- See also: Clanbook: Nosferatu Revised
Clanbook: Nosferatu is a supplement for Vampire: the Masquerade, detailing the hideous, deformed Nosferatu Clan, and their information network that keeps them a valuable asset to the other Kindred in spite of their horrific appearance. Its tagline is, Here There Be Monsters.
Summary[]
From the White Wolf catalog:
- Hideously deformed, hiding from the world's eyes in their dank holes, the Nosferatu thrive despite their ostracism from vampiric society. But what are they plotting in their dark caverns? What schemes are brewing in the nether regions of the night? The Nosferatu watch everyone else, but who watches them?
- Clanbook: Nosferatu includes:
- The history of the clan and its true role in the upheavals of the undead
- 10 sample characters suitable for players and Storytellers; and
- The horrifying details of the Nosferatu Kingdoms under every city.
Contents[]
Chapter One: Abandon All Hope[]
This chapter tells the tale of a whiny artsy type being vindictively Embraced by an existing Nosferatu Kindred.
Chapter Two: Backstory[]
This chapter starts with an excerpt from Claudius Maximus, of Clan Tremere, on the Nosferatu clan. The manuscript is stated to have never been finished, ostensibly due to the final death of Claudius (presumably by a Nosferatu). The rest of the chapter has some history of the Nosferatu (as told by Horace Slater, the Lorekeeper of Chatamauga Warren), and a section about the Nictuku.
Chapter Three: Subculture[]
This chapter discusses the the Nosferatu clan curse, a memo that gives an insight into the Nosferatu approach to urban renewal, discussion on the types of mortals that are selected for the embrace, merits and flaws, Nosferatu stereotypes of the other clans and supernatural creatures, clan hierarchy, feeding practices, discussion on their spy network, urban decay, Nosferatu ghouls, R&R, scavenger hunts, Nosferatu art, the underground, details on the different sections of Nosferatu warrens, a short story entitled "Night of the Toxic Vampires", and a level 6 power for the Animalism discipline.
- Merits and Flaws
- Lizard Limbs (1 pt. Merit)
- Long Fingers (1 pt. Merit)
- Oversized Fangs (1 pt. Merit)
- Oversized Mouth (1 pt. Merit)
- Disgusting (2 pt. Merit)
- Slimy (2 pt. Merit)
- Swarm Attractor (2 pt. Merit)
- Tough Hide (2 pt. Merit)
- Foul Blood (3 pt. Merit)
- Patagia (4 pt. Merit)
- Blunt Teeth (1 pt. Flaw)
- Club Foot (1 pt. Flaw)
- Nosferatu Caitiff (1 pt. Flaw)
- Stench (1 pt. Flaw)
- Parasitic Infestation (2 pt. Flaw)
- Putrescent (3 pt. Flaw)
- Discipline
- Song in the Dark - Animalism Level 6
Chapter Four: Lowlives[]
Different character templates are shown in this chapter. This included:
- Cleopatra
- Derelict
- Equalizer
- Gross Childe
- Leatherface
- Luchador Professional
- Morbid Artsy Type Vindictively Embraced
- Shock Rocker
- Tunnel Crawler
- Vet
Appendix: Who's What Among the Nosferatu[]
Background Information[]
- Inside the credits page is this note, "Would the anonymous Virginia driver from Real Stories of the Highway Patrol please contact Andrew Greenberg at White Wolf."
- Word From the White Wolf Game Studio mentions the hiring of Phil Brucato.
Memorable Quotes[]
Arthur Lennig says of Nosferatu: "A kind of abstract thing of evil, he has no nobility, nor does he inhabit the dark world of majestic satanic villains. Instead, he is a lower kind of evil, an obscene and loathesome creature that dwells amid decay and slime and crawling rats."
- Malcolm South, Mythical and Fabulous Creatures
He was a plug-ugly sonofabitch
With a fist where most folks get their face.
- Big Black, "Deep-Six"
If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne. And at this level of experience one's bitterness begins to be palatable, and hatred becomes too heavy a sack to carry.
- James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
If there's a god - do you know his name?
If there's a god - if there's a god - why do I feel so ashamed?
- Ellen James Society, "God in Heaven"
And everything human's necessarily wrong.
- Swans, "Amnesia"
Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.
Let us go through certain half-deserted streets
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells.
- T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
I want to share my disease.
- Clayface, Batman: Arkham Asylum
Well I, I've been lonely
And I, I've been blind
And I, I've learned nothing
So my hands are firmly tied
To the sinking lead weight of failure.
- Swans, "Failure"
And where will she go, and what shall she do, when midnight comes around?
She'll turn once more to Sunday's Clown and cry behind the door.
- The Velvet Underground, "All Tomorrow's Parties"
These purblind doomsters had as readily strewn
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
- Thomas Hardy, "Hap"
Show-stopper - skin-popper.
