Character and Traits

Concepts
 

Bouncer
No one employs you for your looks. They want a big guy to stand at the door, and you fit the bill. Your name’s not down? You’re not coming in. Simple as that. Some people get a bit ornery when you tell them the rules, and you can’t abide rudeness. But when you pick someone up with one arm, they tend to get real polite.

 

As a Kindred, the places you look after have become a little more upmarket. You’ve stood at the doors of Elysium and acted as gatekeeper for the most powerful vampires in the city. You never get invited in, of course — no way they’d want a Nos at their party. But you keep your ears open, and it’s amazing what they let slip as they pass you by. Sometimes you don’t even need to be invisible. 

 

Connoisseur
You may be ugly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have nice things. Being twisted on the outside doesn’t mean you have to have a twisted heart. It is the ability to enjoy beauty that connects the Nosferatu to humanity. Being ugly, you have a unique perspective and perhaps a better understanding of its truth than anyone else does. You have collected enough art to make a Toreador jealous, but that is not all. Your wine cellar collects a hundred stolen vintages. Your bookshelves hold dozens of rare first editions. Each night you like to open a new bottle and savor its exquisite bouquet (before feeding it to a mortal and drinking his blood) as you read from an elegant work of literature surrounded by the beauty of art. 

 

Crusader
You work in the shadows to make the world a better place. When you joined the Nosferatu, you learned a great many secrets. Too many secrets. There is a lot that is wrong with the world, and you decided to fix it. Your monstrous form means you have to work in the shadows and hide your identity, but that’s perfect for you. You can hunt the criminals who operate above the law, bringing a little street justice to those who have slipped through the system. You have become a night hunter. You can track your prey unseen. Then, using your incredible strength, you can strike when they least expect it and administer justice. Hell, you were never going to show up in a courtroom anyway, so why not take the direct approach?

 

Face
Plenty of people think being a Nosferatu means having to hide, but not you. You have the power to be anyone you want. Every new night is a new face and a new identity. You don’t have to be average either. Why shouldn’t you live like a movie star? Beauty is only an illusion anyway, so what you do isn’t even cheating. You have become the ultimate scam artist. Your winning smile cloaks a monstrous form that no one ever notices. When the job is done, you return to the shadows and the sewers, where no one will think to look for the young and beautiful. The next night you pick a new face and a new mark, and do it all over again. 

 

Information Broker
We live in an information age. Gold, jewels, money, they won’t count for much in the long run. What you have is information, and its value never goes out of style. It takes a little snooping to find valuable secrets, but over the years, you’ve gotten very good at it. People leave their secrets lying in all manner of places. If you are willing to dig through trash, literally and figuratively, there is a lot you can find out. Your ability to walk unseen is the most useful attribute you have, but a few strong-arm tactics have made marks spill the beans more than once. It is important to make sure the information is good, though. Your reputation would suffer if someone caught you passing on lies. People come to you expecting a certain level of quality, and like any businessperson, you do not want to disappoint your customers.

 

Loremaster
There are no secrets like the old secrets. While the other Nosferatu are clamoring to find out what Prince is hiding, you recognize that Princes come and go. Ten years, a hundred, even a thousand, there’ll be a new lord of the domain and it all starts again. What a waste. You have better secrets to uncover, the deepest secrets of all vampires. No one really knows the answers to the big questions. Who really was Caine? Where is he now? Did he even really exist? There are old creatures who have worked hard to hide Kindred history, and that only makes it all the more intriguing. So when powerful people start warning you off, you know you must be getting close. 

 

Pet Store Owner
You don’t think animals are better than people are, but it’s a close call. You wanted to be a vet when you were younger, but quickly discovered that the insides of animals was not what interested you. You wanted to just spend time with animals; it didn’t matter which ones. Getting a job in a pet store let you do that. Sure, it was sad to see each animal get bought and taken away, but it made you happy to see them go to good homes and know they would be loved.

