Better Feared: Nosferatu Now Available at Storytellers Vault

[Yossarian]

As was foretold:

https://www.storytellersvault.com/pr...ared-Nosferatu

We’ve met before, you and me.

Sure we have!

I was the panic when they left you all alone.

I was the shame when they said they didn’t love you.

I was the hate when you brought down the knife.

I’m every ugly thing you’ve ever done or been,
and I have so much more to teach you.

— Dottie Tonner, Necropolis Underqueen

The Haunts terrify and fascinate the All Night Society in equal measure, yet for all the nightmares they visit upon their Kindred, none compare to the horrors they save for themselves. Now, for the first time in over a decade, return to the rotting underworld of Clan Nosferatu.

Better Feared is a complete guide to the Nosferatu, with updates and expansions to their first edition clan book, The Beast That Haunts the Blood. It includes:

• Eight Haunt bloodlines: The Cockscomb Society, Gethsemani, Lygos, and Yagnatia, resurrected for a bloody reunion, along with newcomers to the family crypt like the Acteius, Candymen, Keepers of the Dark, and Von Schrecks.
• A tour of the Necropoli, Nosferatu-exclusive domains where Haunts can fester in peace, including rules to build your own, five examples from around the world, and featuring the return of Cymothoa sanguinaria, the vampiric parasite.
• Three ghoul families and three Night Horrors to serve or torment your Haunt characters: Listen in on the Gravenors’ dire prophecies, and try to keep downwind of the Noctuku, apex predators of the Damned.
• Brand new fiction from the Chronicles of Darkness: Chicago setting.
• Devotions, Merits, and other tools for players and Storytellers alike!

Edit: Bundle/Discount for anyone who already has Strange Shades!: https://www.storytellersvault.com/pr...-Bundle-BUNDLE

And please consider leaving a review! They're extremely helpful!

[Second Chances]

Don't let the bed sea bugs bite!

[Nicolas Milioni]

THAT'S WHAT FUCK I'M TALKING ABOUT! ;D

[Yossarian]

Don't let the bed sea bugs bite!

OH GOD REALLY DON'T LET THEM IT'S SUPER BAD.

[Nicolas Milioni]

Wait
calvin harris? the Producer and Singer?

[Yossarian]

Wait
calvin harris? the Producer and Singer?

I think it's a coincidence, as I have no idea who that is, heh.

[Nicolas Milioni]

I think it's a coincidence, as I have no idea who that is, heh.

he's one of the highest paid dj's ever,up there with Marshmello and Alok,dated Taylor Swift for a while too.
do you think she was a Von Schrek?

[Yossarian]

So, I thought it might be fun to post a few excerpts here in the coming days, in case anyone hasn't read our work before. Here's the Gethsemani. You'll find an update of Stigmatica in the book, though it's a little different now...

Gethsemani: The Ones Who Make You Believe

"Are you a God-fearing man? Not yet."

Faith and fear are two sides of the same coin. People pray just as often to avoid punishment as to receive favor, and the threat of Hell motivates Christians to acts of both incredible virtue and deepest cruelty. As with faith, you don’t need to see the object of your fear to know it’s real. Just the possibility is enough. The reverend up on stage preaches about an all-loving God, yet warns you to fear His wrath more than any force in creation. Maybe that’s a contradiction, but when you look into the wild eyes of this pale-skinned holy man, blood seeping from the wounds on his palms, you realize he knows things about God you could never grasp. The Gethsemani understand the connection between faith and fear better than most, and by the time they’re done preaching, so will you.

Taking their name from the hill where Jesus was crucified, the Gethsemani are a controversial bloodline, either Ecstatic instruments of the divine, or shameless Charlatans for Christ. Depends on who you ask. Gifted with the ability to fuel Theban Sorcery with pain, and cursed with signs of the Savior’s suffering, the Gethsemani preach the gospel from the stage, driving mortals into the arms of the church by awakening their fear of God. Most of the bloodline follows the teachings of their semi-legendary founder, Catherine de’ Ricci, a Sanctified nun who ministered to the Kindred with displays of stigmata, healing, and other dark miracles.

