Incarnation and possession

As I’ve said before, my worldbuilding takes the approach that nephilim are composite beings and not elemental spirits possessing hapless mortal victims. The Solar-Ka soul of the human host provides the motivation and self-control that the elemental lacks; the current human identity is firmly in the driver’s seat.

That said, a person with access to magic and past lives is going to start seeing reality differently from the muggles. This is where the incorrect assumption that nephilim are body snatchers comes from. 

Generally, people who bond with the elemental are those who feel dissatisfied with muggle life and desire something more. On some level they always wanted the awakening. They may even be fated for it under the very stars themselves. How do you think a sympathetic person conveniently shows up as a nexus right when a proto-nephilim elemental is born ready to bond with a suitable host?

That said, forcible possession is not completely off the table. The nephilim have been known to use distasteful spells to forcibly bind an elemental to an unwilling host, though this process always has unpleasant side effects. Hercules was a notable example (see Gamemaster’s Companion p10), and we all know what the myths say about him going mad and murdering his own children.

Secret societies like the Carbonari, still believing nephilim are body snatchers, experiment with incarnating a nephilim but with the human personality in control so that the secret society may freely benefit from the nephilim’s occult knowledge (see Nephilim rulebook p200). Unfortunately, the host eventually comes to prefer seeking Agartha and the secret society tries disposing of them as a failure.

The Pact with Menes in Egypt stipulated that nephilim incarnated within willing royal bloodlines prior to Akhenaten’s rebellion (see Nephilim rulebook p54, Gamemaster’s Companion p11). One idea I saw presented in an old fan-made adventure crossing over with Call of Cthulhu is that bloodlines aren’t purely social but provide their own occult benefits. In that adventure, a PC uncovered a stasis belonging to their ancestor and the nephilim spontaneously incarnated in them without resistance or spending Ka. The adventure said this was a benefit of incarnating in one’s own descendants.

The Arthurian adventure path in the French version flirted with the idea that the mortal descendants of nephilim might have special abilities or destinies, but this is implied nowhere else in the lore aside from a handful of exceptional cases and so feels incongruous. Merlin tried breeding bloodlines to create a messiah a la The Fool, who would have all the Ka-elements including Solar-Ka and be named the “Kwisatz Haderach” (yes, the same from Dune!). I don’t know much about the French version’s secret history and metaplot developments/retcons, but Akhenaten was apparently the Kwisatz Haderach and possibly an Ar-Kaïm too (along with Prometheus, Jesus, and several other figures).

But I digress…

In a later post, I’d like to explain the respective attitudes of the arcana towards their human sides. This is particularly relevant for arcana like Devil, Hanged Man, and Moon, whose shticks are deeply tied into the possession angle.

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