 

Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to care for animals. Some people take them for granted, or throw them away once they have stopped being so cute. Now you have the power to seek those people out and teach them a lesson.

 

Prince’s Advisor
The others think you’ve sold out, but you think of it as knowing how to be useful. The Nosferatu rarely have an agenda, rarely take sides in the games of the Kindred. You may have picked a side, but you remain neutral. You don’t share secrets for free, but you simply offer advice to whoever controls the domain. You serve the office of Prince rather than the Prince himself, and thus remain outside the power games. You have modeled yourself as a civil servant; while Princes come and go, you remain to serve the city. You never actually share the secrets you know. You simply advise on the relative merits of any particular course of action. Some say you have an eye on the Princedom yourself, but you are content to serve. For now. 

 

Rat King
You don’t need people. People are overcomplicated, selfish, and unreliable. They make a mess of everything they touch. You prefer the company of animals, and have become part of their pack. For some Nosferatu it is cockroaches, but for you it is rats. You sleep in a swarm of them and the rest scatter across the city. When they return, they whisper secrets to you. Wherever you go, you have a crowd of rats with you. They run through the clothing you have and scurry about all over you. They are your family and constant companions, and a sixth sense that reaches out far across the city. Some people are squeamish about rats, but how could they fail to adore these loving and loyal pets? When you have a swarm of rats for your family, you will never be alone.

 

Watcher
You never liked being involved in things. You got called a “wallflower,” but that was better than being called a freak. People are messy, complicated, and unpredictable, but they are also fascinating. You never understood what they expected of you, so you stayed outside. You watched carefully, though, hoping to learn the secrets that seemed to come so easily to everyone else. Now you are Kindred, you are even more of an outsider, but somehow that just feels right. Hidden under a cloak of shadow, you can watch the comings and goings of those around you as you see fit. Life itself has become your own living soap opera, but sometimes the drama reveals some very interesting twists. 

 

Merits and Flaws
 

Foul Blood (1pt. Merit)
Your blood is vile; in fact, it tastes so disgusting it requires a Willpower roll (difficulty 6) just to avoid gagging and retching after tasting it. If someone is foolish enough to attempt diablerie on you, they need to succeed in three (difficulty 9) Willpower rolls to go through with it. The blood is so disgusting that no one can keep it down long enough to use it to become a ghoul, either.

 

Lizard Limbs (1pt. Merit)
Like a lizard, you are able to actually shed parts of your body. By spending a blood point and a little effort, you can detach a hand or foot, or even an arm or leg. This might be to escape bonds or a grapple. Unfortunately, the appendage will not reattach, and you will have to regrow that over time (usually a couple of days for a hand or foot, and a week for a limb). You also suffer a -3 dice pool penalty to actions that would require the use of more limbs.

 

Long Fingers (1pt. Merit)
You have been blessed with unusually long and graceful fingers. This means you have an easier time with fine manipulation as well as grappling, gaining an extra die when attempting such actions. 

 

Monstrous Maw (1pt. Merit)
You have either oversized tusks for fangs, or a huge mouth full of sharp teeth. Whatever form it takes, your mouth is that of a monster. When attacking with a bite you do an additional point of damage. You may also add a die to your Intimidation dice pool when you smile.

 

Piscine (1pt. Merit)
Water is a far more comfortable environment for you, be it the sea or sewer effluent. Rolls involving swimming or underwater movement have their difficulty reduced by 1. 

 

Slimy (1pt. Merit)
You secrete an ooze, which is as disgusting as it sounds. The ooze covers your entire body and soaks into your clothes. It makes you slippery and difficult to hold, requiring opponents to gain two more successes to grapple you. The dampness also makes you a little fire resistant, reducing your difficulty to soak fire damage by 1.

