer, their minds shattered from the expenence. It's only the continued dilution of Malkav's blood and the visions that come with it that allows the youngest generations to be Embraced while "still retaining their sanity" - or so the rationalization runs.) It's important to understand that a Malkavian's reality is contextual: This is the heart of their insanity. You can't codify a schizophrenic's delusion as a matter of faith or belief; he doesn't believe that he absolutely must pull the eyes from his victims to prevent them from controlling him, he knows that to be a fact. Within the context of a Malkavian's derangements, reality works differently. Reality is different for them, because they see it through a fractured lens. As a result, it's good to avoid words like "belief," both in character and out of it. Try to avoid saying things like "My Malkavian believes that the world is the rotting corpse of God," even out of character - instead, phrase it in terms like "My Malkavian sees the rot of the world, and he knows that the whole planet is God's corpse." Even a little change in wording like this will do wonders for conveying your character's utter conviction to your fellow players. Of course, it might also help things not to discuss your derangement with other players unless absolutely necessary. Let them piece it out over the course of play. There is one thing to bear in mind about this approach, though - if you don't tell your fellow players what your character's madness is, it's doubly important that you talk it over with your Storyteller, to make sure that you aren't going to be causing undue conflicts between players. Conflict between characters is fine - but you don't want to drag in a derangement that makes other players uncomfortable, because that kills the spirit of the game. Another thing to keep in mind is the time frame of a Malkavian's former life. Vampires who predate Freud and Jung might behave in patterns appropriate to modem psychology - but they're as likely to manifest signs of "possession." Truly young neonates, brought up by dysfunctional parents and Embraced in the high-speed, technoshock world of the 21st century, might be even crazier than their elders. Hannibal Lecter would be out of place in a Poe story; it's similarly disorienting to have characters running around whose derangements are at odds with the flavor of their times. Pop culture references are also mood-wreckers. It's theoretically possible that a schizophrenic Malkavian might believe he's a character in a bad detective novel, or that he's a Jedi Knight - but if you drag one of these guys into the game, not only is nobody going to take your character seriously, but they might not even take you seriously. I mean, come on... a Jedi? Finally, it can't be stressed enough that a little bit of research and inspirational reading goes a long way. By this we don't mean watching The Matrix and deciding that your character's going to emulate Lawrence Fishburne, complete with a schizophrenic delusion about all of humanity being living batteries for robots or some fool thing like that. Read an introductory-level psychtextbook, or Catch'22. Go to a surrealist art show, or browse through an art history book - a lot of artists were at least slightly cracked. Read some philosophy; many philosophical doctrines (particularly Nietzsche and Descartes) make damn good schizophrenic derangements with just a little modification and a whole lot of belief. Theology offers similar inspiration. Anyone can portray someone who believes something unusual. The trick is making the personality match the derangement so that your fellow players honestly, truly believe that a person like your Malkavian could exist. DerangementsOne of the most trying parts of playing a Malkavian is selecting a proper derangement, one that's both easily enough roleplayed to be more fun than chore and realistic enough to make your character seem genuinely, convincingly mad. A textbook on psychology can be of some help, but as mentioned before, many of the illnesses therein are far from appropriate for undead creatures. Please note that the following notes are by no means comprehensive: they're just a few generalizations meant to flesh out the derangements given in the Vampire rulebook to provide fodder for more "realistic" Malkavians. Schizophrenia does indeed imply a sort of "split" in the victim's personality, but not multiple personalities. The most common disassociation is between feelings and ideas; in other words, a schizophrenic might talk about a tragedy in a light-hearted manner, or feel uncontrollably morose when discussing apleasant memory. Lots of people say "schizophrenia" when they mean "multiple personality disorder," but that doesn't make them right. Multiple personality disorder is typically more common in females than in males, and it's been theorized that many cases arise from abuse. The personalities need not have separate identities to the point of different names and genders (although that's still a possibility); a vampire with this derangement could have three personalities that all answer to die same name, but are remarkably different. One of the personalities might be "stronger" than the others, the one that comes to the fore in order to deal with stressful situations that the other personalities "can't handle"; such a personality might be much more angry and resentful of its role. The shift between personalities is often abrupt, and usually triggered by a stressful situation or environmental cue. Obsessive-compulsive disorder isn't just about compulsive behavior, although that's part of it. The "obsessive" side comes in with patients who manifest recurrent obsessive thoughts, strong enough to interfere with their daily lives. Obsessive thoughts often relate to violence or contamination, and they tend to intrude on the victim's thought patterns; they're not a pleasant experience. Compulsions, on the other hand, are repetitive and rather more intentional. In many cases, a sufferer will indulge in a compulsion (counting, cleaning and organizing are particularly common) in response to an obsessive thought. And yes, obsessive-compulsives become very tense and agitated when prevented from indulging their manias; in humans, this can lead to depression, but in vampires, the tension leads to a state of frenzy. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is usually chronic, and it can indeed take over a person's life. The formal term for manic-depression is bipolar disorder (formerly manic-depressive psychosis). A person with this disorder can be predominantly manic or generally depressive; not all sufferers receive "equal time" for their mood swings. A manic-depressive's speech and movements sometimes speed up or slow down according to her current mental state; in either case, it's possible that further hallucinations can strike. Ultimately, though, remember that Malkavians have little to no chance of fighting off their ailments, even temporarily. Most of them don't even have any idea that they're unwell - well, they might realize it in the abstract sense, and even philosophize about it, but they never really believe that they're deluded. Spending Willpower to resist the effects of a derangement should be a rare thing for Malkavians, as rare as an ordinary person's decision to resist cashing that paycheck, or to resist eating dinner when they're hungry and not on a diet They just don't see a need. New Derangements Desensitization The vampire with this affliction is a virtual emotional amputee. As a derangement, desensitization inhibits the vampire's ability to feel any sort of strong emotion whatsoever, whether joy, sadness, anger or love. The afflicted just can't make the appropriate neural connections (well, for want of a better