"Laugh if you like. Doesn't matter. Assume that you're so much smarter than the poor, broken lunatic. Doesn't matter. But think about this: You're a dead thing, same as me. You died and were reborn...as this. What makes you and me different? Simple~ I remember what I saw when I was full and truely dead.
You'd be mad too."
*******************

Even other Damned fear the Malkavians. The cursed blood of their clan has polluted their minds, with the result being that every last Malkavian across the world is incurably insane. What's worse, a Malkavian's madness can take nearly any form, from overpowering homicidal tendencies to near catatonia. In many cases, there's no way to tell a Malkavian apart from the "sane" members of other clans. Those few whose psychoses are immediately obvious are among the most terrifying vampires to stalk the streets.

For as long as even the eldest Cainites can remember, the Malkavians have always stirred Kindred society with their passage. Although the clan has instigated no great wars nor toppled mortal governments (at least, to the best of their fellow vampires' knowledge), the very presence of a Malkavian works a subtle change on a city. Chaos nips at the Lunatics' heels, and those who associate with even the most well-meaning Malkavian often find their lives or unlives altered by the Cainite's madness.

Recently, the Malkavians executed their grandest "prank" of all. None can say whether it was worked in a great Malkavian Parliament held somewhere in an isolated European village, or on a bleak and forgotten moor somewhere far from the cities. A few stories speak of an epidemic of contagious dementia exploding among those of Malkav's blood. Whatever the cause, Malkavians across the world have begun displaying a new dangerous edge to their madness, accompanied by bizarre events in Kindred cities around the world. A long-standing Malkavian conceit holds the Jyhad to be a joke instigated by the founder of the clan; some Kindred wonder if, in fact, Malkavians have played the joke on them all along.

None can say what exactly makes the Lunatics so dangerous. Certainly, their madness often frees them from fear of pain or Final Death. More than a few demonstrate horrifying murderous urges or a complete lack of emtion, including compassion. But most convincingly, the Malkavians are free from the confines of rationality and may do whatever they like~ and this freedom is coupled with an uncanny insight, a strange wisdom that cannot be perceived by the sane. The Malkavians possess a dark intellect that is often~ and increasingly~ set to frightening purposes.