My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

This is an addendum to my posts on  summoning spell types  and  magical names . There are two types of Invocation : The first is when a spirit is invoked to grant the summoner its desired qualities,  as opposed to  appearing before the summoner and acting on his behalf. This is a Spiritual Invocation . The second is when one of the divine names is prayed to or called out in order to bind or compel a spirit into service,  as in the Key of Solomon . E.g. Latin In nomine Jesu “In the name of Jesus”. This is a Divine Invocation . The divine invocation is not actually its own spell, but part of any summoning spell. When a summoner dominates or banishes an entity, he usually invokes a divine name as part of the ritual.

While researching the French books I came across some unfamiliar words in the jargon for Alchemy:  Arkhémia and Spagyrie . The former refers to new world being created by a group of five master alchemists, while the latter refers to alchemical artifacts. I did some research and these words derived from real alchemy practices: the words in the English lexicon are seemingly " archemy " and " spagyrics " (sometimes "spagery" or "spagyry"). Various "modern alchemy" blogs define this in very different ways, even some academic papers too, but I found the historical uses. According to  A Dictionary of Western Alchemy by Jordan Stratford, on p10: archemy, archimastry A neologism that implies superior practice of the art of alchemy. It seems to be used by some alchemists to differentiate their activities from those of their rivals (Giovanni Agostino Pantheo refers to the rival practice as "illicit and duplicitous alchemy" as opposed ...

As an addendum to my prior post , here’s a brief recap of how the fourth edition handled the five sorcery paths. These were called Labyrinthes de Sapience  ("Labyrinths of Wisdom") and  Voies de Magie  ("Ways of Magic") in French. Each element has spiritual, material and celestial correspondences. These are represented by lists of words called Domains , encompassing all possible meanings of that word. Literal, figurative, etc. In third edition, as I explained, these were listed on a universal Analogy Table used by all mages. Words not on the table had to be linked to, from a word on the table, by word chains to use them in spells. At character creation, mages inscribed one spell per level in Magic Techniques: up to 3 spells per Technique. Mages could cast spells without inscription, but it was slightly harder. In fourth edition, mages started with a blank Analogy Table and had to learn words individually. They couldn't learn words that weren't listed in the...

I neglected to post it in any of my prior posts touching on the French cosmology, but below are some maps of the cosmology taken from the French books. These should give a useful picture of how the cosmology works. Circa Nephilim: Revelation Circa Nephilim IV The cosmology was originally codified some time in second edition and consolidated in third edition ( Nephilim: Revelation ). It hasn't changed significantly since to my knowledge. The Summoning Worlds of the French version aren't include in the above maps. They form their own category separate but adjacent to the Astral. By contrast, the US version never had a chance to develop its cosmology. The most we get is that there's an Astral Plane where summoned beings come from and dreams may be entered from, known as Yetzirah to Summoners and Uat to the High Priestess. There's also the Subtle Planes of Agartha aka the Akasha, but their relationship to the Summoning Worlds (of which the Astral is one) is never explained....

While the Selenim were given rules in the first and second editions of the French version, these were wishy-washy and the original creative leads preferred them as NPC-only (which once again became the case in 4e and 5e, much to my chagrin). In third edition Nephilim: Revelation , the publisher opted to revise their rules for playability and compatibility with mixed groups of Nephilim and Ar-Kaïm. Additional rules were provided in their respective Codex . I recap the overarching structure of the 3e revisions here. I have divided this post into Initiation, Aspect, Sapience, Past, Downfalls, and Other details, mimicking the structure of character creation. Initiation Unlike the Nephilim's Pentacle of the five Elemental Ka, Selenim have only a Core of Black Moon-Ka. Thus, they can only perform their own Occult Sciences (see below). Additionally, they have a Black Moon Pool that is spend to cast spells. They suffer a degeneration known as Entropy : the Pool automatically loses 1 point...

I recently transcribed and auto-translated the rules for playing Khaibans from the third edition French supplement Le Codex des Nephilim . In this post, I would like to compare and contrast that with the Devil's Arcane Techniques given in the US version's Major Arcana . As I noted previously , Khaiba works different in the French and US versions. In the US version Khaiba total just affects how likely the Nephilim is to suffer a Khaiba episode during certain enthronements (but Khaiba total doesn't affect the Metamorphosis ratings), is decreased relatively easily, and won't kill the PC if it reaches 100. Whereas in the French version the effects are persistent, while Khaiba total determines how deformed the Nephilim is, how warped their emotional state is, and kills the PC when it maxes out. One bit I find interesting is in how the Metamorphosis changes between the two versions. In the US version, a Khaiba seizure raises all Metamorphosis traits to max and then warps it i...

