Everything

“Send in the Hammer and clean it up.” “Sir,” says the aide, “if I may…?” “You may not.” The aide drops his pretense of servility. “But, sir, we’re talking about American citizens here.” “No we’re not,” says the man behind the desk. “We are addressing looters, thugs, and criminals, and we will treat them as such.” “But they’re people…” the aide’s voice slides toward an irritating whine “…and they’re desperate. They’re just taking what they need to–“ “Laws are laws.” The man turns back to his papers. “Handle it.” And so they did. The Hammer went in. The situation was dealt with. Swamps and floodlands provide excellent storage for unwanted remains. Especially after hurricanes and other such disasters, certain people simply disappear…

Overtures of Plague

Man is a virus pretending it’s a saint. Our dreams are jokes the universe laughs about in its sleep. Beneath every good man or woman’s façade is an ape with a scorpion’s tail. We are, in short, a mistake. And the Fallen are glad to tell us so.

They probably won’t tell you to your face. As a rule, they’re more subtle than that. Instead, a Nephandus wins your trust, gives you gifts, provides every overture of friendship. He won’t come screaming out of the darkness with veins in his teeth, although he’ll be glad to point you at someone who will. No, the true Fallen mage is like Lassie with Joker venom – a loyal companion until the moment his poison kicks in and you both laugh yourselves to death.

He doesn’t expect to get out of this alive. When Creation burns, he’ll burn too. But see, that’s his choice – he knows the fire’s coming, and he would rather be a flamethrower than kindling. The Nephandic Path is not a state of Ascension but of Descent: a willing embrace of the Void, which the Fallen sometimes call the Absolute. A Nephandus, then, has shared communion with that Absolute and has become the heat-death of the universe in human form. It doesn’t matter what you do, he believes. You were worm-meat and ashes before you were born. The gods are insane and justice is a lie, and the evidence supports his point of view. He is, then, perhaps the most dangerous creature in the World of Darkness: a mage with dark truths on his side.

Those who’ve heard of the Nephandi imagine them as mad-eyed, screeching weirdos babbling about Outer Gods as they slash up some poor virgin’s rack. It’s true that some Nephandi fit that description, but those folks are primarily distractions. A typical Nephandus is the enemy you won’t see coming… or, if you do, you’ll want to trust him. He’s probably attractive, usually well-off, and possessed of charismatic confidence. He knows he’s right with the surety of a sociopathic fundamentalist, and he doesn’t give a fuck about rules or consequences. As a result, he’s incredibly appealing. People will give literally all they can to be with him… or to be him… and that’s where his power lies. Sure, he’s got magick if he needs it, but that appeal is his greatest weapon.

Predatory Shadows

There’ve always been people who found allies among predatory gods. Just as certain people reached toward the sun, others ran off into the darkness. There, they learned terrible things. On the rare occasions when such people would return to their old tribes, their awful transformations and atrocious deeds branded them anathema. Forsaking, and forsaken by, the people they had loved, these seekers nurtured bloody grudges that often led to bloody deeds. A few were born to that Path, but most stepped out on it willingly. Even before there were words to describe them, such people understood the cosmic joke and wanted to be in on it.

The term Nephandi has many potential origins. It might come from Nif’ ur ‘en Daah, the “Eaters of the Weak” in ancient Sumer; it could come from the Arabic Naffas Iblis (“Breath of the Adversary”), the Greek nephlos (“cloud”), Germanic nibla/ nifl (“mist/ dark”), or the Latin nefarious (“to negate rightness”). The modern form blends Greek, Latin, and Arabic grammars in the sort of subversive chaos that the Fallen appreciate. By any name, these mages choose to become hungry shadows, following a Path of Screams all the way to oblivion.

Why? They’ve got plenty of reasons. Occasionally, it’s anger at the hypocrisy of goodness or lust for things we’re not supposed to enjoy. It’s disgust with a corrupt status quo or revenge for real or imaginary wrongs. A Nephandus can choose curiosity about verboten topics, indulgence of appalling passions, or simple perversity in an apparently meaningless cosmos. For whatever reasons he or she might give, the end is the same. The Fallen One perceives a darkly existential view: the universe is meaningless, virtue is delusion, and the only thing that matters is an enjoyable ride to annihilation.