term). The power of Dominate or the blood bond can still hold a vampire so afflicted in check, but even though such supernatural compulsion governs the vampire's actions, it has less of an effect on her psyche. Even when blood bound, the vampire goes through the motions of love and devotion like a distracted actor half-heartedly playing a part. She will still throw herself in front of a car to save her "loved one," but she will do so without so much as a word, a tear or a smile. When she frenzies, she does so in a chillingly silent paroxysm of violence; when struck with the Rotschreck, she scuttles away like a cockroach instinctively fleeing the light. Vampires with this derangement find it difficult to truly believe in their own ideals, and so make all Humanity, Path, Conscience or Conviction rolls at + 2 difficulty. They also suffer a one-die penalty to any Social dice pools that require some show of emotion or warmth, and cannot purchase the Performance Ability at all. Disassociative Blood-Spending One of the less obvious derangements, this affliction inhibits a vampire's conscious control over his own vitae. Vampires with this derangement have a tendency to unconsciously spend blood points to raise their Attributes at unusual and inappropriate times - increasing their strength in the middle of a round of drinks, upping their reaction speed while trying to compose a letter, and so on. These vampires have even been known to spend blood points during the day while they sleep, waking up even hungrier than usual and never knowing why. If a character has this derangement, once per session the Storyteller can rule that the vampire has just spent a blood point to raise a given Attribute, or that the vampire wakes up an extra blood point low. The Storyteller is even within her rights to tell the player that his character's missing a blood point, without elaborating exactly when and where he spent the blood, or what for. After all, the vampire wouldn't know where it went. Players are also welcome to roleplay this derangement, of course (and it can be fun to start randomly spending blood in the middle of a tense scene, just to worry the other players), but the Storyteller has final control over making this derangement a drawback rather than a simple quirk. Masochism A person with this derangement closely associates pain with pleasure. In vampires, who no longer enjoy sex in its own right, masochism tends to be linked to the pleasure received by drinking blood or receiving the Kiss. Masochism is usually linked to deep feelings of shame, and masochistic vampires have a tendency to be repulsed by the actual process of feeding from mortals. They are only fulfilled when they're suffering, presumably as some sort of penance for the pleasure they feel when feeding. Vampires with this derangement begin to have difficulty operating when they become wounded. Once a masochistic vampire drops below the Bruised health level, he must make a Willpower roll, difficulty 6; failure indicates that he takes no action next turn, instead delighting in the sensation of pain. Furthermore, the masochist must make a Self-Control roll, difficulty 8, in order to use blood points to heal himself, no matter how temble his injuries. Memory Lapses This derangement isn't like amnesia in the classic sense. It's not that a portion of the vampire's memories has been permanently blocked off - it's that the vampire tends to lose random portions other memory at inopportune times. The memories fade in and out, and can return as quickly as within a few minutes, or they might not come back for decades. At least once per scene, the vampire suffering from memory lapses will forget something relevant for a time. This might be as simple as forgetting where she left her keys (which can be a real problem when you're locked out of your haven and the eastern sky's getting brighter), or as complicated as forgetting an entire Ability - and even the knowledge that she once had that skill. ("Why are you looking at me like that? I've never touched a keyboard before in my life.") Since this derangement requires particular attention from the Storyteller, players should double-check that it's okay to take this for a character. Yes, the player can ad-lib minor memory lapses as they come along, but sooner or later the lapse has to get more serious. It can be hard to determine just when forgetting how to use a gun will be dramatically appropriate, and when it'll make the other players organize an impromptu lynch mob. Storyteller discretion is particularly advised. Power-Object Fixation The vampire afflicted with this derangement has invested much of her self-confidence in an external object, to the point where she believes she cannot function properly without its presence. Such a derangement is often linked to some past trauma in which the object in question played a major role - although not always in the obvious way. For instance, a victim might fixate on his dead fiancee's engagement ring if holding his fiancee's hand was his only source of comfort during hard years, but another individual might focus on the belt her father beat her with as her source of strength. Victims of this fixation lose two dice from all their dice pools if somehow separated from their object of focus. It is hard to hide this fixation from careful observers; in times of stress, the vampire must make a Willpower roll to avoid cradling the object to her torso, rubbing it obsessively or otherwise physically comforting herself with its presence. This derangement sometimes spawns other related derangements over time. The fixated person may, for instance, develop multiple personalities related to the object - the aforementioned abuse victim might develop a bullying personality much like her abusive father's, and so on. Regression When confronted with stressful situations, a character with this derangement has a tendency to mentally revert back to a childlike state. Regressives are notable for poor senses of cause and effect, flawed interpretations of morality, and a general tendency to avoid confrontation. They do not, however, usually believe themselves to be actual children who've lost their parents - more typically, regressive vampires continue to think of themselves as the same people they always are. Of course, they're notably much more self-centered, fearful of the unknown, and reliant on strong "parent" figures, but this is a nuance that the vampire in question tends to miss. Vampires with this derangement are at a permanent + 2 difficulty on all Self-Control and Instinct rolls; children have very little sense of discipline for the sake of discipline, and aren't sufficiently self-aware to master their own Beasts. The regressive is no different ![]() [Storytellers beware: This derangement, improperly used, leads to Malkavians who are cute rather than creepy; you know the type. The ones with teddy bears and bunny slippers. When properly used, a regressive should be terrifying - a supernaturally powerful creature with no real sense of right or wrong - so feel free to crack down on players who tend to play this derangement more for laughs than for horror value.] Self-Annihilation Impulse This derangement is more common among older vampires, although there's nothing stopping a neonate from acquiring the affliction. The afflicted vampire feels a deep sense of revulsion for his flesh, and is literally terrified of the thought of "living" forever, or of continuing to exist inside a cold, dead shell. This revulsion is entirely unconscious, however; on a conscious level, the vampire is wholly unaware of his "death wish," although he may demonstrate a morbid streak. Whenever the character is confronted with more-or-less direct evidence of his immortality - such as visiting the