Clan Malkavian is twice damned: once by the curse of being Kindred, and again by the turmoil that disturbs their hearts and minds. Upon the Embrace, every Malkavian is afflicted with an insurmountable insanity that fractures their outlook for every night thereafter, making their unlife one of madness. Some consider this a form of oracular insight, while others simply consider them dangerous.

Make no mistake: Malkavian insanity is a painful, alienating phenomenon, but it occasionally provides the Lunatics with bursts of insight or heretofore unknown perspective. Madness for the Malkavians may take the form of any clinical form of insanity, or it may be a hyperacuity of senses others don’t know they have; a supernatural puppeteer pulling the Malkavian’s strings, or a sense that the Malkavian is somehow ahead of evolutionary schedule. A Malkavian may believe zirself to be an idea given physical form or an avatar of some concept the World of Darkness has yet to encounter. Ze may be a nonstop ravening psychopath, or may be a mostly lucid individual sometimes rendered catatonic by fear of an impending cosmic cataclysm.

Their precarious stability makes it hard for other Kindred (or, indeed, any vessels with whom they may meet) to interact with Malkavians. The clan sometimes indulges in elaborate, terrifying, and dangerous “pranks” which do little to endear them to other vampires. These incidents are nominally meant to educate the target, but the lesson can often be lost between the vampire’s scramble for safety and the inability to parse the Malkavian’s inner logic. Common pranks might be to replace a vain Toreador’s haven door with a guillotine or to redistribute a Brujah elder’s wealth while they’re at Elysium, or it might take the form of giving a hunter the location where the Nosferatu gather. Kindred both dread and resent the word “prank” almost as much as they do the Lunatics themselves.

True Histories of Clan Malkavian

Let’s start with something simple, then: everything I say here is a lie.

Is everything after that statement a lie? Does that mean everything here is the truth? Did I say that to throw you off? What truths might be hidden to those who read on? What if I say the sky is blue? How can that be a lie? What authority do I have? Why would I go on like this if it’s all made up? Am I secretly a member of another Clan? Am I Caine? Are you Caine? Are we Caine?

If you feel frustrated, enlightened, upset, anxious, and curious about that last paragraph, you’ve just gotten a sliver of a second of the Malkavian experience. Simple does not mean easy. Easy does not mean good. Good does not mean positive. The meaning of things and the makeup of things are entirely different. Truth and perception matter. Perception is easy. Truth is hard.

Where does the name Malkav come from? Every other Clan has a name that derives from an actual word or myth, except for us. And the Tremere, but making words up is part of their spooky powers, like English majors. Saying it aloud makes it seem Slavic in origin, though that doesn’t fit with the cradle of civilization Judeo-Christian legend of Caine that we know and love. If we split the word, we get “Mal,” meaning bad, and “kav,” which sounds a lot like “cave.” Perhaps our founding father set up shop in a hole in the ground far away from all those other Kindred happy to hang out in the flesh pits of Gomorra for a free lunch. A different split, “Ma” and “lkav,” turns the name into a homophone of “Ma, ilk of,” flipping some gender and sending everyone for a connection to the Dark Mother.

So when we say Malkav was our founder, what does that mean? Was there really an old vampire thousands of years ago who called himself that? Was Malkav a vampire broken by the experience that decided sticking around as a vampire was a better idea than greeting the sun with open arms? Who would want to be Embraced by someone like this? Especially in numbers that turned us into a great Clan rather than a footnote or a bloodline? Why didn’t all the other big, strong Antediluvians gang up and stomp out the weak, defenseless one?

You can’t crush someone you can’t find. While the others of his Generation grabbed for the power they never had in life, Malkav quietly slipped into the night. The other Kindred got bored. They fought wars. They slipped into torpor. Malkav did no such thing. Malkav never slept. Malkav never forgot. Malkav remembers everything. He wanders from city to city, looking to pass truth onto those who are willing. He gives it to those of his blood first. We pass it onto the rest of you. Is it out of generosity? Is it out of spite? Why can’t it be both?

Or.

Perhaps Malkav wasn’t a vampire in the sense that Kindred today can understand. That Generation didn’t have to follow rules. It’s boring to think that those vampires twice removed from Caine have to sit up straight and do things like we do them now. By recognizing the truth of his power, he became something more. What others call madness is a direct connection to our founder. He lives inside of each one of his children and this connection burns and blisters us because of the power in his blood. That’s why nobody knows where he’s buried. He’s buried inside our hearts and minds.