There’s still some Miltonian “reign in hell” mentality in the modern Nephandic ranks – a gleeful embrace of glorious demonism. Those Fallen, though, provide the shock troops for their more Enlightened peers. Sure, there’s a bit of old-school devil worship going on. It’s in the group’s best interests, after all, to have visible targets running around to provide scapegoats and targets for other sects. The serious Nephandi, though, have graduated from Satanic Kindergarten. Yes, there are demonic entities out there. Yes, the Deep Umbra is crawling with horrors. Of course you can make pacts with dark masters who provide scary powers for a price. The true Nephandic Masters, though, understand that the root of all evils can be found in the human heart.

That’s the punch line of the Fallen joke: a creature so insignificant in the grand scheme of things perceives himself as the center of the universe… and in his corner of the universe, he’s right. He believes that gods weigh his every move and choice with the scales of all eternity, and he feels that his value in their eyes entitles him to commit atrocities in their name. He’ll poison babies and declare his righteousness. He’ll steal and kill and claim God loves him best. His dreams conjure heavens and hells and science and magic and art and waste and television and every other thing he can envision. But in the cosmic eye, he’s less than dust. When the lights go out forever, he’ll see the true face of Eternity. And in that endless midnight orgasm, Eternity will extinguish him.

To the Nephandi, that day can’t come soon enough.

Slaves of the Star-Squid?

Persistent rumors link the Fallen to alien masters on the far side of eternity. Supposedly, the Nephandi serve these malignant gods, paving the way for an eventual conquest of Earth. In the late 1990s, these pawns of the Outer Darkness and the demons that live there were supposedly hunted, killed, cut off from their tentacled overlords, and either driven out beyond the Horizon, or else whittled down to insignificance.

Nonsense. Oh, sure – there are Nephandi who booga-dee-boo their way through appeals to obscene star-squids, cast lots for evil gods, and dream of things best left nameless, waiting in the Outer Dark. But the outsiders who see these Fallen souls caper in the light of some unholy majesty are missing the point entirely.

The Nephandi aren’t pawns for hive-dwelling demonoids or voracious elder gods. They see the truth behind the face of cosmic obscenity, and they realize that it looks like us.

The entities called Those Beyond are not the chess masters of abject servants. They’re embodiments of the Absolute – horrific masks grafted by human imagination onto something too vast to contemplate without madness. Although it’s comforting to view the Fallen as deluded playthings of alien pretenders, the fact (as much as facts can be discerned in such cosmic business, anyway) is this: the Nephandi have looked behind the mask of eternity, and its wisdom has driven them sane.

So if and when they dress themselves in predictable costumes of Satan-kissing freaks, it’s a masquerade the Fallen understand… and few other mages do. They don’t serve Outer Gods, in truth. Nephandi simply recognize such beings as reflections of their own Enlightenment… a savage wisdom that sees the Absolute in every living thing and knows what’s waiting at the end of All.

In short, they understand the mortal comedy. That’s what makes them so very good at what they do.

The Winners, Spoiled

The Nephandi are playing a long, deep game, tossing out pawns to distract their opponents. These pawns, though dangerous, are not the true threat. The Traditions and Technocracy believe they’ve exiled the Fallen to someplace beyond the Horizon… and they’re wrong. In reality, the Nephandi have been infiltrating the Council, the Inner Circle, the Disparates, and… most of all… the mortal world. Only the Marauders remain uncorrupted, and that’s mostly because the Mad are too far gone to corrupt.

That’s the awful truth of the Ascension War: while the Traditions and Technocracy battle one another, the Fallen occupy the field, buy the horses, and sell artillery to all sides. In short, they’re winning. And the longer the other factions fight, the darker their World of Darkness grows.

