Nephilim/Cabal Fusion

[jeregenest]

In Nephilim there is a civilization of spiritual beings, the nephilim, who try to possess humans to achieve Agartha, a state of extreme enlightenment, while avoiding the human secret societies that would destroy or enslave them.

In Cabal we have a secret society of magicians and magical people who are the hunters. But even hunters can run into trouble deep in the jungle. My desire to challenge a conspiracy that, from the design document, had an armlock on the world's supernatural resources meant that I had to give them more worlds to conquer, or rather, to explore -- to hunt in.

What I like about Nephilim

• Focus on past lives. I’m a sucker for reincarnation. The ability to play with past lives with all the interconnections, allies and enemies, lost loves and history galore. Yeah it’s a weakness.
  
• I like the element/metamorphosis concept a lot.
  
• The focus on the magic system has some really beautiful things in it
  
• A magical history of the world
  

Some Problems with Nephilim

There’s a lot to like about Nephilim, but there is also enough to dislike that keeps me away from it.

First of all, theres the Nephilim themselves.

The Nephilim were originally semi-sentient elementals that lived off the magical energies surrounding Earth. Their contemporaries, the dinosaurs, were mystics so powerful they had no need for tools or even speech. The Saurians' experiments culminated in the creation of a new moon that began to taint the energies the Nephilim needed to survive, called Ka. The resulting conflict ended with the destruction of the dinosaurs and their new moon.

The Nephilim, now fully aware, began to search out ways to access Agartha, the higher realms of magic. They realized that their inability to harness the powers of the Sun was holding them back. Only living plants and animals could use this Solar Ka. Thus began their great experiment to breed a creature capable of tapping into the Solar Ka that could be controlled by the Nephilm. The result was humanity and they did what came naturally to all people: rebellion. The human revolt was assisted by a meteor that disrupted Earth's magical fields and prevented Nephilim from manifesting without a living host, which brings us to current times.

Most of that is good, but the whole amoral parasite thing doesn’t appeal to me. It has a bit of been there done that attitude that I’m just not sure I want t do again. I’d need to come up with ways around it. Either coming up with a more acceptable origin story or better yet shrouding the whole thing in myth and offering several origin stores that may or may not be true.

There’s the mechanics

I don’t like the BPR and I’m not going to use it. End of story.

I’m sure I could think of other things, but I don’t see the need to bother.

Thoughts on Cabal

GURPS: Cabal offers a detailed magic system based on real world occult practices, as well as a detailed and thoroughly well thought out universe. There is a plethora of material with a fantastic cosmology for the PCs to explore. Unfortunately it sues GURPS and I really have no intention to ever use(misuse) that system again.

The Cabal organizationally is rather standard, but that leaves tons of room to explore.

Fusing them together

Nephilim gives me the characters, cabal the framework. I envision a lodge of Nephilim made up of various elements and metamorphosis and even Arcanum (Arcanum make good schools or fraternities) working towards some goal against the sephirotic 10 spheres/4 worlds of the Cabal metauniverse. Not sure what that goal should be because ‘d rather the characters come up with it, as well as the historical eras of incarnation.

The Mechanics

I’ve already said that BRP and GURPS are both out. Neither interest me and to be frank neither really represent my strengths as a gamer.

I‘ve considered two games at folks suggestions: HeroQuest and Nine Worlds.

Nine Worlds is a fun system, and it has some advantages to it. But, and hold onto your hats, it might be too minimalist for me here. There’s not enough scaffolding to hang this concept on and the characters might just be all the same. Plus the card mechanics are just too much like Age of Paranoia and if I do run a second game (or do this post-Age of Paranoia) than I’ll be ready for a break from cards.

