The Nagaraja

The Nagaraja are a Clan that long held power and influence in southern Asia and are responsible for the myths of the rakshasa, for like those creatures they must consume human flesh. The Nagaraja are masters of deceit and trickery, with the ability to hide themselves, change their appearance, create illusions, and to even make people's worst fears seem to come to life. As a Clan and individually the Nagaraja love power and control, love the rush of having others at their mercy, love wealth and opulence, but above all love the taste of human flesh. They also delight in cruelty, in seeing fear in the eyes of their victims and hearing their screams of agony. The Nagaraja are no mad dogs though, they see themselves as lords of mortals, and select only those candidates for embrace who they believe have the intellect, charisma, refinement, and ruthlessness to be dark lords of illusion. Nagaraja often amass great sums of wealth and power over mortals, through the use of their powers and with ghoul servants. For centuries, the Nagaraja Clan was rigidly structured with sires in control of their childer via the Blood Bond, but with the Great Ritual the Clan fell into chaos as the bonds were broken and Nagaraja fell upon each other. In their weakened state, they turned to the Camarilla to help them reestablish order among their ranks, thus becoming members of that sect, though many refused to join. Very territorial, each Nagaraja will claim one area of a city or region as its own and sharing with no other Nagaraja and hopefully no other vampires. The Nagaraja see themselves as masters of this space and resent any others, even elders or the princes, presuming to command them here. The Nagaraja prefer to dwell in impoverished or war torn regions of the world, or the most crime ridden ghettos of the first world, where life is cheap and death or disappearances are commonplace. Within the Camarilla, the Nagarajah often take on roles as enforcers, assassins, or spies - as masters of stealth and trickery they are even feared by other vampires. Often a Nagaraja will make an effort to do favors for the city's prince in exchange for greater autonomy over her own territory.

Nickname: flesh eaters, boogeymen

Disciplines: Potence, Obfuscate, Chimerstry

Weakness: the Nagaraja must consume human flesh along with blood to survive. Nagaraja essentially have a flesh pool, which is the same size as their blood pool and decreases by one each day just as a blood pool does. When the Nagaraja runs low on flesh points, they suffer the same effects as they do when blood points run low - they must resist hunger frenzies for flesh. Each day that they have a flesh pool of zero, they take a single unsoakable wound that can only be healed when the Nagaraja has at least one flesh point in its system. Flesh points cannot be spent for anything as blood points. A single human body has 20 flesh points, which is reduced by 1 for each day the human is dead. Taking flesh from a living person requires inflicting 1 level of aggravated damage per flesh point taken, which may well maim the human for life. In addition, in their natural form the Nagaraja have sharp and irregular teeth which cannot be retracted. They suffer +2 difficulty on all social roles with humans who have seen their wicked teeth.

Advantage: These vampires receive a +1 bonus to Strength when they have fed on flesh within the last hour and +1 Desterity if they have a full flesh pool.

Appearance: The Nagaraja originated in southern Asia, though since ancient days they have embraced people from a wide variety of ethnicities. Because the Nagaraja so frequently make use of the Obfuscate Discipline, they seldom place too much concern on the physical beauty of who they embrace. Likewise, they often do not care for the clothing they wear - many Nagaraja wear old or tattered clothing, informal practical attire, and many even go nude. A handful like to wear high class clothing, particularly some of the elders who favor traditional Indian garb of nobility. All Nagaraja in their natural form have large and sharp teeth, making them appear obviously inhuman. Sometimes these teeth look like sharks‘ teeth, others have jagged oversized human teeth with sharp points, and some have even stranger maws - in any case they are frightening to behold and the Nagaraja will try to conceal their teeth when among mortals.  

Haven: There is a great deal of variation between the havens of Nagaraja. One Nagaraja may dwell in a huge mansion in a gated community maintained by numerous ghouls while another another might live in an abandoned shack or in the sewer. Some live in a single building for centuries while another may spend the day in a different dwelling each night. Frequently, the Nagaraja will have a number of human ghouls who each maintain their own separate homes and the Nagaraja master will choose which location to rest based on their personal whim.

Background: The typical Nagaraja sees himself as a sort of demi-god, a superior being, and to share his blood with an inferior human specimen is an abomination. In the past, Nagaraja embraced childer as cannon fodder to fight against their rivals. In modern days, mortals are only embraced when a Nagaraja is destroyed or leaves his territory, in which case the local Nagaraja Primogen embraces a mortal, usualy one of his most talented ghouls, to be the Nagaraja of that location. Usually the Primogen keeps a number of ghouls at hand for this purpose. The Nagaraja look for mortals with a cruel or sadistic streak, as those without such a quality would not survive well as a Nagaraja, along with intellect, drive, and a special spark making them deserving of immortality. Many times, the ghoul selected will be quite old and already familiar with vampiric politics. Such new vampires not only have more talents than most newly embraced vampires, but also begin unlife with a number of connections.

Organization: The Nagarajah have relatively little Clan structure. They mostly exist autonomously with a single vampire controlling some piece of territory, ruling over a handful of childer, and doing favors for the prince in the hopes that he will be left alone to oversee his territory as he sees fit. In larger cities, the various Nagarjah there will usually claim some remote area as neutral ground where they can meet, discuss plans with each other, select a Primogen, or coordinate their efforts against a common foe. As a part of the Camrilla, the Nagaraja have adapted to the sect’s system of Primogens. The eldest Nagaraja helps to coordinate which regions of the city belong to which Nagaraja, a marked advantage over the territorial conflicts which once plagued the Clan. Should a territorial ruler perish, her eldest childe becomes master of that territory and the other childer must submit to his rule or leave. For the most part, the only friendships in a Naharaja’s world are with her own childer, in time these bonds can sometimes grow into true friendships and the childe will be allowed to move into a domain of his own, with permission of the Primogen. Because the Nagarajah Primogen has an unusual amount of power within the Clan, the territorial rulers will often select new Primogens on a regular basis so that the power will not remain in one Nagaraja's hands for too long.

Stereotypes

Ahrimanes: They hide away in their castles or penthouse suites, but they can’t hide from us. 
Baali: They say that we’re scary, but they don’t know what the Baali do in private.    
Blood Brothers: Very dangerous and determined, especially in large numbers. Never engage them in a fair fight.    
Children of Osiris: Pathetic weaklings who die very easily. Why are these guys a threat again? 
Gargoyles: As strong and resilient as stone and almost as smart.    
Kiasyd: Petty lords who think that they are entitled to everything. Kiss their asses and then wait for them to turn their backs. 
Laibon: We see these animals skulking in the jungles from time to time. They may not like us but they dare not raise their hand against us.  
Lamia: Lesbian snake women? That would be interesting if they didn’t have such a stick up their collective asses.   
Lhiannan: A bunch of superstitious wackos dancing around a fire and howling at the moon. The great tragedy is that occasionally, their magic actually works.        
Salubri: Generally ineffectual weaklings, though they can often see through our little tricks.   
Samedi: More frightening and alienated than us, who knows what strange or deadly powers the necromancers command?  
Sybarites: I feel almost guilty for bullying these cowardly maggots. Almost.    
Caitiff: Weak, easy to kill and easier still to frighten. They don’t concern me. 
Camarilla: Allying with the Camarilla serves our purposes for the time being, though they have be easily ignored or abandoned should such an alliance prove to be an imposition.   
Sabbat: Compassion for mortals? They would be funny if they weren’t so sad.  
Anarchs: Many of their complaints are valid, though it is best not to stand out or else find yourself hammered down.  

Nagaraja