Nachzehrer

Name	Nachzehrer
Race	Undead
Type	Physical
Faction	Independent
Premiere	Desideratum: Blood Bonds
Relative(s)	None Applicable

In German folklore, a nachzehrer is a sort of vampire. The word nachzehrer translates to “after (nach) living off (zehren)” likely alluding to their living after death or living off humans after death in addition to the choice of “nach” for “after” which is similar to “nacht” (“night”). The nachzehrer was prominent in the folklore of the northern regions of Germany, but even in Silesia and Bavaria, and the word was also used to describe a similar creature of the Kashubes of Northern Poland. In reality nachzehrers are insidious undead. Lanky with long limbs, fingers and feet, they skitter through graveyards or dark, remote places. Their hair is always white and their eyes a yellowish glow. Their skin tends to be pale and yellowish with a waxy feel to it. But, the thing that most stands out unique to nachzehrers is their psychic abilities to “whisper” into the minds of mortals.

They are somehow attuned psionically so that they simply infer, somehow, the secrets and regrets of living humans nearby. Then, they whisper into the minds of these people. Nachzehrers are created only through suicide. In some cases the sad soul refuses to leave the body and only desires to make others share the same fate. This is what the whispers do; they fill the human’s mind. The victim becomes depressed and hopeless. And, when the person cannot stand it any longer, they end their own life. If under the power of a nachzehrer upon death, that victim will certainly rise again as a nachzehrer themselves. Absinthe Van Gothen fought a nachzehrer in Portland’s Lone Fir Cemetery when she tried saving Arion and Ayana Bishop from Heloise Laveau. The nachzehrer soul was one of the spirits required by Baron Samedi to aid him in opening the way forward.