Dementation

• The Fear

With this power, a Malkavian can pull fears to the surface of one’s mind, or plunge them like an icy needle of adrenaline into a victim’s heart. Mortal spirits can be frozen, minds clouded with despair, and egos set on fire. The parts of Kindred that used to live are just as vulnerable, and this power can also spook the Beast with a fright approximating the Red Fear.

Lots of Malkavians think their mystic blood can only be used to project their own fears and disorders onto others, but savvy Malkavians know that every Kindred heart remembers fear, even if it has not met it for years. Every Kindred heart knows madness, even if it lies to itself and calls it a stranger. With this power, fears and madness that once belonged to the vampire simply return to their old home.

This power, more than any other, seems to be invoked by Malkavians without their conscious intent. To be sure, Malkavians can use this power maliciously, by their own design. But it can also be activated by a Malkavian’s own fears and madness. The Malkavian’s own terror – rational or not – can radiate out into the minds of other poor souls nearby.

Urban legends and pop rumors among the Damned have more than a few young vampires thinking they are at risk of catching Malkavia when they are exposed to this power. It’s not true.

Cost: – (or 1 Willpower)
Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy + Dementation – the target’s Composure
Action: Instant. Note that, while it requires only an instant action to activate this power, additional instant actions are necessary to maintain it, as well. Roll the power’s dice pool when The Fear is activated. If the roll is a success, the power is activated and, depending on the effect the Malkavian invokes, may be maintained in subsequent turns, to keep the pressure of fear on the target, without needing to roll.

A Malkavian can attempt to use this power a number of times in one scene equal to his dots in Presence.

Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
The Malkavian cannot ignore his own fears, and must roll Resolve + Composure to resist frenzy, using his own Blood Potency as the target number of successes for the action.

Failure:
The Malkavian fails to project his own fears far enough to effect the target, or fails to reach down deep enough to touch the target’s derangements. One use of this power for the scene is wasted.

Success:
By scoring one or more successes, the character is able to activate one of two effects:

• The first effect creates a sensation of irrational fear in the target’s Beast, as if it were faced with fire or the ferocity of another hostile Beast. The target must roll Resolve + Composure to resist frenzy, versus a target number equal to the successes on the user’s activation roll. As long as the user maintains this power with an instant action each turn, the pressure of The Fear persists. The target must continue to roll until the target number of successes is achieved or the Malkavian stops maintaining the power, whichever comes first. Otherwise, the target succumbs to the Rötschreck. This power, obviously, has no effect on mortals.
• The second possible effect of The Fear is more insidious, and may be used only on a single target. The Malkavian can “activate” the target’s derangements, if any, causing him to feel as if the typical stimulus for his shortcomings has been met. A character suffering from Suspicion feels as if he has just been the victim of someone else’s intentional enmity, for example, while a character suffering from Anxiety is suddenly convinced that otherwise minor decisions have irrationally substantial consequences.

Nothing about this power makes it immediately obvious to the target where these feelings are coming from. Depending on the Malkavian’s body language or actions, it may be obvious. At the Storyteller’s discretion, a character may be entitled to a Wits + Empathy (or Composure) roll to identify the user’s intent. Otherwise, the target presumes something else to be the source of his stress, depending on the nature of his fear or derangement. The suspicious victim might assume the worst from an innocuous statement, while an anxious victim might simply be overwhelmed with pessimistic fears.

Exceptional Success:
No special effect. Additional successes are their own reward.

Special: A character versed in this power, and who is suffering the immediate effects of his own derangements or is subject to a roll to resist Rötschreck, may spend a Willpower point to activate this power even if he would normally be incapacitated by fear, paralysis, or some other malignant effect. Even a torpid Malkavian can use this power, but only against targets in direct physical contact with his corpse.

Suggested Modifiers
Modifier — Situation
— — The fear-frenzy effect is turned on a single target.
–2 — The fear-frenzy effect is turned on two to three targets.
–4 — The fear-frenzy effect is turned on four to five targets.
— — Either effect is turned on a target within a number of yards equal to the user’s Presence.
–2 to –5 — The distance to the target is greater than the user’s Presence. Subtract one die to project the power out to another multiple of the user’s Presence, in yards, to a maximum of five times his Presence.
–3 — User is paralyzed or incapacitated by fear, poison, or some other effect.
–5 — User is torpid.
+2 — Power is turned on a vampire with whom the user has a blood tie.

