Table of Contents If You Can’t Be Both (Part I) 6 Bloodline Origins 50 In the Covenants 50 Rumors 51 Introduction 11 Wen Mingli 52 Theme: Lonely Together 11 Truths of Erebus 52 Mood: It’s Right Behind You 11 Sample Lessons of Erebus 53 A Haunted Past 11 Twists of the Blood: Blinded by the Light 54 What’s in This Book 12 Nosferatu in the Media 12 Von Schreck Family 55 Bloodline Origins 56 If You Can’t Be Both (Part II) 14 In the Covenants 56 Rumors 57 Missy Malice 57 Chapter One: Grave Blooms 19 Bloodline Gift: Know Your Audience 58 Acteius 20 New Devotions 58 Bloodline Origins 21 Yagnatia 60 In the Covenants 21 Bloodline Origins 61 Rumors 22 In the Covenants 61 Maggie Kincaid 22 Rumors 62 New Merit 23 Jim Lykinov 63 New Devotions 24 New Crúac Rites 63 Candymen 26 New Devotion 65 Bloodline Origins 27 Twists of the Blood: Fallow Obfuscations 65 In the Covenants 27 Rumors 28 If You Can’t Be Both (Part III) 66 Jeremiah Jolly 28 Bloodline Gift: The Sweet Stuff 29 New Devotions 29 Chapter Two: Hellscapes 71 Horror: The Hungry 31 Welcome to Hell 71 The Cockscomb Society 32 Ex Urbe Mortis 71 Bloodline Origins 33 In the Covenants 72 In the Covenants 34 Pale Imitations 72 Rumors 34 Brick by Ugly Brick 73 Potter Woolsthorpe Wycombe 35 Step One: The Heart 73 Bloodline Gift: Old Money 35 Step Two: Veins 73 New Devotions 36 Step Three: Residents 74 Gethsemani 37 Step Four: Clots 75 Bloodline Origins 38 Step Five: Merits 77 In the Covenants 39 Tumbling Down 79 Rumors 39 The Coal Shafts 80 Angel Dee 40 Where we came from 80 Bloodline Gift: Stigmatica 41 Who we are tonight 80 New Theban Sorcery Miracles 41 Secrets and Lies 80 New Devotions 42 Residents 81 Keepers of the Dark 43 The Quaint Village 82 Bloodline Origins 44 Where we came from 82 In the Covenants 44 Who we are tonight 82 Rumors 45 Secrets and Lies 82 Elizabeth Brathwaite 46 Residents 83 New Merits 46 Popobawa’s Roost 83 SampleNew Devotion 47 Where we came from file83 Twists of the Blood: Blessed by the Dark 48 Who we are tonight 83 Lygos 49 Secrets and Lies 84

Table of Contents 3 Residents 84 Where we came from 114 The Lost Necropolis 85 Who we are tonight 114 Where we came from 85 Three Unwanted 115 Who we are tonight 85 New Merit 116 Secrets and Lies 86 Gravenor 117 Residents 86 Where we came from 117 The Rusted Graveyard 86 Who we are tonight 118 Where we came from 86 Three Watchers 118 Who we are tonight 86 Kobayashi 120 Secrets and Lies 87 Where we came from 120 Residents 87 Who we are tonight 120 Appendix: Cymothoa Sanguinaria 88 Three Mimics 121 Systems 88 New Devotion 122 Little Legs, Big Fangs 88 Fear Eaters 123 Digging Deeper 89 Background 123 Rumors 124 If You Can’t Be Both (Part IV) 90 Suzie Hanson 125 New Merits 125 Chapter Three: Dreams & Nightmares 95 The Noctuku Strain 127 Background 127 A Haunted Toybox 95 Rumors 128 Archetypes 95 Dr. Esteban Reyes 129 Devotions 95 Systems 130 Merits 101 Phagia 130 Malice and Mutation: The Lonely Curse 105 Twists of the Blood: Family Dinner 132 Sample Flaws 105 Nowhere Men 133 The Potent Curse 106 Background 133 Rumors 133 If You Can’t Be Both (Part V) 108 Calvin Harris, Puppet Without Strings 134 Storytelling the Nowhere Men 135 Chapter Four: Terrors 113 Chaménos 114 If You Can’t Be Both (Epilogue) 138

Index of Conditions and Tilts Despondent (Persistent) 101 Overwhelming Hunger 31 Frantic (Persistent) 98 Potent Curse (Persistent) 107 Necropolis Pariah (Persistent) 79 Touch of Nowhere (Persistent) 136 Noctuku Strain (Persistent) 130 Walking Cliché (Personal Tilt) 59 Sample file

4 Better Feared: Nosferatu Sample file Part 1 AirDrop

The night was boiling in downtown Chicago when Charity Lane stepped onto the westbound Metra. As the doors clamped shut behind her like a lamprey, she shivered. The train car was a freezer by comparison, and the frigid, phlegmy coughing of the antique air conditioner made her aware of every drop of sweat. The dirty floor was covered with a velvet layer of condensation, and she had to mind each step of her flat-bottomed canvas sneakers, lest they betray her to the grime. Though dressed comfortably in a pair of jeans and a soft white Saint Laurent t-shirt, she felt exposed before every pair of eyes. Normally she liked that feeling, and the sense of control that welled up when she saw the intentions of admirers. Normally, that intention didn’t involve killing her. This was a bad idea. She walked the length of the car, swaying between bodies as the train ramped up. It was Friday night, just shy of midnight, and the Metra was speckled with an even mix of drunks, exhausted workers, and students who were a mix of both. Despite only being half-full, the seats were flooded with bodies. Some were sleeping in fits; others were reading their phones or the rare dogeared paperback. Along