My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

What follows are some thoughts on the Solar Approach, informed by my reading of the fifth edition and some fan-made rules. While the Immortals may call upon their Ka-elements to boost their mundane attributes and skills, they cannot do the same with Solar-Ka. (With the notable exception of the Ar-Kaim, who learn Solar Talents that exalt the potential of their bodies.) Meanwhile, the Initiates of certain Illuminati Conspiracies are able to invoke their Solar-Ka to boost various actions. Applications of the Solar Approach: Augmenting mundane actions . The Solar Approach may be invoked to boost a roll on any mundane action. In other words, replicating all of the Elemental Approaches! The most exceptional human beings, like famous athletes, pedagogues, and politicians, likely rely on a boost from their Solar-Ka to accomplish their feats. This is a key reason why The Sun Arcanum is so interesting in harnessing Solar-Ka. (This rule comes from a fan document by Hieldayn.) Resisting coercion ....

So I heard directly from a Chaosium rep that the recent rumors of a second edition are false. An individual not associated with Chaosium was making his own game rules as a spec script he pitched to the rep. However, the spec game was declined because it did not fit with where Chaosium wanted to take the game creatively.  Addendum 8/17/2026: The thread seems to have vanished from the forums. No idea why.

According to a moderator on the official Chaosium forums, they are not working on a new edition in any capacity. Whoever is claiming to be working on a new edition is not supported by Chaosium. I don't know what to believe at this point. I'm gonna default to believing the official statement, but the whole situation sound so fishy to me.

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...

(This piece excerpted from a longer article that was originally published here: https://scifiwright.com/2015/01/sanctuary-by-bill-whittle/ ) As an exercise in perspective, let's briefly compare our civilization to another. Let's compare our supposedly soulless, banal, hum-drum society to the splendors of ancient Egypt. And let's tie both hands behind our backs while we do so. Let's not compare the Great Pyramid to one of our skyscrapers, or airports, or hospitals, or even our shopping malls. Let's take a moment to compare the Great Pyramid of Cheops with the most common and drab and ordinary structure on the block: The Great Pyramid vs. the 7-11. Assume that we could transplant a corner 7-11 to the Egyptian desert, with all of the support systems that make it what it is. It is a tiny speck compared to the gleaming white marble sides of the pyramid. It looks small and poorly made. From afar. Pharaoh comes by barge and litter to inspect the competition, laughing at...

In an older post , I suggested making Saurians the same race as the KaIm. However, after thinking some more, I thought a further refinement would be to make them the ancestors of the KaIm. Rather than being wiped out by the KaIm, the Saurians wiped each other out in a civil war between the Black Saurians and the White Saurians. The White Saurians won and brought the Black Moon crashing down, but it was a pyrrhic victory that resulted in their extinction as well. While new KaIm were born from the nexi, the Saurians themselves were extinct. What made the next generation so different from their predecessors? The Saurians existed in symbiosis, an elemental Onirim Pentacle and a corporal dinosaur body. The next generation of KaIm were born in spiritual form and used their innate mastery of the elemental fields to create bodies for themselves. The Ka from the deceased Saurians was recycled by the nexi to birth new KaIm, but they would never again be Saurians because their fleshy envelopes we...

A key distinction in my campaigns is that Nephilim are symbiotic hybrids of human and elemental, not elemental spirits possessing hapless human hosts, nor awakened humans with a connection to the magic fields. The human half provides a physical body and a soul (Sol, Solar-Ka), allowing the Nephilim to interact, travel and to have awareness, identity, and will. The elemental half provides the Ka-elements, allowing the Nephilim to exist in symbiosis with the magic fields and to practice the occult sciences. There is also a third portion, the stasis object, which anchors the soul and the Ka-elements so that the Nephilim can be immortal. Without a stasis object, the Nephilim's Solar-Ka and Ka-elements will dissolve into the magic fields upon death. With a stasis object, his Ka-elements are able to remain on the earthly plane as a spirit known as a daimonian or paredrus . Without Solar-Ka it is bestial and driven entirely by its passions, but as an insubstantial spirit it can do nothing...

