Chaosium Digest Volume 6, Number 10 Date: Sunday, June 5, 1994 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: Announcement: Nephilim (Chaosium) NEPHILIM Nephilim History & Philosophy (Sam Shirley) NEPHILIM Review: Beaumains #4 (Shannon Appel) PENDRAGON Index: Wyrm's Footnotes (Shannon Appel) MISC -------------------- From: chaosium@netcom.com (Chaosium) Subject: Announcement: Nephilim Product: Nephilim Authors: Frederic Weil and Fabrice Lamidey Cover Artist: Franck Achard and Jean Bey Description: "In those times, when men grew and multiplied after Adam had left Eden, the Nephilim roamed the Earth." -- GENESIS 6:4 There is a dark side to our everyday universe, an unwritten reality which has been hidden for millennia. Maybe you have unwittingly encountered this reality. Already you are familiar with such worlds as magic, alchemy, and kabbala. This August, Chasoium will be releasing a new roleplaying game, HEPHILIM. With NEPHILIM we invite you to look deeper, to see behind the scene, find the canvas under the paint. Discover a twilight world of old alchemists bent over their ovens, of kabbalists tracing their pentacles, of magicians deciphering their books of spells. This is a world concealed behind the false respectability of wealthy neighborhoods, non-profit associations, flourishing businesses, and historical monuments. A world where secret societies wage unseen war upon each other for political control or control of one of the five magic fields. A world of mystery and occult magic, which originates in the characters that you play: the Nephilim. YOUR CHARACTER Your character is one of the Nephilim, with a past more ancient than man, who uses magical powers and who helped found the major occult arts. You are but a spirit and since the Deluge, have lost your body and have been forced to inhabit human bodies during different times in history. Perhaps you witnessed the sack of Troy; contributed to the fall of Rome; spied upon the crowning of Charlemagne; initiated Napoleon to the mysteries of the secret society of the Carbonari; or even encouraged the crimes of Jack the Ripper. In the 1990's the Nephilim waken. Your character also rises, rediscovering the mastery of the five magical forces of fire, air, water, earth, and moon. Your character is a spirit who takes possession of a new human body, a simulacrum. You import your own personality and the skills that you have acquired during previous incarnations and now learn how to use those of your simulacrum. Then begins the journey you have already lived through many times in the past -- the physical metamorphosis of the human body and the beginning of the long quest for Agartha. AGARTHA Agartha is the spiritual and physical fulfillment of the Nephilim. It corresponds to a lost state, where the Nephilim has no need of a body, where he or she can directly manipulate the five magical forces, or fields, and can guide other Nephilim in becoming the prince of the Nephilims' families (the greater arcana). Your character possesses a great sum of occult knowledge, and knows many of the great secrets of our world. You have become an Initiate, a Master, an Enlightened One. You now belong to the unknown superiors who secretly govern Earth. Before you can reach this exalted state of accomplishment, each Nephilim must undergo several stages. You must acquire occult knowledge; must uncover great secrets; accustom yourself to this strange world; and rediscover old volumes stacked away in museums within which are consigned spells. You must undo the plans hatched by secret societies who work to both destroy the Nephilim and to seize control of the world. You might find old companions or members of your family, compute new conjunctions, abandon yourself to rites of magic, alchemy, or kabbala, -- anything to increase your occult knowledge and skills in order to reach Agartha. You must endure what humans vulgarly call adventures (actually initiations) as said in one of the best known hermetic texts, the Emerald Tablet. Each Nephilim knows the origin of his race, but he has learned it during his various incarnations, step by step, inscribed on forgotten papyrus or engraven on stone tablets in forgotten languages. This fragmentation of history makes its understanding difficult. HISTORY OF THE NEPHILIM "I have at last found proof of the existence of great civilizations more ancient than us Hellene: Atlantis of the Egyptian priests, the continent Mu of the poets. What new riches to discover, to visit, to tell." -- THE SECRET BOOKS OF THE INQUEST OF HERODOTUS -- New Hades, National Library One of the first great secrets that the Nephilim learns is that history, as conceived by the majority of humans, is a lie or more politely, an