Nosferatu

ℹ️️**Attention**This is AU content. Not canon

The most visibly cursed of all Kindred, the Embrace warps each **Nosferatu** into a hideously deformed creature.

## Nosferatu

### Nicknames

The Clan of the Hidden, Sewer Rats, Lepers (archaic), Priors, Crawlers (Renaissance), Nossies

## History

In the modern nights, the Nosferatu feel their Antediluvian metaphorically breathing down the back of their necks. Technically savvy, the Sewer Rats adopt every technique they can to protect themselves, encouraging the fears evoked during the Cold War to use many of the now deserted bunker systems as supplements for their own warrens. Most notably, the Nosferatu developed an information sharing network – ShreckNET, a parallel internet that the Nosferatu used to enhance their traditional information gathering and reporting skills.

The most terrifying and unique event in the early 1990s was the rise of the Shadow Curtain in Russia, a mystical barrier that separated the vampires of the former Soviet Union from the rest of the world. The Shadow Curtain eventually was revealed as the product of Baba Yaga, a fourth generation Nosferatu of almost incalculable power. Most frightening of all was not the witch, however, but her demise. In the late 1990s, Baba Yaga was destroyed by a Nictuku.

In the early 21s century of the V5 timeline, the United States compromised ShreckNet, the information they gathered from it contributing to what would become known as the Second Inquisition. After this new Inquisition started cutting a swathe through Kindred society in 2007-2008, the Camarilla ordered the Wipe; older Nosferatu hackers dismantled ShreckNET's servers, beginning the removal of as much Kindred communication as possible from the Web. Although they took a hit to their credibility and lost many clan members, the Nosferatu still remain a significant presence in Kindred society.

## Organization

Nosferatu are generally organized into *broods*; communities centrally located around a sewer system and serving as underground cities which may house dozens of their kind. Nosferatu are stereotyped as ugly on the outside, humane on the inside - this is not entirely true. There are many Nosferatu who never leave the sewers, the Nosferatu make a habit of sending their friendliest to communicate with the rest of the Camarilla.

Nosferatu strongly stress clan loyalty over almost everything else. Given their hideous appearance, they depend heavily on clan support structures for everything from havens to food. Broods are generally gerontocratic, with the eldest Nosferatu setting policy and guiding the youngest. Most Nosferatu can acquire jobs within their clan, including assisting on construction or other survival projects. Most Nosferatu are inculcated with a survivalist mentality and increasing the strength of their havens is a constant preoccupation. The Nosferatu also use ghouled animals as defenses and have created Spawning pools, which are tainted by their vitae and turn, over the course of many years, every animal that drinks from them into a monstrous creature loyal only to the brood.

## Culture

In both the Camarilla and Sabbat, the Nosferatu are famous information brokers and spymasters. While this is partly supported by their use of the Obfuscate and Animalism disciplines, the Nosferatu also emphasize information interchange as part of clan culture. Nosferatu invest an awful lot in teaching their childer with riddle games, memorization exercises and other activities which emphasize sharing and hiding information. Most Nosferatu tend to present themselves as antisocial creatures and as they seldom play the games of Elysium, instead focusing on the acquisition of knowledge to make themselves irreplaceable for vampiric society.

The Nosferatu have a deeply ingrained complex about physical beauty, especially with clans like the Toreador. Nosferatu will tend to charge Toreador higher prices, and make the higher clans crawl through humiliating or disgusting tunnels to actually negotiate with them. Similarly, Nosferatu will often accentuate their hideousness by cultivating an array of disgusting physical habits. Some of the Nosferatu who dwell underground can develop a penchant for bizarre forms of art, in particular for music, gardening and sculpture. Rumors tell of the development of acoustic subterranean chambers – some of which employ channeled water, and of fantastical gardens with fungi the size of trees. The greatest work of Nosferatu art is the *Escalera*, a giant sculpture of twisted metal and piping that spans an underground chasm in Lima. On several cases where Nosferatu have embraced a caitiff, the childe has been exiled or killed. Nosferatu also tend to use Obfuscate for practical jokes involving their appearance, such as dropping a discipline's use for a brief instant and reveling in the effects.