the back wall, she was pretty sure two college guys were servicing each other beneath their backpacks. Good for you, she thought. You’re having a much better night than I am. One of the men looked up and touched his gaze to hers, and she smiled for the briefest moment before a thought intruded: What if he’s the one? The thought hurried her to the front of the car, where she could keep her back against the wall — see everything, just like her boss had told her. Two seats by the conductor’s door… As she pushed through the last clot of sweaty, braying commuters, she was shocked to see precisely that: two seats by the conductor’s door. The only ones in the car devoid of bodies or bags. Just like magic. It was always like that with her boss. He was magic. She’d seen him stare down an entire crew on the South Side once, and scare a beat cop so bad the pig pissed himself. He was the scariest man in Chicago, and he would save her. Again, an intrusive thought wormed its way into her comfort: He didn’t save Juanita. She shuddered and went to sit down in the seat next to the barrier. She desperately wanted something hard and safe against her, but as she lowered herself, a strange compulsion overwhelmed her, and she found herself unable to sit, as if she’d just noticed the seat had a wad of chewed gum stuck to it. It’s probably better to stay out of the corner, she rationalized, and slid into the second seat. She turned back toward the rest of the car and flicked her eyes back and forth, inspecting every face and wondering which one of them had sent the message. Which one of them was going to kill her. TheSample first text came two nights ago. She was riding the train home after spendingfile the night with a favorite client at the Waldorf Astoria, and her skin was abuzz with a mix of post-coital flush and the high of $500 champagne. She was in the middle of a text to her sister when her phone flashed. It was an AirDrop, anonymous, and she was drunk enough to open it. It was a picture of her then, smiling into her phone, oblivious and happy. It could have been a cute candid photo from a friend, if not for the accompanying text: I’M GOING TO KILL THIS WHORE She’d vomited her champagne into the aisle. One of her coworkers, Juanita, received a similar message about a week before. She and Charity lived across the hall from each other in the Castle — a condo on the Upper Loop owned by their boss — and spent some of their free time together. Juanita had assumed it was all just a shitty prank, but Charity hadn’t seen her since the night she’d texted to say she got a second message. Charity knew she should have checked in, but life and work and school got the better of her, and she’d forgotten about Juanita until she received a message of her own. Last night, she went out to the All Foods to grab soy milk and sundries, and she hadn’t been paying attention when her phone buzzed again. It was a picture of her, crouched in the frozen food aisle, weighing whether she could afford the carbs in sorbet. The accompanying text read: ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN It wasn’t a prank: It was a countdown. She’d called her boss, crying on the floor of the store’s musty bathroom. He walked her home that night, put her to bed, and gave her a plan. Charity kept checking her phone with a swelling anxiety. No new messages. If he was going to save her, he could at least let her know where he was. Instead, she was alone, and for the first time she felt like she was bait, or worse — a sacrifice. She folded herself in half and hugged her knees to her chest. A low, all-consuming tremble was beginning just at the base of her stomach. She couldn’t stop shaking, so she closed her eyes and tried to count away the fear with deep, measured breaths. The train stopped at Halstead and a man shuffled on, half unwrapped from his suit by a bottle of bourbon. He swayed across the floor as the doors closed, and aimed himself at the empty seat beside Charity. He squatted down but his ass stopped a foot above the seat and just… hovered. The man turned to her with a toddler’s confusion and muttered through a cloud of bourbon: “Can I sit?” Charity’s eyes jostled open at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t meant to take them off the car for that long, but the momentary rest proved too tempting to resist. As she looked up at him, hovering over the seat in drunken impotence, she realized he was probably the least threatening person on the train. “No,” she said. “I guess you can’t.” The man stood up and looked down at the empty seat. “But… what?” “I guess it’s taken,” Charity said with a shrug. The man mumbled and waddled back up the train in search of a less confusing place to pass out. Charity’s phone buzzed, and all