illusion. Most terrestrial events have been caused by the magical world of the Nephilim. History books only describe the surface of things, lived by individuals and societies unable to comprehend their true implications, or maybe simply refusing to face the truth. Furthermore, secret societies fabricate false historic and scientific truths to protect their influence and activities, and these are taught later as truth. One example of this is Darwin's theory of natural selection. During his numerous travels, Darwin was initiated to a little-known masonic lodge. A particular cell of the free-masons, this lodge was dedicated to bringing together humans and Nephilim. When he learned of and understood the nature of the Nephilim, he destroyed his notes which lead to the location of lost Atlantis, afraid of betraying the Nephilim to the other secret societies. Aided by a Nephilim, he then built a coherent, believable system of biological evolution which enabled him to threaten his sworn enemy, the Church (and particularly the Templar Survival), and to protect those that he called the `miracle of selection,' the Nephilim. ********* We are interested in your thoughts on this new game system. Please feel free to contact us at Chaosium. ********* Stock#: 3100 Retail Price: $21.95 Page Count: approx. 144 pages Shipping Date: August 1994 ISBN: 1-56882-023-2 Chaosium Inc 950-A 56th Street Oakland CA 94608-3129 510-547-7681 AOL Screenname: Chaosium Internet: chaosium@aol.com -------------------- From: chaosium@netcom.com (Sam Shirley) Subject: Nephilim History & Philosophy System: Nephilim [this article was originally posted to rec.games.frp.misc] Ok, to clear up some rumors and speculation about Nephilim: --The French Connection: Nephilim was originally published in France by Multisim, where it appears to be one of the more popular RPGs. Multisim licensed our game system, and used their own world setting. They asked if we wanted to publish it. We looked at it and decided it was a cool game. We're treating it as any other submission, where the French game forms the foundation of what we're going to publish. Since it's already been published in France, we have the opportunity to add our publishing experience to their game design, so some elements of the game will be different from the French original. --Nephilim Compared to White Wolf's World of Darkness: Nephilim differs in fundamental ways from White Wolf's World of Darkness. The dominant mythology of White Wolf's world setting is a metaphor for the ego's fear of annihilation, hence the heavy darkness and death themes; the World of Darkness is the world of Samsara. For the ego, illumination (because it requires the ego's death) is an unattainable goal. Vampires ARE the ego, with no knowledge of the soul, holding on even beyond death, and satisfying their need for the balancing soul by draining the life essence from others. This is also why the magic of Mage: The Ascension is totally unmagical, since magic is the realm of the soul, and the ego cannot see it, being aware of only the dimmest reflections. Mages in Mage: the Ascension are egotists of immense proportions, attempting to sway the consensus trance of the masses to meet with their own pre- conceptions in order to alter reality. Actually, reality is already here and doing fine on its own, we're just too busy ignoring it. The illusion is not out there but here in our heads -- we make it ourselves. If the zen master asks you whether the stick he is holding is real, say yes, otherwise he'll hit you over the head with it. Magic IS paradox, and logic is not truth. Nephilim approaches the metaphor of enlightenment from another perspective, from the viewpoint of the soul reaching down to the ego, not the ego looking up. Metaphorically, Nephilim are the spiritual self, the magical side of a person that awakens when one first glimpses the infinite. Nephilim is a game of the soul's journey out of darkness into light, of the gradual illumination of the whole person. The Nephilim and its Simulacra (host body) represent the yin and yang of mindful awareness. The Nephilim is awareness and being, and the Simulacra is mindfulness and doing. Joined together they are "becoming", or directed change. Think of the metaphor of a boat, where the Simulacra is the ego, the boat; and the Nephilim is the religious awakening, the pilot. The current confusion between these games, I believe, stems from our culture's propensity to relegate anything from the vast universe of non-Christian religion into the un-explored dumping hole of "The Occult," without any deeper inspection. What is occluded is so much larger than what is not; several games can explore occult themes and still differ greatly. And