Below is a list of all derangements published for material of the World of Darkness, as well as an alternate system to reflect Degeneration similar to the first Edition Storytelling System published in Chaining the Beast. As the game of personal horror, most derangements have been published in material for Vampire: The Masquerade.
The following derangements are divided into two great subsets: Generic and Supernatural Derangements. Generic Derangements are psychiatric acknowledged in real world medicine and psychology, and can therefore affect any mortal character (as well as supernatural characters originating among mortals). The second are psychological reactions to the rigors of a specific supernatural state and are therefore not available for characters from other categories.
Optional System: Degeneration[]
As a character degenerates from Humanity, he is likely to pick up Character Disorders to reflect his deteriorating state of mind. Disorders are not full-blown derangements, and most people reflect one or more levels of these dysfunctions.[1] In time and further degeneration, a Disorder can bloom into a full-blown derangement.
10 typical disorders are:
- Antisocial: Antisocial Disorders reflect a lack of compassion, empathy, and consciousness. Antisocial characters tend to place their own needs above those of others every time.[1]
- Avoidant: Avoidant Disorders reflect social anxiety. These characters often fear rejection and feel inadequate, and cope with this by sticking to routine and avoiding any new situations. Most Avoidant people yearn for social relations, yet feel unable to obtain them.[2]
- Borderline: Borderline Disorders reflect emotional instability. Borderline characters suffer heavy mood swings, sometimes taking their anger out on themselves. Their relationships with others tend to be intense and conflict-ridden.[3]
- Dependent: Dependent Disorders reflect extreme fear of being alone. Needy and helpless, these characters cling to others, even through abuse, fearing rejection more than anything else. Typically, they let other do the decision-making for them.[3]
- Histrionic: Histrionic Disorders reflect the need for attention. Histrionic characters cannot stand being ignored and seek to be center of attention in every situation. They inflate social relations, over exaggerate injuries, and seek constant praise above everything else.[3]
- Narcissistic: Narcissistic Disorders reflect self-centeredness. Narcissistic characters believe that everything revolves around them, seeking to be acknowledged as superior and often disregard the feelings of others.[3]
- Obsessive-Compulsive: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders reflect focus on perfection. Obsessive persons cannot stand the thought of making a mistake and often set unreasonably high standards for everyone. They have difficulty expressing emotion and over focus on order and precision.[3]
- Paranoid: Paranoid Disorders reflect extreme distrust. Paranoid figures believe that others have sinister hidden motives and relentlessly search for them. Usually, they shift blame from themselves to others maliciousness and have long grudges.[4]
- Schizoid: Schizoid Disorders reflect dislike of company. Schizoid characters prefer to be left alone, rejecting the need for social acceptance or attention. In contrast to Avoidant persons, Schizoid persons truly prefer this state of things.[4]
- Schizotypal: Schizotypal Disorders reflect odd forms of thinking outside the norm. Their speech patterns are convoluted (although still understandable), and they have difficulties concentrating for long periods of time.[4]
Optional System: Dark Ages[]
V20 Dark Ages presents a system that organizes derangements according to three causes: Dyscrasia (imbalanced humors), divine displeasure (a curse upon the mind), and sins of the soul. Some of these derangements are later acknowledged as psychiatric diseases.
