Malkavian

The Malkavians are a fictional clan, associated with the Camarilla, of vampires from White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade books and role-playing games. Their symbol is a broken mirror. White Wolf states, "Stories speak of an epidemic of contagious dementia exploding among those of Malkav's blood." (VtM3 -- p.72) Malkavians frequently haunt asylums, hospitals, and slums.

As with all the White Wolf vampire clans, Malkavinas suffer from some specific flaw; Malkavians are insane; although, many Malkavians believe their insanity to be a strength (rather than a weakness). Exactly why they suffer from insanity is unknown; but, according to the Book of Nod[?], all 3rd generation vampires were cursed, by Cain, after the 2nd generation vampires were destroyed. One of these 3rd generation vampires was Malkav, and all Malkavians come from him.

According to a hallucination experienced by David, in the malkavian clanbook (3rd edition) it says that malkav diablerized[?] (ate the soul of) one of the 2nd generation vampires. The malkavian clanbook also says that it was Malkav who started the revolt and that he was killed when he ran away from the first city. When Malkav was killed, all his children came to his corpse and laped (drank) the blood of their father. By drinking the blood from their father, the malkavians is believed to have collectively diablerized Malkav. He is so to speak inside each and every malkavian's soul and connects them into one big consciousness. This "collecive hivemind" is sometimes called "the malkavian madness network", a network that contains each thought and memory that any malkavian in the world has had (and sometimes is about to have!)

The malkavian antitribu possess a rare ability (discipline) called dementation. With dementation they can alter the way the victim senses reality. This ability can be used on both the malkavian herself and on others. It can both be used to increase the malkavians own oracular ability or to create total insanity on others. Most malkavians are willing to educate others with their rare power, but they are often neglected as it is believed that the knowledge of dementation drives the user insane. Some sabbat tzimisce elders know dementation though, just to get an insight in the great ways of the jyhad.

According to the malkavian clanbook, dementation was created by a couple of elder malkavians that called for a gathering through the malkavian madness network. According to the clanbook, strangely no one noticed that the malkavains were gone. When almost all the malkavians had been collected they were changed. Some malkavians (one 10th of them) didn't go to the gathering for some reason (perhaps they had a pole trough their chest?) and because of this, the clan was split into two parts. The changed and the unchanged, the antitribu and the tribu.

References

• VtM3—Vampire: The Masquerade (3rd Edition) by White Wolf (1998)