Who are the Loa?

The Loa are Immortals of the Afro-Caribbean Tradition, mentioned in passing by the US rulebook. In the French version they’re barely more detailed and most of their lore focuses on the Haitian Selenim. What we’re told is the following:

There are three nations of Loa: the Loa Rada, the Loa Petro, and the Loa Gédé. They rule the island of Haiti, home to a permanent, powerful, and massive Nexus. The Loa of all nations are able to temporarily incarnate in voodooists who invoke them. This is essentially a Summoning ritual, except even mortals cast it!

Loa Gédé

The Loa Gédé are Selenim and differ only culturally from those in Europe. They came to Haiti by exploiting the European settlers and Assuaged the suffering of the slaves. They encountered the Haitian Nephilim, the Loa living in Ginen, grouped into different nations based on their cultures and arrival dates. The Loa offered their services to mortal supplicants, invoked through invocations to temporarily possess them. The Selenim decided to appropriate some of these voodooists themselves. They offered their services to the slaves and were thus venerated as the Loa Gédé, benefiting from temporary possession too.

Lead by Baron Saturday, a number of Anamorphs worked together to create the Black Moon Realm of “Raven” where the Gédé hold court. By harvesting the suffering of the slaves and the faith of their supplicants, they gained manna to build their own realm opposite to Ginen. It consists of a decaying city decorated by gargoyles and inhabited by the walking dead. At its heart is an obsidian palace filled with entrancing music played by the ghosts of women dead for centuries. Around the city is a desert, ruled by a Black Triad opposed to Baron Saturday. Raven is accessible from anywhere in Haiti by opening a Gate with the proper ritual.

Loa Rada and Loa Petro

The Loa Rada and Loa Petro are Nephilim, but very different from those in Europe. They don’t incarnate but live in their own Elemental Realm of Ginen, a “pregnant” Akasha anchored by the permanent massive Nexus in Haiti. They were brought to the island by their worshippers among the slaves, who invoke them for temporary incarnation.

The Loa Rada were brought from Dahomey. They are usually considered benevolent by voodooists. They are divided into four elemental clans: Hydrim of the springs, Eolim of the winds, Faerim of the vegetation, and Pyrim of the thunder—often engaged in vain fratricidal struggles. They admit no Onirim and this enmity stems from a serious conflict long ago in West Africa. Their most powerful and respected member is Papa Legba, who controls the Gate to Ginen and tries to maintain the balance of power.

The Loa Petro were the first to arrive on Haiti. They have only two clans: Pyrim and Onirim. They are fewer but more powerful than the Rada. They are usually considered malevolent by voodooists. They were originally a band of Pyrim who arrived before the Spanish, but were later supplemented by other Pyrim and the Onirim excluded by the Rada.

The Rada and Petro do not incarnate but live within Ginen at all times in an elemental form, unless invoked to temporarily possess voodooists. Ginen is a magical realm, an Akasha, born of the dreams of the slaves and their descendants. It is a jungle surrounded by the sea, with an active volcano and a high plateau. It is accessible from anywhere in Haiti by kissing the ground three times and praying to Papa Legba, who may or may not grant passage.

Conclusion 

That’s it. There more information on the Loa Gédé in Codex des Selenim, including playing as one, but the other nations received no further details that I could find. Not surprisingly, since they don’t incarnate and thus aren’t viable as PCs.

In a future post, I’ll discuss how I’d adapt the Loa to the US version and my campaign conceits…

Hope you enjoyed!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“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...
Read more

The spiritual pentacle and the elements

Image
In this post I explain the spiritual meaning of the Nephilim’s pentacle and the Ka-elements themselves. Although linked to specific game statistics, like Fire to Strength and Moon to Charisma, all of the elements have physical, mental and spiritual correspondences and manifestations.  It’s not one or the other . You don’t have to posit different cultures all have different elements to explain varying beliefs. Real occultism isn’t supposed to be accurate in the game world anyway, but the result of information leaks and cargo cults by muggles. Liam Routt gave a good explanation in  his old FAQ : (I’m putting it between horizontal rules because blogger has issues with formatting) The Spiritual Pentagram Traditionally, the pentagram represents our spiritual, mental, emotional and physical composition: Fire Doing—Fire is energy, the power to act. But it is pure action, undirected by thought or feeling. Air Thinking—Air is thinking, ideation, mental activity, but it can...
Read more

Simplifying the rules

One of the problems with the Nephilim game was that its rules, a variant of the venerable  BRP , were overly complicated and probably not all that well suited to it. The French version eventually dropped BRP entirely starting in its third edition, and the current fifth edition uses a dramatically simplified rules system. This has inspired me to devise my own simplified rules system for the English adaptation. I'm not going to convert to Fate like certain others have tried . The task resolution system will still be BRP's roll under d100 with difficulty levels and variable results. But all the character traits will change. The standard attributes/characteristics are Air-Ka, Earth-Ka, Fire-Ka, Lunar-Ka, Solar-Ka, and Water-Ka. These represent the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of the character. For nephilim characters, these also represent supernatural aspects. Rather than distinct skills, characters are described in freeform terms and given general competence ratings....
Read more