Or.

Malkav was Caine’s favorite childe of his Generation. He gave Malkav the one gift none of the others were worthy of. Malkav received a direct line to divinity. But, like so many gifts of Caine, it was twisted in a way that neither Caine nor Malkav expected. Malkav’s blood wasn’t strong enough to stand the power being connected to divinity gave him. It broke him and fouled his blood to pass on that broken connection to the divine. The blood still holds the connection to something greater, and Malkav’s children reconnect from time to time, delivering the truth to those who may not want it, but need it regardless.

Respectable Kindred scholars believe two of these theories of Malkav. They have been researched, debated, credited, discredited, killed for, written about, and published by vanity presses. The other I made up ten minutes ago while I was having a cigarette in an alleyway.

Which is the truth and which is the lie?

Remember the first thing I said.

Ask five Malkavians for the history of the Clan and you’ll get 17.5 different answers. History is a matter of perception. Written by the winners. Doomed to repeat. We don’t have the same hang-ups about who begat who begat who. Some of us dig deep into the history as a way to legitimize us to the Clans who do care about history. Others like to make up the most outrageous story possible to see how quickly it gets whispered and repeated. A few have convinced people the only way to see the truth of the universe is through the taste of our blood.

Rome (But Not the TV Show)

The Kindred’s bloody fingerprints are all throughout human history if you know where to look. Rather than make our own, we’re the one that smears those fingerprints around. We don’t have fallen cities or famous people to hold up as evidence of our influence. Instead, I point to the tricksters. Many ancient cultures revere figures unafraid to speak their minds, to think instead of fight and who didn’t see things from a conventional point of view. Loki. Coyote. Crow. Iktomi. Were they all Malkavians? Only Beckett knows for sure, and he’s a lying bastard. But many of our kind certainly influenced history as the viziers, prophets, and seers whispering into those great men’s ears.

If you want to see us at the local library, go check out some books on Roman history. The other Clans rush in to claim a hand in the rise of Western Civilization™. We were there from the beginning. You think the Ventrue came up with some crazy origin story about twins raised by wolves? Rome was our Carthage. Our lovely city wasn’t destroyed; it was sanitized. We made blood flowing in the streets fashionable. We showed that we could wield power in one hand and madness in the other. Every Malkavian has a great story about where they were while Nero played his fiddle. Even the neonates.

Let It All Burn

The closest we ever came to losing it all was during the Long Night. It was a time when every vampire got sick of every other vampire’s shit. We fueled the revolt against the Princes of the night, but even the rebels didn’t want us hanging around once they made their point. Some Kindred would curl up into a ball and go hide in the sewers feeling so unloved. Malkavians learn very early on that if someone gets upset with something that’s said, that means it’s true. The outrageous things we say often draw out secrets better left hidden. Secrets we use to exert influence.

The Convention of Thorns, like so many other treaties, was about the winners punishing the losers for, you know, losing. There was a movement to geld our Clan with some magical leash. The Malkavian prophet Vasantasena walked into the chambers of the Camarilla and made something clear: if the Malkavians were punished as a whole, they would break their jaws biting the hands that fed them. Blood would be returned on blood one thousand fold. She took a chunk of the Clan over to the Sabbat as a precaution against an extinction level event, but the Camarilla elders blinked.

The lesson here is often lost on those studying Kindred history. There is joy in playing up to what the other Clans expect of us. However, when lucidity hits, and a Malkavian addresses someone calmly by name to tell you something’s going to go down, they better goddamn listen. Not doing so makes them look crazier than we do. And that’s saying something.

Though Vasantasena took a large chunk of the Clan to the Sabbat, the majority of Malkavians stuck it out in the Camarilla. We already saw the great beast dying and calcifying. The Sabbat lies to itself more than the Camarilla. They sought truth and instead bought into an illusion of control no different from the one the Camarilla believes. At least the Camarilla subtly tries to convince vampires of its rightness. The Sabbat grandstands at every opportunity. The Malkavians who were willing to shout louder over everyone proclaiming their own greatness became the antitribu of the Sabbat. We’re better off without them.

The Name Game

Modern history, at least, has a fun game to play. Many Clans love to name-drop who they controlled, Embraced, or influenced. But that’s like giving credit to a pet for helping to get a job or praising a wallet for saving money. Those long nights at Elysium need to be filled with something, so why not make some outrageous claims? I really, really like the 24-hour news cycle for inspiration. They have to fill up the airtime somehow, and some of the things they say are way better fodder for pranks than anything I could come up with on my own. Nobody said we couldn’t steal from other sources.