The Ecstatics are a nomadic line, usually traveling in small groups in the form of tent revival shows. If a group of Gethsemani ever settles in one place, it’s because the local Sanctified favor their theology, and are powerful enough to protect them from the other covenants. That said, some of the Ecstatics’ staunchest opponents can be found within the Church, and many branches of the Lancea et Sanctum hunt down Charlatans wherever they find them, condemning them as crass heretics with a dangerous disregard for the Dark Father’s teachings. That suits the Gethsemani fine, though. When the heat gets too hot, they just pull up stakes, eager to deliver the word of God to fresh ears.

The bloodline tends to creep into new domains rather than show up all at once, setting up tents at the edge of town and sending forth ghoul disciples to drum up an audience. Once the curtain rises, however, subtlety is nowhere to be found. An Ecstatic tent show is a gory, melodramatic spectacle of awe and sacred terror. Gethsemani drip stigmatic blood into the mouths of the faithful and desperate, calling out to God as their Vitae cures wounds and cements belief. Violent displays of faith are common, with preachers impaling or even crucifying themselves on stage, only to miraculously survive due to their devotion to the Lord. Through it all, a terrible marriage of Nightmare and Majesty works its way through the crowd, as the assembled weep in both fear and joy. No mortal comes out of a show unaffected, and word spreads fast among the flock. Humans all too often mistake Disciplines for divinity, convinced they’ve witnessed acts wrought by God’s own hand. Church attendance soars in areas the Gethsemani linger, as folks flock to the pews with the fear of damnation burning in their hearts.

For all their nomadic ways, the Gethsemani are surprisingly numerous. Their tent shows mimic family units in all the important ways, and many Haunts believe they’ll find acceptance within those canvas walls. Gethsemani preach acceptance under the Lord for works, not rejection for a twisted form. The temptation of learning the Serpents’ gift is also a sharp hook for young Nosferatu just coming into their curses. However, would-be missionaries discover too late that magic tricks are no substitute for community. The people aren’t cheering for them, but rather what they can do. Once the lights go down and the audience files out, all that remains is an empty tent, and the long road ahead.

Why you want to be us

You want to see the spark of true belief in their eyes and know you put it there. You need to know you were Damned for a reason. You have a faith so strong it must be shared with the world, but you also love holding a crowd in the palm of your hand. You’ve done terrible things, and seek redemption for your sins. We — along with the Lord — can put you on the path to absolution.

Why you should fear us

The crowd is always on our side. We are the savior, and you the sinner. Fear is our left hand, and love is our right, and between them is the righteous blood of the Lord. To stand against our message is to be swept away before the flood.

Why we should fear ourselves

Our faith burns so bright at times it threatens to consume us. Spilling our blood in His name still leaves us hungry, and even the strongest prayers can’t silence the wailing of the Beast. It draws the eyes of the Lord’s enemies, and though we would gladly be His martyrs, too many upon the cross means none are left to spread the gospel.

[LostLight]

While this book is really full of good stuff (just keep that parasite awaty from me, please), my two favorites are the Nowhere Men and the Noctuku Strain. I really like the Noctuku in this form (I prefer it over the original bloodline format, actually), and I kinda like to think about it as the Nosferatu's version of Malkavia (even though that throwing it together witht he Contagion also works, but that also works for Malkavia, so...). That kinda makes me think about what could be the other parallels for the rest of the Clans- even though that doing it simply for symmetry's sake could downgrade the mystery behind it a bit. As for the Nowhere Men, they really give the feeling of Discipline Mysticism and the feeling of "living Disciplines"- either meaning that Obfuscate connects to something other (which have implications for the origin of the Disciplines and how they work- as if Obfuscate is "the Place Beyond the Fire", and the strix are basically smoke and shadows, and then you do 2 + 2 and get that maybe by cloaking them with Obfuscate the vampires remove themselves to the so called Dis- which ties those things to the strix and I could go on and on with those implications), or that Obfuscate is alive, and the Nowhere Men are its incarnations which are very, very hungry- and that maybe other Disciplines also have other incarnations (which once agains goes to tying them to the strix because vampires and embodied entities and such).