churchyard where his mortal daughter is buried, or watching a ghoul die - he must make an immediate Willpower roll, or begin to undertake some sort of potentially deadly behavior. This behavior might be as direct as storming into Elysium and giving the prince a piece of his mind, or it might be more subtle, such as breaching the Masquerade by talking to a reporter. In any event, the pursuit of self-destruction is not a conscious decision, and it's not open for debate. The character will doggedly go about his "chosen" task until it's completed, resisting any attempts to talk him out of it. He may even consciously believe that the actions he's undertaking arc perfectly safe. The compulsive behavior lasts only for a scene or so; however, depending on the nature of the threats he's called down on himself, the consequences can last quite a bit longer. Synesthesia This derangement has little to do with logic and more with sensory interpretation. The afflicted vampire's sensory input is somewhat "scrambled"; although he's still capable of receiving sensory information, the information each sense provides is processed in terms of a different sense. In short, the synesthetic "hears" colors, "smells" textures, "tastes" sounds and the like, and is hard-pressed to think of such stimuli in any other fashion. Although the synesthetic is presumably accustomed to the unusual sensory input, his real problem lies in communicating what he senses to others. A character so afflicted has difficulty expressing concepts as simple as "cut the red wire" - he's much more likely to say "cut the sandpapery wire" or something similar - and even has similar difficulties comprehending speech from others. Since the associations vary from individual to individual, there's not even any guarantee that another synesthetic would be able to understand the vampire. Apart from the aforementioned difficulties in daily communication, the synesthetic receives + 2 difficulty to any Expression and Performance rolls that don't involve creating purely surreal art, poetry or the like. The synesthetic may spend a Willpower point to correlate her sensory input in a "normal" fashion for a turn - or rather, at least to be able to communicate "normally" in terms of colors, textures, smells, tastes, temperature or sound. The character would still hear a ringing noise and think of it as a spicy smell, for instance - he's just able to focus enough to associate that spicy smell he hears with what other people call "ringing." The Caitiff Questions "But if a Malkavian's Embrace automatically carries madness with it, does that mean that there are no such thing as Caitiff sired by Malkavians?" Actually, no. Malkavians are as prone (if not moreso) as any other clan to discard a new childe just after the Embrace, and leave that childe to find its own way in the world. Such childer are usually as insane as any Malkavian, but never develop their talent for the clan Disciplines, and have no connection to the clan. "Are all Malkawan-sired Caitiff mad?" No. Sometimes the blood runs a little thin, and a childe comes through the Embrace, still sane? These childer are always abandoned as Caitiff, as their sires instinctively recognize that the new borns are somehow... flawed and unsuitable. Therefore, a player whose Caitiff had a Malkavian sire can choose to take a derangement or not - or, more interestingly, she can leave the choice up to the Storyteller. "Would a Caitiff who inherited his sire's insanity have access to the Madness Network?" It's possible. However, Malkavians don't much care for eavesdroppers. By and large, any Caitiff demonstrating a connection to the Madness Network is hunted down and killed, almost instinctively. If the Storyteller chooses to allow a Lunatic-sired Caitiff access to the Cobweb, the Caitiff must have a derangement, and cannot purchase any dots in Malkavian Time (she's presumed to have access to the Talent, but uses only her Wits in the appropriate dice pool). A vampire with a dot or more of Malkavian Time is by default Malkavian, connected to the clan's Disciplines and communication network whether her sire hung around to teach her or not. The Madness NetworkUnless the Storyteller would rather not open this particular can of worms, it's presumed that all Malkavians are hooked up (to varying degree) to the supernatural, disembodied neural net that some call the Madness Network (or the Cobweb, the Tapestry, the weavery and so on). This doesn't mean that they're in constant telepathic communication, though, nor that they're continually bombarded by one signal after another. For what it's worth, Malkavians spend a very low percentage of their time tapped into the Network. Many hear only a faint fluttering two or three times a year. For the vast majority of his nights, the only company a Malkavian has within his skull is his own dementia. The precise nature of the Network is actually in question; the Malkavians seem convinced that Malkav's hand is in it somewhere, but that doesn't mean it's true. The legend of Malkav existing only in psychic form in the minds of all his grandchilder is one popular theory; so is the thought that he created the network to be able to spy through the eyes of any and all his progeny, even in his sleep. Only the Fourth Generation of the clan is likely to know for sure, and they're not available for comment. The Cobweb isn't something that comes with Dementation - vampires outside the clan can learn Dementation, but they can never hear the Call. A few scholars have compared the Network to the blood bond, theorizing that it's a blood-transmitted sympathetic link with much stronger (if different) effects; of course, it doesn't touch Malkavian ghouls, making such comparisons of limited use. Whatever its true nature, the Madness Network does come across as largely unknowable, even to Malkavians. As such, it's a perfect vehicle for the Storyteller to do as she likes - it can provide anything from plot hooks to deus ex machina revelations. You could fill a book with rules governing how the Cobweb works, and even then there'd be possibilities left out. Ultimately, the Network is fully under the Storyteller's control - if she even decides to use it at all. The Particulars of Insight If the Storyteller would rather not mess around with the concept of the Madness Network, another possibility might be to allow Malkavians to purchase the Insight Background given in Time of Thin Blood (pg. 74). Although designed for thin-blooded vampires in particular, it's hard to deny that any oracular ability that works well with Auspex and Dementation is just about tailor-made for Malkavians. Some Storytellers might even allow Malkavians access to the Network and Insight both, but this is very much up to the individual's discretion. New Talent Malkavian Time Gentry tried to struggle, but the splintered wood in his heart held him down like a drug. His eyes were stone inside their sockets as he rolled them toward the creature that squatted like some roosting bat beside his head. "How...?" he finally choked. The frail vampire's response was a slight shrug. His tone was flat and cold "Lita told me you were out here, and you'd probably be getting rid of her here." Gentry darted a fervent glance at the dram, where a few of Lita's wet ashes still clung to the lip. "But... " The fingers that closed around his face were quite cold. This Malkavian specific Trait represents a Lunatic's particular connection to her clan's shared sub-consciousness; needless to say, it's quite supernatural by nature. It allows the Malkavian to "plug into" the floodwaters of the Madness Network and filter out messages, impulses, shared visions and knowledge of upcoming clan gatherings. The Storyteller is usually the one making any Malkavian Time rolls, at