•• Mad Insight

As a Malkavian progresses in his abilities with Dementation, the power of his blood tears down his preconceptions, his assumptions, his expectations and his trust that the world is what it appears to be. The Malkavian’s perceptions are heightened and freed, his mind becomes receptive to inputs both sensory and extrasensory, and he finds the Blood channeling barely comprehensible signals in the way that dental fillings pick up freak transmissions.

The benefit of this penetrating madness is the ability to sense and act without shame or doubt. The consequence of this wicked power is that no small part of the telemetry the Malkavian receives is hallucinatory bullshit – static and non-sense generated by his cursed Blood and psychic interference from the same place that torpid nightmares come from. To make sense of his visions, a Malkavian must pick carefully through the sensations he experiences – the sights, the smells, the sounds – for those repeating details that, over time, he can learn to depend on.

But to do that, he must also come to admit that his own mind and his own senses cannot truly be trusted.

Kindred legends claim that this power taps into some vast communal consciousness of the Malkavians – a consciousness as demented as the worst of them. Dementation savants claim that Malkavian blood is constantly giving off signals which interact with other Malkavian blood and are, together, modulated by the thrumming frequencies of the universe. This power makes the Malkavian a receiver for those frequencies. By making sense of the telemetry, a Malkavian can gain insight into the rhythms of the material world, and beyond.

Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Wits + Occult + Dementation
Action: Instant

Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
The Malkavian is besieged by a rush of overwhelming hallucinations made up of his nastiest, most debauched and immoral thoughts combined with warped perceptions of the world around him. He can do little more than scream or weep until he spends a Willpower point to push the vision away.

Failure:
The Malkavian receives imagery with no genuine insight, only insane (and probably paranoid) delusions, whether he realizes it or not. At the Storyteller’s discretion, the player may make an instant Intelligence + Composure roll when using the “visionary” effect, below, to parse the vision and conclude that there’s nothing in it that can be trusted. It’s quite possible the player will be unable to tell the difference between a failed roll and a successful roll, if the dice pool to invoke this power is rolled in secret by the Storyteller.

When invoking the “insight” effect, the power simply fails.

Success:
The Malkavian experiences a vision punctuated by flashes of genuine insight. Again, two primary effects are possible as a result of this:

The first effect grants the Malkavian an intuitive and fleeting burst of understanding. It is not knowledge per se, but more of a momentary knack. With this use of the power, called the insight effect, the Malkavian may invoke one of the following bonuses:

• +3 bonus to any untrained Mental Skill
• +1 bonus to any untrained Physical or Social Skill
• +2 bonus to Initiative
• Use of the Danger Sense Merit for one scene
• +2 bonus to one perception roll

The second optional effect of this power grants the Malkavian a supernatural vision containing valuable information about his surroundings or even the future. This “visionary” effect is, essentially, a request on the player’s behalf for information or inspiration necessary to further the story or help bail out the troupe’s characters. The exact nature of this vision is up to the Storyteller, but virtually any kind of supernatural perception is fair game.

The more World of Darkness games you own, the more op- tions you have to draw from for supernatural insight. Here are a few suggestions:

• Grant the character momentary use of one of these Auspex powers: Heightened Senses, Aura Perception, or Spirit’s Touch.
• Grant the character momentary use of the Animalism power Feral Whispers.
• Grant the character the ability to see (and maybe even communicate with) ghosts or spirits in the material realm for one scene.
• Grant the character the ability to look into the Shadow Realm for a few moments.
• Grant the character the equivalent of one Mage Sight spell (from Mage: The Awakening) for one scene.
• Grant the character the equivalent to see past the illusions of Changelings for one scene.

Storytellers, keep in mind that the balancing factor behind this second effect is your own good judgment. You, not the player or her character, decide what kind of vision is experienced and what information it conveys. If there really is no special information for the character to glean in the current scene, you’re entitled to declare that the Malkavian automatically fails to tap into any alternative consciousness this time, but manages to save the Vitae it would’ve cost him.

Exceptional Success:
An exceptional success when invoking the first effect grants the Malkavian two bonuses from the list above. An exceptional success when invoking the second effect grants no special bonus

Suggested Modifiers
Modifier — Situation

–1 to –5 — The first time visionary effect is employed, the Malkavian suffers a –5 penalty. This penalty decreases by one point each time the power is invoked, until the penalty is finally negated.
–1 to –5 — The visionary effect is invoked in a crowded, noisy, distracting space full of stimuli that will confuse and crowd the vision.
–1 to –5 — The visionary effect is invoked while the user is under the effects of a mind-altering Discipline (like Majesty or Nightmare), werewolf Gift, mage spell or a similar power.