Inn short, it is all very cool. I'll leave a review once the site would let me do so.

[Charlaquin]

And IIIIIIIIIIII helped!

Which is to say, I’m proud to have been a part of this project! The Cockscomb Society update and the new Mask and Dirge Archetypes were my contributions.

[Yossarian]

And IIIIIIIIIIII helped!

Which is to say, I’m proud to have been a part of this project! The Cockscomb Society update and the new Mask and Dirge Archetypes were my contributions.

Your Cockscomb Society is such a glow up on the original, especially the bane. I think that'll be my next preview.

[Charlaquin]

Your Cockscomb Society is such a glow up on the original, especially the bane. I think that'll be my next preview.

Thank you! I had a lot of fun writing it.

[Yossarian]

While this book is really full of good stuff (just keep that parasite awaty from me, please), my two favorites are the Nowhere Men and the Noctuku Strain. I really like the Noctuku in this form (I prefer it over the original bloodline format, actually), and I kinda like to think about it as the Nosferatu's version of Malkavia (even though that throwing it together witht he Contagion also works, but that also works for Malkavia, so...).

I'm really happy to hear you like our take on the Noctuku. That was something the writer and I had a lot of back and forth about. Originally, we were going to present them as a corrupted bloodline, but then he added in a sidebar about them being a disease, and we both were like "Oh, that's way better."

And the Nowhere Men are one of those weird things I love finding in Night Horrors book. The author (same as the Noctuku) created a really neat little plot hook you can throw at your Nosferatu and Mekhet; they're kind of making up for only having one Horror in Strange Shades. I'm glad you liked them and their weird Obfuscate interplay. As a matter of fact, all three of the Horrors map to a Haunt Discipline, thematically if not literally.

As for "living" Disciplines and Malkavia and the like... well, [REDACTED].

[Yossarian]

Oh, and I'm terrible at self-promotion and forgot to post this. Follow us here:
https://www.facebook.com/nonedarker

[Yossarian]

Another preview this Monday afternoon, this time the Cockscomb Society, by our very own Charlaquin. The Cockerels first appeared in The Beast That Haunts the Blood: Nosferatu, one of two bloodlines from the book, the other being the Lygos. We'll get to the Lygos tomorrow, but for now, have a look at what's new with the elite of Clan Nosferatu:

The Cockscomb Society: The Ones Who Could Buy and Sell You

"That face of yours is just priceless. Well... almost."

“He cleans up nicely, doesn’t he?” they whisper when they think he isn’t listening.

“For a Nosferatu. Such a shame he wasn’t Embraced by someone with better breeding.”

He’s used to backhanded praise. It’s the story they need to tell themselves to explain how a lowly Haunt could climb so far above them on the social ladder.

“You don’t think it’s true, do you? The awful things they say he gets up to behind closed doors… I can’t imagine.”

It is true, of course. Everything they’ve heard and more. He makes no apologies for playing the game better than they ever could, but he would never advertise his… indiscretions.

Bad taste, that.

The Nosferatu have a reputation for flaunting their monstrosity. Their curse is impossible to conceal, so why not wear it with pride? Not so for the Cockscomb Society. They may be frightening, but that shouldn’t mean they abandon all sense of propriety. More so even than other, more “presentable” Kindred, Ladies and Gents of the Society practice the Masquerade with a dogmatic ardor. They rehearse every step of the Danse Macabre until they can walk it in their daysleep. They have little choice, as anything less would belie their station as one of the most well-to-do lineages in the All Night Society.