As I previously mentioned, the French version gave each occult science five paths . Five mazes of Sorcery, five worlds of Summoning, and five materials of Alchemy, each preferred by Nephilim of one of the five elements. For purposes of organization, I label these the "watchtowers" of the elements. To recap: Element Sorcery Kabbalah Alchemy 🜂 Fire The Axial Way of the Wandering Principles : Fight the darkness and learn from the struggle Aresh, World of Conflict , where the world is in a constant state of war and honor and atrocity are the only lords Metal , mastered by the Green Lion, is Mastery 🜄 Water The Primal Way of the Rising Spiral : Change yourself to change the world. Zakaï, World of Purity , where the world is dying and the only hope rests on the healing of the Fisher King Liquor , mastered by Esmeralda, is Transformation 🜃 Earth The Natural Way of the Winding Pa...

I don't think I ever explicitly stated this, but for a while I've been using a jargon distinction based on the French version. I use Orichalka to refer to the meteor from Saturn, but Orichalc to refer to the substance used to create antimagic amulets and weapons. I don't know why the US version changed this, but it may have been due to a find-and-replace error during translation.  Other jargon I use is Saturnian-Ka for the Ka-energy of Saturn (used by the Fraternitas Saturnii in Secret Societies ), and  Hercolubus as another name for the meteor that destroyed Atlantis. In contrast to the rulebook, I refer to protective items as Orichalc Amulets to match the distinction made in Gamemaster's Companion . These not only protect against possession attempts, but against elemental spells in general. Orichalc Talismans  (magic items used to cast Spells of Saturn) don't appear to exist, except perhaps in the hidden reliquariums of the Fraternitas Saturnii.

The Nephilim have developed several “Grand Rituals” (distinct from the rituals used for casting Ritual Magic) used as aids in their learning and casting of the Occult Sciences. In this post I'll be explaining how I'm adapting those to my campaign setting, based both on the US version, a fan wiki , and the French version's Nephilim: Revelation and Nephilim: Legend . The ideas presented here are tentative. The Ritual of Stasis: Nephilim use this ritual to tap charges from their Stasis item to boost spells and other uses of Ka-energies. Ar-Kaïm who have been bonded to a Stasis item may do the same, but may only charge the five elements available to Nephilim. Selenim require Sarcophagi or other special means to charge and tap Black Moon-Ka. The Ritual of Sacrifice : Nephilim use this ritual in emergences to ensure a spell succeeds. This costs Occult Development Points (my translation of the French version's XP mechanics) and may only be used when performing a Sorcery ritu...

By default, the sorcerous magic item creation rules given in Gamemaster's Companion and Enlightened Magic just create items that allow the user to recast the spell it contains. I find this rather boring and weaksauce when sorcerers can design their own spells (and I'm not the only one ), so an idea I had was to allow magic items to have more unique effects. Instead of recreating a spell, the item itself is enchanted to provide a specific bonus or effect. There's precedence for this: the magic supplements give permanent enchantments that apply to people and places, not objects. To cite a few permanent enchantments (and costs) from  Enlightened Magic : Awakening the Inner Fire  (p43): permanently enlighten a mortal (1 POW) Eternal Warding  (p53): permanently ward an area against sorcery (2 POW) Call the Land  (p53-4): permanently befriend the animals and plants in a place (2 POW) So if you permanently enchant a gun with Weapon Blessing  by spending POW, you don'...

In a prior post I recapped the spontaneous magic rules from Nephilim: Revelation  (NR) and mentioned that I wanted to adapt what I could to the enlightened sorcery rules printed in Liber Ka  (LK) and Enlightened Magic  (EM). In this post, I would like to explain how I would use NR as a basis for more robust rules for designing and casting spells on the fly. I use both LK and EM as my resources here, since EM adds additional spells that are useful for illustration, but I use the d20 roll-under task resolution from NR. For reference, EM refers to Ka-vision as "Mystic vision"; the main difference is that the latter has a passive state that mage characters have active at all times to notice vaguely when something magical is happening in their vicinity. As explained in LK and EM, the different circles of Sorcery have different limitations. A rule I'd like to adapt from NR is the generic table , which lists the various parameters that spells can have (range, duration, area, et...