As mentioned in the timeline in the  GM's Companion , there was a 10,000 BC Mediterranean civilization named Tarshish. (A full writeup by Ian Young is  archived here .) As was pointed out to me in a discussion, the name Tarshish here is anachronistic. In real life documents, Tarshish was a port that traded with the Israelites, not any kind of ancient civilization. So if the name doesn't make sense, then what could replace it? Atlantis? While Plato's 9000 year estimate does place it in the same general range, the name Atlantis is Greek and Greek wouldn't have existed at that time. I did some research, and ultimately there really aren't many suitable names that I could find. The best candidate I could find is "Kheheb", a name for a prehistoric Egyptian civilization in the roleplaying game Fireborn . It's a fictitious neologism, so I think it could fit okay. The language spoken by them would probably be completely speculative anyway, since this civiliza...

In the US Nephilim rulebook and supplements, "Agartha" is the perfected spiritual state that Nephilim seek to achieve. Although there are stories of Agartha being a physical place, a city located at the center of the Hollow Earth , these are lies concocted by malevolent secret societies to seduce initiates.  In the French version, the mythical city was later introduced as "Aggartha" (with two Gs). This was the headquarters of the World Arcanum, and thus a play on the wording of "center of the world". It was not located in the center of a Hollow Earth, but was located in the astral plane. Anyway, the real life occultist description of Agartha mentions it is a city at the center of the Hollow Earth and lit by an inner sun (in some accounts a "diamond sun"). What does this inner sun remind you of? It reminds me of the "Grail", the game's name for the Earth's core where the planetary Ethers are transmuted into the magic fields. (In ...

A while ago in a chat I read someone ask, “If both the Templars and Nephilim venerated Jesus, then why are they enemies?” This is an interesting question with easy answers. Firstly, there are numerous Christian denominations that have been at each other’s throats for millennia. Catholic versus Protestant, anyone? Secondly, neither group actually venerates the Jesus described in the Bible. The Nephilim rulebook itself outright states Christianity is a lie concocted by secret societies to conceal the truth. Indeed, neither of them are actually Christian in any sense. The only Nephilim who actually venerate Jesus are the Fool Arcanum, and to them he's just one of several Messiahs they venerate. The other Arcana don't venerate any Messiahs, with the possible exception of the Unnamed Arcanum maybe venerating the Devouring Messiah.  The Templars, at least the secret society that persists to the modern day, is actually descended from an Ancient Egyptian cult known as the Temple of Li...

A Nephilim is hypothetically immortal. How do you kill an immortal? Here are my thoughts: Orichalc . If a Nephilim is slain by Orichalc, then he dies. His remaining Ka-elements dissolve into the magic fields. Magic damage . Certain spells and certain attacks by magical creatures inflict damage directly on the Nephilim’s Ka. Sufficient damage results in the soul losing integrity and dissolving into the magic fields. Repeated death . Every time a Nephilim dies, it is a traumatic experience that leaves spiritual wounds. If his subsequent reincarnations are killed in quick succession, then it is possible to inflict so much trauma that his soul finally dissolves into the magic fields rather than reincarnating. Destroy his stasis object . Destroying the enchantment on a stasis object is possible by inflicting sufficient magical or Orichalc damage. This also inflicts sympathetic damage against the Nephilim. Even if he survives the psychic trauma, his soul will have no anchor when his body die...

As I recounted in a previous post, my campaign redefines the nature of Nephilim. Bestial elemental spirits (known variously as daemonians , paredri , or Bene-Elohim ) are born from Nexi under Grand Enthronements, then fall in love with and bond to a mortal's Logos or Atman (immortal divine soul) to create a Nephilim. When a Nephilim dies, their Ka disintegrates into the magic fields. If bonded to a Stasis Object, however, they can persist after death, reincarnate in the future by finding their Logos' new simulacrum, and draw upon the experiences of their Past Lives because of the Stasis Object's link to their Animas or Karmas (mortal sidereal spirit). Are the Nephilim's subsequent incarnations different versions of the same person, or different people linked together by the elemental spirit? I think it depends on your perspective. Some see the Nephilim as a merger of multiple different people, while others see them as different lives of the same person. This is further ...

I read the fanzine  Vision-Ka #7 and it provided some much needed ideas that help me clarify my own ideas for reincarnation in my homebrew setting. As explained in the article on Yoga, the human soul (Sol, Solar-Ka) has two parts: the Atman and the Karma. The Karma is the record of life, while the Atman is the immortal soul that originates from the Brahman (the collective unconscious, the origin of the Subtle Planes). When a person dies, their Atman leaves the body and reincarnates, while the Karma remains within the corpse and decays with it. The Karma is the dead spirit that Selenim speak to with Necromancy. In my campaigns the Nephilim are fusional beings, an alchemical marriage of a human Atman and an elemental Pentacle born when the two meet under the right stars. This process awakens the Atman to knowledge of its true immortal nature, altering the Immortal’s worldview compared to their ignorant Karma alone. When a Nephilim dies, their Ka-elements dissolve into the magic fiel...

