My Nephilim Occult RPing Blog

The Ar-Kaïm were introduced in the third edition of the French version, Nephilim: Revelation . Although they received their rules in this edition, they existed in the lore as far back as the first edition's reference to new Nephilim being born from nexuses. In second edition, this reference was revised as referring to "astrological Nephilim," who are different from the "symbolic" Nephilim that are usually meant. Rather than a Pentacle of the five elements, they may possess all eight Ka, including Solar, Black Moon and Orichalc. The Ar-Kaïm were introduced as an option for beginner players, as their backstory was far shorter than that of the Nephilim. Ar-Kaïm only started being born as of 1900 and could only reincarnate within their own descendants within their current simulacrum's lifetime, so they weren't as involved in the occult history like Nephilim and Selenim. An Ar-Kaïm PC knew about as much as a beginner player. Ar-Kaïm didn't learn Occult Sc...

In this post, following parts one , point five , and two , I will compare the US version and offer my own ideas. The planned US version The planned Selenim supplement for the US version was cancelled before it could even be drafted, but some notes survived . These were based on the first edition French rules, so they lacked any innovations from later supplements or editions. Altho the notes are no substitute for complete rules, they do provide an overview of what the changes would've been. Personality Traits The US version had introduced Personality Traits in Chronicle of the Awakenings , and the Selenim rules would've integrated this into their Imago rules. Selenim had five Emotional Traits not unlike Nephilim, but these represented the emotions they preferred to Assuage. The Imago would have five Aspects, each linked to an Emotional Trait, and the Aspect itself represented and evoked that emotion. Although no rules were provided, presumably the Emotional Trait would've pl...

Chaosium's Nephilim setting is heavily altered from the French version. It would be very hard to recap the French setting and compare the two, so I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to explain my homebrew. I've decided to make a number of changes to Chaosium's setting for my homebrew setting. The major changes are: The paredrus The nature of the Nephilim has been changed from body-snatching parasites to higher selves created by the union of a human being and an elemental paredrus . All human souls, as well as all  paredri , were originally part of the House of Guf. Awakening as a Nephilim reminds them of this: it is a revelatory and transcendent experience. By itself, the paredrus is a mostly instinctive elemental beast driven by its passions. It is composed of a pentacle of the five elements, contrasting it against other elemental beasts that have only one or two. Likewise, the qualities of awareness, identity and will come from the human soul: Sol, or Solar-K...

When I initially started this blog, I only had a very limited understanding on the French version. Subsequently I started transcribing and translating copies of the French books, consulting fansites, etc. This started in 2023 and as if this writing I have transcribed every book released for third edition, except for about a hundred pages of Al-Mugawir . I have also transcribed the entirety of the fourth edition release for comparison. I also intend to transcribe and translate the fanzines for third edition released by the Heritors of Babel fanclub, as these plug a lot of holes in the official releases.  While I was doing so, I went off half-cocked with ideas. Even now I'm still developing my own ideas. A number of my drafts are thus outdated and will need to be rewritten or discarded. Most of my past posts are probably incoherent ramblings in retrospect. At some point I will start working on pages (not posts) explaining my version of the rules and setting, but that will probably ha...

In the Major Arcana Exaltations table (which I reproduced in a prior post ), only some Arcana are associated with Zodiac signs. Twelve Arcana are associated with specific signs, while the remainder are associated with the planets/days (except Saturn/Saturday) and the elements (specifically Air, Fire, and Water). But couldn’t all of the Major Arcana be associated with Zodiac signs? Hypothetically, yes. On the figure below, the remaining ten Arcana are assigned to the twelve signs based on their planet. If the Arcanum's associated planet matches the ruling planet of the sign, then it is associated with it. These planetary associations come from the Golden Dawn's publications and include the outer planets beyond Saturn. As you can see, this leaves an asymmetry because there are twelve Zodiac signs and twenty-two Major Arcana. So The Magician (Mercury) and The Empress (Venus) are duplicated: The Magician appears under both Gemini and Virgo, The Empress under Libra and Taurus. Ther...

In a  prior post , I referenced the etymology of Archemy as deriving from archimastry . According to  another source ,  Archemy  comes  from  archè  (" principle") and  mia  (" one"). [Although I cannot find any corroborating sources for this latter part's etymology. Perhaps it derives from Italian mia  ("mine") or Latin monas  ("one; unity")?] Therefore meaning “the principle of unity”. Thus, Arkhémia is “the land of the principle of unity”, an apt name. In French fanzine Vision-Ka #2–3, a fan introduced an original occult science of Archemy designed specifically and solely for Ar-Kaïm. It displays noted similarities to Alchemy and is suggested as a path to Qiyas. The name is a play on Alchemy (which it resembles in some respects), Ar-Kaïm (who practice it) and archetypes (which informs how spells work). It involves invoking archetypes in order to get symbolically appropriate benefits, with the practice relying on physical cataly...

In the French version, the prima materia  ("primary matter, first matter") is a foundational principle of alchemy, though the details differ between editions. The name is taken from real alchemical texts, although the French writers interpret it quite liberally. Furthermore, the word materia in alchemical contexts doesn't simply refer to matter as we understand it, but to the created world (see A dictionary of western alchemy  by Jordan Stratford). The prima materia is the residual Ka present in all material objects, leftover from the original formation of the Earth and the movements of the magic fields. It is the origin of matter. Alchemy operates by acting on this prima materia , activating it and causing the desired magical effect. The alchemical substance generates its own miniature magic field, which resonates with the ambient magic fields of the Earth to produce the spell (so alchemy spells cannot be cast if the appropriate magic field isn't present). In editi...