HeroQuest has some potential. The Keyword system works well for metamorphosis, Arcanum and simulacra. Even each incarnation would make a good key word. My problems here is that robotnik’s attempt to run HeroQuest hasn’t struck me as very successful one step removed and I find Glorantha to be so boring I have never successfully really all of the core book and there’s a lot I’d have to do to make it doable. There is a generic rulebook coming someday, but who knows if that will ever happen. There was some tantalizing tidbits over at the Forge that make me think its doable.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Most of that is good, but the whole amoral parasite thing doesn’t appeal to me. It has a bit of been there done that attitude that I’m just not sure I want t do again. I’d need to come up with ways around it. Either coming up with a more acceptable origin story or better yet shrouding the whole thing in myth and offering several origin stores that may or may not be true.

I have no idea how closely you followed Nephilim back when it was being supported, but one of the reasons that I liked it so much was that the original developer (Sam Shirley) is that he talked explicitly on the Nephilim mailing list about how the the Nephilim were wrong. The entire setting material is from the Nephilim's PoV. In his PoV, Nephilim are explicitly the immortal (and magic using) portion of a human's soul. They only think of themselves as parasites, because the experiencing of awakening as a magical being is fairly traumatic and tends to divice people from both themselves and their previous lives (especially if they suddenly & vividly remember half a dozen past lives).

Evidence for this is that the Nphilim myths of the Saurians or Atlantis are only myths. No Nephilim alive remembers these eras and they may never even have existed. Also, in it's first incarnation, a Nephilim has no memory of ever being anything else.

The phrase History is a Lie, applies equally well to Nephilim history.

Of course, YMMV, this topic spawned many a flame war on the Nephilim mailing list, since almost half of the people on this list liked the idea of playing amoral magical parasites. In any case, I've often thought that Nephilim would be the idea system for playing urban fantasy ala Charles Delint and Emma Bull.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I remember that arguement, and I think its one of my inpirations at that back of my mind. I really should try to find those archives.

Mechanics

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

John have you done any work for HeroQuest? I'd be curious about your thoughts there.

Re: Mechanics

[heron61.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't, but I have not been impressed with what I've seen of this system. I tend to convert everything to some version of the Storyteller system. Although you would need to create a magic system the system in Contiuuum: Roleplying in the Yet, and The system for Maelstrom Storytelling by Hubris Games (http://www.wizards-attic.com/Hubris.html) (the rules are all in their Story Engine book) both look like good rules-light systems. I like Maelstrom Storytelling a lot, but interesting and well-developed characters require considerably more points than they alot to starting characters (25 points). 50 or 60 points is far better for creating an interesting character.

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

For the record, how does a magic system work in HeroQuest? Is each spell or school or magic a Quality?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

http://random.average-bear.com/Heroquest/MagicNotes

[seanmoon.livejournal.com]

Just a few random thoughts that reading this caused to Is there even a BRP book available these days? I see some supplements for it being sold online but I can't find the actual system as a standalone. What's so bad about BRP?

I'll have to pick up Cabal, or at least peruse it in the store.

I loved RQ, long long ago, but the HQ system didn't strike me as particularly playable. I think I need the numbers.

What's nine worlds? I've never heard of that one.

I myself just bought the PDF of HARP from ICE. Nostalgia!

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are tons of backstock available out there from Web stores. heck you can still buy the James Bond book at less than cover price.

I always felt that the BRP didn't do a good job at handling characters drawn from multiple incarnations. One of the reaons HeroQuest interests me is that it has its Mastery system which might capture that a lot better.

Nine Worlds

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

A Cosmic Myth Game, half-decent setting with an inetresting set of rules. Here's their website: http://www.20by20room.com/2004/09/nine_worlds.html

[chrislehrich.livejournal.com]

You might want to remind yourself about Liber Ka. I don't even own Nephilim, although I've read it, but Liber Ka is really quite good.

What confuses me here is that you don't seem much interested in their particular secret history and spin on it, and you don't like the system much. So apart from reincarnations, what are you actually keeping from Nephilim? I mean, isn't this an occult take on the same sort of thing as Age of Paranoia, in which case running it back-to-back with a short run of Shadows in the Fog might be an exceptionally bad idea -- people do get tired of this sort of thing.

Don't get me wrong. If you want to do occult history freakishness of whatever sort, sign me up -- I never do get tired of this. It's my job, man. But normal people, like as in sane people, do eventually want to do something else.