 

Spawning Pool (1-3pt. Merit)
You have a spawning pool of your own (or possibly donate heavily to the Clan’s main pool). Creating such a pool takes time, and requires regular infusions of blood, at least six blood points a week for a year. The Merit grants its level as a dice pool bonus to the Nosferatu’s use of Animalism in their home city, but only with animals considered vermin, such as rats and cockroaches. Essentially the bonus is only available for creatures that might conceivably drink regularly from the tainted blood.

 

Once established, the spawning pool requires twice its level in blood points each week to it. Without proper maintenance, its level will drop by one. It can be rebuilt by maintaining it at the new level and adding four additional blood points each week for six months. The Merit cannot be improved above its initial level, as this also represents the convenience of its location and the variety of creatures that might find it.

 

Tunnel Rat (1-5pt. Merit)
You are remarkably adept at moving through the underground tunnels that you call your home. When attempting to navigate, escape, or track through sewers and underground places you know, you gain an additional die for every point you have in this Merit. 

 

Sleep Unseen (2pt. Merit)
The power of Obfuscate usually requires you to concentrate at least a little. However, you are able to lock the power on, allowing you to sleep while remaining hidden. To do so requires the expenditure of blood point, but it will last throughout the day’s rest. Those with Auspex can still attempt to detect you, but mortals will be unaware of your sanctuary. This can be a useful trick for Kindred who like to travel.

 

Tough Hide (2pt. Merit)
Your skin is much tougher than usual, possibly like that of a rhino or a lizard. This hide protects you against most damage, granting you an extra die when making a soak roll. However, this bonus does not apply against fire and sunlight. 

 

False Reflection (3pt. Merit)
Even when using their Obfuscate abilities, Nosferatu still show up in their true form when noticed by machines, such as cameras or video surveillance. With this ability, the Nosferatu can extend their power to recorded images and media. However, as with Mask of the Thousand Faces, the original image isn’t actually changed; it is just that people see it the way the Nosferatu wants it seen. Unfortunately, computers are not so easily fooled: if the image is used for facial recognition software (for instance), the computer will see the Nosferatu’s real face and fail to find a match. The Nosferatu has best take care how this power is used, as it may wear off in time. Some archived photos have given librarians a nasty surprise, years after going into storage.

 

Patagia (4pt. Merit)
Your arms and legs have leathery flaps of skin between them, similar to that of a flying squirrel. While they make finding clothes a nightmare, they also allow you to glide for short distances, given enough height and a decent wind. The Storyteller might require an Athletics roll when it comes to landing.

 

Rugged Bad Looks (5pt. Merit)
While you are still hideous, you are not quite as ugly as most Nosferatu. You still have an appearance of 0, but you might pass for human in the right light. It is a still a good idea to cover up and stay in the shadows, but the sight of you (or even the smell of you) is not cause for someone to immediately think of you as a freak or a trauma victim.. Having said that, you are still ugly enough to unnerve the crap out of most people. 

 

Stench (1pt. Flaw)
Most Nosferatu pick up a certain odor, but you stink so bad even your Clan-mates find you hard to be close to. Your presence is preceded by your stench, removing two die from all Stealth rolls.

 

Dangerous Secret (1-5pt. Flaw)
You have come to know something you really wish you hadn’t discovered. Worse yet, the people you have the dirt on know that you know. It might be that you have discovered the Prince’s haven, or that there are infernalists hiding in the diocese. Whatever it is, you are not sure whom you can tell, and if you do, you will only make the subjects of the secret more enthusiastic about getting rid of you. You may even be implicated in the secret and risk going down with them. The more potent the Flaw, the more powerful the people in question are, and the more they want it silenced. 

 

Anosmia (2pt. Flaw)
Your life in the sewer has removed your sense of smell and taste. This means you are unperturbed by even the worst stench or most disgusting flavor. However, it also means you cannot ever succeed at any Perception rolls that rely of taste or smell. It also does not make you immune in any way to gas attacks or poisons; you just won’t be able to tell they are there.

