What are the Minor Tablets?

In the third edition Gamemaster's Screen, the Quest for the Cycle of Destiny is introduced. (The fanzine Vision-Ka #3 specifies on p41 that this Quest is one and the same as the Arcane Quest of The Magician.) The goal of this quest is to acquire and study the Minor Tablets, crafted by Akhenaton as supplements to the 22 Major Arcana Trumps. The purpose of these Minor Tablets is to help mortals reach Agartha. There are four Minor Arcana in total: The Wand (Fire), The Cup (Water), The Sword (Air) and The Coin (Earth). Keen-eyed readers may notice that the symbolism of the suits correspond loosely to the traditional magical tools (see Liber Ka p52).

By pursuing this quest, the Nephilim is better able to understand their Simulacrum's Solar-Ka: they can boost their chances of Critical Success based on their Solar-Ka, retain player control during Shouit seizures rather than handing control to the GM, and develop Solar Resistance through initiation into a Minor Arcanum.

Unlike the Major Arcana, each Minor Arcanum consist of Decks of multiple Minor Tablets, just like the card suits. In order to read its message, the user must arrange the Tablets of the Deck like a Game of Tarot. In other words, the Minor Tablets consist of Minor Decks, the message of which is revealed by playing the Minor Games.

If I was adapting this to the US version, then I'd make a number of changes to match the US version and my own campaign setting. 

  • The Romani and other travelers aren't depicted as a race of magical creatures, because that has uncomfortable racist parallels to real life. They're ordinary human beings. Although occult knowledge can be passed down through families, no ethnic group is uniquely magical or has a monopoly on magic.
  • As the four Minor Arcana correspond to the four elements of Air, Earth, Fire and Water and the associated magical tools, there may be a fifth suit corresponding to Moon. I would name them respectively the suits of Ivory Sword, Emerald Coin, Ruby Wand, Sapphire Cup and Silver Key. Possibly there are more corresponding to Solar-Ka, Black Moon or even Orichalc!
  • The four Minor Arcana of the French version are replaced by the decentralized multitude of secret societies in the US version. Although the Minor Tablets are arranged into four Minor Arcana, these don't correspond to any particular secret society since the opportunity to form specific Minor Arcana tribes never arose. In a previous post I mentioned an idea for Minor Arcana tribes, but I opted not to implement this so as not to overshadow existing Nephilim-friendly secret societies in the US version like the Rosicrucians, Priory of Sion, Mithradites, and Cultes des Goules.

Hope you enjoyed!

Addendum Oct 15, 2023: a supplement for Nephilim: Revelation, Les Arcanes Mineurs, speculates that the fifth deck for the conspicuously absent Moon-Ka corresponds to the 666.

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