Malkavian
“I hear a lot about Malkavians being ‘broken.’ Then I look at other clans. We see things and know things that they can’t. They’re missing an entire sense that we have gained. They’re the crippled ones, not us.”— Jessica Kesch
Nickname: Lunatics
Disciplines: Auspex, Dementation, Obfuscate
For some, eternity is no more than a continuance of mortal existence. For Malkavians, the transition is far more abrupt and devastating. The act of Embrace shatters the minds of those brought into this clan, driving them over the sharp brink of madness — but also unlocking supernatural gifts of insight and introspection. All Malkavians are deeply, darkly insane; their psychology is precariously balanced on the edge of sanity’s cliff. This is a painful, alienating phenomenon. The madness may take the form of a structured, clinically understood insanity, or it may be a complete reversal of the senses. It may come and go in vivid psychosis, or it may manifest as elaborate, long-term hallucinations. Each Malkavian’s Embrace shatters the mind in a different pattern; no two emerge into immortality exactly the same.
It is difficult for other vampires to relate to members of the Malkavian clan. They are fractious, unpredictable, and sometimes unintelligible. They see the world differently and, occasionally, they try to educate and enlighten others to truths that only they seem to understand. These lessons take the form of pranks, and they are elaborate, terrifying, and dangerous, following logic only a Malkavian could understand.
Malkavians Embrace seemingly at random, taking their childer from all strata of mortal society. A Malkavian’s outward appearance is usually specific to the individual’s derangement, varying from disheveled and dirty to obsessively clean. Younger Malkavians tend to be deviants and loners, struggling to understand themselves and the new world into which they’ve been plunged. Elders tend to have a better grasp of their inner pandemonium, and seem more at ease. Further, all Malkavians are connected by a vast, lingering sixth sense – some say it is the slumbering consciousness of the founder of their clan – and they all have insights beyond any mortal capacity to understand.
Organization: Truly, the concept of structure is nearly meaningless when describing the rampant chaos that affects the Malkavian clan. Malkavians come and go as they please, barely noticing or caring as the ages pass. They have no clan hierarchy, nor structure. Their elders are nominally in charge, primarily because they tend to be more lucid than those who are recently Embraced.
Clan Weakness: All members of Clan Malkavian suffer from a permanent, incurable derangement. They may acquire and recover from other derangements, but they can never recover from their primary derangement. Malkavians do not receive flaw XP for their primary derangement; however, they do receive flaw XP for additional derangements, as normal. Resetting a Malkavian’s Derangement traits places her at 1, rather than 0. For more information on Derangement traits, please see Derangements.
Clan Merits: Malkavians may purchase any of the following Malkavian-only merits.
- Expanded Consciousness (1 point merit): You can choose a second Mental attribute focus.
- Labyrinthine Mind (3 point merit): You receive a bonus to resist mind-altering powers, and people who attempt to read your mind risk gaining derangements.
- Sophistry (4 point merit): You can sometimes predict attacks before they happen, and use this unique insight to avoid harm.
Bloodline: Ananke (2 point merit)
“I do not recall a time before the whispers clawed at my mind. I only know that I was never more alone, nor more accompanied, before I was dragged into the ranks of my clan.” — Cassius, Elder of the Moon
Disciplines: Auspex, Dementation, Presence
A remnant of a bygone age, members of the Ananke (AHN-a-key) bloodline are said to have kept the ancient temples, where oracles performed haruspexy (the art of divination through reading the entrails of a freshly killed animal) to read truths in blood. Ananke believe that the secrets of the universe can be witnessed in a microcosm by scrutinizing the bodies of the recently dead. Wisdom can only be gained by savagely tearing into the corporeal, physically delving through the inner workings of each creature in creation. This means that an Ananke Malkavian often has a low Morality, sacrificing her Humanity to her search for gristly answers.
Although the bloodline is experiencing a resurgence (more promising childer are available, due to the modern fascination with serial killers), by and large the Ananke are few. A member of this bloodline is compelled to collect trophies of her murderous exploits, using Auspex on them in meditative contemplation. She surrounds herself with the visceral “workings of the universe” in an attempt to find deeper understanding. Scholars suspect that one of the first Ananke Malkavians was the Methuselah known as the Ankou.
Additional Weakness: All Ananke are compelled to take gristly trophies of their activities, and if deprived of the opportunity to take a trophy, they become utterly unreasonable. If their collection is threatened, stolen, or destroyed, they cannot regain Willpower until they have started a new collection of memento mori.
Bloodline: Knights of the Moon
Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Obfuscate
These vampires are not truly a lineage, as their blood’s alteration is not passed on, as other bloodlines’ qualities are. The Knights of the Moon are throwbacks within the Malkavian clan, individuals who – for an unknown reason – did not manifest the clan’s signature power of Dementation, regardless of their sire’s aptitude with that discipline. These Malkavians may appear more stable than the rest of their clan, but the truth is that their insanity tends to manifest as a darker malfunction: vicious sociopathy, a cold, callous intellectualization, or a true psychotic break.