••• Gaslighting

Furthering the illusion that Dementation actually spreads Malkavia, is this power. When a Malkavian has mastered this ability, she is able to plague a victim with a lingering madness that withers one’s poise and self-control. A short while after being exposed to this power, victims start to wonder if they’re going crazy. Later, they become certain that they are.

With Gaslighting, a Malkavian twists the victim’s own mind into questioning itself, doubting its own perceptions and knowledge, and rotting its own stability through anxiety. It starts with something as subtle as being unable to find one’s keys, and progresses through the kind of creeping doubt that makes one wonder things like, “Didn’t this room used to be red? I’m sure it was red,” and, “I didn’t leave that out – who’s been in here?” Eventually, the victim may not be sure if he is being haunted, going crazy, or just being fucked with, but he will have no doubt that something is very wrong.

Cost: 1 or more Vitae
Dice Pool: Presence + Intimidation + Dementation
Action: Extended. The target number of successes is equal to the target’s Willpower dots. Each roll represents ten minutes of watching the target, studying him, and projecting the user’s malevolent will.

Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
The Malkavian cannot be sure if she is suffering the effects of her own power, or someone else’s. She suffers a –2 penalty to Composure for the rest of the night, and cannot use this power again for the remainder of the scene.

Failure:
The target escapes the Malkavian’s attention before she is able to overcome his Willpower. Her time is wasted, but she loses no Vitae.

Success:
Once the Malkavian has accrued a number of successes equal to or greater than the target’s Willpower, she spends one Vitae to begin his suffering. Within a few minutes, the target’s derangement (if any) is triggered by his own imagination – he thinks someone on the subway is being intentionally rude to him, or he imagines his superior is angry at him, for example. If the target has no derangement, he does when he next wakes up.
Beginning when the victim next wakes, he begins a reflexive extended action to overcome the effects of Gaslighting. Roll Intelligence or Wits (as decided by the Malkavian when the power is invoked) + Resolve versus a target number of successes equal to the user’s Manipulation + Intimidation. The user can raise this target number by +2 for each additional Vitae she spends on the turn when the power is activated, up to a maximum target number of 20.
The victim is not aware of this struggle going on in his own psyche – his efforts to regain his stability are happening in the back of his mind, outside his conscious control. (Yet the victim’s player may be aware of it, and can spend Willpower on the character’s behalf.)
The length of time represented by each roll depends on the penalty accepted by the Malkavian when this power was invoked (see below).
Every roll the character makes to attempt to overcome the effects of Gaslighting, whether it is a success or failure, reduces his Composure by one dot. If Composure is exhausted, subsequent rolls reduce Resolve by one dot per roll. If Resolve is exhausted, no further damage is accrued. This Attribute damage is healed as if it were lethal damage, with one point recovered every two days (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 167).
Until the victim completes the extended action to overcome this power, he continues to suffer the effects of his derangements. A victim can be subject to only one instance of this power at a time. Should a victim be targeted by several Malkavians, the most powerful instance of Gaslighting is effective. This power affects mortals, ghouls and Kindred alike.

Exceptional Success:
If the user achieves five successes over and above the target’s Willpower dots, the victim suffers the effects of an additional mild derangement of the Malkavian player’s choosing, or the effects of a more severe case of an existing derangement.

Suggested Modifiers
Modifier — Situation
— — Each roll of the victim’s extended action represents two days.
–2 — Each roll of the victim’s extended action represents one day.
–4 — Each roll of the victim’s extended action represents twelve hours.
–2 — Power is turned on a target with no derangements.
–2 — Power is turned on a target of Humanity 7 or higher.
+1 — Power is turned on a target who has failed a degeneration roll in the past 72 hours.
+2 — Power is turned on a target of Humanity 1 or 2.
+2 — Power is turned on a target with whom the user has a blood tie.

•••• Fractured Mind

It’s the fractured mind that opens up to the powers of Dementation. When a Malkavian achieves this level of control over the Discipline, he is able not only to open his own mind wider to the insights and freedoms that come with madness, but he is also able to find the cracks in others’ minds, and exploit them.

This power makes minds “slippery,” in the parlance of the Demented. For the Malkavian, this makes his mind nimble and quick, difficult to get a handle on and manipulate. For the Malkavian’s enemy, this makes his own mind difficult to keep a handle on and hard to control. Where the Malkavian’s mind expands along its seams to gain flexibility and let hostile thoughts and mystical attacks pass harmlessly through, the sane mind comes apart in pieces, leaving the victim scrambling to gather them up.

Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy + Dementation – the target’s Resolve or Composure (whichever is higher), when turned on a foe.
Action: Instant

Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
Whether the Malkavian was targeting himself or another, the effect is the same: Dementaion turns in on itself and breaks down the part of the Malkavian’s mind that controls this Discipline. The Malkavian suffers a –2 penalty to Composure for the remainder of the scene, this power cannot be used for the rest of the night, and the Willpower point spent to activate it is lost.

Failure:
The Malkavian fails to muster the power necessary to pry the target’s mind open. The Willpower point spent to activate this power is lost.

Success:
Success enables the Malkavian to hurt an enemy or help himself. The user imposes a penalty on the target or grants a bonus to himself equal to the successes on the activation roll, to a maximum of +5, for the duration of the power (see below).
This power can be used to penalize a victim’s Intelligence, Wits, Dexterity or Manipulation.
Alternately, this power can be used to augment the user’s Wits, Resolve or Composure, or to grant a bonus to contest or reduce another vampire’s attempt to use Auspex, Dominate, Majesty or Nightmare powers on the user. At the Storyteller’s discretion, this power may expand to include enhanced resistance to other Disciplines as well.
A Malkavian can have only one instance of this power in effect at one time. That is, he can either penalize another character or grant a bonus to himself. Likewise, a victim can only be subject to one Fractured Mind effect at a time; the most powerful activation roll trumps all others. Thus, a Malkavian may be able to override a penalty imposed on him by the Dementation of another Afflicted vampire by gaining more successes on his activation roll to grant himself a bonus.
This power affects Kindred, kine and ghouls equally.

Exceptional Success:
No special effect. More successes simply increase the effectiveness of the power, making it more likely to overcome other effects.

Suggested Modifiers
Modifier — Situation
— — Power is turned on a target within a number of yards equal to twice the user’s Dementation dots.
–2 — Power is turned on a target within a number of yards equal to four times the user’s Dementation dots.
–4 — Power is turned on a target further away in yards than four times the user’s Dementation dots, but still visible with the naked eye. (Note that supernaturally augmented senses do extend the user’s direct vision.)
— — Power is invoked for a duration of turns equal to the user’s Presence dots.
–2 — Power is invoked for a duration equal to the rest of the scene.
–5 — Power is invoked for a duration equal to the rest of the night.

••••• Dementia Praecox

At its pinnacle power, Dementation finally fulfills its namesake. This power (literally, “premature dementia”) imposes delusions on the Malkavian’s victims, inserting a misconception, hallucination or outright lie into a target’s mind and snapping it off. Victims of this power are left believing things – about themselves, about their loved ones, about the world at large – that simply are not true.

Though the length of the delusions imposed by this power is not long when compared to the years of dementia suffered by the aged living, a few nights of demented behavior can be enough to ruin careers, break up marriages, and bring down powerful figures.

Victims of Dementia Praecox have broken into strangers’ houses thinking they were simply locked out of their own homes. They have been found naked in the park, homeless on the street, and covered in blood behind the wheel. They’ve been found miles away from home, in bed with hookers and high on crack. They’ve killed spouses they thought were unfaithful. They’ve gotten themselves killed thinking themselves capable of impossible feats.

A few nights spent in the crucible of madness that makes of a Malkavian’s eternity is more than some minds can handle.

Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy + Dementation versus the target’s Resolve + Presence
Action: Extended and contested. The rolls to activate this power and the rolls to resist it are instant actions. Each roll represents one turn of psychic conflict. The user’s target number of successes is equal to the subject’s Willpower. The subject’s target number of successes is equal to the user’s Composure + Dementation.
Note that the user cannot spend Willpower to enhance her dice pool on the initial roll of her extended action, as she must already spend a point that turn to activate this power. She may spend Willpower on subsequent turns as usual.
The subject can spend Willpower to increase his dice pool on each roll (and probably should). In addition, he may spend a single point of Willpower during the extended contest to raise the user’s necessary target number by two successes. This does not entitle the subject to spend more than one Willpower point per turn.
This extended contest is resolved immediately, on the current Initiative count, when the user or the subject achieves the necessary number of successes to win the contest.

Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
In the unlikely event of a dramatic failure, the user is rendered catatonic and helpless for the remainder of the scene. The power fails and any Willpower points spent on the contest are wasted.