least with regards to clan gatherings. The Storyteller rolls the character's Wits + Malkavian Time in secret, usually about a week before a significant gathering. With one success, the Malkavian receives an impulse to immediately head to a specific locale - but only when the meeting's just starting. Three successes allow the Lunatic to have about a night or two's forewarning, and a general idea of the meeting's purpose. Five successes give the Malkavian warning a week early, and a very clear vision of the meeting's focus. Six or more successes can actually be detrimental - at that point, it's entirely likely that the poor mad vampire has dipped too deeply, and is starting to receive pulses of his elders' derangements... It's theoretically possible to actually, consciously send messages along the Network, but that doesn't mean that the Network is any sort of replacement (or even poor substitute) for a cell phone. For the most part, "sent" messages that manage to make it farther than a few feet are unconscious screams that channel a Malkavian's extreme emotion or pain. For this reason, Malkavians with more than three dots in Malkavian Time can often hear a clanmate's death-scream, so long as it's in the same city. Despite the difficulty, it is possible to send deliberate, personalized messages from one person to the next along the Network, even without Dementation. It's tough as hell, but a Malkavian can always try. To make the attempt, the player rolls Wits + Malkavian Time, difficulty 9. Success allows the Malkavian to transmit a message to one person within city limits (longer ranges are possible, but only at the Storyteller's discretion); the message can consist of up to two words per success. Note that a Malkavian needn't have any dots at all in Malkavian Time to receive those hideous little broadcasts along the clan's frayed neural network. In fact, it often drives newly Embraced clan members... well, madder than usual when the messages start filtering into their brains without any hint as to their origins.
Possessed by: Malkavians. Just Malkavians. Specialties: None. DisciplinesElder Malkavians are no different than the elders of any other clan when it comes to Disciplines - they just as readily seek to expand their senses and powers over themselves and their environment. However, the elders of clan Malkavian, as intimately connected to madness as they are, are capable of producing Discipline effects that would never occur to a sane vampire. Players have the option of choosing to be one of the few Malkavians who weren't affected by the global "reawakening" of Dementation, and thus retain Dominate, Auspex and Obfuscate as their clan Disciplines. So far, the childer of these "offshoots" have been mostly split in their affinities for Dominate or Dementation - so there's ample reason to play a Malkavian with Dominate if you feel so inclined. Some of the following high-level powers can be purchased as Dementation or another Discipline. These are powers that have as much to do with the Network as the vampire's personality. When the power of Dementation was sealed off from the Camarilla Malkavians centuries ago, they learned to "make do," imitating their elders' Network-specific abilities with Auspex and Obfuscate. They might not have had Dementation, but they always had the Legion-mind. The following Disciplines are recommended for Malkavians only; it would somewhat diminish the effect of the Madness Network if just any Toreador or Tremere were able to dispassionately tap into its immaterial ganglia. Call it one of the "perks" of Malkav's Curse if you will - the Malkavians have certainly lost enough in exchange. [Note: Mind's Eye Theatre rules follow for most of the Discipline powers available. Some of these powers just don't work as well in a live-action environment, being more suited to a more personal environment with immediate access to a Storyteller. Please don't take it personally.] Babble (Auspex Level Six or Dementation Level Six) One of the more classic powers among elder Malkavians, this is the ability to communicate at great distances by using the power of the Network. The Malkavian with this ability can link a number of people together, allowing them all to converse at will - however, everyone involved must carry on their conversation out loud. What's more, each person hears their fellows as if the other people were standing next to them; thus, if Rosegarden were in the comfort other own quiet haven while Pack was in a crowded subway, Pack could murmur quietly and be heard, while Rosegarden would have to raise her voice for Pack to hear her over the crowd. System: The Malkavian may communicate with as many other people as he has points of Willpower, to link with unwilling targets, the player must roll Charisma + Empathy, difficulty of the target's Willpower. He may add more people (up to his Empathy rating) over and above his Willpower score only if those people have derangements and don't resist the Babble. MET System: Without cellular phones or walkie-talkies, this power's an outright bitch to simulate in live-action. Considering the difficulties of long-range challenges, it's recommended that this power be restricted to Storyteller use - for example, a Narrator approaching a player with a message transmitted via Babble. The Call (Auspex Level Eight or Dementation Level Six) Although many clan gatherings happen spontaneously, the Call arising from a general subconscious need shared by a city's Malkavian population, it is possible to send the Call deliberately. Both Auspex and Dementation offer the ability to send the Call, although it's a much easier art to perform when expressed through Dementation. System: To send the Call, a Malkavian (and only a Malkavian) rolls Perception + Empathy, difficulty 6. As always, other clan members will hear (and attend if they so choose) only if they make their Malkavian Time rolls.
The Call as broadcasted is not a verbal thing; it merely conveys an impression of a place and a time. There is no sense of purpose, nor even the name of the gathering point; still, neither is really necessary. The Call is so instinctive that if an American Malkavian who didn't speak a word of French were visiting Paris, and heard the Call, he'd be able to follow his impressions and visions to the gathering place as readily as any native Lunatic. MET System: In live-action environments, this power has an effective "delay"; in other words, a character must announce his intentions to send out the Call to your Storyteller, who in turn should notify the various Malkavians in play of this Call. After all, you may not know all of the Malkavians in the city, but they'll still hear it (via the Storyteller). A good method is to alert your Storyteller a few days before a game, who can then place a note on all of the Malkavian character records before handing them to players for the evening's session. Success is considered automatic, but the character cannot reach farther than the city limits - a Call that echoes from city to city is best left as a plot device in the Storytellers' hands. Sibyl's Tongue (Auspex Level Six) Elder Malkavians have a well-deserved reputation as seers and prophets. The power of the Sibyl's Tongue takes this predilection one step further: The Malkavian so blessed can call on her advanced Auspex to go deliberately questing into the Legion-mind for the answer to a particular question. If some Malkavian somewhere knows the answer, then the sibyl has a chance of making the connection to that Malkavian's memories and drawing forth the information. Failure carries a penalty, though. To open oneself to the Legion-mind and deliberately tread naked into its waters - that's dangerous stuff. Whenever a Malkavian uses this talent, she runs the risk of