History TabletopGame / Nephilim

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Selenim feed on strong emotion, ''any'' emotion; they can even develop preferences for particular emotions, like love or faith. This has caused them to not only inspire stories of vampires, but also HornyDevils and GodsNeedPrayerBadly.

* SpaceJews: Inverted. The Nephilim have Kabbalah as one of their occult sciences, were persecuted by the Nazis, and are continually being hunted down by an AncientConspiracy. This is quite possibly the most bizarre example of PositiveDiscrimination ever created.

* VampireVannabe: The Cultes des Goules is a secret society dedicated to serving the Selenim by, among other things, performing human sacrifice. They don't seem to really know all that much about the Selenim, as some of them try to emulate their masters by engaging in acts of cannibalism, whereas Selenim feed on ''emotions''.

* AmuletOfDependency: Each Nephilim possesses an object known as a Stasis, which contain their soul between incarnations. Without a Stasis, a Nephilim would have nothing to anchor them to the material world, and they would dissolve into the magical fields. In the French rules, a Nephilim would instantly suffer FinalDeath if their stasis was destroyed even if they were in a Simulacrum at the time, while the English adaptation was more forgiving: a Nephilim without a Stasis would still survive, but without a Simulacrum it has a chance of dying each hour until it finds a new one. For some reason, a Stasis cannot be replaced if it is destroyed; however, a Nephilim who knows how to create Stasises through Philosopher's Stone Alchemy can replace their own stasis if it is destroyed, but ''only'' their own.

-->--Second sentence. Written on the page after the first sentence.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Chaosium would publish an English adaptation of the first edition rulebook with mostly minor changes, but later supplements were developed entirely in-house, resulting in significant divergences ruleswise and storywise from the source material. Unfortunately, the English adaptation of the game was canceled after only a few books were published due to low sales. Some of the writers got together to write a 2nd edition, but plans for this fizzled out. Meanwhile, [[http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?cPath=74_107 the original Chaosium adaptation of the game is still available at DriveThruRPG.]]

* AncientTomb: While the game was canceled before anything came of it, Chaosium originally intended for magical artefacts called "sarcophagi" to play an important role in the Selenim's path to Agartha. In ancient times, Selenim created special sarcophagi to collect Solar-Ka directly and craddle their fragile Black Moon-Ka, but later found humans to be a much richer source in this regard. The Nephilim used the principles of the sarcophagi to create the first stasises; later they crudely duplicated the sarcophagi to build mastabas and pyramids in alignment with the stars, with massive amounts of Solar-Ka sacrificed at the Pharaoh's burial, and then used them to progress to Agartha through centuries of silent contemplation.
* AmuletOfDependency: Each Nephilim possesses an object known as a Stasis, which contain their soul between incarnations. Without a Stasis, a Nephilim would have nothing to anchor them to the material world, and they would dissolve into the magical fields. In the French rules, a Nephilim would instantly suffer FinalDeath if their stasis was destroyed even if they were in a Simulacrum at the time, while the English adaptation was more forgiving: a Nephilim without a stasis would still survive, but without a Simulacrum it has a chance of dying each hour until it finds a new one. For some reason, a Stasis cannot be replaced if it is destroyed; however, a Nephilim who knows how to create Stases through Philosopher's Stone Alchemy can replace their own stasis if it is destroyed, but ''only'' their own.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Chaosium would publish an English adaption of the first edition rulebook with mostly minor changes, but later supplements were developed entirely in-house, resulting in significant divergences ruleswise and storywise from the source material. Unfortunately, the English adaption of the game was canceled after only a few books were published due to low sales. Some of the writers got together to write a 2nd edition, but plans for this fizzled out. Meanwhile, [[http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?cPath=74_107 the original Chaosium adaption of the game is still available at DriveThruRPG.]]

* AmuletOfDependency: Each Nephilim possesses an object known as a Stasis, which contain their soul between incarnations. Without a Stasis, a Nephilim would have nothing to anchor them to the material world, and they would dissolve into the magical fields. In the French rules, a Nephilim would instantly suffer FinalDeath if their stasis was destroyed even if they were in a Simulacrum at the time, while the English adaption was more forgiving: a Nephilim without a stasis would still survive, but without a Simulacrum it has a chance of dying each hour until it finds a new one. For some reason, a Stasis cannot be replaced if it is destroyed; however, a Nephilim who knows how to create Stases through Philosopher's Stone Alchemy can replace their own stasis if it is destroyed, but ''only'' their own.

* {{Mana}}: The concept of ''Ka'' is almost identical to the original Polynesian definition of Mana, which serves as a measurement of a Nephilim's willpower and magical potential. In the English adaption, ''Ch'awe'' (Egyptian for "breath") is the term for magic points.

* SourceBook: ''Dear God.'' The amount of overly-complicated supplementary material is enough to give you asthma. The English adaption, [[{{Cancellation}} not so much]].

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The Selenim sourcebook goes into great detail into how ghosts work. Essentially, human Solar-Ka can sometimes survive the death of the body, retaining its consciousness until the body finally decays into dust (though with special techniques, the Solar-Ka can be preserved indefinitely). The resulting ghosts can have a variety of motivations, including unrequited love and revenge, with the more strong-willed ones manifesting as poltergeists, but a few of them become insanely evil and even try to ''eat'' the other ghosts. Selenim are uniquely able to communicate with and help these ghosts, and put down the crazy and evil ones. The premise is somewhat similar to ''{{Necroscope}}'', but ''much'' less idealistic.