- Skinny Puppy "Worlock"
Grotesque dwarves in mirrored rooms
Cruelly taunt a thousand yous.
- Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Carousel"
Feel my hand, feel my hand, feel my arm, feel my arm, feel my fist, feel my fist, fists of love.
- Big Black, "Fists of Love"
Among men like Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy there is a pattern, most professionals agree, that is too little studied and imperfectly understood.
- Tim Cahill, Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear,
And he shows them, pearly white.
- Bertolt Brecht, "Mack the Knife"
You flush it - I find it.
- The Penguin, Batman Returns
I can tear down the walls - storm the barricades
Run to the place where the frightened crawl.
-The Mission U.K., "Wasteland"
By a foulness shall ye know them.
- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Dunwich Horror"
Celebrating loss - this is the reflection.
- Killing Joke, "Requiem"
See you hide behind the door
Live in holes and disused shafts.
- Joy Division, "Ice Age"
This is the way - step inside.
- Joy Division, "Atrocity Exhibition"
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appeared,
O'er all the dreary coasts!
Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that flow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortured ghosts!
- Alexander Pope, translation of The Aeneid
With this beast, seems to me when you hear stories about him, the smart thing to do is not cut anything off. The smart thing to do is double 'em.
- Peter Benchley, Beast
Very few mongooses, however, old and wise they may be, care to follow a cobra into its hole.
- Rudyard Kipling, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing road,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
- Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"
Everyone becomes the one
The one they must despise.
- Cop Shoot Cop, "All the Clocks are Broken"
Characters[]
- Who's What Among the Nosferatu
- Sergei Voshkov - Servant of Baba Yaga.
- Prudence Stone - A seer with "Second Sight" that was Embraced after being hanged for "witchcraft".
- Osric - Prudence's Sire
- Pusfinger - A typical neonate until he rescued a pompous Toreador (Empedocles) from lupines and thus earned a lifeboon. Rather than claiming one mighty or great boon, Pusfinger drew out his repayment bit by bit to humiliate Empedocles (and unintentionally created grunge fashion by doing so).
- Bat Child - An unknown Nosferatu, seemingly responsible for all of the "bat child" stories and photographs in trashy tabloids. The Camarilla wants it captured at all costs over fears of jeopardizing the Masquerade.
- Nosferatu
- Abraxes, Lord of Mists
- Baba Yaga, the Cannibal Hag
- El Diablo Verde - Luchador Professional
- Echidna, Mother of Foulness
- Gorgo, She Who Screams in Darkness
- Nuckalavee, the Skinless
- Ralph Beaselman (aka Apollyon Fungi Esophagus) - 13th Generation Shock Rocker
- Karen C. - Member of the Arlington, Texas Warren, corrupted by the Wyrm. Ally to Black Spiral Dancers.
- Geoffrey - Member of the Arlington, Texas Warren, Corrupted by the Wyrm. Ally to Black Spiral Dancers.
- Curtis - Member of the Arlington, Texas Warren, Corrupted by the Wyrm. Ally to Black Spiral Dancers.
- Herman, Member of the Chatamauga Warren
- Horace Slater, Lorekeeper of Chatamauga Warren
- Jameson - Under the orders of his Warren's leader enacts a plan in Urban Renewal which cost the lives of many Kindred and Kine.
- Riley - Member of the Arlington, Texas Warren, corrupted by the Wyrm. Ally to Black Spiral Dancers.
- Vechi - Lives in Amsterdam. Brags about his Auspex but is known for being full of it.
- Volhune - Head of the Arlington, Texas Warren, corrupted by the Wyrm. Ally to Black Spiral Dancers.
- Waylon - Nosferatu
- Xerxes - Leader of a Warren who enacted a plan in Urban Renewal which cost the lives of many Kindred and Kine.
- Other Kindred mentioned
- Claudius Maximus - Tremere, author of A Treatise on the Probable Origins and Physical Anomalies of Subspecies Homo Sapiens Nosferatus
- Meriwether, childe of Tierza
- Tierza, a Brujah
- Maria, a Ventrue
- Rory McAllister - Ghoul to Maria, a Ventrue
- Empedocles - Toreador Poseur
Terminology[]
Arlington, Texas Warren, A Treatise on the Probable Origins and Physical Anomalies of Subspecies Homo Sapiens Nosferatus by Claudius Maximus, Animalism (VTM), Black Spiral Dancers, Chatamauga Warren, Cleopatras, Last Chance Warren, Colorado, Leatherfaces (Nosferatu Group), Nictuku, Obfuscate (VTM), Potence, Scavenger Hunt (Aranta-shadur), Warren (Antechamber, The Chamber of Horrors, The Spawning Pool),
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