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[Dataweaver]

This is the sort of thing I was wondering about. As well, when you take someone else's body, whether you're a Deathless whose body was destroyed requiring you take the body of one of your cultists or you're a Body-Hopper (eagerly waiting for Chapter Five, BTW), your physical stats change. That's why I was thinking along the lines of Doctor Who's Regenerations — though perhaps a better analogy would be a caterpillar's cocoon: there's a body in the bandages, but over the centuries it slowly changes so that each Descent potentially features a different form, whether or not the Arisen's body is...

[Dataweaver]

Not in any way that matters to the people living under them.

[Dataweaver]

So there isn't a mummified corpse in a sarcophagus somewhere when they're not in a Descent?

[Dataweaver]

Paradigms
The Paradigms associated with the Practice of Maleficia are very appropriate to the Nephandi. In addition, you get:

All power comes from sin
Barbarism is the truest state of man
Cosmic horror is the only truth
Everyone's against me, so whatever I do is justified
Evil is necessary, and so I am evil
Existence is unknowable, irrational, and sublime
Forbidden wisdom is the truest source of power
I am all
I'm a predator, and the world is my prey
Indulgence is nature's only law
Only the strongest deserve to survive...

[Dataweaver]

Without the “we worship the Wyrm” bit....

[Dataweaver]

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

[Dataweaver]

So, just to make sure I have things clear: the mummy's body good through time in a linear fashion: it does in Irem, rises during the first Sothic Turn, returns to the grave, maybe arises again in-between Turns when the Cult summons it or a grave robber disturbs it, arises again during the second Sothic Turn, and so on and so forth.

But the mummy's consciousness goes through time nonlinearly: after visiting Duat for the first time, it arrives in, say, the Fourth Sothic Turn before returning to Duat and then arising in the Second Sothic Turn, etc.

So if you show up in...

[Dataweaver]

Roko's Basilisk is specifically cited as where the name of the faction comes from. As for the age of the other two:

The Ironhands have arguably been around since the Renaissance. If the Mammonites are old, so are the Ironhands.

...

[Dataweaver]

Baphies (Goatkids): Dancers of the Beast. Their name derived from Baphomet. The dark side of festival culture, these guys tend to be underestimated by everyone — even by other Nephandi — because they're seen as party animals. And while they are party animals, the kinds of parties they tend to encourage ultimately lead to molestation, rape, slavery, and even human sacrifice — and their victims generally don't know what's happening until it's too late. Part of how they remain hidden is that nobody takes them seriously; the other part is that when the bad things start happening, the Infernalists

...

[Dataweaver]

You're not alone. Five of the factions are secret: you need at least three dots in Nephandi lore (or equivalent revelations in game) to suspect that they exist. That's much of what makes them dangerous: you don't know who they are until it's too late.

The Infernalists, K'llashaa, and Malfeans aren't the main factions of the Nephandi so much as they're the public face of the Nephandi, a distraction that keeps attention away from the others: it's

the Baphies, the Exies, the Heralds of Basilisk, the Ironhands, and the Mammonites

who move in the shadows.

[Dataweaver]

All eight factions highlighted in the book get roughly the same amount of coverage. I will say, though, that the Infernalists' section leans especially into the Organization, Goals and Tactics section, and has the smallest Focus and Spells section.

[Dataweaver]

A while back, there was a suggestion on how to address that issue for those who don't like the FSA. In short, swap North America and Europe. Instead of Europe being a post-apocalyptic ruin, North America is. Instead of North America being a fascist state, Europe is. There's even some logic to that: just say that the Aberrant war was very harsh on North America.

Most of this can be done with some simple relocation and renaming. The Æsculapean Order is focusing it's efforts in North America, not Europe, and is contending with Wycoff's Blight (which is more severe in this version of...

[Dataweaver]

It's also something the Exies would favor.

[Dataweaver]

You do know that there's a book in the works right now that's essentially going to cover this, right? Not necessarily the “future fate” part; but “what colonies are out there during the Æon era” part.

[Dataweaver]

It was a tie between Aberrant and Adventure!.

[Dataweaver]

Yeah; I think that qualifies as “an epic achievement, if it's possible at all."

[Dataweaver]

I don't know if this qualifies; but there's mention that being a Widderslainte doesn't automatically mean that you're a Nephandus: it's possible to play a mage who has a Nephandic Avatar but who resists the constant efforts by his Avatar and any Nephandi he might encounter to enter the Caul. He'll have a really hard road ahead of him, as everyone who can sense his inverted Essence will assume that he's evil, and his Avatar will pull out all the stops to push him into becoming just that; so odds are slim that he'll eventually succumb. But its not a guarantee. As well, there are a couple of sections...

[Dataweaver]

Well, you don't give them free rein to go whenever and wherever they like, with no restrictions. Imagine if you had a teleporter who could jump to anywhere in the Galaxy at whim, with no restrictions (e.g., no travel time, no way to block them or exhaust them, etc.). That would be bad.

But the flip side to that is that if you're doing a time war setting and you never give them any agency in terms of when and where they end up, you will end up with some very frustrated players....

[Dataweaver]

If it is out of the players hands, it doesn't need mechanics.it is only when the players have some measure of control over it that mechanics are needed.

[Dataweaver]

Existing settings don't include time travel, save only for Max Mercer's “unstuck in time” time travel. A hypothetical time travel setting should take that into account.