The most bizarre relationships can occur between Nosferatu and mortals. Even the most hard-bitten Nosferatu may discover a weakness for a certain human or types of humans. Living as they do in places many would consider to be Hell, there is a long tradition of the Nosferatu offering help to others like them. There are many, many cases of cruel Kindred preying on homeless people, children or mental patients who have inexplicably been beaten black and blue and left somewhere as a warning to others. Cliché as it may be, many orphanages, scholarships and self-help organisations owe at least part of their funding to the Sewer Rats. Living in the gutter, there are a lot of Nosferatu who want to help those who still can get out of it. Unlike the Toreador and the Ventrue, they seldom if ever brag about their accomplishments, and most outside the clan are unaware of them.

### Embraces

The Nosferatu tend to embrace two classes of people: first are those for whom the Embrace is a step up, such as the homeless, the hopelessly antisocial, derelicts, the mentally ill, the emotionally damaged, the flawed, vagrants or other people at the bottom of the totem pole, often out of a feeling of kinship with them. The second class are those for whom the Embrace is a step down, such as beauty queens or people from privileged backgrounds. Nosferatu are notorious for revenge Embraces, and the resulting Cleopatras often lead miserable lives within the clan.

The Embrace of the Nosferatu is especially painful, as the body warps and twists as the blood creates a new vampire. The chance of a Nosferatu dying in the process of the Embrace is higher than in other Clans and many emerge as simple brutes, their brains damaged and incapable of higher thought or basic survival skills. For these reasons, some elders of the medieval world use the Embrace by a Nosferatu as a punishment for disobedient ghouls. Rumors tell that those poor souls are most often killed directly by their own sire to spare them an eternity of pain and misery, but that some instead resort on hiding their childer and trying to feed and care for them.

Each Nosferatu is disfigured in a unique way that make each of them unbearable. Rare breeds of Nosferatu that have often geographical connections, however, tend to develop similar disfigurements, creating differents stocks of the Clan that come and go as time develops. Example for this are the Greek ***Larvae***, who were said to burrow through soft rock with their teeth and to feed on their victims through strange serrated proboscises, the German ***Volsi***, who were bog-dwelling giants and cannibals, the French ***Parisii***, who have near translucent skin, and the Turkish ***Lazarenes***, whose disfigurements are similar to those of leprosy. Many others are rumored to have existed once and have vanished with the Clan's focus on the sewer systems of major cities.

Due to their inherent clan weakness, all Nosferatu have Appearance ratings of zero. They may not improve Appearance with experience points. Most Social actions based on first impressions, except intimidation and the like, fail automatically. In Fifth Edition, where Appearance is absent, this translates into all Nosferatu having the Repulsive Flaw, being unable to increase their rating in the Looks Merit, and being penalised by their Bane Severity on any attempts to disguise themselves as non-deformed.

## Weaknesses

### Classic

As mentioned above, every Nosferatu is inherently and horribly deformed. The Nosferatu Embrace inflicts a terrible and agonizing change as the body is warped into a monstrous visage. Nosferatu have an Appearance of 0, and will automatically fail any roll involving Appearance.

### Fifth Edition

#### Bane

**Repulsiveness**: Hideous and vile, all Nosferatu count as having the Repulsive Flaw (-2) and can never increase their rating in the Looks Merit. In addition, any attempt to disguise themselves as non-deformed incurs a penalty to the dice pool equal to the character's Bane Severity (this includes the Obfuscate powers *Mask of a Thousand Faces* and *Manifold Guise*). However, most do not break the Masquerade by just being seen.

#### Compulsion

**Cryptophilia**: vampires become consumed with a hunger for secrets, to know that which few or no one knows, almost as strong as that for blood. They also refuse to share secrets with others, except in strict trade for greater ones.

## Notable Nosferatu

* Kisame Hoshigaki
* Sakura Hoshigaki