strength fled her limbs. She raised the screen and swiped it open with numb fingers. It was a photo of her sitting on the train, her eyes shut tight, with the text: SampleREADY OR NOT file “Just breathe,” came an underworld-deep voice from the empty seat beside her. Charity froze. Her phone slipped between her fingers and clattered onto the floor. The voice once again issued from the empty air beside her, low and commanding: “Don’t worry about the message. Pick it up.” She did as she was told. “Good,” the voice said. “Keep playing the game, like I’m not here.” But he was. She shivered as a huge hand gripped her thigh, its touch as cold as grave marble. Littlejohn Roach sat in the empty seat beside her. He was tall and broad, built like a football player whose limbs had been stretched out on a rack. He was nearly six foot six, and meticulously dressed in black slacks and a matching button up beneath a velvet maroon jacket. The red soles of his Louboutins swished back and forth like a cat’s tail. He was watching her with his coal-dark eyes. The smirk curling his full lips was infuriatingly sexy, like it was daring her not to find him hot. Had he always had this effect on her? She could almost remember the revulsion she’d felt before he’d given her a taste, but it was hazy and unimportant compared to the fluttering in her stomach, and the thirst building up in the back of her throat. “Reply,” he rumbled. She lifted her phone and typed: Who r u? What do u want? A response came in seconds: I SEE YOU Photo after photo followed the text, each a snapshot of her night’s routine: Leaving her condo. Taking a cab to the hotel. Meeting her client and his wife in the hotel bar. Following them to their room. Her walk to the train. Charity flipped through the record of her night in a panic, until the images suddenly became shots of a corpse with its face caved in. Each showed the body in a new, playful angle, bloodless and strewn out across an alley like a boudoir shoot for rats. It was impossible to make out the face, but Charity recognized Juanita’s favorite skirt. She put her phone away with shaking hands. “I don’t want to die.” Her voice was hoarse. “You won’t,” Littlejohn said. “Get ready. Getting off at the next station. Cicero. Then I’ll end this.” She nodded and stood, making her way to the doors as the train slowed. She was right to have faith in him, she thought. Littlejohn had a reputation among escorts in Chicago. She’d heard he’d once been a street pimp, but he’d moved up to “elite” clientele shortly before she’d met him. He was a leech — for sure — but one who put a premium on protection and professionalism. He never hurt his employees. He listened. He’d always been good to her. The train slid into the station and Charity disembarked. She descended from the platform and madeSample her way down to street level, trying to keep her eyes up front. The whole wayfile she felt his cold, strong hand at the small of her back, guiding her into industrial Cicero. They walked beneath the canopy of powerlines and wires for almost a mile. The buildings thinned in this area, and broken glass twinkled beneath the streetlights. In the distance, she could see power plants, the oil refinery, and signs for the river. His voice tickled her ear. “Behind us. Don’t look. Go in the alley.” She nodded. They crossed a street, but against his warning she glanced over her shoulder. Trailing them by a block was a lanky figure wearing jeans and a black hoodie pulled up around its face. She hurried into the alley, a dark shaft between an old hardware store and a warehouse. Littlejohn followed. He set her down behind a dumpster and smiled, a flash of white in the dark of the alley. He knelt and kissed her forehead. She shivered. “I’ll take care of him.” A delicate, pale face pulled back from the kiss, eyes framed with smoky green shadow, lips painted a soft pink. She was no longer looking at Littlejohn, but herself. His features had morphed into her own, all the way down to the way she tied her shoes. Without moments like these, she could almost convince herself he was human. Littlejohn winked with her own face and then left the alley. Charity watched from behind the dumpster until her double was out of sight, and then had the quietest nervous breakdown she could manage. Littlejohn stepped out of the alley, the Beast lodged in his throat. All kinds of predators hunt the streets — a few of them were even friends of his — and if someone wants to terrorize the kine, screw it. It’s a free country. But Charity was his, and even the bottom feeders of Chicago knew one rule. It didn’t matter if you were a crook, a cop, or an Acolyte looking for a quick bite: You don’t fuck with Littlejohn Roach’s girls. Someone was about to find out why.