* TarotMotif: The Major Arcana are used for various orders in Nephilim with the Unnamed (Death) being the Selenium, The Fool representing Major World Changers and the World Representing those who reached Argatha.

* LandOfDragons: In the French game, Chinese Nephilim, or ''Shen'', were explained as Atlantean exiles who used powerful magical rituals to create dramatic changes in the magical nature of China as opposed to the rest of the world, resulting in them [[UnfortunateImplications having fundamentally different elements]] than the Western Nephilim, though they were still represented with the same rules. The planned English version, which was being designed without knowledge of the French version, would have explained that the entire country had fundamentally different elements, astrological associations, occult sciences, and worldviews ''just because''.

* {[Nephilim}}: Well, yes, since it's the title, but not much to do with the Biblical version. The Nephilim are reincarnating spirits. Specifically, the players as they make different characters.

According to the game, the universe is run by various magic forces (Ka), which, colliding with each other, made the world as we know it. Earth is subjected to five main elemental forces: water, fire, earth, air and moon. It was first the home of [=KaÏm=] (union of different elements, with a consciousness) and Saurians (actually the dinosaurs... except they were ultra-intelligent and mastered the Moon-Ka). The Saurians, in their madness, decided to create a new Ka, the Black Moon, which threatened the equilibrium of the planet, forcing the Nephilim to plan their annihilation. Now sole masters of the Earth, some Nephilim reunited in the artificial Island of Atlantis, attempting to induce consciousness in various animals, and therefore creating the homo sapiens as we know it, through vicious experiments. Shortly after, a giant meteor filled with an unknown Ka (Orichalka) hit the Earth; this Ka was so incompatible with the [=KaÏm=]'s constitution it nearly destroyed them and forced them to possess human bodies and take over their real owner's consciousness, changing bodies as time passed. Humans, however, had seized the opportunity to get rid of the [=KaÏm=]'s tyranny: their secret societies fabricated weapons made of Orichalka, forcing them to make their existence a secret.

* NoExportForYou: The 2nd and 3rd editions of the game were never translated to English. In fact, very little of the ''1st edition'' was translated into English. All of the English books except for the core rulebook were written wholesale by Chaosium, making major changes to the background and ultimately intending to replace the magic systems had the brand been continued.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Chaosium was working to produce sourcebooks that included ''Selenim'' (detailing the Unnamed Arcanum, the Cult of Lilith, the Xibalbans, the Yama Kings, and Black Magic), ''Slaying the Dragon'' (detailing extensively revised Alchemy rules), ''Immortal Asia'' (detailing the Xian-ren, Wu Xing, Martial Arts, Taoist Alchemy, and Feng Shui), expanded rules for summoning (detailing warding circles, magical names, and bargaining, plus a gazetteer of the Worlds of Kabbalah), and ''The Jason Factor'' (a globetrotting, time-spanning campaign set in two millennia and five continents), but the line was canceled before they could be released. However, the two surviving chapters of ''Slaying the Dragon'' (the history of alchemy and the revised rules, respectively) have been [[http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/nephilim-ascendant/ made available on a certain Yahoo! group.]] The other two chapters of ''Slaying the Dragon'', and the majority of the revised and expanded ''Selenim'' draft (save for a backstory overview, a FAQ, and character creation rules), have been LostForever; ''Immortal Asia'' and the summoning expansion never went beyond the conceptual stage.

This seems to have been the idea at the origin of Nephilim, created in 1992 by the french publisher house Multisim. The game would prove popular among experienced gamemasters, but its difficulty also made it quite obscure to the eyes of the more casual gamers. The first edition was published in 1992, followed by a second edition in 1996 which revised the rules and continued the metaplot, leading into a 3rd edition in 2001 that dispensed with the BRP system all together for a d20-based system that described attributes using words instead of numbers. Multisim then went into bankruptcy around 2003 during the French RPG industry crash, putting an end to the legacy of Nephilim and the rights to which have been floating in legal limbo ever since. Its rights were however bought back by Ubik / Edge Entertainment who published an introductory scenario to the 3rd edition called ''Nephilim: Initiation'' in 2007. In late 2012, [[https://nephilim20ans.jux.com/ a 4th edition was announced]] to commemorate the game's 20th anniversary.

-->''This game is not real''
-->- First sentence. Written at the beginning of all the core rule manuals, filling the page.

-->''You are.''
-->-Second sentence. Written on the page after the first sentence.

* PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs/TheDinosaursHadItComing: The dinosaurs (Saurians) had an advanced magical civilization, and their last great achievement was to build an artificial "Black Moon" in order to extend their pleasures. The Black Moon began to choke off the Ka fields of the Earth, which jolted the fledgling [=KaÏm=] into awareness. The [=KaÏm=] proceeded to force the Black Moon to explode, destroying the Saurian civilization, with the survivors marching to the impact sites in order to bask in the residual energy, where they eventually died.

* PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs: Invoked by the Dinosaurs themselves. The dinosaurs (Saurians) had an advanced magical civilization, and their last great achievement was to build an artificial "Black Moon" in order to extend their pleasures. The Black Moon began to choke off the Ka fields of the Earth, which jolted the fledgling [=KaÏm=] into awareness. The [=KaÏm=] proceeded to force the Black Moon to explode, destroying the Saurian civilization, with the survivors marching to the impact sites in order to bask in the residual energy, where they eventually died.