Welcome to the House of Hatters

This website is designed in general to be a reference to role-playing mentally ill characters, most especially in live-action roleplaying games such as the Malkavians in White Wolf's World of Darkness. Accordingly, this website refers to things using White Wolf's terminology, like "Derangements" rather than mental illness. I've gotten quite a few compliments on how I play deranged characters. For some reason a lot of people OOC get nervous when they find out I'm working on my doctorate in psychology *and* playing a Malkavian. Admittedly, I'm not in an area of psychology that deals directly with mental disorders, and I don't consider myself an expert in the area. Sometimes the characters I play are played according to hard data I know about a disorder, but more often than not, I'm using a bit of creative license. Still, there are some things that I've read about mental disorders that go beyond my imagination... I wanted to write up some tips to help those of you interested in playing Malkavians, both about some of the common derangements listed in roleplaying games, and supplementing with other ideas that could be used to help design some interesting and unnerving characters.

Designing a mentally ill character Background: why Malkavians are embraced? Derangements When you shouldn't consider it a derangement

Playing a Malkavian Malkavian Rants: Guide to Speaking the Insanity Keeping it Creepy: The Philosophy of Madness The Madness Network Playing the Seer Auspex and madness Playing multiple derangements Diagnosing Derangements: Why it (should) be difficult for people to guess well-played derangements Changing or losing derangements Strategy for mental-based characters

Information on this website Thanks to the contributors Privacy Policy

Other good Malk websites Zen and the art of playing the insane Jason Corley's stupid LARP Tricks for playing Malkavians Insanity isn't Funny (An OOC Look at Malkavians, Insanity and leaving the bunny slippers at home

Visit Schroedinger's Daughter's main site

Other interesting Vampire: The Masquerade websites Sanguinus Curae - General World o Darkness site Vampire archeves - has an archive of many player created bloodlines and suggestions regarding V:TM dice game.