My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

In astrology, the zodiac signs  are ruled by particular planets  and divided into  three decans per sign  as shown on the figure below:  In the French 3e supplement  Codex des Ar-Kaïm , the concept of Decans is introduced as an additional way to define a character's personality. Each House has its own emotional nature, further modified by the character's Decan. All Houses have three Decans, except for Serpentarius that has none. In other words, the combination of House and Decan serves a similar role to the Nephilim's Metamorphosis. In the US version, this would be represented by BRP's Passions (or Personality Traits as they're labeled in Chronicle of the Awakenings ). I'm still trying to figure out how to integrate Passions into the Ar-Kaïm rules, as Ar-Kaïm lack metamorphoses but the concept overlaps heavily with the Essences mechanic (i.e. their magic points). Ar-Kaïm display environmental manifestations as a result of their Essence values and ...

In this post I’m gonna present my ideas for adapting the Emotional Metamorphoses mechanics from Chronicle of the Awakenings  (p56-8) to the d20 system in Nephilim: Revelation , with some ideas taken from Ex Oculis . In the NR core rules In NR, Metamorphosis Transformations are noted with adverbs from Not (1) to Very (5) like other Characteristics. The associated adjective is Hidden: Not Hidden to Very Hidden. Mortals who encounter the Nephilim test their Solar-Ka against Hidden on the Universal Resolution Table (hereafter URT) to glimpse the Metamorphosis.  These Characteristics have associated “bullets”, a line of 10 per level.  When the Characteristic overflows with "bullets," then any these are erased and Hidden increases by a level. When the line is empty and loses "bullets", then the Hidden decreases by a level. The characters  gains  bullets for acting  against  his elemental nature, thus becoming more Hidden, and  loses  bullets for ac...

In the French rules, it’s noted that Selenim cannot Assuage the residual Solar-Ka of ghosts. Neither can any black summons: at most, some can disperse it. Why is this? The French rules don’t give any fluff explanation, but I have one of my own. The Rosicrucians, based on the writings of Paracelsus and Freud, divided the human being into three parts. These are the body, the anima and the logos . The logos is the soul, which vanishes into the afterlife upon death. The anima remains within the corpse as it decays, retaining an impression of memories and personality. The Necromancer speak with and manipulate the anima . While composed of Solar-Ka that is mutually drawn to the Black Moon, it lacks some essential quality allowing Selenim to refract it into Black Moon-Ka. Selenim can only sublimate the Solar-Ka of the logos . Some believe that ghosts aren’t the souls of the dead but just echoes thereof. They’re not people , according to this line of logic. All but the most selfish and mali...

For purposes of assisting myself and any other GMs interested, I collated a list of all the Elemental Beasts published officially and semi-officially on the table below: Cʀᴇᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ Eʟᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ Eᴍᴏᴛɪᴏɴ Nephilim rulebook (pg. 220-224) Basilisk  Earth  Cruel  Flame Snake Fire  Unpredictable  Ghost Wyrm Moon  Vengeful  Ghruuul  Earth/Fire Destructive  Gorgon  Moon  Private  Gryphon  Air/F...

What follows are my current latest musings on Assuaging and Entropy, largely based on 3e. My rules for Assuaging are much the same as that given in  Ian’s notes , with the following adjustments: If the Selenim is Assuaging the same emotion as one of their Emotional Traits, they add that Trait as a bonus to their Ka value. This is similar to fulfilling a Trait (see Chronicle of the Awakenings p58). The modifier for familiarity varies between −20%, −10%, +0%, +10%, or +20%. Each step takes progressively more effort. Reducing the −20% penalty for a complete unknown to −10% only requires a few minutes of casual conversation, while any bonus will require months of interaction. (This bit is based on 5e.) The points drained/transferred are equal the emotion’s Intensity Potential, not one-tenth of the Selenim’s Ka. This generally ranges from 0–5, e.g. from a coma patient to a fundamentalist witnessing a miracle. For a group of any size, multiply this value by 1.5 (rounded up). The Seleni...