Failure:
The Malkavian fails to break down her target’s psyche with her maddening onslaught. The power fails and any Willpower points spent on the contest are wasted.

Success:
If the user successfully overcomes the target’s Willpower, she can impose a belief on the target’s vulnerable psyche. The target absorbs this idea into his personality and worldview, believing it to be true and behaving thereafter as if it were. This imposed delusion might be as minor as the insidious suggestion, “You lost your wallet,” delivered by a thieving Malkavian. On the other hand, the delusion can be life-changing, as major as telling a mortal, “You are a vampire.”

This can be a difficult power to adjudicate in play. Just what are the limits of the delusion one character can impose on another? The necessary answer is: It depends. Is the victim of this power a player’s character or a Storyteller character? How vital is that character to the chronicle? How strong-willed has that character been shown to be in the past? How likely is the character, given his normal temperament, to go wild if he suddenly believes he is unmarried… or a serial killer? Perhaps most importantly, how willing is the player of the character (even if it’s the Storyteller) to follow this dramatic turn wherever it leads?

The unpredictability of this power is one of its virtues, in the eyes of many Malkavians. Although it can be used to ruin someone’s life, it is also an intriguing test of character. Would you turn yourself in if you believed you had killed someone? Or would you kill again?

To facilitate the use of this power in play, here are some mechanical effects for you to fall back on, whether you’re a player or the Storyteller. Any one of these effects is possible with Dementia Praecox:

• The victim develops a new, permanent derangement at the lowest eligible “slot” on the Morality track. For example, the player of a vampire with Humanity 3 writes the new derangement on the line next to Humanity 4 – the lowest missing dot – while a mortal of Humanity 7 would be immune to this effect, as his lowest missing dot (Humanity 8) can’t be saddled with a derangement. (The Kindred derangement, Delusional Obsession, is a good choice for this effect.)
• A Kindred victim may be compelled to waste Vitae, believing himself to be injured and in need of healing.
• A character may be compelled to waste Willpower points on unimportant actions, thinking that the fate of his family depends on repairing this car right now.
• A victim is made to believe he is repulsive, simple or hedonistic. Model the effect by denying the character any 8-again, 9-again, or 10-again re-rolls and penalizing him one success for every die that comes up “1” when using a particular Attribute or two.
• Neutralize a character’s Virtue, potentially leading him to indulge his Vices on an uncharacteristic sin binge. (It’s likely that a victim of this power is low on Willpower points, after all.) Not only is the character not able to regain Willpower through his Virtue, he behaves as if no Virtue particularly matters to him.
• A victim may be made to forget she has any experience with a particular Skill or Merit. A doctor can be made to repress all her medical knowledge. A Carthian can be made to forget his allegiance to the covenant. A driver can be made to not remember how to operate a car.
• victim can be made to believe she has knowledge and experience in a field with which she is actually unfamiliar. In game terms, she believes she has ample dots in some Skill or Merit wherein she actually has few or none. A neonate is made to think he is actually the Prince. A banker is made to believe she is actually a doctor. An enemy’s child is made to believe she can get away with murder.

This list is not exhaustive, and not all uses of this power need to focus on effects that reference game mechanics, but specific, identifiable traits and abilities help everyone conceptualize just what is at stake for the victim of Dementia Praecox.

The effects of this power last for 24 hours, unless extended by the user at the beginning of the contest (see “Suggested Modifiers,” below). A particular target can be subject to only one instance of this power at a time. Additional attempts to use this power on a target already under the influence of it automatically fail – but any Malkavian able to wield this power is also able to intuitively sense when someone is under its influence. This intuition doesn’t reveal the particulars of the subject’s delusions, only that she is currently under the spell of some Malkavian’s Dementia Praecox.

When the effects of the power pass, some subjects immediately snap out of their delusions. They often “come to” addled, sometimes terrified, and usually feeling drugged or hung-over. Other subjects may continue passively believing their delusion until it is called to the front of their minds (“Wait a minute, this isn’t my car…”). Only the most modest delusions set victims down, back into their own psyches, so gently.

Exceptional Success:
An exceptional success grants no special effects.

Suggested Modifiers
Modifier — Situation
–1 to –5 — Each additional 24-hour period added to the effect’s duration incurs an additional –1 penalty.
–2 — Power is turned on a subject of Morality 7 or higher.
+2 — The user limits the dementia’s duration to a single night.
+1 — Power is turned on a subject of lower Blood Potency.
+2 — Power is turned on a subject of half, or less than half, the user’s Blood Potency.