Diseases of the Body[]
- Melancholic: Introverted and lost in sadness, Melancholics have difficulty expressing their emotions.[5]
- Phlegmatic: Strongly focused inward, Phlegmatics have difficulties adapting to a quickly shifting situation.[5]
- Sanguine: Sanguines are having deep difficulties in focusing on the moment, usually being distracted and cheerful.[5]
- Choleric: Cholerics tend to have a short temper and likely become angered or even violent when their ambitions are thwarted.[5]
Diseases of the Mind[]
- Compulsion: Compulsed characters are driven to ritualistic behavior to make sense out of the chaos of the temporal world.[5]
- Lunacy: The character's mood depends on the current moon phase, becoming sullen and withdrawn during a new moon and manic and full of energy at a full moon.[5]
- Sacred Disease: The character is a victim of a trembling disorder that renders him insensate.[6]
- St. Vitus' Dance: The character is compelled to involuntary movements of the face and limbs, with a sweating fever and bloody rheum streaming from the eyes. St. Vitus’s Dance can spread throughout a group, leading to mass outbreaks of the "madness".[6]
Diseases of the Soul[]
- Visions: The character feels watched by holy figures that encourage him to stay true to his better nature and threaten punishment if he fails.[6]
- Voices: The characters hears voices that haunt him, driving him to paranoia.[6]
Generic Derangements[]
- Agoraphobia: Characters with Agoraphobia have an extreme aversion to open spaces or places from which escape is not easily possible. Sometimes Agoraphobia is tied to places where the character fears he will panic.[7]
- Amnesia: Characters with Amnesia lose recollections that feel traumatic, unsafe, or unreal. Amnesiacs might block out parts of their identity, forget certain people or places, blank out specific incidents, or function in a level of reality where the forgotten thing (a brother, a home, a missing arm) simply does not exist.[8][9][10]
- Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD): Also known as sociopathy or psychopathy, persons with this affliction cannot comprehend the feelings of other people or understand the impact of her actions on the emotional lives of anyone outside themselves. Feeling no remorse or objections against activities like lying, cheating, or stealing, persons with ASPD can appear charming as long as you do not stand in their way.[10]
- Berserk: Characters with Berserk tend to have difficulties controlling feelings like anger or frustration. When confronted with stressful situations, the character will likely lash out against them in a blind rage.[11][8][9]
- Bipolar Affective Disorder (BAD): Also known as manic depression, bipolar characters experience immense mood shifts. Manic states tend to spark impulsive behavior, unrealistic expectations, and intense passions; depression saps energy, crushes self-esteem, and grinds motivation and confidence into black paste.[10]
- Bulimia: Characters with Bulimia cope with stress by indulging in activities that comfort them, in most cases feeding. A bulimic will eat tremendous amounts of food when subjected to stress, then empty her stomach through drastic measures so she can eat still more.[12]
- Compulsion: , Compulsive Individuals experience visceral compulsions toward specific actions, either in response to specific situations, emotional states or intrusive thoughts. These actions vary, and may be ritualistic or mundane in nature, depending on the individual.[13]
- Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD): Characters with DPD are extremely indecisive, preferring that others make their decisions for them. Most of this springs from fear of abandonment, and the more the character depends on others, the more he will feel inadequate to face his issues alone.[14]
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Previously known as Multiple-Personality Disorder, persons with DID develop consciously and/or subconsciously several other identities for themselves. Each personality is created to respond to certain emotional stimuli: an abused person might develop a tough-as-nails survivor personality, create a "protector". In most cases the personalities are aware of each-other, and they come and go through the victim’s mind in response to specific situations or conditions.[15][8][9]
- Fugue: Also known as dissociative amnesia, a character with Fugue will periodically disassociates herself from her identity and relationships, sometimes forgetting who she is/was until she returns from that fugue state.[10]
- Histrionics: Characters with Histrionics seek the spotlight in even the most inappropriate situations. They affect extreme but shallow emotions or behave and dress provocatively. Histrionics are hypersensitive to the opinions of others, not oblivious to the glares of the crowd as they enact some slapstick melodrama.[16]
- Hysteria: A person in the grip of hysteria is unable to control her emotions, suffering severe mood swings and violent fits when subjected to stress or anxiety.[17]
- Klazomania: A person suffering from Klazomania can but will not lower their voice, constantly shouting at the top of their lungs.[8][9]
- Megalomania: Also known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), persons with Megalomania believe themselves superior to everyone around them. Grand delusions, power fantasies, intense feelings of superiority, and an inflated sense of self-esteem are all common marks of Megalomaniacs.[10]
- Memory Lapses: Unlike Amnesia or Fugue, the character simply "forgets" small tidbits of knowledge, often at inopportune times. This can range from something as simple as forgetting the location of a small object, to forgetting an entire Skill or Knowledge.
