My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

Summoning has been giving me some problems while planning revising it for Enlightened Magic . I've gotten some inspiration from Ramos-Tavener's history recap and unfinished notes , as well as the revisions from later editions of the French version where the Sefira became distinct skills. The "realms" from the US version are gonna be discarded. They're just renamed versions of the Sefirot from the French version but the renames don't make sense or relate to the powers of the entities in each realm. E.g. The Crystal Net is placed in the Realm of Violence but it's a harmless entity used solely for transport. What gives? So yeah, I'm dumping the realms because they're arbitrary, inconsistent, and restrict creativity when inventing new invocations. As I've said, if I did use such divisions then I'd go back to the Sefirot. What I want to do is get away from the idea of entities as all being creatures with game statistics. The invocations in the...

"Raw Magic" is my term for a miscellaneous collection of intuitive magical abilities available to the Nephilim that aren’t part of the occult sciences or arcane techniques. These include Elemental Effects, Metamorphosis Transformations, and Transmitting Ka. The occult sciences and other magical techniques derive from a more refined understanding of these basic processes. Some background “Elemental Effects” are an optional rule introduced in  Liber Ka  p88. Basically, it means that Nephilim have a very limited form of  Avatar: The Last Airbender -style elemental bending. This was expanded upon in the  Ex Oculis  fanbook on the mailing list, which renamed the mechanic “Raw Magic” or  HeKa . While I think ExO's rules were a bit too situational, I liked the name "Raw Magic" and decided to use it as an umbrella term for various magical effects created by Nephilim that don't fall under the occult sciences or other magical techniques. I like the idea of raw magic ...

Many of the names for the entities in the Summoning rules are drawn from a list titled “The Good Ministers of the Ayres” that appears in The Magician's Companion by Bill Whitcomb and Mysteria Magica by Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips. The Good Ministers are organized into 91 sub-orders of the Enochian Aethyrs and the titles of which come from the Aurum Solis, an order of magical practitioners contemporary with the Golden Dawn (supposedly). Despite the mention of Olamot and Sefirot in the game fluff, these entities aren't related to Kabbalah but come from Enochian magic. The original names were distorted by being translated from English into French and then back into English by translators unfamiliar with the original source. For example, "The Swift Ones of the Portals of Flame" was garbled into "The Swift Flame Portals." If I was revising the summoning rules, then I would go back to the original names. The descriptions seem to have been made up by the...

In the 5th edition of the French version, a new rule titled "Rosenkreutz Effect" was introduced. Basically, secret societies used algorithms to scour social media for mentions of magical phenomena. If the PCs' Rosenkreutz rating got too high, then they'd send agents to investigate. This is analogous to the Occult Curiosity Potential, explained in the US Nephilm rulebook p106. The advent of algorithms and social media means that this POT is much more important than it was in past decades. The secret societies now track mentions of paranormal phenomena using algorithms that automatically trawl social media and flag events. If the secret society watchmen notice anything particularly unusual, then they may send agents to investigate. Thankfully, the subtler magic rules introduced in Liber Ka , Slaying the Dragon and Enlightened Magic make detection much less likely compared to the fireball spells of the first edition rules. Nonetheless, the GM should note any blatant ab...

Rather than going on a case-by-case basis, here I’m providing general guidelines for the visibility of elemental beasts, summoned beings, black summons, ghosts, disembodied Nephilim, etc. This is partly inspired by the French. These guidelines make reference to passive mystic vision from Enlightened Magic (see that book and my post on passive vision for details). I posit several degrees of Visibility: Passive : The elemental is directly visible to passive Ka-vision of all types. Mundane folks may catch glimpses from the corner of their eye or notice the shadow it casts. Ka-vision : The elemental is directly visible when the viewer activates Ka-vision. Passive Ka-vision detects its presence in the vicinity with a Spot roll but doesn’t see it directly. This includes all types of passive and active Ka-vision. Tenebrae : The elemental is only perceptible to Black Moon Ka-senses; indirectly to passive and directly to active. Other types of Ka-vision may catch glimpses but cannot see it dir...

In this post I discuss rules about Stasis objects for Selenim. I explain how the French version handled Stasis objects for Selenim across its editions, how the US version (did not) handle this, compare the two, then offer my thoughts on the subject. Shared features In all editions of the French version, and continued into the English (as confirmed in Serpent Moon  and Ian Young's notes), the Selenim were ageless or aged so slowly that they might as well be. Since they could take the slow path through the ages, they did not require a Stasis object to maintain their immortality. Although they did not reincarnate, they effectively treated every century that passed as its own past life era. In the French version In the French version, editions I to II (1992–2000), the Selenim did not have access to Stasis objects. While she could retain the Stasis object from her time as a Nephilim and even store her severed Ka-elements within (if she deliberately performed the Ritual of Sundering...

In this post I will recount how Nephilim become Selenim. Although the planned USA Selenim book was never published, the French version has a wealth of material. The BRP rules for becoming Selenim first appeared in the Selenim book and were revised in Le Ka . I will refer to the French along with Ian Young’s surviving notes  and print outs . This process was known by several names in French. In 1st, 2nd, and 5th edition it is  la Transformation Selenim ,  le Changement , la Métamorphose , la Ténèbre , le Basculement ,  « hanté » , etc. In 3rd edition as  la Malédiction de la Lune Noire , la contamination , and la transformation sacrificielle . These translate respectively to "The Selenim Transformation," "The Change," "The Metamorphosis," "The Darkness," "The Transition," "haunted," "The Curse of the Black Moon," "la contamination," and "the sacrificial transformation." Ian’s notes rendered le Ba...