Nagaraja (World of Darkness)

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Nagaraja Clan Symbol

The Nagaraja are a fictional bloodline of vampires from White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade books and role-playing games.

Mages of the Euthanatos Tradition that experimented with the blood of the Kindred, the Nagaraja are among the most feared of bloodlines. These mages own manipulations of vitae, combined with their innate magical natures, produced a bloodline of cannibals, necromancers, and feared servants. The Nagaraja are unlike other Kindred in that they must consume flesh, making them among the most reviled and "unnatural" of the bloodlines. To add to this disgust, they are masters of Oblivion, the nothingness of the Underworld.^[1]

The Nagaraja are also masters of Necromancy—an art learned from the Euthanatos and Inauhaten, the Mummy. The Nagaraja engage in many strange and terrible Thaumaturgical and Necromantic experiments. They are even believed responsible for the creation of the Samedi.^[1]

Once members of a sect calling itself the Black Hand (but apparently distinct from the self-named organization of the Sabbat), the Nagaraja have little impact on the modern nights. They are great compilers of evil secrets, however, and command death-magic with equal or greater ability than the Giovanni. Like all necromancers, the Nagaraja are usually attributed some vague tie with the Venetians, but nothing exists to substantiate this aside from their knowledge of the dead.^[1]

The Nagaraja practice The Vitreous Path of Necromancy. This path allows for more refined control over wraiths than even the Sepulchre Path; a master of the path may gain sustenance from them. Prior to the revised edition, The Vitreous Path was a unique discipline called Nihilistics (Nagaraja began with Auspex, Necromancy, Nihilistics instead of their current three starter disciplines).

Bloodline	Founder	Parent Clan	Faction	Disciplines	Nicknames	Weakness
Nagaraja	Unknown	Created via magical ritual possibly with Salubri or Cappadocian blood	True Black Hand	Auspex, Dominate, Necromancy	Flesh-Eaters	Must eat raw flesh in addition to drinking blood to survive.

Background

Most Nagaraja dress subtly, as their unpleasant weakness already draws enough attention to them: They wear whatever most people around them wear. Physically, many Nagaraja appear to be of Northern African, Asian or Middle Eastern descent. Hailing from such dark-complected stock, as vampires, these individuals often have unhealthy, ashen skin. Unlike other vampires, the Nagaraja do not have conventional, retractable fangs; rather, they have mouths full of vaguely pointed teeth. Most Nagaraja also carry sacrificial daggers, scalpels or other cutting instruments, which they use to excise the flesh that gives them their sustenance. Some rumors attribute them with a "third eye" similar to that of the Salubri, but none of these claims have ever been substantiated.

Until a catastrophic war with the denizens of the Underworld destroyed the sect to which they belonged, the Nagaraja congregated in the lands of the dead. Since being driven forcibly from that realm, however, the few remaining Nagaraja have made their own fates, leaving their minimal organization behind. A cabal of Nagaraja is reputed to have sought protection among the Cathayans of Korea, but this small group is suspected to be an anomaly. Ultimately, the Nagaraja are too few to have an extensive bloodline structure and exist instead as isolated, freakish loners when they can be found at all. They rarely even meet with others of their kind, as they hoard their precious secrets from everyone, including others of their clan.^[1]

Weakness

The Nagaraja require raw flesh in addition to blood to survive. Although these Kindred may subsist on blood alone, their bodies atrophy if they do not partake of human meat — for every night a Nagaraja goes without an intake of flesh, he loses one cumulative die from all his Physical dice pools. Eating one point worth of flesh restores one die to these pools until the vampire has "caught up." A human body is assumed to have 10 "flesh points," which work just like blood points: A Nagaraja consuming one flesh point increases his blood pool by one. Unlike blood points, however, taking a "flesh point" from a vessel does one health level of unsoakable lethal damage to that vessel. The flesh the Nagaraja consume must be relatively fresh, though not necessarily "alive." Indeed, some Nagaraja keep stores of ritually preserved corpses hidden within their havens, and rumors of "Kindred-eaters" follow them as well. This weakness does not allow the Nagaraja to eat other foods or consume other liquids.^[1]

Version differences

Prior to the revised 3rd edition, the Nagaraja had the unique discipline Nihilistics (thus starting with; Auspex, Necromancy, Nihilistics). However, Nihilistics was replaced with the Vitreous Path of Necromancy in the Vampire Storytellers Handbook Revised.^[1][1]

Vampire: The Eternal Struggle

The Nagaraja also appear as a bloodline in the card game Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.^[2]

Strategy

The Nagaraja cards mix well with the Giovanni, Ventrue antitribu, and Harbingers of Skulls. Since the Nagaraja are all identified as "scarce" (see note to the right), they are not really playable by themselves.^[3]

New terms

Scarce

Nagarja are marked "scarce". When a Methuselah moves a vampire marked "scarce" from her uncontrolled region to the ready region, she burns 3 pool for every other vampire in play of the same clan.^[3]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Vampire: The Masquerade Storytellers Companion, White Wolf Publishing; Package edition, December 1998
2. ^ http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=Checklist_Bloodlines
3. ^ ^{a b} http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/blnag.html