Mind's Eye Theatre - Vampire The Requiem.pdf - RoseRed

derangements chapter one: • gaining society derangements
of the damned 269
• Impossible Confl icts: Some Kindred fi nd themselves under Vinculums to extremely cruel
regnants. This condition can create a tug-of-war between love and hate that tears a subject’s
mind apart. Ghouls with loathsome or abusive domitors might also suffer derangements.
ROLEPLAYING DERANGEMENTS
Derangements present a great challenge to players. Most sane people have diffi culty portraying
crazy people. More often, the result is a giggle-producing caricature. Real mental illness isn’t
funny, marginal or cute. The mildest forms can annoy other people. More severe cases can rip
one’s heart out with pity. Full-blown psychosis, however, is seldom less than scary as hell.
Nor are crazy people happy in their madness. Derangements are an attempt to deal with
pain, but they often cause as much suffering as their root cause ever did. More often than
not, insane people are desperately unhappy and would like to end their madness but don’t
know how.
The actions of the deranged often make no sense to other people, but they always make
sense to the subject himself. Other people don’t see the reasons for the madman’s behavior.
Sometimes you can tell what “missing information” explains erratic behavior. When a
schizophrenic rages against unseen presences, well, the hallucinations are plenty visible to
him. Other times, the reason lies in a system of associations that the deranged person might
not understand himself. For instance, an obsessive-compulsive might refuse to carry $20 bills.
How does this refusal help the person? Perhaps he went to the bank just before he learned of
his wife’s death, and had received a stack of $20 bills. Therefore, he associates $20 bills with
the death of loved ones. Or the chain of associations might be far more obscure than that.
When playing deranged characters, players should come up with such hidden associations
as a guide to portraying madness.
Regardless of the type of madness being portrayed, players must remember the Only Rules
That Matter and never attack others, topple furniture, break props or frighten non-players
with their behavior.
CURING DERANGEMENTS
Removing a derangement is even more diffi cult for Kindred than it is for mortals. Modern
psychiatry chiefl y relies on drugs and “talk therapy.” Some forms of mental illness, such as
schizophrenia and manic-depression, seem to happen because of some defect in a person’s
brain chemistry. Various drugs can ameliorate the effects, and maybe a therapist can then teach
the patient to think in healthier ways. Other illnesses, such as phobias and hysteria, seem to
be created entirely by thought and stress. Finding and relieving the base anxiety can cure the
disorder, though modern psychiatry generally prescribes antidepressants and other drugs.
Kindred cannot turn to drugs to relieve derangements. Talk therapy becomes feasible only
if the city has a Kindred psychiatrist, as talking to a mortal would break the Masquerade.
Anyway, most of the causes of stress in Kindred existence cannot be relieved.
For derangements acquired through degeneration, Kindred are much like mortals. A
derangement is considered overcome once the character regains one more dot of Humanity
than the one at which he gained the derangement. So, if a character gains an addiction at
Humanity 6, she needs to rise back to Humanity 7 to overcome that addiction.
After a character successfully resists a derangement 10 consecutive times, the Storyteller
can declare the derangement cured. This method does not work on severe derangements.
A true psychotic cannot control his own mind. Storytellers must decide for themselves
whether extended use of Dominate or other mind-infl uencing supernatural powers can cure
derangements. No method of treatment can ameliorate derangements acquired through
moral degeneration. Those must be overcome by regaining Humanity. At the Storyteller’s