Niktuku

To the last of them, the Nosferatu are guilty of something.

There is a crime that their progenitor committed so terrible, so heinous, that that every last one of his lone should be destroyed for it. That crime has been largely forgotten by the bloodline that seeks to extract retribution for it, regardless. The crime was and still is horrific, and the Hungry will do whatever is necessary to make things right.

To most vampires outside of the Nosferatu, they are a paranoid delusion of the hideous clan. To those who have heard the Nosferatu whisper, it is possible that the Niktuku are not a child clan of the Nosferatu, but an offshoot that should never have been. They are the witches of Baba Yaga, and they hang on weakly alongside the Nosferatu, the clan they could have been instead. They hunt, they kill, they eat other vampires, but they are at their most dedicated and cruel when on the hunt for a Prior.

Because of their feeding habits, most members of the bloodline are diablerists, a state they seem to embrace rather than suffer from. They are all, by design or because of the Amaranth, of relatively lower Generation, even the youngest.

**Sobriquet:** The Hungry

**Appearance:** For reasons best known to the bloodline alone, they tend to select the most beautiful youths they can find, grabbing up particularly fetching youths and maids from any village close to the havens. They prefer these youths just at the cusp of adulthood, the blurry line between child and adult. The Hungry possess a great eeriness, though few see them long enough to put a finger on why. They are wide-eyed, their skin too perfect, their teeth too white, their fingers too long and graceful. Both their hunger and their beauty are inhuman.

**Haven and Prey:** The Hungry will not haven where they cannot see the moon when they rise and leave each night. They tend toward isolated locations in wild places near enough to the kine to feed and capture would-be-fledglings, but in places naturally dangerous enough to avoid most contact. Sheer cliff faces work well for the Hungry. They loathe the underground and will not haven there. Ever. This may be related to, or the cause of, the Nosferatu desire to dig.

Their prey is vampires, pure and simple. The Hungry get so little sustenance from the blood of kine that they must feed on vampires. Of course, they tend to be stationary and rarely venture from their territories in isolation. So where does the blood come from? Nosferatu whisper of kidnappings and Cainites held in perpetual captivity, fed by cults who worship the Hungry. Similarly, they believe that the youngest assassins hunt in cities, bringing blood back in their bodies for their sires.

**The Embrace:** Beyond their tendencies for whom to Embrace, little is known about what happens at the Embrace, though surely they must be starving for vampire blood at the moment they have turned. That hunger could lead to violence, and so it is likely that all Hungry undergo the blood oath before the Embrace or as part of the process. This ties into the Nosferatu theory that they build small cults in their isolated territories. Being bound at Embrace would also explain the bloodline’s single-minded obsession.

**Character Creation:** While healthy and capable specimens are ideal, sires favor beauty above all else, with a focus on youth and high Appearance scores. Just before and after Embrace, rigorous training starts to prepare the young assassins to hunt, meaning that Talents and Skills quickly eclipse any Knowledges they may have had before the Embrace.

**Clan Disciplines:** Auspex, Celerity, Potence

**Weakness:** The Hungry suffer from an inability to gain sustenance from kine blood. For every three blood points they drain, they gain only one to their system. Cainite vitae nourishes them normally. Additionally, age is difficult and transforming on the bloodline.

For every hundred years since their Embrace, the Hungry lose a point from their Appearance Attribute. That dot does not vanish; instead, it moves to any one Physical Attribute that can bear the increase. They grow slowly but decidedly bent, twisted, and deadly, slowly aging grotesques that blame the Nosferatu for their condition.

**Organization:** It is difficult to say if and how the bloodline organizes. There are blessedly few of them and their only interaction with Cainites is to feed or kill. It is possible that they form small cults of humans and young vampires around a central elder, but this is merely supposition.