Sample file Sample file What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams. Werner Herzog

The Nosferatu are monsters. lifting up an infant abandoned to a dumpster. These Kindred They are fresh blood on old graves, scabrous fingers closing know what it’s like to be tossed away, and that can move them around pale throats, and the dreadful certainty something to mercy. The Nosferatu disgust even themselves, but in the hungry is watching, just out of sight. end, they only have each other. Haunts are vampires without the pretense of humanity. Corpse-eaters, breath-drinkers, and skin-peelers all, their curse is an eternal brand of horror — but that’s what makes it so hard Mood: It’s Right Behind You to look away. A Haunt knows she’s a beast the moment she first That noise you heard wasn’t the wind. Your eyes aren’t playing spies her face in eyes wide with fear. Instead of denying that tricks. It’s here, just out of sight, and when it reaches out, you nature, she struggles with a very different question than her won’t be able to stop it. Your last thought will be of how unfair Kindred: What does it mean to hunt without a mask? it all is — but that’s the thing about monsters, isn’t it? They don’t Better Feared is the definitive sourcebook for all things play by the rules. Other vampires almost give you a fighting Nosferatu in Vampire: The Requiem Second Edition. In chance. They trick you with their mind games, or convince you addition to new Haunt fiction, systems, and bloodlines, it it was your idea to bleed, but a Haunt rips your heart out before includes a complete update of the mechanics in their original you know his claws drew blood, eating it faster than your eyes sourcebook, The Beast That Haunts the Blood. have time to go dark. The other clans are better at pretending This book is the second in a series of updates and expansions to be human, but the Nosferatu have mastered being vampires. that began with Strange Shades: Mekhet. It isn’t really Clanbook: Nosferatu Revised, but you could call it a Haunt tribute. It’s also a chance to re-examine Nosferatu material A Haunted Past from other first edition sources, some of which haven’t been In some ways, the Haunts changed the most and least of heard from in over a decade. More things are always hiding in the three clans carried over from Vampire: The Masquerade. the dark, after all. Let us introduce you. Nosferatu have always been outsiders, but where their previous incarnation caused supernatural disgust, Requiem Haunts provoke a more fundamental disquiet. No longer Sewer Rats, Theme: Lonely Together the Nosferatu are outcasts because they frighten their victims, Revulsion unites the Haunts even as it keeps them down even when they don’t mean to. The switch from Animalism to in the gutter. No one gives the Nosferatu anything, so they’ll Nightmare reinforced this change: Rather than rely on beasts to take whatever they can grab by the throat. Still, the victim role feed, away from the masses who shun them, the Haunts spread can be seductive, built too often on easy self-righteousness and terror to get their fair share. shallow reasoning. Nosferatu have nothing but contempt for Later on, The Beast That Haunts the Blood: Nosferatu those outside their tribe, providing other Kindred all the more provided a roach’s eye view of the Haunts, zooming in on the reasonSample to push them into the shadows. Yet the clan’s spite is finer details of their crusty Requiems.file It also codified horrors also its compassion. See the rag-wrapped horror plucking a stray like Necropoli, the rancid domains they build beneath the dog from the path of an oncoming car, or the grave-rot man world while no one’s looking. Their clan book dragged all the