Founded in the late 18th century, the Cockscomb Society climbed the social ladder with alarming speed, and they’ve remained at the top ever since. Their founder, Potter Woolsthorpe Wycombe, accomplished this by rejecting the insularity of his clan and immersing himself in human high society. Forging countless relationships with the rich and powerful, he pulled himself out of the Necropolis by his own bootstraps. So what if a few moral compromises had to be made along the way? That’s the cost of building a legacy.

It began with revenants. Reasoning these undesirables wouldn’t be missed among the Kindred, Wycombe scoured the Warrens for cast-off victims and failed Embraces. Using the resources he’d accumulated from his mortal pawns, he provided orphaned vampires with just enough blood to keep their hunger at bay. Then, once they were dependent on him for survival, he sold them to wealthy mortals belonging to the most infamous Hellfire Club in the world: Ashwood Abbey, notorious for visiting all manner of depraved abuses upon captive vampires, among other exotic victims.

For a time, this was a profitable endeavor, but the Abbey’s appetite for dead flesh was nigh infinite. As demand grew, Wycombe began uplifting followers from among his captives, gradually expanding his operation to keep up with the developing market. Soon, revenants alone weren’t enough. Buyers wanted more dangerous toys, and before long Wycombe and his uplifted childer began Embracing hapless mortals directly into their chattel. Finally, the disappearances became too much for the local court to ignore, and Wycombe’s operations were shut down. However, by this time, Wycombe’s brood and their fortune had grown so large that they had secured their place as indispensable members of the Kindred ruling class.

Tonight, Wycombe’s descendants struggle to escape the shadow of their progenitors’ crimes, while still enjoying their long-term benefits. Of course, the Cockscomb Society no longer engages in such untoward business practices, but the reputation hangs over its members like bad English weather. The Society’s commitment to decorum and politesse is therefore a social necessity, not only to disprove assumptions other Kindred make based on their clan, but also to dispel any suspicion they may also be guilty of their grandsire’s improprieties. They wouldn’t be caught dead otherwise.

Why you want to be us

You don’t want to wallow in your monstrosity like the others. You aren’t proud of being a freak, but you’re not about to let it hold you back. You recognize your curse for what it is, but you’re prepared to take it in stride, and still put everyone else to shame. The others may sneer and whisper behind your back, but who cares what they think when you have more connections than the harpies, more blood dolls than the prince, and more money than God?

Why you should fear us

We have our finger on the pulse of the herd. We’re closer to the kine than anyone else, and we control the flow of the most valuable resource there is… cash. You weren’t expecting that, were you? Be honest, you thought I was going to say blood. Typical. See, that’s what separates us from the other Haunts. We recognize the value in material wealth. Spooky powers and disappearing acts are cute and all, but money can alter the course of history in ways even elders could never dream.

Why we should fear ourselves

It’s no secret we got where we are because of the awful things our founder did. We all carry that with us. We all benefit from his crimes, and it would be so easy to fall into the same trap he did. Wycombe may be a monster, but he did what he did so you could have a better Requiem than he ever had. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t have done the same in his position? What would you be willing to do to hold on to the privileges his indiscretions bought you? What wouldn’t you be willing to do to insure your own childer and grandchilder can enjoy the same advantages you have?

Bloodline Origins (Excerpt)

In the depths of the Roman Necropolis, an owl swallowed a worm. The worm wriggled in its gullet, struggling against its fate, until the bird could take it no more. It expelled the contents of its gut, and out of the pellet crawled the half-digested remains of what had once been the worm, alive, but changed. The worm carried something of its devourer with it, which it passed onto its spawn. For countless generations, the worm’s brood harbored a hunger no loam could sate, for theirs was the appetite of a raptor. But the worms suffered in their famine, for they knew nothing else. Until one night, a rooster ate one of these tainted worms. At last, this avian hunger had found its way home. Now that same hunger lives on in the bellies of the Cockerels, as it was always meant to be.