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Also sometimes referred to as Monomania, persons with OCD focus nearly all of their attention and energy onto a single repetitive behavior or action. Essentially, a person with OCD fixates on intrusive doubts and fears: Fixations she tries to banish by making sure that certain things are in order, even if they already are.[15]
- Overcompensation: Persons who overcompensate make sure that every of their actions is outstanding, trying to hide a hidden failure of character of simply having low self-esteem. They never undertakes anything half-heartedly; nothing is worth doing for its own sake.[18][8]
- Paranoia: Persons with Paranoia believe that someone external is responsible for all their misery. Paranoid individuals obsess about their persecution complexes, often creating vast and intricate conspiracy theories to explain who is tormenting them and why. A paranoid person sees plots and rivals everywhere, even among his friends. Trust becomes foolishness because no one can be trusted.[15][8][9]
- Phobia: Characters that suffer from Phobia harbor irrational, debilitating fears. A phobia may take any form, from a simple fear of spiders, to fear of a particular popular figure, to a fear of automobiles, to a crippling fear of vampires.[18][8]
- Power-Object Fixation: Characters with a Power-Object Fixation believe that their skill and self-confidence is bound to a specific object (that has no such properties). The character cannot function properly without this object around him.[19]
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): PTSD arises in response to severe trauma such as combat or rape. Symptoms manifest as recurrent, debilitating flashbacks and extreme avoidance of situations likely to recreate the initial trauma.[20]
- Regression: Characters that suffer from Regression tend to revert back into a childlike state in stressful situations. In such a state, the character rarely thinks of himself as a child, but instead exhibits poor sense for cause and effect, fear of the unknown, a tendency to avoid confrontation, and reliance on a strong "parent" figure.[19]
- Schizophrenia: Characters that suffer from Schizophrenia usually exhibit withdrawal from reality, violent changes in behavior, and hallucinations. All of this are reflections of an internal trauma that the character cannot resolve. The cause of this conflict varies from individual to individual.[21]
- Self-Defeating Personality Disorder (SDPD): More commonly known as Masochism, This derangement routinely afflicts ghouls in service to canite elders. Victims are compulsively drawn to dangerous or life-threatening situations which they know will cause them physical pain or emotional distress. They will make numerous, sacrifices, necessary or otherwise, in service to their Domitor, which may make it very difficult for these ghouls to relate to other Ghouls or Kindred who treat them with respect. Some may be in fear of their Domitor, overwhelmed by their grace and poise, or they may simply suffer from other personality defects which make it impossible for them to assert themselves.[22][8][9]
- Sexual Dysfunction: Sexual Dysfunctions are an umbrella term for several ailments, like vaginismus, dyspareunia, or impotence. All such conditions are likely to instill an extreme aversion to sex.[20]
- Synesthesia: Individuals with Synesthesia experience combined sensory input. They experience two or more senses as a singular sensory experience. The specific variation may be unique and some variations of Synesthesia are more taxing than others. While most individuals with Synesthesia grow accustomed to it, challenges may arise when they have to communicate such information to others.[23]
Supernatural Derangements[]
While most supernatural derangements are only found among a specific demographic of supernaturals, some might be adapted to affect other beings with similar powers (i.e a mage might have a derangement similar to Dissociative Blood-Spending, only with Quintessence instead of vitae).
Mage: The Ascension[]
- Umbral Blindness: Common among those that are susceptible to the spirit worlds, the afflicted cannot distinguish spirits from material beings.[24]
Werewolf: The Apocalypse[]
- Harano
- Moon Madness: A derangement found among werewolves, the character believes himself another Auspice than that she was born under. This is not an articulated wish, but instead wildly deviated (sometimes under the influence of Luna's actual phase).[25][26]
Vampire: The Masquerade[]
- Acute Sanguinary Aversion: A derangement only found among vampires, its victims believe that vitae is dangerous, cursed, or otherwise evil. Such vampires refuse to come in contact with blood until they eventually fall into Frenzy, gorge themselves, and have likely even more disgust of vitae than before. Some cope with long ceremonies meant to "cleanse" the blood before they ingest it.[27]
- Animalistic Hysteria: A temporary frenzy triggered in ghouls in response to negative stimuli.[28]
- Blood Sweats: The character has a tendency to "sweat out" vitae. Many other vampires find this particularly disturbing, as the sweat stains clothes and makes the vampire in question a horrid sight to look upon. Such figures are also obvious breaches of the Masquerade.[29]
- Hierarchical Sociology Disorder (HID): Most commonly found among Clans with demanding structures, such individuals let themselves fall into the hierarchy to absolve him of the realities of his nightly existence. Such individuals behave almost dronelike, ignoring their slow degeneration and fall to the Beast by asserting that this is neither their fault nor their problem.[30]
- Desensitization: Commonly found among vampires, the character has lost every feeling in his dead body. This affects his ability to feel any emotion except in highly rationalized forms or through foreign influences like the Blood Bond or Dominate. Such desensitization makes it difficult to truly devote oneself to Humanity or a Path of Enlightenment.[31]
- Dissociate Blood-Spending (DBS): The vampire spends blood often unconsciously, to augment his attributes in inappropriate times or even during the day, leaving him often hungrier than other vampires.[31]
- Dissociate Perceptions Syndrome (DPS): Appearing after the Week of Nightmares to affect users of Chimerstry, such individuals find that they are unable to distinguish between their summoned illusions and personal hallucinations.[32]
- Sanguinary Animism: Vampires that suffer from Sanguinary Animism believe that they consume the souls of their victims along with their blood. In the hours after feeding, the vampire hears the voice of her victim inside her head and feels a tirade of "memories" from the victim's mind – all created by the vampire's subconscious. In extreme cases, this sense of possession can drive a Kindred to carry out actions on behalf of her victims. Diablerie would be particularly unwise for an animist.[15]
- Sanguinary Cryptophagy: Vampires that suffer from this derangement tend to disregard the taste of normal vitae in exchange for more exclusive tastes. Some become addicted to Lupine blood, while others find themselves drawn to diablerize members of specific Clans or bloodlines. While the vampire can still consume regular blood, he will refuse to do so unless in Frenzy.[30]
- Self-Annihilation Impulse (SAI): Commonly found among elders, the vampire has the unconscious desire to experience Final Death. When such individuals are confronted with their own immortality, they head off for a possibly life-threatening situation, like breaching the Masquerade or challenging their superior to Monomacy.[23]
- Severe Dysmenorrheic Psychosis (SDP): SDP is a derangement among female ghouls. They tend to suffer from severe cramps, paranoid delusions, and depression during their menstrual cycle. If they expulse parts of their vampiric vitae, the victim suffers from panic attacks and fears to die. There is no cure yet, although the Malkavian Dr. Douglas Netchurch has developed a serum that can alleviate the symptoms.[33]
Discipline-induced Derangements[]
While the following derangements are most often the result of an abuse or overly strong focus on a specific Discipline, others might experience similar derangements.
- Animal Personification: Commonly associated with Animalism, the vampire comes to treat animals like humans, believing that they can understand him and expecting them to answer.[34]
- Blood Fetishism: Commonly associated with Quietus, the vampire suffers an unhealthy fascination with blood. They cut themselves just to see the blood flow, feed slow to savour the taste, and perform other disturbing acts.[35]
- Compulsive Invisibility: Commonly associated with Obfuscate, the vampire has been so attuned to invisibility that it costs Willpower for him to turn his powers off.[36]
- Disdain of Weakness: Commonly associated with Potence, the vampire will always use full force when interacting with objects and comment on the fragility and weakness of their surroundings.[37]
- Disorientation: Commonly associated with Celerity, the vampire finds the way things move in normal speed disorienting, insisting that they should move slower.[37]
- Disregard of Human Form: Commonly associated with Serpentis, the vampire finds himself more comfortable in another form than the one resembling his mortal days. If suggested that they transform back, they have to check Frenzy.[38]
- Empathic Blindness: Commonly associated with Dominate, the vampire cannot understand why anyone would not heed his commands or else disagree with him, similar to sociopathy.[39]
- Illusion Addiction: Commonly associated with Chimerstry, the vampire becomes so enamored with his own creations that they completely lose sight of the real world, instead surrounding themselves with pleasurable illusions.[40]
- Lack of Survival Instincts: Commonly associated with Fortitude, the vampire comes to believe that he is actually indestructible, willingly facing mortal danger.[41]
- Thaumaturgical Glossolalia: Commonly associated with Thaumaturgy (although in theory, any school of Blood Magic could be the catalyst), the vampire falls into speaking and thinking only in terms of magical correspondences and symbology. Similar to magical aphasia, the vampire cannot communicate this state of mind to others and eventually fails to recognize anything other than these correspondences.[42]