Our Clan stands in the modern nights in an interesting position. We serve the same purpose in the two major vampire organizations. Everyone treads carefully around us, as it should be. There’s a fear that we leak information to our brothers and sisters in the Sabbat, either intentionally or in our dreams. Sometimes we will take up with our awful cousins, but that’s usually only when the rest of the Kindred in the city are doing something even we think is insane.

There are cities where we have held positions beyond the necessary Primogen or Priscus. Milwaukee, for example, has a fine history of Malkavian Princes. Malkavian Sheriffs have a nasty habit of picking out truths that even those in power want to stay buried. Harpies love to whisper outrageous rumors that certainly can’t be true, but make anyone verifying the tale look foolish in the process. Keepers of Elysium often enact strange rules and regulations in exchange for Kindred taking advantage of the promised safety. I’ve heard of a Keeper that insists if a Kindred wishes to speak to the Prince, she must break one of the vampire’s bones for the privilege and must not heal it until after the meeting is complete. The more time requested, the bigger the bone.

We still understand the importance of perception even if history doesn’t matter to most of us. Clans may have their own names and identities, but we had a hand in shaping them. You don’t think those sobriquets sprung from Zeus’ head fully sprung, do you? We quietly gave them as knives for the Clans to use on each other. The symbols too. We understand the power in symbols because of how they convey meaning. They are the purest expression of an idea. That’s why we are often portrayed as babbling fools. We’re not babbling. We’re demonstrating the weakness of words as a way to communicate the truth.

21st Century Nuts

These nights, Malkavians walk the streets listening to the soundtracks in their own head. Cities sprawl out like mystery novels ready to be solved. Every Prince’s court is a puzzle box waiting to be opened, even if that means smashing it against the ground to get to the candy within. We are the chaos at the heart of every town, shaking with the beat of a jackhammer and ready to break hearts and put dewy-eyed Kindred back on the bus to small towns if they can’t cut it.

Why They Keep Us Around

We know the Truth. The truth sets us free, from behavioral constraints to societal instructions. This unusual insight of the world around us becomes the main reason we can do what we do. We get away with it because, in the middle of all the sound and fury, we can crack the case. We can whisper a secret into a Prince’s ear known by nobody else born after the birth of Christ. We can look into a garbage dump and find the one suitcase full of body parts in five minutes. We know why the whole city of Sao Paulo is sick, and the terrible price necessary for it to heal. Chaos is a pattern to us. You just have to step backwards far enough to see the edges.

Where does this insight come from? Once upon a time, those in power came to see the oracles that they feared and revered. The oracles spoke the truth and they were hated for their certainty and their otherness. Our condition continues this tradition. Malkav’s blood connected him to something greater, and that connection exists in all of his childer. That’s the real curse we bear. Madness became a way for the other Clans to tear us down because we say the things nobody wants to hear. When our truths work for those in power, the others hail us as prophets. When they foresee doom, we are cast out as gibbering fools.

There must be a rational explanation for it, insofar that a rational explanation about vampires exists. The vampire body defies everything known about physiology. Kindred are able to heal wounds and throw cars with just their blood. Malkavian meat brains are a strange offshoot of that idea. I’m not talking about that “humans only use 10% of their brain” bullshit either. Plenty of visionaries were called cranks, kooks, and madmen because those with shorter vision and smaller intellect couldn’t understand what was truly being said.

Perhaps our Clan has been unshackled from human concerns of biology, society, and morality. All of the politics, power struggles, and intrigue are distractions cooked up to pass the time of an otherwise boring immortality. They are grasped by creatures that were once human trying to fix what they thought was broken about their old life. The Malkavian brain sees the Primogen as the awful people at the high school reunion who still fit into their letterman jackets. We don’t care about these games, which is why seeing through them comes so easily. We have an eternity to think ahead of us, and we know it.

The Camarilla hangs onto us for a lot of reasons. It’s better to have us pissing out of the tent. We make a great buffer between the cranky Clans and the stuffy Clans. We love having such delicious rules to break and pompous Kindred wearing big juicy targets. The Masquerade is an excellent example of examining perception. The Camarilla’s strength is propagating one of the biggest lies in history. We like not being hunted in the streets, because that takes time away from more fun things. It’s like sleeping above a laboratory. Walk downstairs and you’re already working.

