Who are the Selenim tribes?

In this post I provide an overview of the various Selenim tribes in my campaign setting. This draws from the US version, the leaked notes for the canceled Selenim book (source, although I'm making my own adjustments), and the French version 3e to fill the gaps.

Though the Nephilim of the Major Arcana are largely ignorant of it, the Selenim do not stand united under the banner of the Unnamed Arcanum. Even in the "Western" world dominated by the Major Arcana, they are divided between multiple secret societies particular to their locales. The United States is the setting of my campaigns, so I speak mainly from that perspective.

As a general rule of thumb, stated in the 3e GM book, the population ratio between Nephilim and Selenim is 8:1. Ar-Kaïm are fewer still. Despite this, the book recommends mixed groups consisting of 2-3 Nephilim, 1-2 Selenim and 1-2 Ar-Kaïm.

Locales and origins

In the Americas, the Selenim are divided between the Unnamed Arcanum of the Bohemian Tradition, the Loa Gédé of the Afro-Caribbean Tradition, and the Xibalbans of the Central American Tradition.

In Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, the Selenim are divided between the Unnamed Arcanum and the Cult of Lilith.

In Siberia, the Selenim are dominated by the mysterious Khanate, who supposedly patronized nomadic empires like the Huns and the Mongols.

In China, the Selenim are dominated by the Xixuegui (pronounced "shee-shway-gwee") under the Emperor of Hell (Yamarāj in Hindi, Yánmó Wáng in Mandarin, and Ymir in Old Norse). They have amicable relations with the indigenous Xiānrén (Pan-Chinese Nephilim), and their cultural influence extends throughout South and East Asia.

Each of these societies has their own cultures, but they ultimately share common descent. The Xibalbans are the direct descendants of the first organized Selenim in the time before recorded history. From their ranks came the Devouring Messiah of legend, whose followers led the assault against the Orichalka Men and laid the foundation for Tarshish to rise millennia later. These followers would ultimately settle in the Old World and split into two: the Cult of Lilith in the West and the Xixuegui in the East. After the Fall of Tarshish, more societies would emerge: the Selenim Khanate would split from the Cult and claim dominance over nomadic empires, while other Selenim would take part in the Pact with Menes and become the Unnamed Arcanum.

The Unnamed Arcanum

The Unnamed Arcanum was formed by the Pharaonic Selenim who partook in the Pact with Menes. In order to advance their studies of Necromancy and better fulfill their obligations, they founded the mortuary cults. Many Egyptian deities and myths bear their mark, such as the resurrection of Osiris as Kind of the Underworld. They invented the process of mummification to halt the natural decay of Solar-Ka within corpses, enabling the shades of the dead to remain stable indefinitely. They designed the esoteric architecture of the tombs, and the consecration rituals of the funerary procession, that allowed the Pharaonic Nephilim to maintain consciousness after death and continue progressing towards Agartha while immured in their tombs.

They consider themselves hallowed martyrs with the responsibility to defend the Nephilim against the Black Star and other enemies, taking the Solar-Ka of mortals as their entitled tithe. Their Arcane Quest for Agartha involves mastering the Black Moon and reversing the Assuaging to become beings of pure Solar-Ka. Some famous figures who assisted the Nephilim were actually drawn from this Arcanum: Gilles de Rais, Marco Polo, Mary Magdalene...

Compared to other Selenim societies like the Cult of Lilith and the Xibalbans, the Unnamed Arcanum is generally friendlier to mortals and looks down upon practices like human sacrifice and god complexes. While they do despise secret societies opposed to the Nephilim and try to thwart them when the opportunity presents itself, they otherwise see mortals as friends and confidants. Part of this stems from their close relationship with the dead, who are the among the few they can maintain long-term relationships with. Selenim don't age and lack working Stasis items, so they outlive mortals and remain active when their Nephilim allies enter Stasis.

The Unnamed Arcanum has traditionally been feared and despised by the other Arcana after the collapse of Akhet-Aton, but as of the Great Awakening they've developed much more positive relations with younger and open-minded Nephilim. Its members refer to the Arcanum as "Death", or more recently as "Renaissance".