These are my house rules for Selenim Assuaging, inspired by the French 1e–3e and incorporating the Selenim’s Metamorphosis Traits. The format is derived from Ian’s  character creation rules . I consider Assuaging to be a form of Raw Magic (see my post on Raw Magic for details), but a couple of spells are presented that play into it. Assuaging These are the basic rules for draining Solar-Ka from mortals. STEP 1: The Selenim must find a mortal to Assuage, the more emotional the better and preferably exhibiting an emotion she shares in her Metamorphosis. The GM should assign the mortal’s current emotional state an Intensity POT ranging from 0–7 (to determine randomly roll 1d8−1).  Examples of Intensity POT: 0: Comatose. 1–2: Watching a b-movie. Deep sleep. 3: Amorous. Dreaming sleep. 4–5: Won the lottery. 5–7: Fundamentalist witnessing a miracle. See the table “The Analogical Charge” from my post on recharging ch’awe Ar-Kaïm-style for further examples. STEP 1A: The Selenim may ...

During one of my many forays into house rules, I came up with the idea of giving each Ka-element its own pool of Ch’awe and having characters charge it based on other criteria instead of the standard 1/hour recovery rate. This was inspired by the French 3e, in which Ar-Kaïms worked this way. Ar-Kaïms had multiple ways of charging the pools: spontaneous charge, analogical charge, and magical charge. I’ll recap these below and adapt them in terms of BRP rules. You can use them for Ar-Kaïms only or all characters if desired! Spontaneous (Astrological) Charge: At the start of every astrological day (i.e. sunrise) the character recharges a number of points equal to half (rounded up) the daily astrological bonus (if any) to their Dominant Ka. In the month of the character’s Zodiac Sign, then the character recharges points equal to the daily astrological bonus to his Dominant Ka instead. These points are distributed as the player sees fit. Analogical (Sympathetic) Charge: Once per Ka-eleme...

In this post, I make some connections between the personality trait rules and the emotional natures rules. The various emotions can be assigned elemental associations, which can be useful as a roleplaying tool and potentially have mechanical effects. Emotional Natures The “Emotional Natures” sidebar on Major Arcana p40 lists correspondences between the humors, the Ka-elements, and specific emotions. These are directly comparable to the Personality Trait List section in  Chronicle of the Awakenings p59-64. To quote: CHOLERIC , or bilious, natures are ruled by Fire. The Choleric Nature encompasses anger, suspicion, vindictiveness, vengeance, lust, cruelty, aggression, pride, rebellion, recklessness, energy, honor, spirituality, and inspiration. PHLEGMATIC natures are ruled by Air. The Phlegmatic Nature encompasses calmness, skepticism, sleepiness, pragmatism, modesty, trust, curiosity, meditation, and laziness. SANGUINE natures are ruled by Water. The Sanguine Nature encompasses ha...

In the  Nephilim  rulebook the metamorphs are classified into  material  or  spiritual  nomenclature (also described as yin and yang , respectively) based on whether it symbolizes a primitive or intellectual aspect of its Dominant Ka. This was noted in-universe by the fictitious "Fludd's law": there are always two paired and opposing metamorphs for each ka-element, one material and one spiritual (see "Creating a New Metamorphosis", Nephilim rulebook p30). However, both the rulebook and the supplement Chronicle of the Awakenings presented exceptions to this "law." In the French version, metamorphs were classified by two axes of “ humors ”: four mutable humors and six cardinal humors . The four mutable humors corresponded directly to the four sensible qualities of cold , dry , hot , and wet . The mutable humors weren't linked to any particular elements, contrary to the sensible qualities. Later French books would introduce examples of all four fo...

Altho the line was canceled before the Selenim supplement could be drafted and released,  Ian Young’s surviving notes  provide a sufficient foundation for me to devise my own rules for it. Essentially, Selenim had an emotional metamorphosis like Nephilim but it represented and evoked the emotions they preferred to assuage rather than their own. These rules are going to differ from that proposed by Ian’s notes. Originally the Selenim’s metamorphosis comprised of five emotional traits would’ve been linked to an Imago, a construct of Black Moon-Ka that invisibly loomed behind its owner like a malignant shadow. While interesting, it’s clunky to have two ratings for each pair of emotional trait and aspect.  Furthermore, in my opinion it doesn’t really make much sense for Selenim to differ so much from Nephilim this way. The Selenim’s magic is based on BMK being ephemeral due to lacking its own planet, right? Nephilim suffer a similar ephemerality due to the magic fields being ...