The members of the Sabbat will tell you that their Malkavians are meaner, nastier, and fat-free. Do you think we really care about Evil Goatee versions of ourselves? They may be right, or they may be overlooking that those Malkavians have a different set of rules to break, so they’re working under different conditions. They have to push themselves hard to stay out in front of what the rest of the Sect does for fun on a Saturday night. It almost makes you feel bad for them. But then one of them shows off a haven that contains a single piece of furniture from every victim they’ve killed, and it’s clear they’ve lost their way.

Does that mean we’re independent, like the Assassins, Travelers, Snakes, and Skullfuckers? We appreciate the independents are bold enough to take a stand against the two-party system. It’s been hundreds of years since Kindred politics got all shook up, and none of them has given up. On the other hand, they ain’t gonna get anywhere without cutting deals with Sabbot and Camarillo running the show. It’s one of the longest comedy duos running, and we can’t even tell anybody about it. Talk about an ultimate joke.

A lot of us threw in with the Anarchs because they know how to party. They also give us an excuse to go big, loud, and wild with our pranks. They are cute in a way, because they mimic much of what Malkavians go through during their development. A rage-filled youth smashing the establishment. Moments of clarity that fuel greater plans. Burnouts looking for a new cause to believe in. We just wish they’d get on with growing up. We’re amazed that a tantrum can last for hundreds of years. But there’s a lot to learn from the chaos they bring.

Last, but certainly not least, we have the shadowy, mysterious Inconnu, a Sect of vampires known for their shadowy mysteriousness. Is it a collection of Antediluvians trying to seek out the Clan founders to kiss/kill them? Is it a bridge club for Methuselahs who like smashing together younger vampires like Matchbox cars? Was it the first prank cooked up by Malkav who laughs every time a vampire is convinced to believe in the League of Santa Claus and Easter Bunny Vampire Superfriends? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. I mean, again.

The Meek Shall Inherit

Most of the other Clans are defined by their strengths. The Ventrue have storied bloodlines and positions of power. The Tremere have Thaumaturgy and byzantine secrecy. The Toreador are snappy dressers. Even the Nosferatu are known for their mastery of secrets. The Malkavians, more than any other Clan, are defined by their weakness. Malkavian madness is pitiable to some, terrifying to others. Yet, like so many other parts of the Malkavian makeup, madness as a weakness is a matter of perception. We’re perfectly fine letting the others think they are weak. That is, in fact, our greatest strength.

Perceiving our unifying trait as an affliction makes it easy for Kindred to underestimate Malkavians. Let them underestimate us. We’re going to be talked down to, pitied, and patted on the head. Then they wonder how we knew about their secret havens and their hidden childer. They talk about it right in front of us, thinking we’re off to Narnia or distracted by the voices in our head that every one of us allegedly has. What is often attributed to the Cobweb or the Madness Network is just paying attention when we’ve been written off as a fool or a simpleton.

Often, we are turned into the court jesters of Elysiums and pack houses. We get mocked, asked to tell jokes, or patronized by the ones who prize social status. So few remember that the point of the jester was to tell the king when he was full of shit. We have truth to power in our veins. We can say the things everyone is thinking. If the target flips out, they trash their own reputation. Even vampires think they have a good sense of humor. Even the ones who have long since stopped pretending to be human.

Nothing unites the great unwashed like being blamed for everything. Other Clans get swept up in squabbles and slap fights over ridiculous concepts. We sit outside, pointing and laughing, which gets those Clans upset at us. Whenever something strange happens in a city, they blame us until a better explanation comes along. Doesn’t matter if it’s a bank error or a backlash of a mystic ritual. The first instinct of anyone in power is to blame, and who will stand up for the vampires that drool and mutter to themselves?

I’m Malkavian and That’s Not Funny

Vampires don’t like to say what they mean. Look at all the polite terms we use to talk about the nasty, nasty things that happen to us. Embrace means ripping the throat out of someone’s mother and shoving the blood back in the wrong hole. Kindred refers to other bloodsucking monsters who are rivals at best. Vitae is blood, blood that we will skullfuck our own mothers to get if we must. The lexicon flows with flowery terms growing on mass graves.

Madness is an archaic word used to describe what happens to the Malkavians because of their Embrace. These terms follow us around like a stink cloud. Others talk about our madness as if it can be defined and accounted. They want to hold us down and define us because deep down, they are scared of what we could really do. They fear the unknown we’ve touched because we’ve been able to grab a hold of it just for a second.

Malkavians are broken from their first night as a vampire. We don’t have anything to hold on to as we fall. Other vampires cling to vanity, to power, to secrets, hoping that they buoy them against the great black waters where we live. Malkavians dive, swimming as hard and as fast as we can, hoping to find a little air pocket somewhere in the depths.

It goes beyond mental health. Malkavians can’t go into therapy or take medication. The afflictions we suffer may mirror ones defined by psychology, but that’s because of our human shells. Some Malkavians drift through illnesses like hosts at a party. It’s pattern recognition developed as a human working against perceptions developed as a vampire. Psychology is the study of human behavior. We’re not human. Humans love to anthropomorphize things, so sending a Malkavian to a psychiatrist is like trying to talk to your cat by meowing back.

Five Stages of Malkavian Development

A Clan rooted in chaos and insanity shouldn’t have any structured leadership. Yet the Malkavians continue to be a major Clan because they do. Malkavians jockey for status and influence just like the rest of the Kindred community. The difference is where the respect and influence comes from. Malkavians don’t care about the centuries spent in the night or prestigious lineages from powerful Cainites. No, Malkavian respect pours from how far along the vampire is on the stages of Malkavian development. The farther along the path, the less likely the Malkavian considers the lack of sanity to be a curse.

Fool

We all start here. There are those who say that most other Kindred never get past this stage by getting too wrapped up in the distractions of the undead life. Or, they just keep fighting it, clinging to whatever they can to resist the tide. Fools are usually recently Embraced vampires dealing with their curse. The cute ones even think there might be some way back and waste a lot of time looking for an exit that doesn’t exist. They don’t have much time for activities above and beyond their insanity. It’s hard to campaign to be Sheriff when you’re trying to find out where all the voices are coming from, you know? No, I guess you don’t know. Well, listen to the voices for once and they’ll tell you, okay?

At this stage, we’re not much of a threat. We’re too busy wrestling with our inner demons to worry outsiders. Fools are little more than a collection of nervous tics and nonsequiturs to those looking in on the Clan. We understand we’ve got time to work it out, but other Clans often sense weakness and jump on those poor little swans pushing out of their eggs of sanity. An ambitious few attempt to fire off some pranks, but they are usually about as effective as a whoopee cushion from a broken gumball machine. At best, they provide some amusement for other Kindred, who love to watch us go through tormenting ourselves to distract themselves from their own.

Maniac

Malkavians that make it through those first frightful years move on to this stage. Many of us don’t make it past here and that’s fine. This is the point in development where we lash out at everything because of our pain. If we’re going to suffer, you’re going to suffer. The curse of madness hits maniacs hard, causing mental, emotional, and physical pain the likes of which surpass anything a mortal could survive. The only way to make it through to the other side is to lash out. Sometimes, the pranks at this stage leave an impression simply because of their violent consequences.

When most other Kindred think of Malkavians, this is the stage we all are in their simple minds. They write us off as violent lunatics even though they need us. Keeping a scapegoat handy works wonders for the political system on both sides of the Camarilla and Sabbat divide. That makes violent pranks at this level that much sweeter. How often can we cause enough collateral damage to illustrate the uselessness of sectarian violence? What are the lessons from leaving a Bishop’s childe beaten in the trunk of a car and pushed into the nearest body of water?

Madman

This is where many of us see the light at the end of the tunnel. That’s usually right before the train horn sounds, but this is the first moment where many Malkavians realize that they’ve been given a blessing and not a curse. The breakdown of worldviews is over. The rebuilding begins now. This is where you let go and drift on the forces you can’t understand. That’s what leads Malkavians at this stage to seem calm, cool, and collected. The fear of losing everything is gone. Everything they were worried about losing was worth nothing in the first place. Madmen are free to seek out items of real value to their new opinion on the world.

The best madmen don’t shoot to kill; they shoot to teach. This is when plans become elaborate lessons meant to teach more than one Kindred at a time. These pranks are for shaking Kindred to their core. Madmen often find themselves in positions of power within a city, since they can usually be counted on to show up at meetings and not talk to the Prince’s shoes the whole time. That gives them the resources to set bigger plans in motion, and have a few Clan members further down the ladder to do the heavy lifting and fall on swords as needed for things to go smoothly.

