UNDERGROUND

UNDERGROUND

As the victims literally trip themselves to death, the sturdier Nosferatu feed on them. The doped-up Nosferatu then volunteer for the most dangerous War Parties. The victims are used as fertilizer for the gardens.

THE UNDERGROUND attracted to them as cheap labor to build networks of secret chambers and the like.

The Nosferatu continually expand these underground areas. Using their ghouls on the city council, they propose project after project, excavation after excavation. Under the guise of “urban renewal,” they oversee layer after layer of subterranean constructiona subway track here, a sewer line here, an underground plaza there. A few convenient accidents then convince the city to abandon the projects in mid-construction, leaving vast and desolate holes under the city. Into these areas the Nosferatu crawl.

Nosferatu usually have mortal pawns in the construction and maintenance industries; these servants keep the cities growing, evolving and changing. Just as a forest continually grows, dies and regrows over itself, so do cities inhabited by the Nosferatu continually reconstruct themselves.

Houses are built on top of abandoned cellars, are lived in and are torn down. Tenements are razed and buried under new tenements. Malls are built and maintenance tunnels dug, and then the malls suddenly go bankrupt and close.

The surface of the city is the tip of a vast infrastructural iceberg - and only the Nosferatu know what’s down there.

Of course, certain secret places must be constructed by the Nosferatu themselves. In this area they excel. Visitors to a Nosferatu labyrinth are often awestruck as they splash See you hcde behind the door Live in holes and disused shafts.

-Joy Division, “Ice .Age”

Just as the Ventrue have erected glass and steel spires to the heavens and the Toreador have encrusted the middle zone withfrescoes, bas-reliefs and gargoyles, so theNosferatu have carved their own dark kingdoms among the bowels of humanity’s works.

Most cities of the Gothic-Punk world have extensive underground areas beneath their streets. The Nosferatu have orchestrated the creation of these areas over centuries, and even the other vampire clans rarely realize the enormity ^’, ., of these subterranean realms. Some old cities have networks .:.,:< . &jp+ : of catacombs and crypts dating back to the mystery cults of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the Nosferatu often founded (and even led, viaobfuscate) such cults, using the subversives around the corner of a filthy sewer tunnel to discover a pristine, elaborately carved architectural masterpiece.

Nosferatu are builders without peer and have recently gone to great trouble to Embrace architects and engineers. Indeed, other clans have begun to whisper that the entire Nosferatu clan is preparing for some vast, world-spanning feat of construction, and they speculate as to the purpose of such an endeavor.

The end result ofNosferatu labor is a trackless, lightless, multileveled, subterranean maze, branches of which honeycomb the entire city. The Nosferatu ensure that nearly every important building, industrial park, etc. can be reached via their “warren.” Particularly in older cities, these warrens are gigantic structures.

Centuries-old corridors connect with abandoned subway tunnels and disused bomb shelters. Entire sublevels of buildings lie empty and gaping. Secret shafts lead from the cellars of the elite to the Nosferatu’s chambers. Crypts the size of rooms or even houses lie directly beneath the glittering skyscrapers of the wealthy. Flooded sewer pipes provide watery transport for the vampires, who build crude skiffs from plastic and lumber.

Certain adventurous vampires of other clans have descended into the Nosferatu warrens, but few - suspiciously few - have ever reemerged. Those who did return have spread such dark warnings that the lords of the Camarilla have begun to grow concerned. If the Nosferatu’s demesnes are indeed as vast as reports claim, the Justicars reason, any sort of lawbreaking could take place down there.

In particular, the Camarilla elders are concerned about the possible violation of the Third Tradition. Looking down from their lofty aeries, the Ventrue lords see the squalid masses of the poor and homeless, whom they have largely ignored and left under the aegis of the Nosferatu. Such an enormous population of potential progeny - such an expansive space in which to conceal them - who knows how many Nosferatu are down there?

Ironically, the Toreador wholeheartedly support the Nosferatu’s kingdoms, espousing the truth of the proverb, “Out of sight, out of mind.” “Let the beasts rot in their holes,” they sniff. “Better there than on the carpet at the Waldorf.” It is equally ironic that the Nosferatu are usually no more than 10 feet beneath the Toreador who say this, listening to every word and laughing gleefully.

THE ANTECHAMBER This is the way - step inside.

-Joy Division, “Atrocity Exhibition”

Most Nosferatu warrens have an area that serves as a combination of reception room and guard post. This area is generally dubbed the Antechamber, although it is not necessary confined to one chamber per se and in fact is often a maze of connected corridors, dead ends and rooms.

The Antechamber is where the clan’s rare visitors enter the Nosferatu’s subterranean kingdom. One of the area’s primary purposes is to disorient visitors - both physically and psychologically. This is done partially out of common sense (the Nosferatu have no desire to reveal the layout of their domain to spies) and partially from perversity (the Nosferatu get kicked around on the surface, and anyone who enters their realm can expect equivalent treatment).

Thus, the Antechamber is designed to promote maximum discomfort, paranoia and confusion. The area is blisteringly hot in the summer and frigid in the winter. Each room in the Antechamber usually has several tunnels leading elsewhere (some of these are illusions created via high-level Obfuscate powers).

The tunnels (the real ones) are often cramped, requiring visitors to kneel, crawl or even slither through them (poetic justice in the Nosferatu’s eyes). The tunnels are also generally choked with filth, slime and sewage. As if this weren’t revolting enough, the Nosferatu use their Animalism Discipline to stock these areas with swarms of rats, bats, roaches, worms, slugs, centipedes, spiders and other harmless but disgusting vermin.

