Derangements
Derangements are behaviors that occur when the mind is forced to confront intolerable or conflicting feelings, such as overwhelming terror or profound guilt. When your character is faced with impressions or emotions that he cannot reconcile, his mind attempts to ease the inner turmoil by stimulating behavior such as megalomania, schizophrenia or hysteria as an outlet. People in the World of Darkness, unwittingly tormented, persecuted and preyed upon by incomprehensible beings, often develop these ailments by the mere fact of existing. Alternatively, regret, guilt or remorselessness for inflicting abuses eats away at mind and soul. The nightÕs creatures are not immune to such pressures, either. Existence as an unnatural thing overwhelms what little humanity these beings might have left, driving them mad.
The primary means by which your character may develop derangements is by performing heinous acts and suffering the mental or emotional repercussions. See "Morality," earlier in this chapter, for more details.
Otherwise, the Storyteller may decide that a scene or circumstance to which your character is exposed is too much for him to bear and he breaks under the pressure. A bad drug trip might reveal too much of the monstrous reality of the world for a personÕs mind to bear. A drug overdose could imbalance a character mentally. Or witnessing a creature in all its horrific glory might make an onlooker snap.
Ailments caused by fallen Morality can be healed through your characterÕs own efforts toward treatment or contrition (by spending experience points). The Storyteller decides if a more spontaneously inspired condition is temporary or permanent. A spontaneous ailment might be temporary, lasting until the character resolves the situation that triggered the condition. It might become permanent if reconciliation is refused, the condition goes untreated or the trigger that caused it is insurmountable. With Storyteller approval, a starting character might have a spontaneously inspired derangement as a Flaw (see p. 217), gaining experience in stories in which the condition or problem is prominent. Spontaneous ailments developed during play might be represented in-game as evolutionary Flaws, not ones established at character creation.
It must be noted that people who are "crazy" are neither funny nor arbitrary in their actions. Insanity is frightening to onlookers who witness someone rage against an unseen presence or hoard rotten meat "to feed to monsters." Even something as harmless-sounding as constantly talking to one's self can be disturbing to observers.
The insane respond to a pattern only they grasp, to stimuli that they perceive in their own minds. To their skewed perceptions, what happens to them is perfectly normal. A character's derangement is there for a reason, whether she committed a crime or saw her own children devoured. What stimuli does her insanity inflict upon her, and how does she react to what happens? Work with the Storyteller to create a pattern of provocations for your character's derangement, and then decide how she reacts.
Each of the following ailments is defined in terms of mild and severe. The first might apply to your character if an action or experience imbalances him, but he remains functional. The second can apply if a previously mild condition intensifies with more irreconcilable behavior or spectacles, or if a single act or scene is so mind numbing that only full-blown insanity and dysfunction can result. If treatment or reconciliation occurs and ailments are alleviated, a severe case of a condition must be addressed and overcome before a mild case of the same derangement.
Mild -> Severe
Depression -> Melancholia
Phobia -> Hysteria
Narcissism -> Megalomania
Fixation -> Obsessive Compulsion
Suspicion -> Paranoia
Inferiority -> Complex Anxiety
Vocalization -> Schizophrenia*
Irrationality -> Multiple Personality*
Avoidance -> Fugue*
* Your character must experience a life-altering trauma or supernatural tragedy to acquire one of these extreme derangements. They cannot normally be acquired by failing a Morality roll unless the sin performed is truly gut wrenching or horrific, such as murdering one's own children.
The primary means by which your character may develop derangements is by performing heinous acts and suffering the mental or emotional repercussions. See "Morality," earlier in this chapter, for more details.
Otherwise, the Storyteller may decide that a scene or circumstance to which your character is exposed is too much for him to bear and he breaks under the pressure. A bad drug trip might reveal too much of the monstrous reality of the world for a personÕs mind to bear. A drug overdose could imbalance a character mentally. Or witnessing a creature in all its horrific glory might make an onlooker snap.
Ailments caused by fallen Morality can be healed through your characterÕs own efforts toward treatment or contrition (by spending experience points). The Storyteller decides if a more spontaneously inspired condition is temporary or permanent. A spontaneous ailment might be temporary, lasting until the character resolves the situation that triggered the condition. It might become permanent if reconciliation is refused, the condition goes untreated or the trigger that caused it is insurmountable. With Storyteller approval, a starting character might have a spontaneously inspired derangement as a Flaw (see p. 217), gaining experience in stories in which the condition or problem is prominent. Spontaneous ailments developed during play might be represented in-game as evolutionary Flaws, not ones established at character creation.
