Inspirations for the Nephilim and Simulacrum relationship

As I've mentioned before, Montgomery's blog provided a response to the "possession problem" that seemingly kept players from getting into Nephilim:

On the other hand, the core principle of the game is accurate to the Western Mystery Tradition, which has always held that humanity cannot save itself.  Bound to the animal world of matter, only those who form a partnership with a higher spiritual power can become inhuman and ascend to higher reality;  

...The mutation of one’s deepest structure is the only thing that matters for the purposes of higher knowledge. This knowledge, which is at the same time wisdom and power, is essentially nonhuman; it can be achieved by following a way that presupposes the active and effective overcoming of the human condition... 

Julius Evola, Introduzione alla Magia 

To this end the Tradition has long embraced the principle of uniting with an alien, spiritual being;  

(there) is an auxiliary divine, or semi-divine (daimônic) spirit...called a παραδρoç in Greek. Such auxiliary spirits were permanently attached to the magician after certain rites were performed, not just for the duration of the operation, but for life. In such an instance, the magician is thought to gain a certain kind of union with that entity—to become a “son” of that god or daimôn. The essence of the magician and that of the entity have become, or are becoming, one. This is why the magician can himself be worshiped as god or daimôn... 

Stephen Flowers, PhD, Hermetic Magic 

By the Renaissance, in Christianized Europe the idea of "semi-divine" spirits had become associated with the Biblical Nephilim, or "fallen ones."  Discussed in far greater detail in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, they nevertheless get several mentions in the Bible from Genesis forward.  Essential, they are half-human half-angelic entities, the Jewish equivalent of demigods like Heracles or Jason.  Hermeticism—a form of the Tradition born in Hellenic Alexandria in the first centuries after Christ—attributed to these Nephilim all of the arts and sciences, including magic (again, this is in the Book of Enoch as well).  

I took some special interest in the mention of paredros. I'm trying to devise a name for the elemental itself, to emphasize that the titular Nephilim is the hybrid and not the elemental possessing the host. So Paredrus it is! (Note: paredrus is the Latinized/Romanized form of the original Greek paredros. The ending changes from -os to -us.)

Montgomery further suggested some inspirations for players:

"1. Meet Dax.  Around the same time Nephilim appeared to an English-speaking audience, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine audiences were introduced to Jadzia Dax.  Jadzia was a young woman fused with an alien symbiont, Dax.  Captain Ben Sisko had known Dax before in a previous host, Curzon.  Over the course of the show, we learn all about the symbiont's previous hosts, and see Jadzia die and Dax implanted in a new character, Ezri.  Each host is different, but has all the memories and abilities of its previous hosts.  This complex character is the perfect analogue for how to deal with a Nephilim character.  Have the potential player revisit the show.

2. Meet Castiel.  In the horror-drama Supernatural, protagonists Sam and Dean Winchester ally with an angel, Castiel.  Spirit beings, angels do not have bodies of their own, he has incarnated in a human host, Jimmy Novak.  This is something Novak prayed for, however.  He wanted union with Castiel.  If this helps the player, simply have the Simulacrum being a willing host.  Perhaps they are an aspiring magician who located a Nephilim stasis and awoke the spirit hoping for incarnation to occur.

3. A Second Chance.  Something I have used in previous Nephilim games is incarnation as a second chance.  One player decided his simulacrum was a human on the edge of committing suicide when the incarnation occurred and gave him a new purpose and meaning in life.  Another, and my favorite, was my college girlfriend, who created a simulacrum who was a seventy-five-year old dementia patient abandoned by her family in a retirement home.  Sitting in the same chair alone, day after day, she is reborn when an Air Nephilim comes to her and for the first time in years she gets up and walks out of the hospital.  Incarnation can be a blessing, not a curse.        

4. Feels Like The Very First Time.  Perhaps the easiest way around discomfort is for this to be the Nephilim's first incarnation.  Nephilim are born in the nexus of planetary energies...perhaps a new-formed Nephilim blindly incarnates in banker John Smith.  Suddenly John starts developing weird senses and magical abilities, but has no sense of being anyone else.  There are no past lives to remember.  Eventually he stumbles across the world of the Nephilim, joins one of the 22 Arcana, has his first stasis made, and selects a Nephilim name for himself. "

I would add a few additional inspirations to that list, all dealing with past lives and questions of identity:

• Netflix's The Order. The enchanted wolfskins retain skills of their past bearers, as well as their fears and goals.
• Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender. The Avatar is able to channel the memories and personalities of past lives.
• Frank Herbert's Dune. Various characters in the series develop the ability to channel the memories and personalities of their ancestors and predecessors, even to the point of being possessed.
• Illyria from the Buffyverse, ditto for Glory; Amaru from From Dusk Till Dawn. Useful inspiration for antagonists like the returning Selenim lords of Mexico.

So in my campaigns the Nephilim here is a hybrid being, an alchemical marriage of the human Simulacrum and the elemental Paredros. This grants access to elemental magic and past life experiences, but brings its own problems and questions about identity. 

The Major Arcana have their own answers to these questions: all see themselves as "scions" of their Paredros as per the Hermetic Tradition, but the specifics vary wildly. The Hierophant see themselves as incarnations of the divine, the Hanged Man rejects all conscious recognition of the occult, the Hermit rejects the temptations of human civilization in favor of ascetic monasticism, the Devil's Shabs reject the niceties of human society in favor of violent hedonism and reckless abuse of magic, the Lovers subsume themselves within epicureanism and reliving past lives, the Moon rejects the corruption by human sapience in favor of the animal's closer connection to the magic fields, the Selenim live eternally in the same ageless body and grapple with perpetual alienation from mortals and their severance from the magic fields, etc. I hope to explore that in future posts...

Hope you enjoyed!