Naditu

Hierodules, Whores

Naditu PDF
Disciplines	Celerity Majesty Auspex Vigor
Clan	Daeva
Covenant	Lancea Sanctum
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The Naditu are an ancient bloodline, who thrive on adoring and worshiping one who is beautiful, influential, or powerful. Though they are often seen as sycophants, blindly following the will of whoever they are addicted to, such assumptions often end up to be painful for whoever makes them.

In the Danse Macabre, beauty is often hides horror. This is doubly so among the Naditu, a rare Daeva bloodline with roots in the ancient world. Though often considered sycophants and adorers of the beautiful, the wise understand that their adoration comes at a steep price, and with tremendous expectations. And the Naditu must never be disappointed.

Notation

When information about the Daeva clanbook, Kiss of the Succubus: Daeva was first unveiled, it was stated that it would contain new "bloodlines," but, in the actual release, there were only solid rules for one bloodline, the Erzsebet. In order to remedy this, a new bloodline was distributed by staff member Joseph D. Carriker, Jr. on the WoD forums, with the understanding that the new bloodline is canon within the World of Darkness.

Weakness

Worshippers of the powerful and beautiful, Naditu must attach themselves to another vampire. This individual must be powerful in some fashion — they might be a creature of singular beauty (Striking Looks ••••), a personage of great importance (Status ••••+), a leader of those around them (Presence ••••+) or simply supernaturally potent (Blood Potency •••••+). This individual need not accept the Naditu’s presence or wouldbe service; indeed, it is a point of pride for many Naditu to worm their way into the circles of important individuals through unasked for favors and respect-earning words.

A Naditu that has not found such a subject receives a penalty to all Physical and Social rolls equal to half her Blood Potency (rounding up). These individuals must live up to the expectations of the Naditu in some iconic fashion — the beautiful must surround themselves with beauty, the power must maintain their power, sublime monsters must never show human frailty. Failure to adhere to this standard on the part of the one the Naditu has chosen breaks this link, re-inflicting the penalty.

History and Culture

The traditions of the bloodline have that the first of their lineage was a hierodule in ancient Sumeria, a temple whore chosen for her beauty, her bearing, and her likeness to the great Inanna. Kept beauteous on the rich blood of the temple’s Daeva patrons, she very nearly became worshipped in her own right — rather than merely representing Inanna to those who could never commune with the true goddess, she practically became one to those who knew of her. To take advantage of this, she was Embraced.

Even from the first nights, this first one — who is simply called Naditu in bloodline legends — chose only other hierodules as her childer. Creatures of great beauty, enamored with the most numinous and the basest urges in humanity, they found a place among their Kindred for their grace, talents and adroitness in the hunt. To this day, most Naditu prefer to embrace escorts, prostitutes and modernday hierodules (including sex therapists and the like). The Naditu consider themselves priestesses in the tradition of Inanna even into the modern nights. They are often drawn into the presence of the beautiful and powerful, and quite often arrange themselves so that they are the ones who control access to this person of beauty and importance — they consider it their privilege and honor to screen those who would bother this individual, keeping the rabble away from them.

Naditu very frequently play on the egos of those they come to adore, paying them sincere compliments and defending their names even when they aren’t around. It is easy to see the Naditu as simply sycophants, lick-spittles who attach themselves to the beautiful people like some kind of undead entourage. But there is more to their devotion.

The Naditu are also the harshest of judges. It is a bloodline tradition that all beauty and power among mortals — and, as a result, among the Kindred — is a spark of divinity given as a gift from the gods. Now, whether they actually believe in any such gods or not is irrelevant; the fact is, the bloodline believes that those with the gifts of the gods must remember to also behave as gods.

They are harshly critical of those who do not measure up to their tastes of divine grandeur: those they adore must be paragons of some sort of godly virtue in their eyes. They may be beauteous creatures of beauty or regal Jovian masters of all they see, but they must always uphold this mantle. The would-be goddess of beauty who finds too much sympathy in her heart for the ugly, or the powerful ruler who gives in too much to compromise insults the spark of divinity within them, and earns the ire of the Naditu.

Those who speak ill of the bloodline sometimes claim that should the Naditu find their adored unworthy of that spark, they will reclaim it in an act of treacherous diablerie, while others tell stories of disappointed Naditu helping the enemies of their adored get the upper hand using what they know.

In some circles, it is a mark of prestige to have attracted Naditu followers, and more than one court of the Kindred boasts several of these hierodules, who blend almost seamlessly in with the Harpies even when they are not counted among them. Even their whispers, an unsettling susurrus that cuts an undertone through any social situation where two or more Naditu are present, carries judgment and concern. The strong, the beautiful, the glamorous — these have nothing to fear from the gaze of the Naditu. Only those who falter — would be gods among Kindred who prove themselves all too fallible — have anything to fear.