It must be noted that people who are "crazy" are neither funny nor arbitrary in their actions. Insanity is frightening to onlookers who witness someone rage against an unseen presence or hoard rotten meat "to feed to monsters." Even something as harmless-sounding as constantly talking to one's self can be disturbing to observers.
The insane respond to a pattern only they grasp, to stimuli that they perceive in their own minds. To their skewed perceptions, what happens to them is perfectly normal. A character's derangement is there for a reason, whether she committed a crime or saw her own children devoured. What stimuli does her insanity inflict upon her, and how does she react to what happens? Work with the Storyteller to create a pattern of provocations for your character's derangement, and then decide how she reacts.
Each of the following ailments is defined in terms of mild and severe. The first might apply to your character if an action or experience imbalances him, but he remains functional. The second can apply if a previously mild condition intensifies with more irreconcilable behavior or spectacles, or if a single act or scene is so mind numbing that only full-blown insanity and dysfunction can result. If treatment or reconciliation occurs and ailments are alleviated, a severe case of a condition must be addressed and overcome before a mild case of the same derangement.
Mild -> Severe
Depression -> Melancholia
Phobia -> Hysteria
Narcissism -> Megalomania
Fixation -> Obsessive Compulsion
Suspicion -> Paranoia
Inferiority -> Complex Anxiety
Vocalization -> Schizophrenia*
Irrationality -> Multiple Personality*
Avoidance -> Fugue*
* Your character must experience a life-altering trauma or supernatural tragedy to acquire one of these extreme derangements. They cannot normally be acquired by failing a Morality roll unless the sin performed is truly gut wrenching or horrific, such as murdering one's own children.
The human mind has its limits. People retreat into madness when they can no longer cope with extreme guilt, grief, terror or conflicting demands. A person might seek an illusion of selfcontrol through elaborate private rituals, fantasies of power or emotional fixations. In more severe cases, the mind succumbs to stress, crumbling and losing nearly all contact with reality.
Kindred suffer from derangements even more often than mortals do in the World of Darkness, and no wonder. Their entire existence is one long battle between a human conscience and the drives of the Beast. Many neonates still think of themselves as mostly human, but they must feed upon mortal blood to survive. How can they commit assault — potentially murderous assault — night after night and still think of themselves as reasonably good people? As the decades pass, Kindred face other grief and traumas. Either they abandon all the people they love, or they watch them age and die. Society itself changes. What mortals once found unthinkable becomes accepted without question, and the old standards become quaint, rustic or crude. Kindred can also suffer more specific horrors. They include the stark terror of Rötschreck or killing loved ones during frenzy. Most insidious of all, the Danse Macabre takes its own slow toll. As Kindred enmesh themselves in the endless struggle for power, they can trust fewer and fewer of their fellows. Other people are the greatest of all reality checks. Denied any sort of healthy emotional connection to other people, Kindred lose themselves in their own thoughts and fears.
Ghouls are also prone to derangements. They love masters who regard them as slaves. They must move between a secret, supernatural world and mundane society. They are tainted with undeath while they yet live. Of course their situation can drive them crazy.
Kindred suffer from derangements even more often than mortals do in the World of Darkness, and no wonder. Their entire existence is one long battle between a human conscience and the drives of the Beast. Many neonates still think of themselves as mostly human, but they must feed upon mortal blood to survive. How can they commit assault — potentially murderous assault — night after night and still think of themselves as reasonably good people? As the decades pass, Kindred face other grief and traumas. Either they abandon all the people they love, or they watch them age and die. Society itself changes. What mortals once found unthinkable becomes accepted without question, and the old standards become quaint, rustic or crude. Kindred can also suffer more specific horrors. They include the stark terror of Rötschreck or killing loved ones during frenzy. Most insidious of all, the Danse Macabre takes its own slow toll. As Kindred enmesh themselves in the endless struggle for power, they can trust fewer and fewer of their fellows. Other people are the greatest of all reality checks. Denied any sort of healthy emotional connection to other people, Kindred lose themselves in their own thoughts and fears.
Ghouls are also prone to derangements. They love masters who regard them as slaves. They must move between a secret, supernatural world and mundane society. They are tainted with undeath while they yet live. Of course their situation can drive them crazy.