Introduction 11 hidden details into the light, putting the bone-crunching, heart- stopping power of the Nosferatu on full display. Chapter Two: Hellscapes Here we dig up the Necropoli, the strange and wondrous The arrival of Vampire: The Requiem Second Edition under-cities Nosferatu build beneath the streets. In additiom further refined this transformation. First edition Vampire to a complete system for creating your own Warrens, you’ll still tended to rely on surface appearances when depicting find five examples taken from the darkest corners of the world, Nosferatu, but modern Haunts are a clan of both creeping dread from the coal mines of Lethbridge to the ship graveyard of and brutal terror, ripping the face from the lie that Kindred Nouadhibou. are anything but undead parasites. Chapter Three: Dreams & Nightmares What’s in This Book This chapter takes a deep dive through the Haunts’ vault of Better Feared: Nosferatu is for players and Storytellers alike. nightmares, a toolbox to make all your Nosferatu characters Inside, you’ll find all the material you need to add a personal, just a little extra awful. In addition to new Masks, Dirges, gruesome touch to your Haunt characters, from bloodlines and Devotions, and Merits, this chapter updates nearly all the Necropoli to Merits and Devotions. mechanics from The Beast That Haunts the Blood. You’ll Throughout, you’ll also share a nightmarish night with also find new examples of Nosferatu flaws, and ways of making Littlejohn Roach, Chicago’s premier Nosferatu hustler, who the decision between a leech-tongue and a withering aura more learns what it means to be a real monster when an old rival than just a cosmetic one. turns the tables on him. Chapter Four: Terrors Chapter One: Grave Blooms Monsters beget monsters. Here you’ll meet a selection of This chapter re-imagines four classic Haunt bloodlines, ghoul families, like the two-faced Kobayashi and the occultist and welcomes four new inductees into the family crypt. Gravenors, as well as three loathsome entities the Nosferatu In addition, you’ll find Twists of the Blood, mechanical must share the night with, including the return of their most Shards providing even more options for your characters feared predator. and chronicles. The Acteius are master craftspeople, able to create wondrous tools out of little more than human vital fluids. However, a Nosferatu in the Media terrible culling has devastated their numbers, and they rebuild The Nosferatu represent the oldest myths of vampires, their stockpiles in the face of an uncertain future. long before they were romanticized in modern media. Still, Peddlers of delicious addiction, the Candymen are always the monstrous revenant remains a popular figure even today, happy to offer a taste. Behind closed doors, however, they have and shows up in countless celluloid and literary nightmares. their own hungers to feed. Here are a few examples to spike your anxiety. Members of the Cockscomb Society have risen from humble beginnings into the halls of the elite, but they can never escape the terrible crimes their prestige was built upon. (The Beast Vampire Media I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson: While this book is that Haunts the Blood) certainly about vampires, it’s the theme of human loneliness Preachers cursed with Christ’s sacred wounds, members of that resonates with the Nosferatu in particular. Robert the Gethsemani bloodline travel the road to bring the Gospel Neville hunts the vampires of post-apocalyptic Los Angeles to the people, performing horrible miracles that test the limits with a fanatic’s resolve, utterly alone in his struggle. However, of the Masquerade. (Bloodlines: The Hidden) when an act of compassion forces him to realize many of The Keepers of the Dark have a lot to make up for, but these “monsters” are thinking, feeling people he could have the mazes they dig for themselves can’t hide the stain of their connected with, it’s too late: He’s killed too many members grandsires’ terrible mistake. of this new society, which now fears him as their greatest The Lygos believe all Kindred belong in the welcoming predator. For his crimes, he’s left to die alone, surrounded dark, and they emerge from their underground lairs to destroy by a hatred of his own making. any light that would sully the purity of night. (The Beast that Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, directed by F. W. Haunts the Blood) Murnau: No discussion of the Nosferatu would be complete The Von Schreck Family luxuriates in Hollywood magic, without the film that bears their name. Murnau merged Dracula but the celebrity lifestyle pales in comparison to a good scare. with the disgusting vampire of Eastern European folklore to OnceSample masters of the Russian night, the Yagnatia spend their craft a masterpiece of expressionist file horror. Max Schreck’s exile plotting with their gods against those who cast them out creeping portrayal of Count Orlok is still the first image that of a feudal paradise. (Bloodlines: The Chosen) comes to mind when people hear the word “Nosferatu,” and it