Lunatic

Is there enlightenment in our condition? Surely, some of us get a great reputation for insight that comes from some gibbering with things outside normal perceptions. This stage reflects those of us who see the world for the gigantic mirror that it is. It’s all a lie to a lunatic and these Kindred devote themselves to breaking the biggest mirror of them all. They want to leave big, coyote shaped holes in perception. Lunatics often devote themselves to a signature act that’s decades in the making. They channel all that emotion into one bold statement that plays out in a huge shockwave across a city.

Lunatics act and the Clan follows. A careful word, a slight gesture sets all the dominos. Lunatics are the clocks by which Malkavian Time chimes. They say the Great Prank was hatched by a coterie of lunatics. They literally created one egg for each city where Malkavians were located and hid them, like Easter Eggs. The Malkavian that found them got the strongest dose of mental mind twisting power and everyone else got those echoes. That’s why so many headless corpses were found in those cities. Wait, I confused eggs and heads again. Malkavians cracked open the heads and all the power came slushing out. Was I not supposed to say that out loud? Oops.

Fool

The end is the beginning is the end is the beginning. Everything you know is wrong. Everyone knows double majors are worthless in the real world. Fools realize that all the time spent building up their new perceptions ultimately burn out everyone. Where can you go once you’ve seen the world for what it truly is? Reality was made to be broken, so those at this point in their development are revered yet pitied. Honored yet mocked. The master becomes the student. But then were they ever really the master? Or did they just think that thanks to a mix of arrogance, delusion, and the refreshing scent of pine?

What’s the point of starting over? Most other Kindred miss that when we make it to this stage. It’s not totally starting fresh. The lessons are learned and the howls are new. Every time we build something, we know it can’t stand. Kindred think they are static and we intend to prove them wrong, even if we have to burn everything down with us locked inside to do so.

What am I? I’m a fool. Not a fool. Isn’t it obvious?

Malkavian Madness Network

It has many names. The Cobweb. The Tapestry. Steve. The Malkavian Madness Network is how we are able to know things other Kindred can’t know. We are all plugged into the darkness that surrounds us, more so than the Gangrel who walks with wolves while shirtless and the Tremere who won’t shut up about how much they know but can’t say anything. This is the insight that keeps us in the favor of Kindred who would otherwise stake us, diablerize us, or lock us up in asylums with lovely sunroofs. It flows from one big, scary river of blood oozing out of the mouth of Malkav.

The Network is connected to Malkav. Some of us go so far to say that it is Malkav, figuring out a way to sleep in the minds of all his good little boys and girls rather than some dank cave somewhere. Others say anything we hear, he hears, because his blood is alive. Malkav’s pain is so grand that he passes it on to all of us in little pieces that run back to him with all the neat things we’ve learned. So, for holding those bits of himself, we get a teeny tiny taste of what it’s like to be omniscient.

If the network is Malkav, then our elders are the towers, the lighthouses, the gibbet full of a corpse who still talks even though the crows peck at his bones. All the information we hear gets filtered through our elders; the most important pieces get sent out over the Network. The Network is like that white noise you get used to living in a big city. All honks and air conditioners, but then suddenly one of the cars driving by addresses you by name and says something relevant to your evening. The best Malkavians catch this info while it’s still useful. Rarely does something go out that everyone needs to hear. Even when a message gets garbled or supposedly sent to the wrong Malkavian, it ends up working out in the end.

Clan Traditions

It’s easy to think a Clan like this doesn’t have rules and guidelines. We actually have about seven or eight of them. Some of us don’t care about any of them, some of us care about one or two a lot, and the rest of us pick them up and put them down as necessary.

The Loneliest Tradition: The Tradition of Mutable Traditions

Outsiders see this as a proclamation that rules are meant to be broken. That’s the wrong Clan, first of all. Breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules while looking good in biker cosplay is the Brujah’s thing. Clans get upset when you move in on their conceptual turf.

What this tradition means is that rules are guidelines to a safe existence. Malkavians are charged with bending, prodding, poking, folding, stapling, and mutilating those rules to see just how strong they are. We are the stress testers of the universe. We are the ones turning your perceptions off and on again to fix them. We are here to show you which rules work great and which are outdated.

Coin: The Tradition of the Broken Mirror

You cannot go back to the way things were. The Masquerade is important, sure, because most of us don’t like being set on fire. However, pretending to be the same person you were before the Embrace is sad at best and dangerous at worst. Malkavians don’t keep the same lives they had. Sometimes they drift away from who they were. Sometimes they wipe out that life in a spree of violence and blood. Once the mirror breaks, those pieces stay broken. We can build other things from them. Better things. Sharper things.