having the clan's collective mad thoughts invade her head in a rush. The process is... highly unpleasant. System: The Malkavian must focus for a turn to attune herself to the Network. The player then rolls Wits + Investigation, difficulty 8. If the roll is successful, the Malkavian gets the answer of her choice; the more successes, the less cryptic the reply. However, the answer must be something that some Malkavian somewhere knows (excluding Malkav himself, of course). If the roll is failed, then the Malkavian is in trouble. The stew of psychoses that makes up the Network invade her personal headspace, at such a speed that it's impossible to filter out what she wants. She immediately gains two additional derangements for the duration of the scene. If the roll is botched, then the effects are even worse - one of these additional derangements settles into her mind permanently. At the Storyteller's option, particularly dangerous questions might inflict an extra derangement even if the roll is successful, and have even more severe penalties for failure. This is especially true of questions that require tapping the mind of a Methuselah - a place nobody, no matter how well-prepared, wants to go. MET System: To activate this power, the player must expend one or more Mental Traits; the more Traits expended, the more accurate the reply, subject to the Storyteller's interpretation. Make a simple test (anyone will do; you don't have to tell the other person what you're doing). If you win or tie, your Malkavian is able to tap into the Cobweb and dig up the information that you want. If you lose, though, your Malkavian gets lost in the psychoses and gains two more Derangements for the next hour or scene - a good system is to just grab two at random from a deck of prepared Derangement cards of the sort that you'd use for Dementation (see Laws of the Night, p. 146). In either case, the Mental Traits are spent and gone. If a Storyteller is not available to narrate this power, or if you just want to speed game play, the Malkavian can use it to gain access to special Lore and information that he might not otherwise have. Spend two Mental Traits and make the test described above. If successful, you gain access to one special level of Lore Ability above what you'd normally know. Thus, if you use this power with an Expert Ability of, say, Noddist Lore x2, you can temporarily go up to Noddist Lore x3 - long enough to fetch one snippet of useful information or make one challenge. This rules variant is subject to Storyteller approval, of course. Scrawl (Obfuscate Level Six) The Malkavian is able to tap into the recesses of his madness and encode his irrational thoughts within a written form. His writing appears no different than any other graffiti (although it may be distinctly irrational, like the scrawl on the walls of a madman's cell); however, other Malkavians are able to look at it and filter out the message hidden within. In essence, the contagious madness of Malkav's blood acts as a medium for communication. If the writer so chooses, he can leave a message that can be read by all Malkavians, or by a specific Malkavian. ![]() System: No roll is necessary to write encrypted messages; however, if the Malkavian is leaving a hidden message for a specific Malkavian, he must personally know either the intended reader, the reader's sire or one of the reader's progeny. There is no roll necessary to read the message, either. Non-Malkavians with Auspex 6 or higher, if they suspect a hidden message or pattern, can attempt to pierce the scrawl's meaning; doing so requires a Perception + Occult roll, difficulty 9. However, failure inflicts a temporary derangement on the reader, as he discovers exactly the wrong pattern in the writer's madness. MET System: This power can be tricky to simulate in live-action. If you trust to the honesty of the players in your game, you can leave a special Scrawl card (a 3x5 will do - a special color is a good choice to indicate Scrawl instead of a regular item or note) with "Scrawl" on the front and your note on the back. A slighdy more secure, but intensive, method is to leave a "Scrawl" card taped to the surface with a note to see a Storyteller; that prevents non-Malkavians from peeking, but can tie up a lot of time if players have to go looking for Storytellers. If Scrawl causes too much difficulty during play, Storytellers shouldn't hesitate to restrict its use to downtime sessions between games (for passing hidden messages between Malkavians), or to not allow it at all.] Phantom Haunter (Obfuscate Level Eight) This frightening ability taps into the victim's actual self-image and grants the power found therein to the Lunatic. The Malkavian using Phantom Haunter can reach into his target's mind, draw forth the image of the person who has most shaped (or fucked up) the target's self-image, and then become that person in all respects. If the victim was most traumatized by her Embrace, the Malkavian might appear as her sire; if she was most affected by her overweening mother, then her mother suddenly confronts her; if a friendly priest managed to pull her back from the brink of self-destruction, the Lunatic might wear that priest's face. The phantom isn't necessarily accurate; as it's shaped by the victim's memories, the phantom might even be an outright caricature of the real figure from the victim's past. Although the change is largely illusory, it's more than skin-deep. Once the Malkavian has assumed the persona of the phantom, he gains whatever knowledge of the victim that the victim believes the phantom would have. If the victim believes her father suspected her of slipping off to have sex with her boyfriend on Sunday mornings, then the Malkavian learns of that little habit, and can use that knowledge believably. Since the phantom's knowledge depends on the victim's belief, then the Malkavian can wind up lacking information that the actual figure would ordinarily possess, but can also gain knowledge that the real-world counterpart wouldn't know. It all depends on what the victim thinks her phantom tormentor or benefactor knows. Of course, assuming this form and faux memories exacts something of a toll on the Malkavian. Spending too much time acting (and thinking) like someone's personal bugbear can temporarily imprint the Malkavian with behavior patterns not his own. System: This power requires a Manipulation + Empathy roll, difficulty of the target's Willpower. Each success allows the Malkavian to assume the phantom's persona for one turn. While this power is in effect, the Malkavian can destroy his target's confidence by using the secret knowledge so gained; any Dementation, Presence or Dominate attempts against the victim are at -3 difficulty, and the victim loses one temporary point of Willpower each turn that the "phantom" continues its rebuke. However, the Lunatic must make a Willpower roll, difficulty 6, every turn past the first in order to retain full control. Failing a Willpower roll means that the Malkavian is oversaturated in the conjured phantom's persona, and continues to be haunted by the phantom's habits and prejudices for the rest of the night This can be treated as either mild multiple personality disorder or mild schizophrenia; in either case, the Malkavian temporarily loses some of his own self-image to the phantom's own personality. If the Willpower roll is botched, the phantom personality remains for a month or longer. In any case, the Malkavian no longer has access to the phantom's appearance or "memories"; the vague impressions of personality are all that remain. MET System: Phantom Haunter is a particularly difficult Discipline in live-action play, because it relies on the good roleplaying of the person you're facing. If your subject doesn't want to