 

Parasitic Infestation (2pt. Flaw)
Living in the dark has made you a home to all manner of creepy crawlies and bloodsuckers. Your skin is crawling with ticks, lice, and leeches of all descriptions. They constantly bite and burrow, and having fed on your vitae, they have become very hard to kill. Not only can you not command them, you have tried everything to get rid of them and still they persist. Whatever the reason, they find you so succulent they reduce your blood pool by the result of one die divided by 3 (round down) each time you rise. The constant itch also keeps you on edge, increasing the difficulty of any Self-Control or Instinct rolls by 1.

 

Bestial (3pt. Flaw)
You are closer to animals than humans, and it shows. In addition to the Nosferatu Clan weakness, you have an additional weakness: whenever you frenzy, you gain an animal feature, similar to the Gangrel Clan weakness (V20, p. 55). With Storyteller permission, permanently acquired animal features may be justification to acquire certain Merits after character creation, such as Lizard Limbs (p. 160) or Monstrous Maw (pp. 160-161). If so, the Storyteller can simply award them, or require an experience point expenditure (such as two times the Merit point value). Similar Flaws can also be taken, but cannot grant additional freebie or experience points.

 

Enemy Brood (3pt. Flaw)
You have made an enemy of another group of Nosferatu. Unlike your usual enemies, they know the places you like to go and aren’t too squeamish about following you there. They keep you on the move, hunting you from sanctuary to sanctuary. The sewers themselves might not even be safe for you anymore. If you move to a new city, they use their contacts to pass on the word to their allies to keep hounding you. Sooner or later, you are going to have to take them down to rid yourself of them. 

 

Putrescent (4pt. Flaw)
The supernatural process that usually keeps a vampire’s form from rotting after death has failed to work on you. Your body has become putrescent and fragile as it gradually decays. All soak rolls you make have their dice pool reduced by 1. You may even lose body parts if you suffer a solid enough blow. Should this happen, make a Stamina roll (difficulty 6) and lose a part of your body (Storyteller’s choice) if you fail. Should you botch, you also receive a level of aggravated damage. These missing parts may regrow, but your body continues to rot. 

 

Contagious (5pt. Flaw)
Your body is still dying on the inside, your rotting entrails providing nutrition for noxious bacteria, spores, and even fungi. Mortals that touch you or on whom you feed must make a Stamina roll (difficulty 9) not to fall ill. The illness puts them in bed with fever and sickness, and each week they may attempt the Stamina roll again. The Storyteller might reduce the difficulty if the target is receiving proper medical attention. On a success they recover, but if they fail, they remain feverish. At the end of each month the victim remains ill, they lose a point of Stamina; if they are reduced to zero Stamina they die. If the Nosferatu knows of their contagion and infects someone maliciously, the Storyteller might call for a Humanity (or appropriate Path of Enlightenment) degeneration roll if they die. Supernatural creatures generally have the ability to heal or cure such sickness in themselves, and vampires are immune to these germs of the dead. 

 

Incoherent (5pt. Flaw)
Human speech is impossible for you. It might be that your mouth is too misshapen after the Embrace, or that years of living in the sewers have made you forget how to communicate. While you can understand what is being said to you, you cannot respond. Telepathy works on you as normal, and you have no problem communicating with animals, but human speech is barred to you.

Elder Discipline Powers

Busy Doing Nothing (Obfuscate ••••• •)
With this ability, the Nosferatu is perfectly visible, but appears to be doing something innocuous when he is actually up to something else. If he is picking a lock, for example, he will appear to be standing by the door innocently. Even when involved in a brawl, he will seem to be a bystander. The image works in a similar way to Mask of a Thousand Faces (V20, p. 185), in that the Nosferatu is exactly where he appears to be.
System: To use this power, the Nosferatu rolls Manipulation + Performance (difficulty 7). The better the result, the more action the Nosferatu can take without disturbing the image. For one success, he might only be  able to listen to a door while appearing to stand near it, while for five successes he can be engaged in a fight and appear to be a bystander.

 

Displacement (Obfuscate ••••• •)
The Nosferatu can use his power not only to disappear, but also to appear shifted a little to one side or the other. Essentially, she isn’t standing quite where she appears to be. This makes the vampire extremely difficult to hit. It is almost harder to strike her than when she is invisible, as trying to ignore what you can see in front of you is very difficult. 
System: This power costs a blood point to activate for a scene. While active, this power imposes a three dice penalty to any attempt to hit or touch her. The attacker is allowed a Perception + Awareness roll (difficulty 9) to notice the deception after a few blows. If successful, the attacker can reduce the penalty by the amount of successes she gained. The penalty is also further reduced by the attacker’s Auspex rating, but to a minimum of 1 in all cases. 

 

Combination Disciplines

Bestial Presence (Animalism •••, Obfuscate •••)
Using this power, the vampire summons up a little of the Beast in each nearby vampire and gives it form. This gestalt entity becomes a brooding animal presence that follows the vampire like a companion.
System: The companion is summoned using Manipulation + Animal Ken with a difficulty of 8. It remains for a number of hours equal to the amount of successes gained. The vampire must also spend one blood point. The brooding presence of the companion puts all nearby vampires on edge. They feel their own Beast watching and whispering to them. While the companion is present, all vampires (except the summoner) in its immediate vicinity suffer -2 dice to all Social rolls and all rolls to resist any form of frenzy. This power costs 18 experience points to learn. 

 

Cloak the Beast (Animalism •••••, Obfuscate •••)
Even a Kindred who has not mastered the Beast might learn to hide her failings from others. With this ability, the Nosferatu has such control over her animal side that she can use her powers of stealth to conceal how badly she may have fallen from grace. 
System: This power requires no roll, simply granting an ability that comes into play whenever any power attempts to determine the Kindred’s Humanity/Path or Virtue ratings. The difficulty of such an attempt is increased by the Kindred’s Animalism or Obfuscate rating (whichever is higher). A failure shows the Kindred to have solid control over their Virtues, and a Humanity/Path rating of at least a healthy 7. The player should be warned that depending on whatever recent actions provoked such a scan or interview, she may still have a lot of explaining to do! This power costs 24 experience points to learn.

 

Forbidden Zone (Obfuscate •••••, Potence •••)
By infusing her strength into an area as a barrier, the Nosferatu can create a space that resists any form of physical entry. However, this barrier is illusionary and all in the mind of the target. The area might be cloaked or not, as the Nosferatu decides. However, entering the area requires anyone else to have to push through an apparent invisible force. The vampire can release individuals from this power simply by touch. 
System: The vampire rolls Strength + Subterfuge (difficulty 6) and spends a blood point. For each success, the character may maintain the zone for one hour, although once set up she need not remain nearby. The vampire can create a zone of any size up to a radius of six feet/ two meters for each point of Potence and Obfuscate she has. So a vampire with Obfuscate 5 and Potence 3 could create a zone with a radius of up to 48 feet/16 meters. For anyone except the vampire to enter the zone requires a roll as if the character was attempting to open a door (V20, p. 261). However, the zone is actually a mental barrier, not a physical one, so the successes required equal the vampire’s Obfuscate + Potence, and the difficulty is 7. Characters already inside the zone may leave it without any problem, but must make the same roll to return. The vampire can touch any character and exclude them from the effects of this power at no cost. This power costs 24 experience points to learn.