Now, the Fallen have plenty of pawns to waste: the angry teens with guns and bombs; the media pundits who tear societies apart for profit; the tycoons to whom no one else matters unless that other party provides them a bit more wealth; the racists, sexists, homophobes, and fundies whose fears inspire virtual and often physical violence; the religious zealots who plant bombs in playgrounds, fly planes into skyscrapers, or recite ancient scriptures while they bathe their hands in blood. The drug gangs and the slavers, holy warlords with child armies. From the wetbrain puking in the gutter to the billionaire slashing jobs while using prison labor and foreign slaves to increase the bottom line, these people advance the Fallen agenda. Very few of them consider themselves Satanists, and most think they’re right with God. And every one of them – with their selfishness – strangles hope and shapes reality.

The Sleepers are feeding on hate and puking up lies. This is the Consensus. This is the World of Darkness. And that’s what’s killing magick in the world. Not science. Not technology. Not even apathy. Just mindless indulgence and tribal hate.

The Nephandic gospel moves the world.

Roads to Hell

The Fallen and their pawns are everywhere. Few of them, though, are obvious as what they are. While Technocrats chase infernal cultists, the worst offenders call their shots. The Traditions have fewer Nephandi in their ranks, but they have more pawns and dupes than anyone expects. As for the Disparates, it’s an open question. Although the Templars, in particular, have dedicated themselves to rooting out such corruption, their fanaticism breeds the fury and despair that make the Fallen so powerful in this world.

How did they get so powerful? By taking advantage of human weaknesses. The Fallen don’t need to haul folks off to attend Black Mass; instead, they encourage apathy, despair, greed, and selfishness. They build people up and tear people down and use pride and fear as tools to do so. A politician doesn’t have to sell her soul to a slavering eldritch thing in order to spread Nephandic influence. She just has to gut social budgets, pocket a few bribes, give free rein to polluting industries, and purge citizen rights while putting people on the streets. She probably won’t realize what she’s doing, and she might even have spiritual advisors to tell her she’s doing God’s work on Earth. The advisors themselves might not be Nephandi… but quite a few of them are, and the rest take their cues from those. Corporations, churches, governments, armies… the Fallen influence them all; not with force, in most cases, but typically by telling people what they want to hear.

That’s how the Nephandi overwhelmed the Technocratic safeguards and wormed their way into the halls of Doissetep and Horizon: they nurtured the hubris inside every mage until many of the most powerful willworkers alive believed in their own divine rights. The Fallen pointed their pawns at one another, singled out the biggest threats, and staged an infernal pantomime to direct attention away from what they’ve actually been doing. While the Union and the Council teamed up to shut down death camps, the Nephandi sent their most influential pawns off to deep-cover scientific posts. Brave mages destroyed the Thule Gesellschaft, but hubris destroyed Hiroshima. “The ends justify the means,” “It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” “Survival of the fittest”… even if the Fallen didn’t coin these phrases (though perhaps, some might have done so), those ideas advance the Nephandic cause. Humanity has many roads to hell, and those roads are always open for business.

A Diabolic Trinity

Essentially, there are three kinds of Nephandi:

• Dregvati: These dupes, allies, toys, tools, playmates, fall-guys, and other assorted idiots don’t really understand the full scope of what they’re doing… if they know what they’re doing at all. The dregs haven’t Fallen in the true sense of making a decision to join the Nephandi – they’re just useful pawns for influence, distraction, and fun, and they may even believe they’re good guys despite the awful things they do.
• Barabbi: Supposedly named for Barabbas, the murderer set free in place of Christ, the barabbi began along a different Path but then converted to the Nephandic cause. Traitors to their original sects, these people have had their souls literally turned inside out in the Cauls: metaphysical inversion chambers in which an Awakened Avatar chooses to damn itself and be born again through the Gate of Dark Rebirth. Now, they embody the worst qualities of their former sects… and probably still belong to those groups, tempting their colleagues toward atrocious deeds and taking their philosophies to the sickest possible extremes.
• Widderslainte: Essentially born damned, the widderslainte bear the reincarnated Avatars of dead Nephandi. Mockeries of the Euthanatoic ideal of reincarnation as a cosmic reset, these mages sometimes struggle with their destinies before giving in. In more ways than one, such people are Original Sin on two legs. