Derangements

The Derangement system as presented in Laws of the Night Revised is a very dated system from the 90s. It comes from a time when real life Mental Illness was not as well understood or taken as seriously as it is today. It is very, a product of its time. As such, we in Kings of New York are revising the Derangement system from Laws of the Night Revised.

In our game world, Derangements are less a reflection of Mental Illness and more a reflection the breaking of a mortal mind when confronted by the horrors of the supernatural world. It represents the character slipping from the mortal world and into the more alien world of darkness. So what does that mean? Characters can gain derangements in the following ways:

1. Certain Powers can Inflict both permanent and temporary derangements on a character.

2. Whenever the character spends a Conscience/Conviction Trait to retest a challenge (or other use), the character must make a follow up derangement check. This is a simple Static Willpower challenge at difficulty 6.

3. Characters witnessing or experiencing truly horrific supernatural events may be assigned an derangement as a result or make a Static Willpower challenge to resist gaining a derangement. This is decided by the Storyteller as needed depending on the scene.

4. When a character reaches 1000 Experience points, they automatically gain one permanent derangement they can never remove. They will gain 1 permanent additional derangement per 500 experience points over that total. This represents how alien the character is becoming from the mortal world. The maximum cap of derangements from this is 3.

When a character gains a derangements they must pick from what the Condition for that derangement is. When the Condition event occurs, the assigned derangement becomes active for a scene or an hour. A character may spend 1 temporary Willpower Trait to suppress the active derangement for a scene. Conditions are set to negative emotions, when a character experiences these emotions through role-play, the condition is considered met. The following are available Conditions to assign to derangements:

• Envy

• Fear

• Loneliness

• Anxious

• Disappointment

• Sadness

• Guilt

• Frustration

• Shame

• Offended

• Heartbroken

• Disgust

Derangements may be removed through a combination of Experience points and Role-Play. Removing a derangement permanently costs 2 experience points and only after the storyteller has approved it via story or appropriate role-play. Powers that can permanently remove derangements may have an additional cost or effect, please see a Storyteller when used. Below is a list of all the available Derangements a character can take or gain through game play. This is a complete list and new derangements may only be added to it with Storyteller approval.

List of Derangements

• Acute Sanguinary Aversion: A derangement only found among vampires, its victims believe that vitae is dangerous, cursed, or otherwise evil.
  • Role-Play: You find blood utterly repulsive and recoil from it.
  • Effect: During this time, all challenges for feeding made by the character must bid 1 additional trait.

• 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.
  • Role-Play: You start to sweat blood across your body
  • Effect: You Spend 1 Blood Trait to sweat blood.

• Hierarchical Sociology Disorder: Most commonly found among Clans or Sects 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.
  • Role-Play: You aggressively defend your societies you are a part of that have a hierarchy. You will act offense and aggressive towards any such challenges.
  • Effect: New Frenzy test Stimuli during this time: Anytime someone challenges a hierarchy you belong in. The difficulty is 5

• Panzaism: This involves seeing the most extraordinary things as ordinary and rational. Conversely, Normal mundane thing seems bizarre and alien to you.
  • Role-Play: Normal everyday things make no sense to you what so ever, however supernatural events or powers are completely normal. Why would you walk when you can fly? For example.
  • Effect: You are down one trait in all Social Challenges during this time.

• 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.
  • Role-Play: You act cold, distant, and aloof
  • Effect: You are down one trait in all Conscience/Conviction Challenges for a scene.

• Dissociate Blood-Spending: 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.
  • Role-Play: You clearly display spending blood
  • Effect: Spend 1 Blood Trait for a Physical Trait when this derangement condition is met.

• 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.
  • Role-Play: : You can hear voices in your head, the sounds of the restless dead echo to you and are very real. You are not alone.
  • Effect: New Frenzy Stimuli when this derangement is active. Anything related to diablerie comes up it is a frenzy test at difficulty 5.