12 Better Feared: Nosferatu informed the look of inhuman vampires in media for almost a century. Also worth a look is its spiritual remake, Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, a more explicit but no less haunting adaptation of Stoker. Pronunciation Guide Shadow of the Vampire, directed by E. Elias Merhige: Acteius: AK-tay-us This meta-fiction classic casts John Malkovich as an obsessive Chaménos: KAH-may-nohs Murnau and Willem Dafoe as actual-vampire Max Schreck Cockscomb: COKS-kohm Gethsemani: geth-SEM-uh-nee on the set of Nosferatu in 1921. Dafoe’s Schreck evokes Noctuku: nok-TOO-koo sympathy even as he murders his way through the film crew, Lygos: LEE-gohs, LY- but despite an overwhelming loneliness, he’s lost to the thrall Phagia: FAY-jee-uh of bloodthirst, unable to be anything but a predator. At the Yagnatia: yahg-NAH-tee-yuh same time, Malkovich’s Murnau is another kind of vampire altogether, sacrificing his cast and career in the name of his ultimate vision. Requiem Books Non-Vampire Media A Hunger Like Fire, by Greg Stolze: The ugly details of Bruise Miner’s Embrace into Clan Nosferatu set off the action of this Horns, by Joe Hill: A supernatural crime-thriller about a young man who uses sinister powers to solve the rape and neo-noir mystery, giving a closeup view of the first faltering steps murder of his girlfriend. Ignatius Perrish’s descent from an in a Nosferatu’s Requiem. Bruise’s self-loathing and confusion is innocent but powerless mortal into a supernatural murderer palpable as he resists giving in to the Beast he’s become, as is his mirrors the journey of a Haunt’s Requiem well: his diabolic horror at the depth of this new world of monsters. Bruise’s tale abilities cause people to act out on their worst impulses, and continues in The Danse Macabre, where he learns even victories then forget about all the awful things they’ve just done as soon exact a price in the All Night Society. (White Wolf) as he leaves their presence. The opening fiction for Bloodlines: The Chosen concerns The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, by Victor Hugo: Rife with Abbot, a Haunt who’s having a really bad night. This gruesome betrayal, murder, and depravity, this iconic novel evokes the tale shows how terrifying the Nosferatu can be to even each many struggles of Clan Nosferatu. From a crumbling Gothic other, and it’s a great example of when joining a bloodline is setting to a lonely and deformed protagonist, it’s easy to find less than voluntary. (White Wolf) parallels between Quasimodo’s sad tale and the travails of a Secrets of the Covenants delves into the horrid history of young Haunt, struggling to survive in the All Night Society. Scratch, the iconic Nosferatu from the first edition of Vampire: However, it’s the book’s exploration of cruelty from the The Requiem (the handsome gentleman on p. 111). Scratch’s virtuous, and compassion from the loathsome, that makes early Requiem illustrates the inherent body horror of his clan, Hunchback so intrinsically Nosferatu. and the awful surprise awaiting Haunts who’ve only just begun It, by Stephen King: Putting the more bizarre elements the fall to the Beast. (Onyx Path Publishing) aside, a story about a sewer-dwelling creature who kills people Finally, while you don’t need to read The Beast That Haunts by evoking their greatest fears is about as Nosferatu as it gets. the Blood to enjoy this book, you owe it to yourself to pick it Pennywise is a case study in what happens when a Haunt gives up anyway. Rife with grimy, bloody bits of Nosferatu fiction up on pretending to be human, existing only to glut himself on and flavor, it’s a glorious look at how nobody really understands blood and terror between long bouts of torpor. the Haunts — not even themselves. (White Wolf) Sample file

Introduction 13