Selenim PCs are generally expected to be members of the Unnamed Arcanum. I'd let the player select another tradition only if it would work with a mixed group.

The Xibalbans

The Xibalbans were the orchestrators of the Blood Dynasties in Central and South America. The Flower Wars in particular were orchestrated by the deity named Itztli ("obsidian blade") and Yayauhqui Tezcatlipoca ("black smoking mirror"), one of the nine Yoalteuctin ("Lords of the Night"). Tezcatlipoca harvested the Solar-Ka of the sacrifices and channeled it into his Realm, concentrating sufficient Black Moon-Ka that it would be expelled from within the magic fields and toward the Ethers in the form of a new planet. Thus, by the time Cortez discovered it, a Black Crescent had ascended into the sky before the efforts of the Major Arcana brought it crashing down in 1521. The Xibalbans' reasons for this elaborate plot remains mysterious, not the least because of their hostile relations with the Bohemian Nephilim who defeated them. 

The Xibalbans no longer exist as a coherent organization, but the survivors maintain their culture and continue to plot in secret. They are believed to work through nationalist movements and folk religions. Those in South America, who weren't involved in Tezcatlipoca's intrigues and thus didn't suffer when the Black Crescent fell, retained the most organization under colonization and continue to plot. The Central American region is one of the few areas in the world that hosts naturally occurring Black Moon Plexes, particularly near Chicxulub crater.

The Xibalbans obviously exhibited unparalleled understanding and mastery of black magic, which the Unnamed Arcanum is desperate to acquire for themselves. One innovation in particular inspires disgust in those Nephilim who know of it: the Xibalbans developed a means to not only transform Nephilim into Selenim, which was seen as natural and desirable in their culture, but (and this is me reading into the text) to reverse it and repeat it in a continuous cycle of death-and-rebirth. Thereby formed a perverse symbiosis with the indigenous Nephilim, uniting the two magical races under the Xibalban banner. The Unnamed, by contrast, finds this development endlessly fascinating and wish to acquire it to advance their own knowledge. Temperance, for their part, are likewise interested in replicating this process to better "treat" their Selenim "patients".

The Nephilim and Selenim of Central and South America never stood unified under the banner of the Xibalbans. Many disagreed with their methods and goals, following the example set by the rebel Xibalban lord Quetzalcoatl exiled to the eastern sea. These followers were instrumental to helping Cortez gather enough troops, mundane and magical, to assault the Aztec Empire. They are the most likely to interact with the Bohemians (and thus the only Mesoamerican Immortals appropriate as PCs), but those who remember colonization still nurse against a grudge against their Bohemian allies-turned-traitors.

According to Serpent Moon some Xibalbans made their way to the Serpent Mound where they entombed themselves to await an Agarthan Nexus in 1995 when they could resurrect Mu (the tyrannosaurus that raised the Black Moon). Ian's notes don't give a lot of detail on Xibalban beliefs, only what was observed by outsiders, so I can't say if the Xibalbans collectively worshiped Mu or these ones were outliers. In the French version, Tezcatlipoca did worship the Saurians and sought to resurrect them, but Mu wasn't among them. As of this writing I still need to do more translations and mediations on the material.

The Loa Gédé

The Loa Gédé are Selenim of the Afro-Caribbean Tradition, a heterogenous grouping which includes members from many different cultures. The eldest are concentrated in Haiti, which hosts a permanent island-wide Nexus that nourishes the Loa fanmi and nanchon holding court there. In the United States, their membership is concentrated in Louisiana.

The Loa Gédé practice "riding," a variation of Summoning in which mortal supplicants (houngans and mambos) can invoke the consciousness of a Gédé to temporarily possess their body and work magic through them. This allows the Gédé to act directly through supplicants in the United States, even while their Simulacrum is actually present in Haiti.

In contrast to the Bohemians for much of their history, the Loa have generally amicable relations between Nephilim and Selenim members. Although in this case "amicable" really means "not hated unfairly." Since they utterly dominate Haiti's occult underground and have few enemies within reach, the Loa are prone to infighting.

