On the nature of the Nephilim's soul, part 1: perspectives
What is a Nephilim? What are the Ego, Super-Ego, and Id? What is the nature of an elemental essence outside a body? What is the relationship between Nephilim and elemental beasts? How do the secret societies view Nephilim? How do Selenim and Ar-KaIm differ? Who were the KaIm and how do they differ?
Long story short, I've tweaked Immortals to no longer be body snatchers because I want to make it easier for players to get into the game and sympathize with the PCs. That seems to be much easier when the PCs aren't body snatchers. See Montgomery's blog posts here, here, here, here and here.
Each Immortal is a fusion of a mortal human being, body and soul, with an elemental essence or spirit. Each has a psychic apparatus of three interacting agents: the elemental Id, the human Ego, and the immortal Super-Ego.
- The elemental's Id provides the Immortal's Personality Traits aka Emotional Traits, which the Immortal must understand and master in order to reach Agartha.
- The human's Ego, or more precisely the soul (Sol, Solar-Ka) that it springs from, provides the Immortal's awareness, identity and will. It allows the Immortal to actually use their Ka-elements intelligently.
- The immortal's Super-Ego is what truly makes the Immortal, and allows them to pursue the quest for Agartha. The Super-Ego allows the practice of the occult sciences that would otherwise be rejected by the Ego.
Though they are immortal, the Immortals are still human. They're not alien beings possessing hapless mortal hosts, nor are they truly enlightened humans. They are fusional entities, an alchemical marriage. Reaching Agartha fundamentally requires surrendering oneself to higher powers, with this fusion being the first step. Ultimately, the distinction between these perspectives is illusory.
In truth, the distinction between the past life identities is illusory, as all are part of the Solar field rather than unrelated souls glued together. The distinction between all human souls is ultimately illusory, a concept that some name "the Oversoul." Indeed, even the distinction between elementals and mortal souls is illusory too, as all are ultimately refracted from the Sun's ethers. Reaching Agartha is contingent on recognizing that Truth (see insert "The Soul in Nephilim", Gamemaster's Companion p68-9). The Nephile Vimana refers to this as the "Higher Self."
It's a game about occultism and spirituality, so it doesn't make sense from a modern corporatized perspective. But I try to make it digestible for players anyway.
Perspectives
Understanding the spirituality requires greater spiritual understanding, so less enlightened Immortals choose one of several perspectives to explain the relationship between their magical and mundane sides. Over on the old mailing list the US fandom came up with a few "perspectives" on how to rewrite the setting: Awakened, Spirit (or Parasite), and Symbiote.
Awakened
The character considers himself to be a normal person who has recalled past lives and gained access to the elemental fields.
This is more or less a character transplanted from Mage: The Awakening (which shared some of the same writers, hence the Atlantis backstory). Many younger Immortals believe this about themselves before they reach a higher spiritual understanding of themselves... but they're still wrong.
They believe their Stasis items make it easier for them to reincarnate and are magically drawn back to them by fate prior to Awakening, but this is basically the fandom shoehorning it into rules where it doesn't fit. The original Stasis item rules were never designed with this in mind, so they just don't fit. Why does the character only awaken upon contact with the Stasis item? Why do they lose their past lives if it is destroyed? They make more sense without the Stasis item, in which case why not play a different game?
I despise this perspective, but not really for anything in Nephilim fandom since I came in more than a decade after the line was canceled. After spending time in Mage fandom before discovering this game, I came to the realization that these sorts of characters are invariably egotistical assholes that want to enslave mankind and remake the Earth into their personal vision of Paradise... aka Hell for everyone else. The Diamond Orders, the Seers of the Throne, the Mystick Traditions, the Technocracy... they're all unlikeable irredeemable egotistical assholes who only care about satisfying their own egotism rather than reaching spiritual enlightenment or genuinely helping people. Mage: The Awakening tried to be more self-aware about this, but Mage: The Ascension was pure isekai power fantasy with a thin veneer of activism.
The third edition of the French version flirted with this when it introduced the Ar-KaIm, who were basically awakened humans... mixed with Aberrant-inspired superheroes. Although even then there were idiosyncrasies in their lore that made you wonder about their nature. For example, at character creation it was possible for an Ar-KaIm to completely forget their human life and be confused by the modern world. The Ar-KaIm concept was pretty rough on release, but they probably would've refined it if they had the chance. Unfortunately, 5e didn't bother and said they all vanished so the writers wouldn't ever have to bother again. But I digress...
Spirit or Parasite
The character believes he is a spirit that reincarnates by possessing its current body during Awakening.
Basically a character from the US rulebook or the original French version. They're generally egotistical, misanthropic and unlikeable bastards. The US fandom thought this (although bizarrely they have no problem when the awakened acts like Mengele in other games), and even some French guys acknowledge it. They need no adjustment to explain Stasis items, because the rules were originally written for this.
