My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

In a  prior post  I mentioned that I had the idea to call the Major Arcana tribes and their members “bohemians” in order to reclaim and distance the word from its application to Romany people in the gaming space. Since then I have changed my mind and decided to call them  Atenists  instead. I feel this name is both accurate and avoids confusion with mundane and magical “bohemians” found elsewhere. I apologize for the confusion. 

In a prior post I recapped that the French version depicted Roma people (here called "Bohemians") as magical creatures, how racist that was, and how someone suggested removing the racial component. In a subsequent post , I mentioned how I opted to name the Western Tradition (as Major Arcana calls it) to the Bohemian Tradition in memory of their roots as refugees from Akhet-Aton. I wrote those before I actually started transcribing, translating and reading the Bohemians supplement. Ignoring the racism, it introduces two concepts: the Boheim ("Bohemia") and the Brume ("Mist"). Paraphrasing from the introduction of the book: The Boheim is an inspiring, creative and libertarian force that inhabits all humans, but few recognize. It is the flame that illuminates certain artists, but also certain political leaders —Che, Gandhi, Zapata and Aung San are examples of this “enchantment”. It embodies courage, thirst for freedom, strength to resist all oppression, the...

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...

In this post I introduce and tackle the topic of... Bohemians! In Chaosium's books In the  Nephilim  rulebook p57, it's stated that: When the Theban armies and assassins overwhelmed their homes, the Nephilim Arcana tribes avoided destruction by scattering throughout the world. So thorough was their diffusion that many even lost contact with each other. Yet from many secret locations they initiated others into certain Nephilim secrets and bade them to continue the search to locate the other lost Arcana. This was the birth of the great bohemian people called “Egyptians” or “gypsies” in Victorian England. Those nomads created their own culture based upon secret Nephilim rites, Egyptian customs, and elements borrowed from the many countries which they crossed over the centuries. There are other passages in the books linking Romani groups to the occult world and to the Tarot. Liam Routt  suggested some ideas  for Romeny Nephilim based on this passage, but never produced a...