The Afro-Caribbean Nephilim exhibit an unusual structure compared to the Bohemians. The Loa proper exist in a state between Nephilim and summoned beings: their spirits live in their own Elemental Realm of Ginen, nourished by the dreams and worship of the people, but they may be invoked by mortal supplicants to perform magic on their behalf. Unlike the Keys summoned by the Kabbalists and Enochian magicians among the Bohemians to better understand the universe and themselves, the Loa actively pursue affairs occurring on the earthly plane while safely ensconced within Ginen.

Meanwhile, the Irunmolé reincarnate in the same way as the Bohemians and live within mundane society. Their oldest Stasis items are generally of Yoruba extraction and they invoke Orisha not unlike Loa. Many of these groups now mix freely in Louisiana and practice the pan-Afro-Caribbean tradition of Louisiana Voodoo.

The Gédé practice an eclectic mix of this. They are technically incarnate like the Irunmolé, but they also maintain their own Black Moon Realm on Haiti known as "Raven" and may be invoked by supplicants. Raven is a unique construct, as it is technically merged from the Realms of multiple Master Anamorphs and has Gates in both Haiti and New Orleans among other locations.

Loa Gédé are appropriate as PCs.

The Cult of Lilith

The Cult of Lilith identifies the Devouring Messiah as Lilith of Mesopotamian myth and claims she still dwells in her Babylonian Realm. Whether they are actually led by this Lilith or merely invented this story to satisfy their own ego remains unknown. They claim that they saved the Nephilim from extinction at the swords of the Orichalka Men, only for the Nephilim to betray them out of love for mortals. They nurse this ancient grudge well into the present: they see mortals as no more than livestock and slaves, and they especially despise the Nephilim and see them as useful only insofar as they may be recruited and indoctrinated in the faith.

The Cult of Lilith claims to have been very powerful until the end of the Dark Ages, but if so then they have hugely declined since their heyday. While a fair share of their members are ancient and powerful beyond the ken of most Nephilim, they are very few and seemingly hold limited influence. This is in no small part due to their alienation of potential allies among the Immortals (other than The Devil) and their immense contempt for mortals (even their ignorant sycophants among the Cultes des Goules).

Ahriman, responsible for unleashing a new wave of monstrous Selenim activity in his time, is believed to have been a prominent member of the Cult or else a very influential solitaire.

The goals of the Cult of Lilith remains mysterious, other than obvious details like terrorizing mortals to reap Solar-Ka, hunting down any secret societies that get in their way, and forcibly recruiting from unwilling Nephilim (or else subjecting them to worse fates, such as Elixirs or Homunculi).

The Cult is known to hold masses where they claim to donate Black Moon-Ka directly to their "goddess" Lilith. Based on this, some speculate that they are trying to create their own Black Moon like Tezcatlipoca attempted. If so, then they don't seem to be making nearly as much progress.

One practice of the Cult that proves key to their solidarity is that recruits are subject to the Spell Seal of Faith. This evokes an entity in the form of a white worm that worms its way into the recruit's Core, feeding on his BMK to sustain itself. Through this "Seal", the Cult can track all of its members no matter how far they flee. Thus, leaving the Cult is virtually impossible. Even if the Cult's members cannot hunt down any heretics or apostates personally, they can still summon various deadly entities that are not so limited.

I treat the Cult as NPC-only antagonists. In Ian's notes the Cult was stated to be the dominant Selenim society in the West, but in the interests of making Selenim more appealing options as PCs I opted to given them a big decline and increase the influence of the Unnamed Arcanum.

However, I’m still developing my ideas. I’m open to making the Cult more decentralized and infighting akin to the Devil’s Shabs, with the Arcanum representing those who still follow the Ebon Tablet like the true Devils (see my post on the true Devils for details). 

The Khanate

The Selenim Khanate of Siberia is even more mysterious and insular than the Cult of Lilith, but still frighteningly powerful. The Khans are suspected to be a splinter from the Cult, probably from earlier times before it became so fanatical. As shown by their name, they are associated with various nomadic conquerors like the Huns, the Mongols and the Golden Horde. Of those who bore witness, they orchestrated the rise of the Mongol Empire, the genocide of the Illyrians, and burned the image of the rapacious barbarian horde into the collective psyche of Europe and her colonies.