Mice: The Tradition of Madness in the Blood

Our curse is not confined. Our blood affects others. A Malkavian ghoul is likely to develop odd behaviors. Someone willing to share blood will pursue their side of the bond with an obsessive bent. There’s an old superstition that madness is contagious. In our case, there’s some truth to it. Our blood warps those who come in contact with it. Even the most hardened diablerist takes a moment to consider drinking a Malkavian’s heartsblood. What if the rumors are true about the madness surviving the death of the vampire? Is it really worth it?

It also means that sometimes, that chaos gets the better of us and reduces us to a cackling, howling mess for a while. You’ve got to let the pain out somehow. Doing irrational, physical things helps, but there’s just a sudden buildup of pressure that a good scream lets loose. Malkavians never know when it’s going to hit, but when it does, prepare to be down for the count for a week or two. The rare city with a Malkavian Prince often has someone step up to lead while they are off-stage. Often, the generation of good pranks comes from this chaotic energy. Acting on the urge to lick everyone’s faces at Elysium will cause more chaos than it releases. Purposely changing one word of every message passed between Primogen? That’s sharing the fun.

The length of these periods depends, but this tradition calls for unity and protection from the other members of the Clan. We protect our brothers and sisters going through these rough pieces. That can mean a bit of lock-up time for the Malkavian suffering from the episode. Often, the Clan maintains a secret haven where such a vampire can safely stay until the process is complete. Other cities put their suffering Malkavians on display. Nothing like making a vampire chew off his own tongue in Elysium six nights in a row to make the Harpies think twice about dismissing us as “harmless kooks.”

Afterwards, the vampire is irrevocably changed. They may have been delusional, but now exhibit an irrational phobia. They have split personalities but now speak as one. The blood changes in ways the body cannot. The Malkavian may have the same face but a much different outlook. I once heard an ancient member of our Clan insist that these changes allow Kindred of a certain age to cheat death and torpor by pulling the soul of the young vampire into the sleeping body and pushing the old vampire into the younger body. This story is completely ridiculous and you shouldn’t believe it for a second. Nope. No siree Bob.

Horsemen: The Tradition of Universal Madness

We are the only ones who see what’s wrong with the world. Everyone else has fooled themselves into seeing patterns that aren’t there. “God does things for a reason.” “The universe is all systems.” “As above, so below.” These are all fictions told to help people sleep at night. We don’t need them anymore because we don’t sleep. We never sleep. The universe is madness, beginning with a bang and not an orderly line of clear progress.

Oh: The Tradition of Pranks

Let’s talk about pranks. We use that word because words are just sounds, made by imperfect beings vibrating imperfect meat lips. It’s a concept that’s hard to translate to people outside the Clan, and “terrifyingly anarchistic plots with inscrutable outcomes” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue either. Pranks are like that trick where you try to pull the tablecloth out from under the dishes. Do it right, and everyone is impressed. Do it wrong, and everyone is upset you ruined dinner. Either way, someone is likely to walk away from the table thinking about how you did it.

There’s this idea that our pranks require years of planning and crackerjack timing. We see the threads and pull, hard, to see what falls apart. Sometimes that does require a bit of conspiracy. Most of the time it’s just obvious to anyone who is paying attention. We are always paying attention. We see all the cracks, all the lies, and all the pretense. Pranks (ugh, that word) are when we decide to point them out to everybody else. That’s when we show the emperor has no clothes by dousing him in gasoline during his tour of the fireworks factory.

What we try to teach with pranks doesn’t matter as much as what the target is ready to learn. No Kindred is safe. Security is an illusion. All it takes is one bad night to push anyone down the stairs of sanity to become a mindless beast. All this distraction and artifice becomes unnecessary. We see the Buddha on the road and we kill him. We destroy his beloved childe. We swipe her last painting as a mortal with a poster of a cute kitten.

Recently, many of our Clan manifested the ability to twist minds as a Discipline. Many outsiders called this The Great Prank. (Did I already mention the Great Prank? You should have told me.) It’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Outsiders don’t understand how a whole Clan can just decide to change a fundamental part of themselves. It’s another lesson in perception. That part of us has always been there. Since the first night, it waited, and it became clear that it was time to reveal it to the world. Some of us bloomed early, especially those in the Sabbat, since they don’t have to behave themselves as much. Some of us are blooming late, holding onto Dominate like an adorable mind-controlling teddy bear.

