Nephilim (role-playing game)

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Nephilim
Nephilim RPG Front Cover.jpg
Front cover of the Nephilim rulebook
Designers Fabrice Lamidey
Sam Shirley
Greg Stafford
Frédéric Weil
Publishers Chaosium
Publication1992 1st ed (French)
1994 1st ed (English)
Genres Occult, Modern, Historical
Systems Basic Role-Playing

Nephilim is a role-playing game about powerful elemental entities reincarnating into human beings. The players take the roles of these beings as they adapt to their newly symbiotic existence and learn the secrets hidden behind veils of obscurity and mysticism, seeking the path toward enlightenment, Agartha. The game contains much symbolism, primarily related to the Hermetic tradition.

Contents

History

The game was originally published in 1992 by the French company Multisim. The first edition used the Chaosium "Basic Role Playing" principles, and in 1994 was translated into English by Chaosium as well, with some additional research and writings by Kenneth Hite.

Since then, Nephilim had three other editions (all three in French, from Multisim/Mnémos) - the second edition was still akin to the BRP system while the third edition, Nephilim : La Révélation (The Revelation) uses a radically different, descriptor-based, system. It also introduces Ar-Kaïm and intuitive magic in the style of Mage: The Ascension (although based on elements and words instead of spheres). The fourth edition has its own unique system as well, using a scale ranging from 1 to 25 and difficulty multipliers to obtain percentages. Its core book as for the first two editions is centered on Nephilim. The fifth edition, called Nephilim Légende (Nephilim Legend) [1] was released in 2019 by Mnémos following a crowdfunding campaign on the Ulule platform. It brings a new system, based on a scale from 1 to 10, that is then multiplied by 10 to obtain a percentage. This new edition update the settings to the context of the late 2010s, re-published after update some older and unavailable sourcebooks as well as adding some new materials, like the Golden fleece campaign.

Setting

Nephilim is a game based on the idea that since ancient times there have been spirits without bodies who, given the right circumstances, can take over the body of a human and use it until it dies, then try to find another body. These spirits are the Nephilim.

Players get to choose one of five types of Nephilim. Within each of these types are different species of Nephilim. Each type of element or "Ka [ broken anchor ]" has different strong points. Fire Nephilim (Pyrim) tend to be aggressive, Earth Nephilim (Faërim) are caretakers and healers, Air Nephilim (Éolim) are intellectuals, Water Nephilim (Hydrim) relate to change and movement and Moon Nephilim (Onirim) are secretive and manipulative. They are also defined by the major Arcana they choose to follow.

The spirit of the Nephilim takes over the body of a human and tries to gain the skills and knowledge the human has, while avoiding the Immortals' enemies. The Nephilim's ultimate goal is to attain Agartha, a form of spiritual illumination. Other races have a similar goal.

Nephilim can be set in any times from ancient Egypt to present day or the future.

Besides the Nephilim, the players can play Selenim ("Vampires" of the Dark Moon, an element created by an ancient race that is unstable and corrupts Nephilim) or Ar-Kaïm (Astrological unstable mutants, introduced in the Third Edition).

Several human secret organizations know of the existence of the Nephilim. Most of these organizations oppose or hunt the Nephilim, but some are sympathetic to their cause. The Knights Templar is one of the primary sources of antagonists for Nephilim, who along with the Rosicrucians supply the most organized opposition. The Order of the Black Star possess many magical secrets, but are fewer in numbers and less likely to team up against Nephilim.

Game mechanics

The English language edition of Nephilim uses the Basic Role-Playing system used in many other Chaosium products, such as Call of Cthulhu , Pendragon and RuneQuest . It is expanded to suit the setting, amongst other things each nephilim has a set of elemental attributes influencing the body in which it resides.

Published books

Chaosium published the following books in its version of Nephilim RPG, until its discontinuation:

In addition, Chaosium published a Gamemaster's Veil and Character Dossiers.

Some of the books published for Nephilim's Third Edition (by MultiSim in French) include:

Some of the books published for Nephilim's Fifth Edition (by Mnémos in French) include:

A second crowdfunding finished on 25/06/2020 and with this some new books will be published in April 2021

Reception

In Issue 13 of Arcane, Andy Butcher noted that Nephilim gamemasters have to work very hard to prepare the game for play since the original rulebook did not contain a lot of information about running adventures. In reviewing the Nephilim Gamemaster's Companion, Butcher gave it a rating of 7 out of 10, calling it "a handy book for any struggling Nephilim referee, although you can't help thinking that some of this material would have been better off in the main rulebook." [2]

Reviews

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Les éditions Mnémos - Collections Nephlim Légende". Archived from the original on 2020-04-11. Retrieved 2020-06-07.
  2. ↑ Butcher, Andy (December 1996). "Games Reviews". Arcane (13). Future Publishing: 70.
  3. ↑ "Têtes d'Affiche | Article | RPGGeek".
  4. ↑ "Rollespilsmagasinet Fønix (Issue 6 - January/February 1995)".
  5. ↑ "Australian Realms Magazine - Complete Collection". June 1988.
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