Character Building: Starting Humanity

Tommy the murder bucket has come to court. Tommy has lead a hard knock life, killed a lot of warewolves, seen a lot of blood, gruesomely maimed way too many people with his murder bucket.

In the middle of court Tommy the murder bucket, murderer of dozens of bucket worthy innocents, watches another vampire blow out the brains of fellow blood sucker. At first Tommy is like, yep, seen that 100 times before. Usually while doin it myself. 'Cept with a bucket.

But what's this? Tommy suddenly remembers a sensitive side to himself that really deep down feels just awful about that random person he cares nothing about getting it's due. Tommy, smitten with sudden remembrance of what it was like to give a damn, rolls for humanity.

And as a player, you're standing there with your dice in your hand going "wat?"

tl;dr: At character creation, can we intentionally build our character with a low humanity? Do we get extra XP from this to use elsewhere on the character?

You can start as low at humanity 5, however, you do not get extra xp for dropping your humanity.

If you loose humanity during the game do you have to take a permanent derangement?

If you start your character with a low humanity at build time, should you add a permanent derangement to the character?

If you lose it during game time, you roll to see if you take a permanent derangement, it isn't automatic.  If you willingly start lower, you may act as if you automatically passed the derangement roll.

Further info can be found in the core rulebook, page 91-94

Justin's answers are correct and succinct.

I probably would have drawn more murder bucket analogies. But, hey. Succinct is good, too.