Gun: The Tradition of Concordia Accordion

I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

The other things that bump in the night? When we look for allies outside of the usual dead people, we can usually find some. Most Kindred don’t have an immediate opinion of the faerie, which makes them something of a wild card. Lupines are easy to plan for. Sword-swinging firebreathers, less so. We do a lot to puff up those legends just in case we ever need to call them in to help us out. And, confidentially, their blood is some of the strangest stuff I’ve ever had. Do it once, but make sure you have a few days afterwards to dry out.

Up: The Tradition of Breaking Traditions

If you don’t fuck things up, how do they know what they’ve lost? How will they know what they could gain? We know we can break our traditions and expect it. But when you do it to another Kindred, that’s when the fun begins. Breaking their rules makes them examine their rules and themselves. Self-examination leads to breaking down preconceived notions. Breaking their rules also forces the Malkavian into unfamiliar situations. I’ve learned a lot about enlightenment from Brujah quoting the Buddha while breaking my legs.

Knowing how far is too far is more art than science. So is knowing when to break instead of when to bend.

Playing with Madness

Malkavians can be one of the most challenging clans to play. Players and characters alike can dismiss Malkavians as harmless, blame them when things go wrong, and not take their ambitions or plots seriously. Playing a character that watches their Humanity (or their Path) slip away is hard enough to do, but mixing in one who already has been irredeemably broken by the Embrace makes it that much harder. Malkavians can be played as fools, but there’s a reason fools are often the most tragic figure in a play.

Internal Logic

Every Malkavian starts with a Derangement. There are several listed in V20, but don’t be afraid to mix and match elements from different things to make something wholly unique. Malkavians aren’t made to be diagnosed; they present a cracked reflection of humanity and mortality. They make other vampires wonder how they were able to get through the Embrace more or less intact.

A Malkavian doesn’t have to make sense to others, or even to neurobehavioral science, but they should make sense to themselves. Playing a Malkavian offers a chance to embrace chaos, but there should be a consistent internal logic. The scope can change, like a paranoid Kindred “realizing” a contentious Prince as one of Them out to get them, but everything should filter back through that worldview in a way that fits the character.

Further, while Malkavians must always have at least one Derangement, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the same one. Malkavians going through the stages of development might shift into another Derangement as part of building up their worldviews and tearing them down. Big moments in a character’s life (like a loss of Humanity or Virtue dots, or nearly dying from an attack) give the Storyteller and the player a chance to discuss if switching a Derangement feels right, just like in the Third Malkavian Tradition.

Pacing

Damaged individuals don’t always display their issues. Madness can be played for everyone on display with full on cackles and hand rubbing, but it’s much more disturbing to imply those issues. Some of the scariest Malkavians are the ones that seem normal, but just have one quiet thing that they do that’s odd. Little by little, that oddity reveals itself, until the full extent of the wreckage reveals itself. A nostalgic comment about the Malkavian’s mortal family might be the first step on the trail that reveals they’ve made them all ghouls and reenacts those moments with their blood-bound thralls.

The intensity of the Derangement is another challenging aspect, though. If it’s underplayed too often, it can feel like the player is avoiding a flaw. Similarly, if it’s overplayed, it can be disruptive to the flow of the game. If every moment from the Malkavian is a grand, broad gesture, there’s no shock value. Controlling intensity keeps everyone off-balance, and that’s what Malkavians want. Unbalancing behavior makes it easier for Malkavians to show the world what they see. Staying true to the concept is important, but that doesn’t mean hitting the same note night after night. Some nights play soft, but on others, play loud.

As such, the Malkavian must be willing to push boundaries. Get people out of their comfort zones. Everyone expects Kindred to dress in dark colors and loom in a thudding dance club. Malkavians play against those expectations. They hug other Kindred. They mess with personal space. They speak out of turn. But they are also aware that too many pushes in a short time can mean a quick trip to meet the sun. (Also, be aware of player boundaries. If something might offend, ask about it out of character before barging ahead in character. If another player expresses real concern, don’t push the subject. There are plenty of other buttons to push.)

When the time comes to go big, though, make it count. This could be the result of a failed Virtue roll. It could be a change in Derangements, as mentioned above. It might be the discovery of the true horrors contained in the Malkavian’s haven. But no matter what, remember that Malkavians are the vampires that unnerve other vampires. They make beings that regularly drink the blood of the living feel weird and uncomfortable. Good Malkavians own the moment when everyone else in the room stares in astonishment. That’s their spotlight moment, like when a Ventrue makes a shrewd power move or a Brujah makes a rousing speech.