Fall of Enoch
undesirable. It didn’ t help that we have an appetite for flesh instead of blood. This has always made our kind easier to spot. The Camarilla couldn’ t tolerate this, and it hired assassins of all kinds, including many Assamites, to kill the Nagaraja.
Our wisest did their best to hide amongst societies where eating human flesh was already an accepted behavior: obscure tribes or fringe religions where eating the organs of one’ s enemies was believed to grant strength. Those caught in more civilized environments without a meticulous mind were often captured and killed simply for existing. The assassins, with help from conscripted necromancers, turned the ghosts we once controlled on us or tainted our meat supply to weaken us and making us easier to slaughter. While the latter breaks the Masquerade on many levels, some went to great lengths to kill us.
The Assamites became one of our most feared Clans, as they got better as killing us every time. There is a measure of respect extended to their Clan, however, as they killed us for a higher purpose. You have to admire that kind of zeal, right? The Followers of Set also jumped on the bandwagon, seeing this as their chance to break our numbers in hopes of prying the secrets of Enoch from our tongues. We took our rituals to the grave, however, and not one secret passed our lips. The Followers of Set stand for nothing except obtaining power. They care for nothing, seek not to help anyone else, and even turn on their own Clan when it suits them.
For those of us that survived, we had few options. Enoch was a sanctuary for those lucky enough to be invited, but the rest had to learn how to exist with humans and just about every other Kindred out to destroy us. Of course, the ones who hunted us did a good job with propaganda to give us the reputation we hold very dear today: demons who pretend to be Kindred, and can be spotted by the sharpness of our teeth and the craving for flesh. The idea that we eat Kindred flesh in addition to human meat spread, though the idea makes me nauseous.
As time passed on, we found ways to hide the deaths we left in our wake. The most popular was to get involved with the wars going on around the globe during any given century. Few question when pieces of their enemies turn up missing. I myself served in both the First Crusade and World War II, though it doesn’ t matter which side I was on. It would only serve to distract from the greater point: If you view us as pests, we’ ll survive as only pests can. We will follow in the wake of mortal wrongdoing, where our actions are veiled behind humanity’ s atrocities.
Fall of Enoch
It was around 1600 CE that a terrible maelstrom struck the underworld. It annihilated the various ghosts who existed there, and shook the pillars of Enoch to its core. Even with the special protections built into our blood, we lost almost all of our kind, and our bodies were ripped to pieces.
This meant we were decimated, reduced to a fraction of what our original numbers were. Worse yet, many of the oldest and most powerful rituals were lost in the ancient libraries of Enoch. Our bloodline became a herd of beasts simply trying to survive, and very few of us had any real knowledge of Enoch left. Even if there was an Enoch to return to, only a few Nagaraja knew its real location. I say real location, because our enemies created false Necropoli to lure us and butcher those who came in search of our birthright.
Having lost our true purpose, too many of us fell to our basest desires for flesh and became the monsters other Kindred believed us to be. The destruction of our home drove us to embrace the beast in many cases, and to become purely nihilistic in others. We came to be known as Flesh- Eaters; an overly simplistic phrase to describe a complex ritual of consuming part of one’ s soul through the physical shell holding it within. It became something we couldn’ t stop doing, to the point that without the flesh we would wither away and die.
Could you blame us? Everything the Nagaraja built to sustain ourselves and help usher in the next phase of Gehenna on our terms was gone. Survival took a primary position, and we started to repopulate our bloodline. The Nagaraja left the dreams of Gehenna and Enoch behind, becoming hardened and deadlier in the process.
Modern Nagaraja
As I mentioned before, centuries were spent hiding among the living monsters that humanity has nurtured into our camouflage. Some Nagaraja think of Embracing these talented folks and making them like us, but I think that can be a mistake. I remember a young knight I fought beside during the Crusades who brought his favorite shield to every battle. He survived for years because of it. Then he got the brilliant idea to make his shield part of him converting the metal into a fine breastplate. The next battle we waged— I believe it was during the march to Jerusalem— he went into the fray with a different, less refined shield and soon discovered the error in his choice. When his shield was damaged beyond use, he took a sword through his breastplate. The moral of the story? If you have a sturdy and useful shield, don’ t bother trying to make it into something else.
Which brings us to the present, where you have the pleasure of my company for a short while. What was once
66 NAGARAJA