I've always thought the vampire on the cover of this book looked a bit like Weird Al. And now that I've read it, I wonder if he was a big influence on this mess because it's wacky. But ultimately it's not as cool as Weird Al.
The shtick of the Malkavian vampires is that they are, each and every one of them, insane. This has led to the meme of "fishmalks": Malkavian characters who are played as silly weirdos who act "so random," basically as Chaotic Neutral as possible. The fishmalk problem may have started earlier in the game's history, but it's hard to argue against the Clanbook being a strong jump into fishmalk territory as the clan's baseline assumption.
The Malkavian clanbook starts off by stating that the scholars of other clans attempt to find a method to the Malkavians' madness, although no one has yet been able to untangle the web of contradictory legends about the clan and the very act of examining them seems to inspire madness. There's an interesting note that the Malkavians may be in a process of "becoming," which is tantalizingly Deleuzean at this early stage.
This eventually morphs into the Malkavians being the clan that believes that there is more to reality that what can be conventionally perceived, making their madness a kind of "derangement of the senses" aimed at breaking through the veil of the mundane to reveal a hidden truth. This makes the Malkavians the forerunners of the "red pill/blue pill" stuff from the Matrix that would come to prominence later in the decade.
The shorter legends don't amount to much. They range from "Global iconoclasm" to "Absolute nihilism," and they're written in that very 90s way of portraying insanity. Which is to say, hip gibberish. Take this, for example: "Ride the stillness like a twilight surfer." No. Fuck off with that.
The Malkavian's history has some gems, of course. After the fall of Carthage, Malkav and his brood moved to the Middle East, where their madness infected the locals and "which continues to this day." Blaming the instability in the Middle East on the presence of insane vampires feels very "this is why the Oriental type is irrational and barbaric"; Edward Said would have had a field day with this, if it wasn't beneath him to consider.
One interesting tidbit in this Clanbook points to the expanding game lines of the World of Darkness and the efforts put into establishing cross-promotional synergy. The Clanbook: Gangrel already leaned heavily on that clan's ties to werewolves and "gypsies," and the Malkavian book ties the clan to the faerie that were to come in Changeling. In retrospect, it probably would have been more helpful to present the various elements of the World of Darkness as a buffet that individual groups could pick and choose from, but this was the 90s and the drive toward metaplot would not be denied.
Apparently the Malkavians are big on playing "pranks" (boo!) on their fellow vampires, but at least they are non-denominational and play pranks on elders and anarchs alike. This is the point where it became clear why the Malkavians never lived up to their promise, at least for me. You see, the Vampire: The Masquerade core book takes the ideas of "personal horror" and a "Gothic Punk" setting fairly seriously, but this Clanbook moves in the opposite direction--and maybe that's an indication of the mood of the entire game line.
There's certainly a lot of "personal horror" to be mined from insanity and mental illness, but to bring that to the fore would require uncomfortable imagery and themes, as well as a careful, thoughtful approach. The writers behind Vampire at this point simply weren't up to that task. Instead, Clanbook: Malkavian prefers "insanity" to be coded as madcap hijinks. It's all "reality hacking" and pranks instead of the harsh realities of mental illness and the tragedy of extreme dysfunction. The writers feel more steeped in Mondo 2000 than Propaganda, if you catch my meaning.
The feeling of not taking the premise seriously inundates the prose, and you can see it in the art chosen for this book too: Clanbook: Malkavian is full of childlike cartoon scribblings that don't genuinely feel like the product of insanity. They don't have the uncanniness of "outsider art" and they don't illustrate a skewed perception of the world. You can hardly blame the writers and designers, as a more concentrated take on mental illness in horror is asking a lot, but the approach they went with lends a palpable air of shying away from the topic that was the clan's genesis in the first place.
In retrospect, Clanbook: Malkavian really illustrates why my high school rpg group couldn't make an honest go of playing Vampire: The Masquerade. Being unserious teenagers combined with the game promising dark "personal horror" but supporting zany vampire antics instead means that the game never really had a chance. We didn't know what to do with it, didn't know how to take it seriously, but the game itself was unsure on those points.
We might not have realized that disconnect at the time, but I believe we felt it. It's funny; indie storygamers have made a big deal about the mechanical disconnect between the game's themes and its rules, but I honestly think that's a secondary concern compared with the game's thematic inconsistencies. Also funny: a lot of long-time Vampire players don't like the changes made by the newest edition of the game, but I have a lot of respect for the way the line has so far committed to the bit of being a serious, perhaps even po-faced, game of horror.
Retuning to the book at hand, not much here does a single thing for me. It feels watered down and overly silly. Overall, I'd say the Clanbooks have been taking Vampire down a tonally less-dark alley from their outset, and Clanbook: Malkavian is the worst offender of the lot so far in that regard. At least we get ready-to-play templates though, right? Clanbook: Malkavian has the following:
- Mesmeric Manipulator: Part mesmerist, part con artist. I dated a woman who had the exact outfit in the accompanying illustration.
- The Freak: Jim Roads Circus Sideshow, but vampiric. I have an especial love for templates like this that feel hopelessly trapped in a 90s vortex.
- The Conspiracy Theorist: God, conspiracy theories were so much more fun in the 90s, weren't they? Modern stuff, like Birtherism and 9/11 Truthers, just don't compare. Note: the vampire in the illustration has a fanny pack.
- The Waking Dreamer: A kind of living sleepwalker who is not all there. Reminds me a bit of the Lost Ones from Ravenloft and a little bit of Cesare in Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.
- Raving Lunatic: Manic depression on steroids. I'm not sure that having someone at the table playing this character would be a ton of fun.
- The Crazed Monster: It's Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, but a vampire.
- The Moody Loner: Have you ever wondered what Lee Harvey Oswald would be like if he were a vampire? Wonder no further.
- Detached Scientist: If you've ever encountered one of those sociopathic "I am arguing according to the rules and without emotion, I am a machine-brained man" people, you may have encountered this archetype.
- Reality Buster: Hack the planet. I love that the opening quote for this one comes from mild-mannered comedian Lily Tomlin.
- The Mad Prophet: Crackpot religious nut is actually a pretty solid Malkavian concept.
Closing out Clanbook: Malkavian is a brief who's who of vampires from the clan. My favorite is Rasputin, who has an illustration straight out of an EC horror comic. Crazy Jane, an escapee from a Victorian asylum, is also extremely my shit. The less said about the NPC known as "Malk Content" the better.
All right, let's close the casket on this one. Next time, we're getting ugly with the Nosferatu.