The famous Marco Polo was a Unnamed Initiate who operated on behalf of the Major Arcana, insinuating himself within the Khanate to prevent it from causing even further damage. One wonders how successful he was, or not...

Oddly, since the fall of the Mongol Empire they have remained eerily silent and uninvolved in the affairs of the occult world... as least so far as anyone else knows. The invisibly of the Selenim to the prevalent elemental magic makes it almost impossible to say how involved they really are. Were they involved in the communist revolutions?

The Chariot maintains a stronghold at Tunguska inherited from their former Illuminati allies (Major Arcana p66), well within the territory of the Khanate. The Khans seem content to let them operate their experiments unmolested, but only the Chariot knows why. What was the true nature of the Tunguska Explosion? Tesla's experiment gone wrong? A meteor of the Black Moon? Or something stranger still?

There's almost no info on them in the French version, and I haven't invented my own. So for now they're NPC-only.

Others...

The French version included two other Selenim fraternities with no equivalent in the above: 666 and the Orichalcans. 

• 666 was trying to created hybrids of Nephilim and Selenim with access to all six elements (the five of the Pentacle plus the BMK Core), with only mixed results. The PC option was for "rejects" that were experimented on and then abandoned. Most fraternities associated with 666 were "shadows" created by rejects who knew nothing of the true 666. The true 666 was a cult dedicated to Mu that sought to resurrect him and take over the world, but were stopped and now seek revenge.
• The Orichalcans are a fraternity founded by the Selenim Vulcan to study Orichalc and try marrying it with the Black Moon to enhance their capabilities. Four different "workshops" (measured as esoteric skills) specialized in different applications: reducing Entropy, extinguishing Orichalc, boosting magic resistance, and augmenting conjured entities.

These should be fairly easy to adapt, but I'm not going to go over them in detail here.

Exaltation and Arcane Techniques?

As written in Major Arcana p9, the Exaltation of the Unnamed Arcanum is Scorpio. For any Selenim who simply identifies with Arcanum XIII, under this sign they receive a +10% bonus to their Dominant Ka (i.e. Black Moon-Ka); this bonus is doubled to +20% for Initiates. Presumably this Exaltation applies to the rare Nephilim who somehow identifies with Arcanum XIII, but as an organization the Arcanum only initiates Selenim. Although they know the rituals to transform a Nephilim during Initiation...

Why Scorpio? It contains the hidden parasitic sign of Serpentarius aka Ophiuchus, which is linked to the Black Moon. The Ar-Kaïm of Serpentarius have Black Moon as their Dominant Ka, and Death is quite interesting in recruiting them...

Other than the Occult Sciences common to all Selenim (plus Shemmut and Thes as mentioned in Major Arcana), does Death have any Arcane Techniques unique to it? Do any of the other Selenim tribes?

In the French version it's something of a toss up. The Cult of Lilith got some rituals, the Ethereals (the Mesoamerican Selenim) got their own cool bits, the Loa Gédé got some rituals, but Arcanum XIII got nothing to set them apart beyond seeing stellars (magical tattoos for the Arcana's adoptees to identify each other).

I've give every society their own Arcane Techniques, including Initiate Spells and bonuses to certain mundane skills.

One of the key changes made in the US version is that, whereas in the French version Stasis was invented by secret societies to trap the Nephilim or turn them into Homunculi, in the US version the origin of Stasis was changed to a deliberate invention by the Nephilim Hern. His work was reverse-engineered from the Selenim's Sarcophagus/Tomb, originally created to cultivate BMK to sustain the Selenim in the absence of mortals, making the Selenim the ultimate origin of Stasis items. The French version didn't really have an analogue to this either and Selenim couldn't make use of Stasis items to preserve themselves, aside from things like the Ethereals' pyramids functioning a bit like Stasis and the Gédé using their Asson to store Ka and even reincarnate in emergencies. But as I've said in previous posts, the mysteries of the Sarcophagi/Tombs are something I wanted to touch on...

Hope you enjoyed!