on a purely game-play level, the game activities are greatly divergent. The metaphors discussed above are just the game-design underpinnings. For all this lofty philosophy, Nephilim is a game of street-level action. The action in Nephilim is driven by the Nephilim's struggles against the human secret societies that are trying to destroy or entrap them on the one hand, and on the other hand by their search for Agartha (spiritual enlightenment) which will free them from the sorrows of this world and the eternal cycle of re-incarnation. The Nephilim search for arcane tomes and items to help them in their struggles, and try to find other Nephilim or sympathetic humans with whom they can ally. And at times they must act against the secret societies to thwart their plots. Sam Shirley Chaosium Inc. -------------------- From: Shannon Appel Subject: Review: Beaumains #4 System: Pendragon Last week, I received a copy of Beaumains #4 in the mail. I'm happy to say that it continues to be of quite high quality (see V2.11 and V3.2 for some notes on earlier issues). Here's a quick run-down of what you can find in the newest issue. PENDRAGON BEFORE ARTHUR, by Heidi Kaye. An excellent article detailing Britain before Arthur. This articles provides a lot of good flavor and many ideas for running a campaign in the earliest phase of the Pendragon chronology. THE ADVENTURE OF THE CASTLE OF THE CURSED ISLE, by Tim Harris. An interesting adventure set in 515, centering around the final battle between Sir Balin and Sir Balan. A SAINT TO QUEST FOR, by Jackie Duckworth. Some short notes on Christian knights and a quest. THE UNCONQUERED SUN, by Lewis Griffith. My favorite of the articles, this one details the religion of Mithraism and give some ideas for incorporating it into Pendragon Britain. A PENDRAGON GLOSSARY, PART 2, by Ian Jenkinson. G-M of a Glossary of Pendragon people. REVIEWS, by Misc. Three reviews of Fourth Edition Pendragon are included, as well as reviews of Lionheart and Robin Hood. (Much of this previously appeared in V3.10 and V4.9 of The Chaosium Digest.) THE ADVENTURE OF THE FIVE LADIES, by Heidi Kaye. An adventure in which five knights are tested by five magical ladies. (This previously appeared in V3.7 of The Chaosium Digest.) NPC KNIGHTS, by Shannon Appel. Details of two interesting knights, The Mirrored Knight and Sir Madog. (This previously appeared in V4.1 of The Chaosium Digest.) DOGS & HUNTING, by Michael Trout. Some extended rules on hunting, with lots of details on different types of dogs and the different phases of the hunt. Overall, Beaumains #4 has lots of interesting articles. Some of the articles have previously appeared in the Digest, but Beaumains is still _well_ worth picking up. If you'd like more info on Beaumains, drop a line to: Gareth Jones 69 Atherley Road Shirley Southampton SO1 5DT England Shannon -------------------- From: Shannon Appel Subject: Index: Wyrm's Footnotes System: Misc This is a frament from the Wyrm's Footnotes index that I recently completed. If you'd like to get the whole index, you can either ftp it from soda.berkeley.edu (where it's available in the /pub/rpg-index directory), or watch rec.games.frp.archives. FROM THE WYRM'S FOOTNOTES INDEX VERSION 1.00 [issues 1-14,RQC] ELRIC BOARD GAME [Chaosium] Rules, Official Questions & Answers: Elric Questions and Suggestions, by Greg Stafford #5 pg 21-23 Rules, Variants: Elric Suggestions, by Mark Colborn #5 pg 24-25 Elric Variants, by Art Turney #4 pg 43-44 ENGAGE & DESTROY [Chaosium] Rules, Official Questions & Answers: Changes, Clarifications & Additions, by Chris Kurzadkowski #10 pg 26-28 FANTASY, GENERAL Games, Board: The Battle of Dunstop Castle #3 pg 27-34 KING ARTHUR'S KNIGHTS [Chaosium] Rules, Misc: King Arthur's Knights Expansion, by Stephan Abbott #8 pg 15-16 Rules, Official Questions & Answers: King Arthur's Knights Expansion, by Stephan Abbott #8 pg 15-16 LORDS OF THE MIDDLE SEA [Chaosium] Background: Notes on the Physical Rationale, by Lynn Willis #5 pg 15 Rules, Official Questions & Answers: Errata, by Steve Lortz #6 pg 43 Errata #9 pg 15 PERILOUS ENCOUNTERS [Chaosium] Rules, Official Questions & Answers: Errata, by Steve Lortz #5 pg 40 THIEVES' WORLD [Chaosium] Advice, Players: Outworld Characters in TW, by Eric Goldberg #13 pg 29 TROY [Chaosium] Rules, Official Questions & Answers: Troy: Errata & Questions, by Don Dupont #4 pg 31-33 Wanderlore, by Greg Stafford #3 pg 9-10 -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial discussion forum for Chaosium's Games. To submit an article, mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu. The old digests are archived on soda.berkeley.edu in the directory /pub/chaosium, and may be retrieved via FTP.