DtF: Questions about Nephilims

[Ipergigio]

I have just few question guys and girls!

Exactly how a Nephilim looks like? They're human-like creatures or they're actual monters?

Also, they're playable characters?

[Nicolas Milioni]

Unfortunately we know very little about them. Only that they had black eyes.
and that they are not playable Unfortunately

[DGS-Chad]

The Nephilim are really only described as, "...mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." The King James bible though does declare them to have been giants and there is speculation Goliath was either an actual Nephilim himself or a descendant of them. In the Book of Jubilees also states that ridding the Earth of the Nephilim was one of God's reasons behind flooding the Earth - an act that destroyed all the Nephilim. As men of renown one could portray them merely as extremely gifted humans, possibly having the default merit of Huge Size along with one of the Celestial merits found in Demon The Fallen. That said it is highly unlikely for any to have survived into the Modern Nights as they would be as old as the Antideluvians and requiring a pretty good reason behind surviving the great flood. Unlikely, but perhaps still doable with the right backstory.

[Mister_Dunpeal]

Apart from not knowing much about them in Demon I'm not sure they correspond to any existing faction (at least as they may have existed - some modern group could be a mutation of Nephilim or inter-breeding.) I'm pretty sure they're not 'ancient' imbued (at least as Fyodor depicted them although that doesn't rule out all connections) they aren't Vampires (Caine), and I don't think they're mages (you could make an argument they're a mage or form of mage, but other aspects of the DtF cosmology suggest this isn't the case.) And there are other hints that the Garou and changing breeds aren't Nephilim either (they were tied to a different faction - Malhim I think?)

As much as I can recall for what passes as mechanics the Nephilim would have the faith-generating powers of humans but the lores and other powers of Demons/angels. In a sense they'd be Fallen without many (or any) drawbacks and very close in nature to how Mages operate (but not identical, since Lores aren't spheres and Fallen aren't Mages.) It might be interesting to speculate on whether they'd have any of the 'angelic' abilities as depicted in DtF's endgame in 'time of judgement' or be more restricted like Fallen, though.

If any had survived or showed up in game, it almost certainly would be as NPC or antagonists (challenging to handle as players I think) given how deranged and wicked they were portrayed to be (unless one adopts a 'point of view' approach and treat Nephilim as being filtered through Lucifer's prejudices and thus misunderstood) - they'd definitely be a different sort of threat compared to other (more powerful) Fallen or the Earthbound though.

[hachiman]

In a completely left field answer to your question, at my table, in my unified World of Darkness, i had my western equivalent of Wan Kuei, the Returned, the Revenants, be the nephilim of the Demon The Fallen Lore, tying those two together. If an Angel has a child with a human, the being born can buy Wan Kuei Disciplines. Those returned from Hell in the West, are humans with Nephilim ancestry, and are reborn as Revenant Vampires. Their time in Hell and their return activates their angelic ancestry and the hunger for life that Nephilim were accursed for.

Just my take on it.

[Matt the Bruins fan]

There's technically a sort of jury-rigged system in place using the Nephilim/Laham Merit from Mage 20th's Book of Secrets and Advantages from the M20 corebook and M20 Gods, Monsters, and Familiar Strangers (or the demonic investments from Book of the Fallen and Infernalism: The Path of Screams). It's intended for Mage characters, but could probably be adapted for DtF games.

[LokiTX]

Matt the Bruins fan that sounds pretty cool. Is there more on this combination documented anywhere? I am playing a Mage with the Nephilim merit in a game right now and I hacked something together that uses some stuff from DtF including "angelic form" which is kind of a hack of apocalyptic form. But this game is a little over the top (it's multi-splat and everyone is extremely high powered). I'm curious to see a more direct path.

[Matt the Bruins fan]

Sorry, the resources I listed are all I know of that deal with it.