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Showing posts from November, 2023

Chinese Zodiac and Planetary Months?

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Although the Chinese zodiac is commonly presented as just being associated with years, it is associated with months too. The figure below gives a rough comparison of the Vedic/Western astrological months versus the  Chinese solar terms , progressing clockwise. Long story short, they overlap by about a half-month.  Below is an artistic chart showing the overlap: Below is a more precise chart giving the exact dates in the Gregorian calendar: Can this be applied to the Nephilim game for representing Xian-ren? Should they use different planetary months compared to Western Nephilim? I don't know how to answer that. My gut feeling is that it's a needless complication; even the French version used the same planetary months for both. I hope you enjoyed the astrology trivia!

Why did Carthage and Mesoamerica descend into human sacrifice?

In every society whose politics were dominated by Selenim influence, the state religion inevitably became focused on public human sacrifice. Why is this? Selenim Assuage emotions, so what do they gain from this? What follows is my answer for my campaigns: Several things. One, torture is an effective way to elicit intense pain. The amount of Solar-Ka siphoned by Assuaging is dependent on the intensity of the emotion, so agony is very satisfying.  Two, bloodletting releases the Solar-Ka contained within. Just as the Orichalka Men discovered how to awaken Orichalc by exposing it to human blood, so too did the Selenim discover that they could do the same. Three, the sacrifice rituals were an occult refinement that allowed the Selenim to Assuage all of a mortal’s Solar-Ka at once. Normally only a subset may be siphoned per session and must then be allowed to recover.  This isn’t to say the Selenim were cartoon villains who acted purely maliciously. They acted out of self-interest and curios

What is a magical aura?

A magical aura is an arrangement of a person’s spiritual essence (or soul), allowing them to perform magic or not. As introduced in the French version, different character roles have different magical auras. Mere mortals have a Solar Core composed of the singular Solar-Ka, Nephilim have a Pentacle composed of the five Ka-elements, Selenim have a Black Moon Core composed of the singular Black Moon-Ka, Ar-Kaïm have a Heart composed of 2–8 Essences, “magic bohemians” have the Brume (“mist”) composed of trace amounts of all 8 Ka, and the Kwisatz Haderach has a Prism composed of all 8 Ka plus Brume.  A couple other variations exist too, represented by flaws taken at character creation. Cruxim are Nephilim with only four Ka-elements, forming a Cross. Rejects are hybrids created by 666’s experiments: Nephilim whose Moon-Ka has been transformed into Black Moon-Ka without sundering their Pentacle and Selenim who had 1–3 Ka-elements grafted to their Core. The Necronim, of which only two examples