cooperate, you won't be able to get any information without the intervention of a Storyteller - which is to be avoided. If both parties trust to role-play the effects of this Discipline, they are certainly encouraged to do so. In game terms, use of Phantom Hunter requires that you make a successful Social Challenge against the victim. If you win, you get a free retest on your next use of Dementation, Dominate or Presence against the victim. Once you've used the retest, you can either let the power and knowledge gained fade away, or you can spend a Willpower Trait to keep the power active for another retest. (This is expensive in terms of Willpower, but more certain than just making a new Social Challenge to reactivate the power later.) Note that you can still only claim one retest on any single challenge of the above Disciplines through the use of this power. Example: Uruq decides to put a little mental mojo down on his long-time enemy Anya. He defeats her in a Social Challenge and proceeds to rip into her with Advanced Dementation, Total Insanity. He fails his test to activate the Total Insanity, but he makes a retest with Phantom Haunter, and succeeds. He spends one Willpower Trait to keep the power active and under control; he follows up with a nasty subconscious Dominate command through Mesmerism. He fails that initial test, calls for a retest with Intimidation, fails that (bad night), then makes a retest with Phantom Haunter. He fails even that one, so he cannot make another Phantom Haunter retest on that challenge, and can keep the power active only by spending yet another Willpower Trait. Childmind (Dementation Level Seven) This dread ability allows the Malkavian to give another person the equivalent of a psychic lobotomy. By focusing the power of Dementation, the Lunatic can strip away much of a target's power of reasoning, reducing his victim to a childlike state. System: The Malkavian must make eye contact with his victim in order to use this ability. Once eye contact is established, the player rolls Intelligence + Empathy, difficulty of the victim's Self-Control or Instinct. The player can choose to reduce the victim's Mental Attributes by up to seven points, as long as the victim is left with at least one dot in each. The Storyteller is under no obligation to reveal the victim's actual Attributes, however; the player must guess which Attributes to reduce and by how much. The victim also gains the derangement of Regression for as long as the childlike state lasts. For example, Hoxha, played by Ben, uses Childmind on Lauren-Bess. Hoxha (and by proxy, Ben) knows that she has a reputation for being intelligent and cunning, so Ben announces that he intends to drop her Intelligence by three, her Wits by three and her Perception by one. Lauren-Bess normally has Intelligence 5, Perception 3 and Wits 3; she's rather more intelligent and a little less cunning than Hoxha guessed. Her Intelligence falls to 2, as does her Perception. Her Wits becomes a 1, as the power cannot reduce any Attributes to zero. Lauren-Bess still retains some of her acuity and is as intelligent as the average person, but her decision-making faculties are severely impaired, and she will still regress to childlike behavior under the proper stimuli. At least she's still somewhat functional some of the time... The number of successes determines the duration of the Childmind's effects.
MET System: Make a Mental Challenge against your subject, after establishing eye contact. If you win, you can strip away the target's Mental Traits with your own force of will. Each Mental Trait that you expend, up to seven, automatically tears away one of the subject's Mental Traits. Traits lost in this fashion reduce the subject's current and total Mental Traits for the rest of the night. The target therefore can't regain the Traits through the use of Willpower or similar methods, and his overall mental state is indicated by his new Mental Trait total. Thus, a normally brilliant Tremere (with twelve Traits) could be reduced to just average brainpower by tearing away seven Traits, reducing him to five. If the Tremere had already used up multiple Mental Traits previously, he might well find himself without any remaining temporary Mental Traits. Even if the Tremere spent a Willpower Trait to refresh his Mental Traits, he'd only go back up to five Traits, not his usual twelve. Sleep of Reason (Dementation Level Seven) This macabre power gained its name from a Goya print that has achieved remarkable popularity among the clan. The Malkavian with this ability can reach into his victim's mind, pull forth whatever hobgoblins he finds there, and set them buzzing to the attack. System: The player rolls Wits + Intimidation, difficulty 6. The Malkavian must spend one blood point for each hobgoblin he creates, up to a maximum number determined by the successes on the roll. Thus, if Fitzgerald were to get five successes on the Wits + Intimidation roll, he could create up to five hobgoblins at one blood point each. The hobgoblins can appear as almost anything, but they're usually caricatures of whatever insecurities or bad memories the target might possess. Since they are born of the victim's frailties, the victim's mental resilience determines just how powerful the hobgoblins are. Each beastie's statistics are as follows: Strength: 10 - victim's Willpower The hobgoblins have no Mental or Social Attributes of their own, and as creations of the victim's own psyche, are immune to any mental powers the victim uses against them. A victim cannot use Obfuscate to hide from his own persecutors, nor can he Dominate them into leaving him alone. Other vampires can affect the victim's hobgoblins with these Disciplines, but the difficulty to do so is the same as if they were using those powers against the victim himself. In any event, the hobgoblins will ignore all other beings save their target unless compelled otherwise, and cannot damage anyone other than their victim. A hobgoblin can attack with a bite, punch, claw rake or whatever attack is reasonable for its form. All of these attacks inflict Strength + 1 lethal damage; however, this damage is purely psychic in nature, and will disappear at the end of the scene. The malicious little beasties can fly as quickly as their victim can run, and can find him wherever he runs. If not destroyed by the end of the scene, the hobgoblins melt back into the ether from which they sprang. MET System: Activating the Sleep of Reason requires that you spend one Blood Trait and one Mental Trait for each hobgoblin that you conjure, to the maximum allowed by your blood expenditure limits of Generation. The hobgoblins harass and perhaps attack your subject, with the following statistics: Physical Traits: 5 + (victim's total Negative Physical Traits) Hobgoblins created with this power affect only the intended victim. They melt away within an hour, or after their target is destroyed. Deny (Dementation Level Eight) This highly disturbing power offers a very compelling argument that the Malkavians see more of reality than anyone else does. The Malkavian using Deny is able to focus away from a certain object so completely that the object ceases to exist in the Malkavian's perception. However, the power of Dementation is so strong that for all intents and purposes, the Malkavian is right. The Malkavian may step through a locked door that he "doesn't see" as if it were an archway; a sword that he refuses to acknowledge will fail to cut him, passing right through his body. Those few elders of other clans who've seen this power in action cannot find a suitable explanation for how exactly it works. Perhaps the astral plane is somehow involved, or perhaps elder Lunatics simply function in more than three dimensions - who can say? There's