 

Haunted Place (Presence ••, Obfuscate •••••)
Given how few Nosferatu master Presence, this is a rare power, but a potent one. The Nosferatu cloaks an area in power, making the place almost impossible to miss. However, it becomes noticeable due to the fetid and corrupt aura the place acquires. Most people avoid it without even knowing why. It seems somehow corrupt and twisted; somewhere no one with any good intent might choose to visit. 
System: To create such a place, the vampire must make three rolls on three consecutive nights. Each roll takes an hour to perform, as she spends at least five blood points around the area during the course of the hour. Then, the player rolls Manipulation + Empathy and chooses a difficulty number (the same difficulty number for each roll). If all three rolls are successful, the aura of corruption settles over the place. For anyone but the vampire to enter it, he must make a Willpower roll with a difficulty equal to the one the vampire chose in creating the Haunted Place. The effect lasts for as long as the vampire exists, or until the Storyteller rules the area has changed significantly or lost some of its menace (such as an urban renewal program).  This power costs 21 experience points to learn.

 

I Know (Auspex ••, Obfuscate ••)
You don’t actually need to know a secret to use it as leverage. With this power, the Nosferatu is able to make it appear as if she knows something the subject would rather keep secret. Essentially, she surface scans the target for feelings of guilt, and uses Obfuscate to project into his mind the subtle body language and turns of phrase that convince him the vampire really knows something dangerous about him. The Nosferatu knows nothing in reality; even the light scan she does to establish guilt gives her no clue as to the nature of what he might be hiding. But the target doesn’t know that, and convinces himself the vampire must know his darkest secrets.
System: This power requires a Perception + Subterfuge roll at a difficulty equal to the target’s current Willpower. For each success the vampire gains, the subject is more convinced the vampire knows something confidential and dangerous about him. For one success, the target believes she may know something potentially damaging, whereas for five he is sure the vampire knows his deepest secrets. How the vampire chooses to use this leverage is up to her. Proving she doesn’t actually know anything, such as guessing badly about the secret or offering details that prove wrong, will break the illusion. This power costs 12 experience points to learn. 

 

Power Animal (Animalism •••, Potence •)
The Kindred’s connection with animals is such that they can transfer their physical power to animals under their control. Such creatures can be made stronger and more deadly with an increase in strength from the vampire’s Potence.
System: The vampire must first make a connection to an animal using Feral Whispers (V20, pp. 129-130). She must then spend a blood point for each point of Potence she wishes to invest in the animal for the rest of the night. She may not grant the animal more Potence points that it has Strength, or than the vampire has Potence. So, a rat with a Strength of 1 may only be given Potence 1, but a pig of Strength 4 can be given a Potence of 4, as long as the vampire has at least a Potence of 4. This power costs 12 experience points to learn.

 

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (Animalism •••, Obfuscate ••)
This power allows the Nosferatu to use their Obfuscate powers on animals as well as humans. They might cloak an animal companion to bring them into Elysium, or simply to sneak about the city with them on their nightly wanderings. They might also use their power to make them seem more impressive, dangerous, or even benign.
System: This power allows the user to apply any Obfuscate power to any animal. The vampire makes any required rolls and spends any blood required by the ability, but the effects are applied to the animal. The animal in question must either be under the control of Animalism or have drunk the Nosferatu’s blood. This power costs 15 experience points to learn.

 

Buying and Selling Information

It’s hard to give an abstract system for information. Secrets are each unique and special, and such things often lend themselves better to plot and story rather than dots and dice. As such, we don’t offer a specific system for selling and knowing secrets. However, the Storyteller may wish to allow Nosferatu a Background similar to Anarch Information Exchange (Anarchs Unbound p. 98) to represent their network and control of the city’s information.

 

SCHRECKNET

Many Nosferatu use SchreckNet as a way of compiling, organizing, and sharing their hard-earned information. Not every Nosferatu is willing to share with the network, and more than one Warren hasn't updated their system since the 90s. However, the hodgepodge of networked computers is still one of the largest and most secure databases of Kindred information known, even if much of the security comes from using software and operating systems that are hand-built or horribly obsolete.

 

Any Nosferatu that can get access to a SchreckNet terminal or uses a device that can access SchreckNet can get a -2 difficulty on any Investigation rolls involving Kindred society. Theoretically, other Kindred could use SchreckNet to get the same bonus, but the Nosferatu jealously guard their secrets.