- Unconscious Influence: Commonly associated with Presence, the vampire activates his persuading powers without acknowledging that he use them. If someone would point the use out to them, they vehemently deny it.[43]
- Unconscious Thought Reading: Commonly associated with Auspex, the vampire begins to casually invade the mind of others, reacting to thoughts before they are spoken. Too many people cause a static background noise that can drive the vampire into Frenzy.[44]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 VTM: Chaining the Beast, p. 22
- ↑ VTM: Chaining the Beast, p. 23
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 VTM: Chaining the Beast, p. 24
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 VTM: Chaining the Beast, p. 25
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 VTDA20: Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 353
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 VTDA20: Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 354
- ↑ VTM: Clanbook: Tzimisce Revised, p. 70-71
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 WTA: Book of the Wyrm First Edition, p. 25
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 WTA: Book of the Wyrm Second Edition, p. 95
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 MTAs: Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 649
- ↑ VTM: Guide to the Sabbat, p. 161-162
- ↑ VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 290
- ↑ VTDA: Libellus Sanguinis 4: Thieves in the Night, p. 107-108
- ↑ VTM: Ghouls: Fatal Addiction, p. 28
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 292
- ↑ VTM: Clanbook: Tzimisce Revised, p. 62
- ↑ VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 291
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 VTM: Guide to the Sabbat, p. 163
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 VTM: Clanbook: Malkavian Revised, p. 56
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 VTM: Clanbook: Tzimisce Revised, p. 63
- ↑ VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 293
- ↑ VTM: Ghouls: Fatal Addiction, p. 27-28
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 VTM: Clanbook: Malkavian Revised, p. 57
- ↑ MTAs: Tradition Book: Dreamspeakers, p. 57
- ↑ WTA: Werewolf Players Guide Second Edition, p. 209
- ↑ WTA: Players Guide to Garou, p. 227
- ↑ VTM: Clanbook: Tzimisce Revised, p. 71
- ↑ VTM: Ghouls: Fatal Addiction, p. 26-27
- ↑ VTM: Guide to the Sabbat, p. 162
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 VTM: Clanbook: Tremere Revised, p. 68
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 VTM: Clanbook: Malkavian Revised, p. 55
- ↑ VTM: Clanbook: Ravnos Revised, p. 66
- ↑ VTM: Ghouls: Fatal Addiction, p. 26
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to Low Clans, p. 144
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to Low Clans, p. 154
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to Low Clans, p. 150
- ↑ 37.0 37.1 DAV: Players Guide to High Clans, p. 158
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to Low Clans, p. 156
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to High Clans , p.153
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to Low Clans, p. 146
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to High Clans, p. 155
- ↑ VTM: Clanbook: Tremere Revised, p. 69
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to High Clans, p. 160
- ↑ DAV: Players Guide to High Clans, p. 150
- WTA: Book of the Wyrm First Edition, p. 25 (Choromania, Delusions of Grandeur, Habromania, Hallucinations, Homicidal, Insecure, Manic, Misomania, Obsession, Phagomania, Sadism)
- WTA: Silver Fangs Tribebook, p. 47-48 (Amnesia, Ennui, Intellectualization, Isolation, Manic-Depression, Multiple Personalities, Obsession, Paranoia, Perfection, Power Madness, Regression, Vengeful; Harano)
- WTA: Book of the Wyrm Second Edition, p. 95 (Delusion, Grandeur, Hallucinations, Misomania, Phagomania, Sadism)
- WTA: Book of the Wyld, p. 105-111 (Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorder, Amnesia, Bipolar Disorders, Depression, Harano, Phobias)
- WTA: Tribebook: Silver Fangs, p. 85-87 (Amnesia, Ennui, Fugue, Hysteria, Intellectualization, Isolation, Manic-Depression, Multiple Personalities, Obsession, Paranoia, Perfection, Power Madness, Regression, Schizophrenia, Vengeful; Harano)
- WTA: Werewolf Players Guide Second Edition, p. 208-209
- WTA: Players Guide to Garou, p. 226-228
- WTA/cMET: Mind's Eye Theatre: Book of the Wyrm, p. 79-86, 124-125
- VTM/cMET: Liber des Goules: The Book of Ghouls, p. 66-71 (Amnesia, Blood Thirst, Compulsive Lying, Delusional Identity, Dipsomania, Hebephrenia, Hypochondria, Immortal Fear, Masochism, Obsession, Panzaism, Power Madness, Quixotism, Sadism and Sycophancy)
- VTM/cMET: Laws of the Night, p. 44-49 (Amnesia, Crimson Rage, Hunger, Immortal Terror, Intellectualization, Manic-Depression, Multiple Personalities, Obsession, Paranoia, Perfection, Power Madness, Regression, Undying Remorse, Vengeful; Sabbat Derangements: Blood Addict, Blood Taste, Confusion, Creation Memory, Handler, Hangover Helper, Ideology Fanatic, Mercenary, Obsession, Pack Feeding, Paranoid of Ancients, Passion Player, Path Lust, Progenitor, Promise, Ritual Freak, Sect Fanatic, Strangler, Wrist Slitter)