My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

(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...

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...

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...

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 a...

The voors are an alien race from the Radix Tetrad by A. A. Attanasio. Their name apparently comes from “ voorish ”. Here’s a review I found  here , which quotes mentions of voors, Iz, and kha! These aliens were an inspiration for the French writers, who incorporated them into the background. The Voors were alien “seeds” carried to Earth by the cosmic wind “Iz”, where they mixed with the magic fields and germinated into the Kaïm. They play a key role in The Star’s arcane quest for the Stellar Ones. According to rules given in Codex des Nephilim , some Star Initiates have cultivated “prime essence” within themselves that they speculate emulates the original composition of the Voors. In the French, every Nephilim and ex-Nephilim Selenim was originally a Kaïm who was cast down by Orichalka. Although it’s not clearly spelled out, the Ar-Kaïm and natural Selenim are implied to be native to Earth rather than children of the Voors. Could this be integrated into the US version? Shoul...

First codified in the third edition of the French version, a Quest is a type of Occult Skill that measures the PC's progress along a Quest that ultimately culminates in Agartha. There are many different Quests, such as the Quest for the Golden Fleece, the Treasure of the Templars, the Golem, etc. The lost Tablets of the Major Arcana each provided their own instructions for a different " Arcane Quest ", but there are more " Esoteric Quests " beyond those 22. Esoteric Quests may be associated with particular Occult Sciences, Artifacts, Past Lives, Secret Societies, Secret Places, Akashic Realms, and so on. The secret revealed by third edition was this: PCs don't need to achieve max level in their Dominant Ka, Metamorphosis, Third Circle or Lore Skills in order to achieve Agartha. They need only complete their chosen Quest. So even a relatively young and inexperienced Immortal may achieve Agartha if they play their cards right. (Otherwise you'd go into the ...

In the backstory for the Pact with Menes, it was explained that the agreement stipulated that the Nephilim would be allowed to incarnate within royal bloodlines after which they would be mummified along with their Simulacrum and entombed within prepared tombs that would allow them to retain consciousness after death and continue progression towards Agartha. How did this actually work? As the Simulacrum is dying, the Pentacle enters "Semket" (a misreading of msktt ) and then exits the body. For mummification to work as described, the Pentacle would need to be prevented from exiting the body first before any mummification could begin!  I'm skimming through the third edition French Minor Arcana book, which said the Promethean Mysteries within the priesthood embalmed the Simulacrum to trap the Nephilim inside, but it doesn't seem to explain this either. So I'm going to provide an explanation for my campaigns. The Pact with Menes required the assistance of amenable Se...

I'm currently translating the chapter on the Yohual-Tecuhtlin from the French book Exils  published in January 2000, which provides a wealth of information on the Mesoamerican Selenim. (They're given rules for character creation in the third edition Codex des Selenim a few years later, but it's very light on fluff due to space constraints.) The US version developed its ideas independently a few years earlier , and Ian's notes for the canceled US Selenim book were never publicly shared until 2001, but I wonder if any of the US version influenced the French. For example, the US version posited in the rulebook that the Selenim's tombs were precursors to the Nephilim's Stasis, and Serpent Moon had Selenim in suspended animation, then lo and behold the Yohual-Tecuhtlin in Exils are described as using pyramids and obsidian figurines as Stasis items! Perhaps most damningly, the Amerindian Wowakan are given rules for Chronicle of the Awakening -style Emotional Metamor...

In many Indo-European cultures, there are ancient myths of dueling groups of deities. The Aesir and Jotun in Norse myth, the Tuatha de Danann and Fomorians in Irish myth, the Asuras and Devas in Vedic myth, the Ahuras and Divs of Persian myth, etc. As confirmed in the quasi-official past life for ancient Ireland , and in the French, the Fomorians of Irish myth were Selenim (as well as a Hydrim metamorphosis inspired by them in Chronicle of the Awakenings ). So it stands to reason these others groups of opposing deities were based on the occult conflicts between Nephilim and Selenim. The Jotuns aka Ettins, the Fomorians, the Asuras, Divs, etc. Even the Titans, Giants and Daemons of Greco-Roman myth, or else involving themselves in socially accepted witch cults, mortuary cults, and cults that practiced human sacrifice. When dealing with past life eras that involve these kinds of dueling pantheons, then Selenim players have the option of selecting that as the identity of their Selenim PC ...

I have a few thoughts on the Jesus Incident in the game lore. For some background to get you up to speed... The US version So in the US rulebook, page 64–5 explains: In this context the Jesus incident took place. Reports of the events are muddy, having been obscured by Templars, the Church, and others in the time since they occurred. Even most Nephilim are not exactly sure what happened, or how.  Human, or perhaps more correctly Humanistic, history has a theory. According to them Jesus was a prophet who announced the coming of a spiritual kingdom. He delivered his message throughout Judea and was condemned by the Romans for attempting to spark civil war. He suffered the Roman torture of crucifixion.  Accepted religious history professes a different message. The Christian Church says that Jesus was the Messiah who had been announced in the Old Testament, that he is the Son of God, and that he came upon Earth to spread the Good News. During his life he accomplished numerous mira...

Ian Young's " A History of the Selenim " fails to account for the Unnamed Arcanum, as he admits. I present here a companion piece to his history, exploring the Unnamed Arcanum's perspective and exploits. This account is incomplete and will be revised as I continue my work on rules for Selenim. After the fall of Tarshish, the Selenim appeared for the first time within the living memory of the Nephilim. Everything before then is the subject of myth and rumor, such as the mythical Selenim Wars. During these wars, the Selenim led by a figure known only as the Devouring Messiah were supposedly responsible for the Toba catastrophe  (74,000 years ago!) before the Nephilim rescued humanity. However, no surviving Nephilim nor Selenim reliably bore witness to these events and their veracity is questionable. While the Cult of Lilith rose from the shadows to patronize nomadic conquerors and sacrificial cults across the Occident (i.e. Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, North A...

Although the Gamemaster's Companion  and Major Arcana lay out an overview of the setting's secret history and the Nephilim's beliefs about it, in my homebrew this shouldn't be taken as gospel. The way I see it, the accuracy of the secret history records get less and less reliable the further you go back. The earlier you go, the less Nephilim there are who date back to said period and are active to share details. The earliest incarnation era written so far, unofficially published but written by Nephilim freelancer Ian Young based on the GMC's history, is Tarshish in 10,000 BC . So that's basically the oldest that any PC could be. Beyond that, the secret history devolves into rumors and hearsay. Some initiates of the Major Arcana share elaborate stories of the Saurian Empire under Mu who raised the Black Moon and were defeated by the KaIm ancestors of the Nephilim during the Cretaceous Period, but there's really no evidence that any of this is accurate. There...

The Onirim are distrusted by other Nephilim due to a variety of factors (see Nephilim rulebook p26), which I reiterate here and add some of my house rules too. The Lunatic Nature The Lunatic Nature ruled by the Moon is very... not conductive to good and honest interactions (see “Emotional Natures” sidebar, Major Arcana p40). This is shown in the personality Traits of the Snake, Baba Yaga and Baen Shide (see  Chronicle of the Awakenings  p70, 72-5). This doesn’t mean Onirim can’t be trusted compatriots, but their nature makes them unreliable weirdos by default. The Ophidians Many Onirim metamorphoses are variations of the Snake. These include the Lamia, Medusa, and Naga. These scaly metamorphoses are collectively known as the Ophidians. They are looked down upon because of their painful resemblance to the Saurians, who nearly destroyed the world 65 million years ago. [However, not all Nephilim necessarily know the stories of the Kaïm or believe these stories to be true. So thi...