My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

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...

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  a prior post  I mentioned relict athanors from third edition. I wanted to give an update on that, as since I wrote that I translated  The Gamemaster's Book  that provided more details. Basically, the athanor develops sapience as the alchemist progresses through the circles. It remains benign, and a master alchemist can transfer the athanor's Ka into a golem to create a familiar, or even into a living human body! If the alchemist disobeys certain limits, the spirit may become malignant and attempt to possess the alchemist's simulacrum. It cannot actually kill the alchemist, as this would kill it too, but it can become quite troublesome.  I read a French fanbook on alchemy collating and expanding the various canonical alchemy traditions in an unofficial revision/fork of third edition. (For reference, the fanbook was written by a Hubert "Ouroboros" Terrieux. It is divided into three files:  alchemy rules ,  western formulae ,  spagyrie artifacts ...

In a prior post I discussed how the French version liked to classify Metamorphoses by qualities like hot, cold, wet and dry. In any case, the metamorphoses aren't limited to any particular genders. Although some metamorphoses are inspired by mythological beings with particular genders, there's no rule that the Simulacrum must match that gender. So you can have a Satyress (Satyr), Tritoness (Triton), Undino (Undine), Dada Yaga (Baba Yaga), Fear Sidhe (Bean Sidhe), and so on, regardless of the gendered flavor text. Recently I discovered an old French netbook of metamorphoses , and what struck me upon reading was that it associated metamorphoses with specific genders (of the Simulacrum), neutral Ka-elements, and opposed Ka-elements. I recount these on the table below: Dominant Ka Metamorphosis Simulacrum's Sex Major Neutral Major Opposed Pyrim Djinn Man or Woman Earth Water Pyrim Phoenix ...

Going over the rules for third edition, there doesn't seem to be any concrete guidelines for creating Simulacra. The Players' Book includes some sample Simulacra, and I've found some fan-made lists ( here and here ), but the books never seemed to actually provide Simulacrum creation rules. Fortunately, I've been able to invent my own based on the Codex Ar-Kaïm , the GM Screen , and Nephilim: Initiation . Mortals have three sets of nine Characteristics: Social Characteristics , Physical Characteristics , and Solar-Ka . The Social Characteristics are Education (measured by the adjective Learnèd ), Riches (by Wealthy ) and Relationships (by Sociable ). The Physical Characteristics are measured by the adjectives Agile , Charming , Enduring , Intelligent and Strong . Solar-Ka is measured by the adjective Initiated . The five levels of Characteristics are measured by adverbs: Not (1), Low (2), Enough (3), "..." (4), and Very (5). Not indicates a disability of som...

In the third edition, the Simulacrum’s social attributes were changed to use the new Characteristics mechanics. These were Education ([adverb] Learnèd), Relationships ([adverb] Sociable), and Riches ([adverb] Wealthy). In this post, I want to go over my ideas for handling wealth and purchases. As with other Characteristics, Wealthy is measured from Not (1) to Very (5). Rather than counting the currency, the measurement is an abstract composite of income, credit rating and savings. Not Wealthy means the character is broke and homeless, while Very Wealthy means the character is listed on Forbes’ Billionaires List. Likewise, purchases are abstract. To make a purchase, the character makes a Wealthy check at Difficulty equal to the item’s Expensive attribute. This ranges from Not Expensive to Very Expensive. If the check fails, then the character cannot buy the item at that time. A Fumble reduces Wealthy by one level, which must be regained in play. Riches are useful for funding the party’s...

As I've mentioned before, Montgomery's blog provided a response to the "possession problem" that seemingly kept players from getting into Nephilim : On the other hand, the core principle of the game is accurate to the Western Mystery Tradition, which has always held that humanity cannot save itself.  Bound to the animal world of matter, only those who form a partnership with a higher spiritual power can become inhuman and ascend to higher reality;   ...The mutation of one’s deepest structure is the only thing that matters for the purposes of higher knowledge. This knowledge, which is at the same time wisdom and power, is essentially nonhuman; it can be achieved by following a way that presupposes the active and effective overcoming of the human condition...  Julius Evola, Introduzione alla Magia   To this end the Tradition has long embraced the principle of uniting with an alien, spiritual being;   (there) is an auxiliary divine, or semi-divine (daimô...

Over in the US version's fandom back in the day, a big deal was made over the Nephilim being body snatchers and how this made them unsympathetic. Furthermore, the role of the Simulacrum and the Nephilim's relationship to his Solar-Ka remained woefully undeveloped beyond "his family becomes concerned and stages an intervention that you have to escape." I agree to a large extent, which is why in my campaigns the Nephilim are hybrid entities akin to Star Trek 's trill, the Avatar from Avatar: The Last Airbender , Leto II from God Emperor of Dune , etc.  But one old recurring proposal I disagree with is the idea that Nephilim need to balance the mundane and magical sides of their life, or else suffer increased Shouit and other risks. The simple fact of the matter is that 1) their advancing metamorphoses make it increasingly difficult to blend in unless they're Hanged Men, and 2) dealing with mundane minutiae is boring when Chaosium tried to advertise play as a mix...

