“Fixing” the setting

These posts assume that the reader is already familiar with Nephilim, so don't expect an explanation of the game here.

In addition to the clunky rules, and probably more important, the Nephilim game had fluff that alienated players in the Anglosphere. The rulebook frontloaded potential players with millennia of lore that they had to keep track of. Perhaps the most criticized aspect was that the titular nephilim were presented as parasites who possessed unwilling human hosts to pursue their agendas. While players were seemingly okay with playing murderous psychopaths in other games of the 90s, apparently body-thieves just weren't kosher.

The English mailing list had numerous debates over this during its heyday. Rather than rehash those here, I'll cut straight to the point: in my revision of the setting, the nephilim are fusions of a human being and a soulless mindless elemental spirit. The human soul (Sol, Solar-Ka) provides will, purpose, desire, etc. The elemental spirit provides the other elements (Pentacle of Air-Ka, Earth-Ka, Fire-Ka, Lunar-Ka, and Water-Ka), which allows the composite nephilim to use magic.

The nephilim are immortals and composite beings. In addition to their human soul and their elemental pentacle, they also carry the memories and egos of past lives. Ego-memories, if you will. This provides the life experiences of those past lives for use by the current incarnation, and potentially whole personalities. The exact relationship varies between individual nephilim depending on their level of recall and their overall mental state.

The nephilim's immortality is dependent on their stasis object. There are many names for this magical item, but I'll use stasis object for clarity. When a nephilim dies, the stasis object stores their pentacle to await reincarnation in a new body. If it is destroyed, then the pentacle will disintegrate upon disembodiment if it cannot immediately reincarnate. A new stasis object may be created in such a crisis, but upon reincarnation the nephilim will lose the memories of all their past lives from before the new stasis object was created. Such is the importance of the stasis object.

And that's basically how their immortality works. I hope this proves more palatable.