certainly no explanation forthcoming from the Malkavians... This power cannot be used to "deny" the existence of living creatures, undead or spirits; it works only on inanimate objects. Some fragments of old stories hint that the Eater and perhaps even Malkav might have the ability to use a similar power against living creatures, but such a power is beyond the scope of most elders in existence today. System: The player spends a blood point and rolls Willpower, difficulty 8. If successful, for the duration of the scene, the Malkavian cannot recognize or interact with the given object in any way. It's as if the object just didn't exist for the Lunatic. Of course, this does have one or two drawbacks; if a Malkavian has successfully "tuned out" an opponent's weapon, he won't be able to understand why his friends are reacting as if their foe were armed. (They're probably hallucinating, come to think of it) The aura of "non-interference" doesn't extend further than anything the Malkavian is holding; the Malkavian can swing a fire ax through a "denied" door to strike the opponent on the other side, but if he were to fire through the "open archway," the bullets would hit the door as usual (possibly to the Lunatic's consternation). The Malkavian cannot help other vampires or living beings to tune out the ignored object, even if touching them; the power only benefits the Malkavian and his personal effects. MET System: You simply expend one Blood Trait and one Willpower Trait to deny the existence of one material object for the next hour or scene. If you Deny a sword, for instance, it cannot hurt you; a stake would not paralyze you; a suit of body armor would not stop your fist. You may Deny only one object at a time. Merits and FlawsThere are, of course, plenty of existing Merits and Flaws that are particularly appropriate for Malkavians. Most Mental Flaws from the main rulebook work nicely for Lunatics, as do Acute Sense, Infamous Sire, Medium, Oracular Ability (particularly appropriate), Cursed, Eerie Presence and Grip of the Damned. Still, the following might also offer an idea or two to add just the right finishing quirk to the Lunatic of your choice. Abandoning the Flesh As the frame story of Chapter One indicates, it is indeed possible for a Malkavian to "download" herself, her consciousness onto the shared madness network. This isn't quite a form of immortality, though, as what remains on the Network possesses a rudimentary sort of sentience, as much an echo of the vampire's personality as anything else. There's no evidence to suggest that the network remnants of a Malkavian's personality have any sort of strong ambition or self-awareness, other than being a collection of ideas and memories that fire off when appropriate stimuli present themselves. Whatever "intelligence" remains is incomplete, somewhat broken and rather difficult to reason with - after all, it no longer has the context of a body and a separate set of memories. It is somewhat further outside the bounds of reality, bodiless and indistinct. And, of course, quite mad. Diablerie, naturally, can theoretically work nicely as a quick ticket into the Network proper. This is really only possible when the diablerist is himself a Malkavian, although Storytellers might allow a particularly powerful elder to flow through a weak-blooded diablerist onto the Network, likely inflicting his drinker with the Curse of Malkav in all its glory as he passes. Of course, there's still a chance that he is consumed utterly... Ultimately, though, there is no system for this process; no character should be allowed the last-minute chance at escaping Final Death unless the story demands it. For that reason, a Malkavian can shunt himself onto the Tapestry only when the Storyteller deems it appropriate - and the Storyteller is triply advised to be very, very, very conservative with this sort of thing, treating it with all the respect and caution due, say, Golconda. Finally, this particular tidbit of lore is not common knowledge at all; it's preserved as one of the greatest secrets of the clan, and it can't be accessed through the Network itself. Anyone willing to make this final plunge will have to somehow come up with the idea in the first place, and then do the legwork to make it necessary. Nothing is ever easy for the Malkavians. Immaculate Aura (1-pt. Merit) Whether because of your iron control or some fluke of chance, your aura does not give away your insanity. The aura doesn't shift or swirl at all, even when you're confused, frenzied or in a psychotic fit. Benevolent Blood (1-pt. Merit) Your blood still carries the Curse of Malkav, but its effects have been lessened just a little bit. Any ghouls you create suffer none of the usual deranging side effects of drinking Malkavian blood - they can be loaded to the gills with your blood and not come one step nearer to gaining a derangement (They might still be driven insane by life with you, though, depending on how demanding your reality is.) Of course, any childer you Embrace will still gain a derangement after the Embrace as usual - although your vitae is easily diluted by mortal blood, the pure stuff carries the Curse as one would expect. Deadened Nerves (4-pt. Merit) Whether it was a condition you held in life or an odd side effect of the Embrace, your nervous system is missing a few connections. You have very little tactile sense, whether pleasure or pain. The downside of this is obvious: One of your senses is greatly impaired, which can keep you from noticing important warnings (a blade at your back, for instance - or in it). You suffer a +3 difficulty to all tactile-related Perception rolls, and the Storyteller may call for a roll to notice even the blatantly obvious; you might not even notice that you've been shot if the bullet doesn't knock you down outright. ![]() However, your deadened nerves also protect you from pain, allowing you to ignore your wounds until your flesh is literally blasted from your bones. All penalties for wound levels are halved, rounding down; in other words, you suffer no penalties until you reach the Wounded level, where you deduct only one die from your dice pools, and even when Crippled you can still act at a mere two-die penalty. If the Storyteller is willing, it might be particularly rewarding for the Storyteller to keep track of the character's health levels, and not let the player know exactly how badly his character has been wounded. Even if the Malkavian stops to give herself a quick look-over, the Storyteller puts things in the most general terms (i.e., "There's a number of holes in your chest, but you have no idea whether the bullets are lodged inside or not," "Your left arm refuses to move, although you're not sure why," and so on). This is a fair amount of extra work on the Storyteller's behalf (particularly if in the interest of secrecy, the Storyteller makes all the Malkavian's soak rolls in secret), but can add a lot of tension and verisimilitude to the game. MET System: Bruised characters with this Merit have their full Trait levels for all tied challenges. When Wounded, they need not risk additional Traits to attempt challenges, although they still automatically lose tied challenges. Disembodied Mentor (5-pt. Merit) The voices in your head may tell you things, but by God, they're useful things. You have a personal guide and advisor (bought as usual through the Background: Mentor) who exists largely in your own skull. He may have been a Malkavian who uploaded himself into the Network, or perhaps he's an imaginary construct with access to the shared memories of the clan. Either way, it's exceedingly hard for your enemies to cut you off from your mentor's counsel, and it's usually pretty easy to call on his advice when you need it. Unfortunately, this