My rules for the Selenim’s metamorphosis

Altho the line was canceled before the Selenim supplement could be drafted and released, Ian Young’s surviving notes provide a sufficient foundation for me to devise my own rules for it. Essentially, Selenim had an emotional metamorphosis like Nephilim but it represented and evoked the emotions they preferred to assuage rather than their own.

These rules are going to differ from that proposed by Ian’s notes. Originally the Selenim’s metamorphosis comprised of five emotional traits would’ve been linked to an Imago, a construct of Black Moon-Ka that invisibly loomed behind its owner like a malignant shadow. While interesting, it’s clunky to have two ratings for each pair of emotional trait and aspect. 

Furthermore, in my opinion it doesn’t really make much sense for Selenim to differ so much from Nephilim this way. The Selenim’s magic is based on BMK being ephemeral due to lacking its own planet, right? Nephilim suffer a similar ephemerality due to the magic fields being poisoned by Orichalc! 

A lot of this stems from inheriting the legacy of the French version, which was quite idiosyncratic and the Selenim book in particular was extremely wishy-washy compared to other supplements and generally inconsistent with the style and tone of the rest of the line… until 3rd edition finally tightened things up, however temporarily. (Although 3e did introduce oddities like 666 and Ar-Kaïm. A Nephilim with 666 at Level 2+, or Ar-Kaïm with Black Lunar-Ka, could learn a Selenim occult science; thus could potentially have both a metamorphosis and an imago!) So I’m gonna simplify things because it’s been over two decades now.

Here we go!

While the Nephilim’s emotional metamorphoses are organized into archetypes, the Selenim’s are not. Instead, each Selenim develops their own individual metamorphosis based on the emotions they prefer to assuage and the corresponding transformations represent and evoke those emotions. Selenim acquire Trait points in a similar manner to that described in Chronicle of the Awakenings with one key difference: it applies to emotions they assuage, cultivate, evoke and inspire in others. Think Iago’s manipulations in The Tempest and so forth. 

The player should work with the GM to pick their character’s Emotional Traits. The Transformations work just like those for Nephilim, with increasing visibility as ratings increase, and grant the Selenim supernatural abilities at Trait rating 16. The corresponding Transformation aka Aspect should be symbolic of that emotion: a visage that represents and evokes Fear, claws that represent and evoke Greed, etc. If inventing new Transformations from scratch rather than adapting existing ones, then those should be balanced against the existing Transformations provided for Nephilim metamorphs.

Selenim have a new situation where the Trait rating comes in: whenever the Selenim attempts to induce, magnify, manipulate or Assuage that emotion in others, then the Trait rating is used. This may take whatever form the GM deems appropriate: rolling a multiplier of the Trait as if it were a Characteristic, applying a Meta-Characteristic bonus based on the Trait as if it was a Ka-element, etc. 

If desired, then the five Aspects should fall broadly into the categories of head, body, arms and legs, plus a miscellaneous Aspect to round things out. However, this bit was linked to the Imago concept and thus I think it may be safely ignored in order to match the Nephilim’s metamorphoses.

If more roleplaying is desired, then I have a suggestion inspired by the French third edition: in order to mould/sculpt Aspects, the Selenim enters a creative trance and uses a graphic art skill to create a representation of the Aspect that sympathetically constructs it in the Selenim’s metamorphosis.

Otherwise, I’ll be moving the other rules for Imagoes and Anamorphosis into its own occult science that any Immortal can learn. Stay tuned for those posts in the future! 

And that’s basically it. I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.



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