So something I found confusing was the rationale for the Black Star to construct elaborate megaliths to calculate the best places to imprison Nephilim in stasis. This was also done in the original French version, albeit by the Sword suit (referenced in the US version as the "Men of the Sword"). For reference, let's recap the rules for stasis objects across the editions. These haven't been consistent across all editions. In the French version, in all editions except for 5th, breaking the Stasis Object would destroy the Nephilim immediately no matter where they were. It didn't matter whether they were in Stasis, Narcosis, or incarnated. In the US version, breaking the Stasis Object meant the Nephilim had nowhere to go upon bodily death. If they couldn't jump between bodies, then they would disintegrate into the magic fields. While the Major Arcana knew how to create Stasis Objects for newborn Nephilim, there was no way to replace a broken Stasis Object. So the c...

These are my musings on the Saturnian field for my campaign homebrew... The Saturnian field is an anomaly compared to the other magic fields of Earth.  It doesn't radiate, but instead pools, particularly within flints and heavy metals as "Saturnite". This is the closest as it ever gets to having a physical manifestation. Rather than a physical substance like earth, water or air, it is only ever present as prima materia Saturni . (The prima materia is the residual Ka present within matter, leftover from when the matter was formed from the magic fields. This prima materia is what alchemy acts on.) Concentrations of Saturnite ore mutually repel the five elemental fields. These appear as a "hole" in Ka-Vision; indeed, the Immortals cannot perceive it directly. However, it is possible for mortals to detect it indirectly because it causes unpleasant vibrations in Solar-Ka. Particularly sensitive individuals may be trained as dowsers by secret societies. When exposed...

I've explored some of these ideas in previous posts, but I thought it would be prudent to put them all here for consolidation and comparison. This is all purely my homebrew and is completely non-canonical to the official games. The Saurians, the KaIm, the Old Races, the Nephilim, the Selenim, the Ar-KaIm... they are all Ka-beings. Their Ka dissolves into the magic fields upon disintegration, recycled into the births of future Ka-beings, making them both immortal in a sense and different generations of the same magical meta-race. The first generation of the Immortals are the Basal Immortals: the KaIm and the Saurians. The Basal Immortals are so named due to their practice of Basal Cycles, in which they would exist in purely spiritual form barely distinct from the magic fields and incarnate within natural phenomena; this is a stable version of the Elementalist Khaiba form. The Saurians were the first Onirim, born in the dreamlands, and the first to awaken to consciousness by incarnat...

My campaign changes the nature of Nephilim from elemental spirits possessing human bodies to paredri symbiotically bonding with human bodies to awaken the higher self. This has consequences for how my cosmology handles magic like resurrection, exorcisms, and the link to past lives. I'm not giving concrete game rules since I'm still thinking about what system to use. The incarnation and awakening A paredrus is little more than another elemental beast. It operates purely on instinct. However, it is linked to the stars and can find suitable hosts to merge with. In general, a prospective host fulfills two criteria: 1) they currently sit at an emotional crossroads in their life that makes their Solar-Ka permeable to the Ka-elements, on some level desiring the bond and inviting it into themselves; a paredrus cannot bond with just any human in proximity. 2) the host's personality and life experience is preferably analogically linked to the Dominant Ka-element of the paredrus , but...

In this post I wanted to discuss some ideas for handling Lunar Entropy, a fifth Khaiba form in which the Nephilim is gradually corrupted by the Black Moon. (This post assumes that Khaiba forms are persistent and noted on the character sheet, rather than determined randomly when the PC suffers a Khaiba episode.)  While Onirim are the most sensitive to it, Lunar Entropy can strike any Nephilim. While the vulnerability scales with the Nephilim’s own Moon-Ka, even a Cruxim whose lunar branch was amputated by anti-lunar extremists entirely is still vulnerable to it. Lunar Entropy points may accrued from a variety of sources: performing the sacrifice ritual for a moon spell, certain fumbles on the occult sciences, casting certain spells that flirt with the darkside, being exposed to aggressive or concentrated sources of Black Moon-Ka… Once it has asserted itself as their persistent Khaiba form, anything that aggravates Khaiba will progress it. When contaminated, the motes of Black Moon-K...