The Nosferatu consider the Antechamber an object lesson and delight when some unsuspecting Toreador prima donna decides to enter the clan’s domain to bargain for information. A “guest” must often endure several hours of laborious crawling, backtracking from one dead end to the next amid foulness and vermin. By the time visitors reach the other side of the Antechamber, where their requests will be heard, they are utterly lost and psychologically frazzled.

The rare visitor who stoically endures the ordeal of the Antechamber without complaint usually gains favor in the clan’s eyes.

If a visitor is deemed legitimate and/or harmless, the clan uses Obfuscate to conceal the sections of the Antechamber where the real, lethal traps are laid. This is not the case for enemies or particularly obnoxious Toreador.. ..

THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS What sounds were heard, What scenes appeared, O’er all the dreary coasts!

Dreadful gleams, Dismal screams, Fires that glow, Shrieks of woe, Sulkn moans, Hollow groans, And cries of tortured ghosts!

Alexander Pope, translation of The Aeneid Each Nosferatu warren invariably has a main room where the clan gathers. This room (which is usually quite large) serves as an audience chamber, recreation area and last-ditch defensive site. It is designed to house all the city’s Nosferatu, as well as any visiting clan members or other guests. The room is the center of a warren’s existence. The Nosferatu, in their typical self-deprecating fashion, have named it the Chamber of Horrors.

The decor of the Chamber of Horrors depends on the proclivities of the clan leader or leaders. In many ways, it is a reflection of a given warren’s attitude toward the outside world. Some Nosferatu, in an attempt to maintain some facade of beauty in their unlives, decorate the Chamber with ornate sculpture, delicate crystal chandeliers, rich tapestries and the like. Other, more cynical Nosferatu reject the standards of the surface world wholeheartedly.

These Nosferatu take the Chamber’s name most literally and meticulously collect grotesqueries of all sorts. These items are arrayed about the Chamber in wax-museum fashion, the better to shock and horrify visitors. Implements of torture, bizarre paintings, deformed animals taxidermically preserved, dinosaur bones, coffins, mummified corpses, pickled human organs and the like adorn these Chambers.

The Chamber of Horrors is the most important site within a warren, and great care is taken in its construction.

It is placed in the most defensible spot possible. Cunning traps are scattered throughout; the Nosferatu say that to stand in the Chamber of Horrors is to stand beneath a thousand swords. In extremis, the very roof of the place can usually be collapsed, ensuring that if a Nosferatu warren dies, its enemies die with it.

THE SPAWNING POOL 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 The security-conscious Nosferatu value their privacy and detest other beings skulking around in their demesnes.

The Antechamber provides a good first line of defense, but certain beings (Malkavians and Black Spiral Dancers, in particular) can circumvent it with relative ease. While mechanical traps and the like are useful deterrents, the Nosferatu affinity with animals allows a more innovative approach to personal security.

At some point in each Nosferatu warren is a small pool of still water. The Nosferatu take pains to ensure that this water remains fresh and pure. The Nosferatu with the most potent vitz (i.e., the one of lowest generation) regularly bleeds into the pool, infusing the water with her essence.

The pool is placed under the effects of Obfuscate, hiding it from the eyes of humans and most other vampires.

Animals, however, can smell the intoxicating aroma of the vampiric blood. Rats, roaches, stray cats and dogs, and even (if legend is to be believed) the fabled sewer alligators come from miles around to drink from the pool.

The ingestion of the blood-saturated water turns the animals into ghouls of a sort: they gradually become larger, more cunning and much more aggressive. Of course, the blood is Nosferatu vitz, so the animals usually begin to sprout deformities as well. So much the better, think the Nosferatu.

The vim is as addictive to these animals as it is to humans, and once an animal has drunk from the Spawning Pool, it continues to come back for more and more. The longer a creature drinks from the pool, the more pronounced the effects on the animal - it grows larger and larger, fiercer and fiercer, more and more malformed. Urban legends depicting dog-sized rats or swarms of foot-long roaches are quite common in areas near the Spawning Pool.

The animals remain susceptible to Animalism, and the Nosferatu employ these ghouls as scouts, spies and sentries.

A few (particularly the larger beasts) are kept in the warren as guards. In most cases, however, the Nosferatu let the animals roam where they will. They prove remarkably effective in discouraging vampiric incursions and nosy sewer workers alike.

SUBTERRANEAN WARFARE Very few mongooses, however old and wise they my be, care to follow a cobra into its hole.

Rudyard Kipling, “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”

The Nosferatu have many enemies, both among their own kind and outside. They have fought a guerrilla war in the dark for millennia. In that time they have become quite skilled at using their environment against their foes.

One of the first actions undertaken by Nosferatu new to a city is to gain influence in the construction, transportation and maintenance industries. This can be accomplished through prestation, ghoul creation or blackmail, but it is done whenever possible. Possession of such influence gives the clan a tremendous amount of power in a modern city - power often overlooked by the loftier Ventrue, Tremere and Toreador. If the Nosferatu presence in a city has been strong for a long time, the entire city may be riddled with hidden chambers, booby traps, escape routes and secret crypts.

Nosferatu love subways. Not only do the trains supply constant vessels, but they are powered by electricity. This electricity can be diverted from the tracks for a variety of purposes - including defensive ones. Nosferatu often run wires from the third rails of subways to nearby metallic structures. They then lure enemies to these structures.

When the pursuing Kindred/Lupine/witch-hunterlwhatever touches the “harmless” girder or other debris - ZAP!