Dementation
“Madness is not the end. It is not the beginning. It is a twisted path that leads from darkness to darkness, and truth to truth.” — Anna Nevermore
The Embrace ravages the minds of Malkavians, twisting and shattering their psyches, but also expanding their consciousness to a point where there is very little distinction between madness and insight. They become visionaries, catalysts of change and insanity, carrying both wisdom and pandemonium in their wake. Their signature discipline, the power of Dementation, carries this madness forward, spreading it throughout the world. The discipline unlocks the doors of the subconscious and frees the ego, ravaging a victim’s logic and supplanting it with chaos.
Derangements: A character must have a Derangement in order to purchase any dot of Dementation. If she does not already have a Derangement, then purchasing the 1st dot of Dementation causes the character to permanently gain a Derangement that cannot be removed. A character does not gain XP for acquiring this Derangement. For more information on Derangements, see Chapter Five: Merits and Flaws.
Dementation Test Pool: The Dementation wielder uses her Social attribute + Empathy, versus the target’s Social attribute + Willpower.
Contents
• Passion
Like the Maenads of old, you can heighten emotions to a fever pitch, driving any fears, desires, desperations and urges of your target to the surface. Alternately, you can diminish those emotions, dragging the mind down into cold, rational emptiness.
System: Spend 1 Blood, expend your standard action, and engage your target in an opposed challenge using the Dementation test pool. If you succeed, you choose either to heighten or dampen her emotions for the next hour.
If you choose to heighten your target’s emotions, then she experiences a rush of feeling – desperate desire, anxiety, joy, or worry – everything to extremes. She must spend 1 Willpower each time something startling or unsettling happens. If she does not spend this Willpower, she reacts with extreme emotion, either running away or lashing out at the source of her concern.
If you choose instead to dampen your target’s emotions, then the target feels a draining loss of emotional cognition; her mind slows and her reactions – both emotional and otherwise – become dull and tepid. She feels no emotional response to stimuli such as love, hate, or fear. She is simply and disconcertingly empty. A character with dampened emotions must spend 1 Willpower in order to start a combat or react with any strong conviction. The target is not required to spend Willpower in order to join an already existing combat or to defend herself.
You may end the effects of one application of Passion by applying the opposite effect. An individual whose emotions have been dampened is restored by using Passion to heighten her emotions, and vice-versa.
Exceptional Success: For the next three turns, your target cannot spend Willpower to resist the consequences of this power.
Focus [Charisma]: You can also apply Passion in the following ways: By either speaking to your target calmly or by detailing possible dangers, you can either end the effects of a fear-based power currently affecting that target or make the target more vulnerable to fear-based effects. Speak with your target for three full turns, spend 1 point of Blood, and make an opposed challenge. If successful, you either end the effects of powers like Dread Gaze or give your subject a -2 penalty to defense test pools to resist supernatural fear for the next hour.
•• Haunting
Nightmarish visions, flitting barely-seen images, surreal echoes, and misunderstood conversations haunt your victim, transforming the world around her into a dreamlike haze.
Nothing seems quite right, and strange sensations crawl across the target’s skin. Her subconscious desires may surface, and her inner fears and regrets return to face her through dark, hallucinatory whispers from the past.
System: Spend 1 Blood, expend your standard action, and engage your target in an opposed challenge using the Dementation test pool. If you succeed, your target’s subconscious dredges up disturbing visions, sensations, and sounds that only she perceives. Your target suffers a -3 penalty to all attack test pools for the next three turns as she tries (and fails) to separate fantasy and reality. After three turns, the subject becomes more capable of distinguishing what is and is not a hallucination. For the remainder of an hour, the penalty is -1.
Penalties from Haunting do not apply to defense test pools.
Using this power on an individual with a derangement gives her 1 Derangement trait. Multiple uses of Haunting do not stack.
Exceptional Success: Your victim suffers a -3 penalty to her attack test pools for five turns, and afterward suffers a -1 penalty to all attack test pools for the rest of the night. In addition, using this power on an individual with a derangement gives her 2 Derangement traits, instead of 1.
Focus [Charisma]: While under the effects of Haunting, your target loses access to her Mental attribute focus. If she has more than one Mental focus, your target chooses which focus is temporarily removed.