The Spirit versus Parasite nomenclature comes from their personal view on humanity. Spirits try to be friendly and treat humans like people, while Parasites are openly misanthropic and racist.
All the Immortals in the French were like this to some degree. The Nephilim snatched a new victim's body every time they reincarnated, although the host could occasionally retake control. The Selenim were either former Nephilim, or "natural" Selenim who were born in the lower planes and possessed the body of a passing dreamer; this destroyed the victim's mind, so unlike Nephilim there was no chance for the host to retake control because they're dead. The Ar-KaIm were ostensibly the same person they were before incarnation, but at character creation it was feasible for incarnation to erase most or all of their memories and effectively killing the original person anyway.
For obvious reasons, I don't like this perspective anymore than I like the equally egotistical Awakened. It's just an excuse to be asshole who either despises humanity or wants to enslave them. I don't mind playing evil characters, but the problem is that Nephilim tried to pass off these monsters as the good guys without a hint of self-awareness. I get the whole spiel on Montgomery's blog about enlightenment requiring you to surrender your ego, but the Parasites are no less egotistical.
Symbiote
The character thinks themselves some sort of hybrid of a spirit and their current form, some mixture of its current/past lives and mundane/magical nature. A catch-all for Immortals who are neither Awakened nor Spirits.
I can't think of a snappy comparison for this one, so I'll just make this all about commentary. I wasn't in the fandom during the heyday of the perspectives debates, so I don't really have much to say on this because I don't really know what it is and apparently it varies anyway. Montgomery's blog describes it by analogy to Jadzia Dax and so on (I'd add Leto II and Avatar Aang to the list), while the Vimana calls it the emergence of a "higher self."
This is how I want to write the Immortals. They're a fusion of human beings and elemental spirits, which allows them to seek higher spiritual understanding otherwise impossible for either on their own. To reach enlightenment requires surrendering one's ego to a higher power, whether you're an elemental or a human being. Temporal power, changing the world... all of that is at best a means to an end. Enlightenment is a very personal journey: it's about changing yourself, not changing the world around you because the world around you inherently sucks and probably isn't real anyway.
There's a few different ways you could handle this. You could have the past lives retaining their own identities even after death, serving as mentor figures to the character and/or as villains trying to steal their body. You could have the character's own personality split between several selves, such as a higher self serving as a mentor to the character's lower self. Etc.
What I like about this is that it allows to retain a lot of the infrastructure from the Nephilim rules, cutting down on the amount of work you need to do. The surrendering of self in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment also works best with this, as opposed to being an egotistical elemental or egotistical human.
I think this creates a decent contrast with the anti-Nephilim secret societies: they could gain access to magic by surrendering their ego to their higher self, but they don't want to. They want to use magic for selfish purposes when this misses the point of spiritual understanding. Rather than acknowledging and confronting their own flaws, they willfully misinterpret the Immortals as body snatchers.
Family Ties
These sorts of creative decisions are only really important when the PCs' families ties are brought up. The murderhobo is a cliché, but it exists for a good reason: the PCs don't need in-game families and these would just be a distraction most of the time. It might work for a television drama, but not much for a roleplaying game.
In Nephilim it was more or less assumed that the PCs cut themselves off from their Simulacrum's family to avoid the complications. Sometimes, particularly for Devils, they'd murder the family. The US version includes a few passages suggesting plot hooks for how the Simulacrum's family reacts to the behavior and physical changes, but it's not really focused because it's honestly a distraction from stuff like fighting the Templars or searching for the Holy Grail.
The Ar-KaIm took a completely opposite tact. Ar-KaIm can only reincarnate in the bloodline of their first Simulacrum. So they have no choice but to care about their family ties unless they want to die along with their body. Although PCs incarnated around the turn of the millennium when the edition was released, some passages note that Ar-KaIm have apparently existed for centuries and formed their own esoteric dynasties to serve as receptacles for their Ka. Unlike Nephilim, this wasn't possession but passing down the mantle of a superhero: the Simulacrum's personality was always in control, assuming his memories weren't lost in the process of incarnation.
The Arthurian supplements flirted with the idea that Nephilim could do something similar, but it was an anomaly as no other books supported the idea.
The Selenim Codex noted that Selenim could still have children with their human bodies. With mortals or with other Selenim. Their children could potentially be born with a heightened sensitivity to the Black Moon Fields, and such children were more likely to awaken as natural Selenim. The passage explicitly compares to natural evolutionary process... Eerie!
Anyway, I do find it an interesting plot hook for Immortals to watch over their mortal descendants and to have special connections via blood ties, but that's beyond the scope of this post...
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