Places

Lying off the oily swamp-peninsula of Venice, the island of Poveglia is home to a wretched, semi-abandoned warren of Nosferatu. Once of the clan’s vastest spawning pits, Poveglia served as haven to nearly enough Nosferatu to contend with the “Devil Kindred” of Clan Giovanni. Poveglia had long been a dumping point for the mentally and physically ill — it had housed, by turns, a lazaretto, a mental hospital, the refuge of a mad doctor, and any number of plague rookeries — which, combined with its isolation, made for a perfect domain for the Sewer Rats.

Across the swamp, the Camarilla’s Inner Council meets in Venice every 13 years, with each Councilor maintaining apartments in the “Queen of the Adri­ atic.” Of course, the Giovanni’s seat of power is also located in Venice, with the clan’s ancestral mauso­ leum practically within sight of Poveglia. The fragile détente takes the form of a dread ballet of formalities, with each side underestimating the other. The Ca­ marilla certainly has numerical superiority in Europe, but the Ivory Tower concedes much of the city to the Necromancers, not wanting to strain the Masquerade. For their part, the Giovanni find it inconceivable that any Kindred could dwell in the city without their knowledge, and turn a blind eye when unsanctioned, non-Nosferatu vampires “pass through” Venice.

In the late 1980s, however, the Nosferatu hastily fled Poveglia for mainland Venice or other domains.

Tonight, the Nosferatu remain characteristically si­ lent about what they regard as a blemish on the clan’s holdings. Some whisper that a black secret from the clan’s history lies entombed beneath the crumbling island asylum, and that the Nosferatu no longer have the means to contain it. There in the fuliginous depths of an island abandoned by Kindred, kine, and time alike, something claims the lives of the indigents who eke out short lives on the island... and it’s not a vampire. At least, not as the Kindred recognize each other.