••• Eyes of Chaos
There is wisdom to be found between the cracks and broken fragments of reality, and there are lessons to be learned by watching the universe as it slowly falls apart. With this power, you can discern complex patterns, discover inconsistencies, and track the strange and ethereal connections of fate.
System: This power is always active. A character using Eyes of Chaos receives a +5 wild card bonus to any mundane uses of the Investigation skill or to any Academic skill tests focused on trying to break a code, determine a missing piece of information, or piece together clues. Additionally, when making these types of challenges, you can perform the test without physically interacting with your environment; a simple glance around the area (one standard action) is sufficient to perform a thorough search.
A character utilizing this power might spend a few moments scanning a room and be drawn immediately to the discovery of a pistol concealed in a shoe box under the bed, she might glance at a crossword puzzle and solve it in an instant, or she might count all the ceiling tiles in the room as she walked rapidly past them.
Focus [Manipulation]: You can utilize Eyes of Chaos by expending a simple action, rather than expending a standard action.
•••• Voice of Madness
Your voice can carry the siren call of insanity and the whispered pandemonium of sheer madness. By speaking aloud in a resonant tone, you can summon forth the regrets, fears, pain, horror, and suffering of your target’s entire life and unlife, unleashing her id and giving her inner demons free rein.
System: To use Voice of Madness, you must gain your target’s attention and spend at least five turns (15 seconds) describing the derangement you wish to inflict. When you finish this description, spend 1 Blood and make an opposed challengagainst your target. If you succeed, you inflict the derangement of your choice on your target for the rest of the evening and 1 Derangement trait. If the individual has pre-existing Derangement traits, this trait may cause an immediate psychotic break. For more information, see Chapter Five: Merits and Flaws, Derangement Traits.
For example, you might approach the Ventrue Primogen and say, “I saw two Brujah hovering around your car last night. What were they doing? Are you sure you can trust the Brujah?” If you succeed in the challenge thereafter, you could give your target the Phobia derangement, citing “Brujah” as the trigger.
An individual can only be affected by this power once per Dementation user. If the same character attempts to inflict a second derangement before the first expires, the older derangement is replaced by the newer one. If a second Dementation user successfully targets someone already under the effects of this power, both derangements apply.
Exceptional Success: The derangement inflicted by Voice of Madness lasts for two games or one month, whichever is longer.
Focus [Manipulation]: Rather than spending five turns talking to your target, you can inflict a derangement with but a single phrase and a single standard action. You might inflict the same derangement outlined above simply by passing your target and saying to her, “Are you sure you can trust the Brujah?”
A character does not need to fully explain the derangement in roleplay in order to apply the effects of this power, but a player should be sure to explain the derangement out of character to the targeted player, so that she can properly portray the effect.
••••• Total Insanity
By using this power, utter madness – the full shattering of the mirror – is unleashed within your victim’s mind. You draw forth every insecurity, every forgotten slight, every panic or fit of anger, and then cause those emotional wounds to magnify a hundredfold and wreak havoc on your target’s mind.
System: The target must have her attention focused on you in order for Total Insanity to function. Once you have your target’s attention, spend 1 Blood, expend your standard action, and make an opposed challenge against that target. If you succeed, you drive her insane for the next hour.
Total Insanity fills your target’s mind with conflicting derangements, making it difficult for her to act with any rational logic. Your target should work with the Storyteller to determine exactly how this insanity affects her, but for mechanical purposes, the user of Total Insanity selects one of the following effects to apply to her victim:
• Fear: The victim is terrified of anything that is even remotely threatening and will seek to run away and hide in a safe place until Total Insanity fades. The victim will not fight unless cornered and, if forced to fight, will flee at her first opportunity.
• Confusion: The victim suffers a -5 penalty to all attack test pools for the duration of Total Insanity as she tries to separate fantasy and reality. This penalty does not apply to defense test pools.
• Fugue: The target withdraws mentally, sitting quietly and talking only to friends she trusts. If forced out of her shell, she will either attack or flee from the person who provoked her (target’s choice).
Exceptional Success: The effects of Total Insanity last for two hours, instead of one.
Focus [Charisma]: The target loses all of her Mental and Social attribute focuses for the duration of Total Insanity.
