My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

Ar-Kaïm were first teased in a first edition accessory as a rumor of “astrological Nephilim” and formally revealed in late second edition metaplot. In the adventure path Chroniques de l'Apocalypse (“Chronicles of the Apocalypse”), Akhenaton revealed their existence to the Nephilim leaders at the Grand Conclave in 1999. However, they were only named as “Ar-Kaïm” and given concrete rules in third edition, titled  Nephilim: Revelation . They were an option for PCs alongside Nephilim and Selenim, with the option for mixed or homogenous groups. Additional rules were provided in their respective splatbook,  Codex des Ar-Kaïm  (“Codex of the Ar-Kaïm”). No playable rules have since been provided in subsequent editions.  The name Ar-Kaïm is Enochian and was given to them by the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It means “the new Kaïm”. This refers to how, after the fall of Orichalka, only Ar-Kaïm were born from the magic fields. Although the Nephilim are seemingly numerous, t...

In the past, I have noted that the Basic Roleplaying rules were not a good fit for the Nephilim game and setting. The French version abandoned it after the second edition in the 1990s and every edition released since has used its own bespoke system. The third edition used a roll under d20 task resolution with attributes measured by 5 adverbs and skills by ~3 guild ranks, the fourth edition used a convoluted Pythagorean percentile task resolution that measured attributes from 1 to 25 with skills as one-note or guild ranks, and the fifth edition used a percentile task resolution that measured attributes and skills from 1 to 10. It is all pretty complicated and difficult to convert between. While researching, I discovered that a fan in the French fandom created his own system that cherrypicked aspects of the various editions. This marries the various measurement systems on the following table: Main Generic Table Numerical value ...

So there's some rumors and leaks going around regarding a second edition of Chaosium's Nephilim , the US version. I prefer to wait for an actual book release to peruse. From what I've heard, it's a mix of much needed rules revisions and some sweeping changes to the setting. I'm not a fan of the setting changes. I typically dislike lore in tabletop games because it's invariably irrelevant self-aggrandizing microfiction, even if I otherwise like the premise of the game (e.g. I love the premise of Dark•Matter , but dear gosh that history chapter! ). Nephilim holds an odd place in my heart because it's the only game to make its dense lore personally relevant to the PCs by making them reincarnating immortals and including past lives as modular options at character creation. So why change the lore if the lore isn't the problem? It just feels arbitrary to me, and it's especially unwelcome considering how the past decade has been full of old IPs being reviv...