Merit also has its drawbacks; your mentor can find you whenever he chooses, and can be a real distraction when you're trying to do something he finds irrelevant You're not freed from the obligations of your relationship, either; you find yourself running errands for your mentor just as often as any other pupil would, if not more so. MET System: This Trait isn't appropriate for live-action play, as it would require the constant attention of a Storyteller. Sympathetic Bond (5-pt. Merit) For whatever reason, you unconsciously cause a peculiar supernatural form of feedback through the links of the blood bond. Although you're not immune to being blood bound (and cannot take the Merit: Unbondable), if you do become bound to someone, your regnant also becomes blood bound to you to an equal extent. Even if she was already blood bound to another, she now has the unenviable position of being regnant to two vampires at once. This can obviously lead to some unplanned and quite twisted codependent relationships. Stigmata (2-4 pt. Flaw) You constantly seep blood from phantom wounds; even though your flesh remains unbroken, you bleed. The bleeding is fairly slight, but is incessant, costing you an extra blood point each evening (marked off just before dawn). If you bleed from visible locations (such as the palms, a common place for stigmata), you are at + 1 difficulty to all Social rolls, although certain vampires will probably take your reputation as a seer more seriously. The 4-point version of this Flaw indicates that you bleed from your eyesockets; this obviously makes it almost impossible to travel within human society unveiled, and very much disturbs other Cainites (the difficulty of all Social rolls is increased by +2 rather than +1). In addition, the constant bleeding interferes with your vision, adding one to the difficulty of all visual Perception rolls. MET System: This Flaw is worth either two or four Traits. In both cases, you lose an additional blood Trait each evening just before dawn. The two-Trait version also gives you a one-Trait penalty on Social challenges; the four-Trait Flaw gives you a two-Trait penalty on those challenges, and a one-trait penalty to visual perception challenges besides. Needless to say, this Flaw, particularly the four-Trait version, is probably best left to games that take place on Halloween or well away from ordinary civilians; if you think they react poorly to people dressed like vampires, imagine how they'd react to someone with fake blood smeared down their cheeks. Infectious (3-pt. Flaw) Your bite transmits the madness of your clan. Whenever you feed from a mortal, the power of the Kiss holds them in place as normal. However, your mortal prey gains a temporary derangement for every three blood points you take from them; the madness lasts for a week or so. Malkavians with this Flaw are often the ones you hear about infesting asylums; it's the most low-key place for them to feed. MET System: This Flaw is worth three Traits; the prey gains one derangement per three Blood Traits drawn. Recommended SourcesTo be honest, there are countless books, stories, films and the like out there that dwell on deception and perception; most of these offer a little insight toward what it's like to see things that nobody else sees. The following sources are particularly recommended for looks, satirical and otherwise, at what living in an alternate state of reality is like. Films I Shot Andy Warhol - Dysfunctional and obsessive behavior aplenty; well-acted to boot. Jacob's Ladder - Plenty of surrealism and hallucinations; something for would-be schizophrenics to check out One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - The book is also good, but the movie is lightly praised. Life among the mad isn't something to envy, that's for sure. The Shining - See this movie. Now. The Sixth Sense - In addition to being somewhat supernatural in scope, this film very believably portrays the power of delusion with an added twist at the end. Twelve Monkeys - Well, actually, most of Terry Gilliam's films are excellent studies in sudden "reality shifts", but this one in particular showcases the multiple loose ends and outside influences that dominate a Malkavian's existence. What can you trust? Books Bradbury, Ray. The October Country. Although it's rare that the word "madness" crops up in any of these stories, it doesn't have to. The mood is masterful, and nobody does a better job of portraying people who are firmly (yet subtly) convinced of something very irrational - or who become so. Excellent ideas for staging a schizophrenic. Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch. If you don't have some ideas for roleplaying a hallucinatory Malkavian after reading this, there's no help for you. Chase, Truddi. When Rabbit Howls. The autobiography of a multiple personality disorder victim; very much worth reading, and all the more chilling because it's non-fiction. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This manual establishes the common language of psychopathology; highly technical, of course, but with volumes of information on diagnosis, symptoms, multiple disorders and so on. You're sure to find something interesting inside. Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. Pop-psychology, to be sure, but nasty and brutish enough to inspire at least one homicidal Malkavian. ![]() Eco, Umberto. Foucault's Pendulum. A very involved trip into mysticism, paranoia and madness. Yes, it's dense, but so are the layers of most Malkavians' psychoses. Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. Plenty of material here for decaying families, as well as characters that are on the brink - fucked up but not yet completely dysfunctional. Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. Satire about madness and war; not the most serious look at mental illness, but a good read nonetheless that summarizes the futility of remaining sane in a world that has no use for sanity. Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. What looks at first to be a simple story about a haunted house instead becomes an exploration of the psyche and its fragility. A must-read for any budding Malkavians. Joyce, James. Ulysses. Even if you don't get very far into the work, it doesn't take that long to pick up the stream-of-consciousness style. Probably more useful for Storytellers than players, as it'd be hard to speak in character in such a fashion for an entire evening. Kafka, Franz. His most famous work, "Metamorphosis," is an excellent study in what it's like to wake up one morning and not be part of the normal world anymore. However, there's more to Kafka than that one story, and much of it is fleshcrawlingly appropriate. Poe, Edgar Allan. Poe's life itself is good source material for obsession and deterioration, but his fiction is equally useful for inspiring gothic elders in the throes of dementia. Sayers, Dorothy. Gaudy Night. A murder mystery founded on the oddly simple theory that if everyone around expects you to be unstable, it is virtually impossible to hold on to your stability. Shea & Wilson, Illuminatus Trilogy. All right, so it's gooby and comical, but even so, it's not a bad reference work for pranking. Shatter, Peter. Equus. This play is a must, whether you read it or go see it. It explores obsession and borderline sanity, serious mindgames between doctor and patient, and an interesting viewpoint on how Malkavians might view what the rest of the world calls "normal." Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Something of a field guide to states of altered consciousness; although it focuses more on drugs than good old-fashioned psychoses, most of the people in the book "just ain't right." |
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