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...

An interesting idea I saw proposed on a fan campaign blog was introducing stereotypical vampires to Nephilim . Now, the blog itself operated on false assumption that Selenim drank blood and so on, ignorant of the original French rules. But that doesn't prevent the ideas from coexisting. The Selenim themselves are psychic emotional vampires: they feed on emotions in proximity. They aren't harmed by sunlight or anything special, but a simple bullet is sufficient to kill one. They don't age, so they unlike the reincarnating Nephilim they can live across the periods of history in continuous physical presence. According to Codex des Selenim , they can even have children in the usual fashion and some of these children are fated to incarnate as natural Selenim one day (for reference, natural Selenim incarnate when a mortal encounters a proto-Selenim in the lower planes while having a nightmare or near-death experience, rather than being former Nephilim). Through a Spell, Necroman...

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...

What follows is how disembodied and incarnated Immortals work in my campaigns, how they’re born, their ecology, sentience, etc.  Nephilim What is a Nephilim? A Nephilim is a fusion of a human being and an elemental spirit of the five fields, creating a microcosm of the Solar system that allows the Super-Ego to emerge and pursue Agartha.  What is that elemental?  Every proto-Nephilim is born from a Nexus during a Grand Enthronement when the stars are right. The element of the Enthronement determines its Dominant Ka. The conditions are so precise that this is impossible to predict more than a week in advance.  By itself, the proto-Nephilim is a beast little different than others born from the magic fields. The key difference is that it is composed of the five elements at once, when other elementals rarely exceed one. It looks like its metamorphosis fully manifest in Khaiba, but may display a few curiously human features and a seemingly higher intelligence than most ot...

What is a Nephilim? What are the Ego, Super-Ego, and Id? What is the nature of an elemental essence outside a body? What is the relationship between Nephilim and elemental beasts? How do the secret societies view Nephilim? How do Selenim and Ar-KaIm differ? Who were the KaIm and how do they differ? Long story short, I've tweaked Immortals to no longer be body snatchers because I want to make it easier for players to get into the game and sympathize with the PCs. That seems to be much easier when the PCs aren't body snatchers. See Montgomery's blog posts  here , here , here , here and here . Each Immortal is a fusion of a mortal human being, body and soul, with an elemental essence or spirit. Each has a psychic apparatus of three interacting agents: the elemental Id, the human Ego, and the immortal Super-Ego. The elemental's Id provides the Immortal's Personality Traits aka Emotional Traits, which the Immortal must understand and master in order to reach Agartha. Th...

The Loa are Immortals of the Afro-Caribbean Tradition , mentioned in passing by the US rulebook. In the French version they’re barely more detailed and most of their lore focuses on the Haitian Selenim. What we’re told is the following: There are three nations of Loa: the Loa Rada , the Loa Petro , and the Loa Gédé . They rule the island of Haiti, home to a permanent, powerful, and massive Nexus. The Loa of all nations are able to temporarily incarnate in voodooists who invoke them. This is essentially a Summoning ritual, except even mortals cast it! Loa Gédé The Loa Gédé are Selenim and differ only culturally from those in Europe. They came to Haiti by exploiting the European settlers and Assuaged the suffering of the slaves. They encountered the Haitian Nephilim, the Loa living in Ginen, grouped into different nations based on their cultures and arrival dates. The Loa offered their services to mortal supplicants, invoked through invocations to temporarily possess them. The Selenim d...

In this post I explain the spiritual meaning of the Nephilim’s pentacle and the Ka-elements themselves. Although linked to specific game statistics, like Fire to Strength and Moon to Charisma, all of the elements have physical, mental and spiritual correspondences and manifestations.  It’s not one or the other . You don’t have to posit different cultures all have different elements to explain varying beliefs. Real occultism isn’t supposed to be accurate in the game world anyway, but the result of information leaks and cargo cults by muggles. Liam Routt gave a good explanation in  his old FAQ : (I’m putting it between horizontal rules because blogger has issues with formatting) The Spiritual Pentagram Traditionally, the pentagram represents our spiritual, mental, emotional and physical composition: Fire Doing—Fire is energy, the power to act. But it is pure action, undirected by thought or feeling. Air Thinking—Air is thinking, ideation, mental activity, but it can...

In the original rules and setting, the Nephilim are elemental spirits that possess hapless human hosts they call Simulacra. Whenever the Simulacrum was possessed by some other elemental, such as a ruptured summoning or a Necromancy spell, then the Nephilim was ejected from the host. The astrological Nephilim aka Ar-KaIm were awakened humans, so when they were possessed their soul wasn't forced out. Otherwise, the Nephilim could only be forced out by killing the Simulacrum. In my campaigns, all Nephilim fusional beings formed by the fusion of an elemental beast's magic and a human soul's awareness, will and identity. Basically like the Ar-KaIm, but with Pentacles and Occult Sciences instead of Hearts and Talents. So whenever a Nephilim is possessed, then their soul remains trapped in their body… usually. There is no way to sever the fusion without causing death or at least severe spiritual damage, unless it was a temporary incarnation to begin with. The terminal stages of Kh...