The  Emerald Tablet  is actual text in real world occultism. There was reputed to be an original Emerald Tablet from which may extracts were copied. But it has special significance in the Nephilim's secret history. As explained on Major Arcana p13, the priests of Thoth preserved imperfect copies of Akhenaton's 22 Golden Tablets in the form of 22 Emerald Tablets. The knowledge contained was transcribed on papyrus and collected as the Book of Thoth , of which many copies were made. The original tablets and most of the transcriptions were later lost or destroyed.  One tablet called the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus was found beneath the Sphinx by Alexander the Great and became the basis of the Corpus Hermeticum , but later vanished with his corpse in 323 BC. Many Nephilim who know of it believe it was the Emerald Tablet of The Magician. According to the history chapter of the unpublished draft for  Slaying the Dragon  (the planned alchemy supplement before...

The Primes are an option for Nephilim PCs introduced in the third edition Le Codex des Nephilim . They're members of The Star who have developed their own Occult Technique to cultivate Prime Essence and use it for unique magical applications. In was revealed in the French metaplot that all Nephilim were descended from aliens known as the Voors ( who I previously discussed ), and the Primes believed that the way to become Voors again and ride the cosmic wind to the stars was by cultivating Prime Essence. The Primes are contrasted against the  allochtones , another faction within The Star who believe that they must build a physical spacecraft in order to travel the stars. Prime Essence is pure cosmic energy, unfiltered by any celestial bodies. Within the cosmology given, the universe is suffused with Prime Essence. The Sun refracts it into Solar Ethers, which are then refracted again by the planets into the Planetary Ethers, and meet at the Earth's core where they become the Rays...

In a prior post I briefly recapped the Bohemians (Roma; the g-word is a slur like the n-word so I'm reticent to use it) from the French version and some ideas for salvaging their lore from its racist conceptions. Since then, I've done a lot more thinking and revising of my setting to make my Nephilim true composite beings rather than body-snatchers. One idea that came to me was to rename the "Western Tradition" as it's called in Major Arcana to the Bohemian Tradition: i.e. the Western Nephilim who adopted the Major Arcana would be known as the Bohemians, to contrast them from the pre-Arcana Western Nephilim and to denote their philosophical origins as refugees from Akhet-Aton. So where does that leave Roma and other nomadic ethnic groups? It leaves them in the same place as everyone else. Depicting Roma as having magical powers due to their ethnicity is racist drivel and I'm not using it in my campaign settings. In my campaigns some Roma are Nephilim and som...

As explained in Major Arcana , there are several ranks of membership and non-membership in the “Western” Tradition (or as I call it: the Bohemian Tradition). To reiterate these and add my own clarifications: Adopters : the majority of Bohemians are Adopters, also known Adoptees and "outer members". They have self-identified with or "adopted" an Arcanum as their path to Agartha, but only hold exoteric or outer membership. They fraternize with and perform favors for other members, but aren't trusted with the same level of knowledge or responsibilities as Initiates. Initiates : a minority of Bohemians are Initiates or "inner members". They have been initiated into their Arcanum. They have access to greater occult knowledge, such as Initiate Spells, but are obligated to perform tasks for higher ranking initiates. Orphans : Orphans have dropped out of their former Arcanum, been expelled from a stricter one like Strength or The Hermit, or are one of the 1-in...

What follows is my attempt to convert the US version's rules for magical places to the French third edition rules. Magical places include the Locus , Plexus and Nexus . All three are represented with an Intensity Characteristic, noted on the table below: D20 Intensity Duration Charges Bonus 1–4 Not Intense 4 hours 10 +1 5–8 Low Intense 8 hours 20 +2 9–12 Enough Intense 12 hours 30 +3 13–16 Intense 16 hours 40 +4 17–20 Very Intense 20 hours 50 +5 The Intensity of a magical place is variable. The GM may roll a d20 to randomly determine the phenomenon's Intensity on the day it forms/starts, plus the daily astrology modifier of its element. The Intensity determines the duration of the phenomenon and the charges it has for recharging Stasis items and other applications. Eve...

I mentioned in a prior post that in third edition, Sorcery underwent an overhaul. Starting in second edition it was renamed Magic ( Magie in French). In third edition, the fixed spells of prior editions were augmented by a syntactic magic mechanic that allowed players to construct their own spells according to universal guidelines and, in a break with prior editions, to cast these on the fly without needing foci or inscriptions.  Sorcery in Nephilim: Revelation Note: The rulebook has some editing errors, so I’m using  unofficial errata from a fansite  when recapping. That source incorporates the fanzine  Palimpseste  n°1  and  Palimpseste  n°4 . Spells were constructed as sentences with verbs and nouns chosen by the sorcerer to tailor the effect. A typical sentence consisted of the verb , the target(s) , and one or more analogies selected from the " Analogy Table ". Various concepts associated with each of the five Ka-elements were given on thi...