My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

As explained in Major Arcana , there are several ranks of membership and non-membership in the “Western” Tradition (or as I call it: the Bohemian Tradition). To reiterate these and add my own clarifications: Adopters : the majority of Bohemians are Adopters, also known Adoptees and "outer members". They have self-identified with or "adopted" an Arcanum as their path to Agartha, but only hold exoteric or outer membership. They fraternize with and perform favors for other members, but aren't trusted with the same level of knowledge or responsibilities as Initiates. Initiates : a minority of Bohemians are Initiates or "inner members". They have been initiated into their Arcanum. They have access to greater occult knowledge, such as Initiate Spells, but are obligated to perform tasks for higher ranking initiates. Orphans : Orphans have dropped out of their former Arcanum, been expelled from a stricter one like Strength or The Hermit, or are one of the 1-in...

In the French version, casting a summoning spell required either a focus or an inscription containing that spell. In both cases, the summoner needed to draw a summoning circle in which to call the entity. Both third and fifth editions introduced an additional rule for a pact , which tied into the French version's different rapport systems. In third edition The Players' Book , summoning an entity was a single roll rather than the two rolls of previous editions. The summoning rules stipulated that entities had a rapport with their summoner. Their level of positivity and hostility were rated respectively as the statistics Allié and Féal , translating to "allied" and "serfish" respectively. Being polite and respectful to the entity increased its  Allié  and decreased its  Féal , while being cruel and dishonest did the opposite. Whether it was friendly or hostile determined the severity of failing the summoning test: friendly entities inflicted inconvenient but n...

In the third edition rules, Characteristics and Difficulties (replacing the Potentials of prior editions) are rated on a five level scale noted in adverbs:  Pas  (1),  Peu  (2),  Assez  (3),  « … »  (4), and  Très  (5), translating to English as Not (1), Low (2), Enough (3), "…" (4), and Very (5). In real world terms, these respectively represent disability, below average, average, above average, and the peak of human potential. Characteristics and Difficulties are then noted with adjectives: e.g. Dominant Ka is measured using the adjective Initiated. The scaling applies to both Physical Characteristics (Agile, Charming, Endurant, Intelligent, and Strong) and Social Characteristics (Wealth, Education, Relationships).  Since the book was written for a French audience, the Education Characteristic (measured with the adjective Learnèd, corresponding to  academic degrees ) uses the French education system as its basis. This gives ...

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...

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 Nephilim: Revelation , the French third edition, the Occult Sciences got some new jargon for their practitioners and spells. These were: Occult Science  Keyword Practitioner  Spells Magic Intuition  Mage Sortileges Kabbalah  Relation Kabbalist Invocations  Alchemy  Construction  Alchemist  Formulae Each Occult Science had some further jargon specific to it, the "symbolic and social", including titles for each circle, colors, and attributes. The third edition structured these after the medieval tradesmen system of Apprentice, Companion (Journeyman) and Master. E.g. an Apprentice Mage was titled a Disciple, and one with mastery in Lower Magic was ranked as a Master Disciple. Technique Title Color Attribute Lower Magic Disciple ...

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...

A key point of contention in the US fandom was how to handle incarnation . Even in the French fandom, some people pointed out that the Nephilim were really  quite monstrous  and the Major Arcana were totes evil ! (The US version dramatically toned them down, and still players couldn't handle it!) One of my inspirations for revising Nephilim was Andrew Montgomery's series of articles on the game: part one , part two , part three , session zero and session one .  Rather than elemental spirits possessing hapless human hosts for which they feel only contempt, I interpret Nephilim as composite entities composed of an elemental pentacle orbiting a human soul (Sol) in a microcosm of the Solar System. The elemental spirit is driven by instinct no differently than other elemental beasts, but through incarnation it benefits from the human soul's identity, will and awareness. The human host benefits from a feeling of completeness, a new purpose and meaning in life. From this a...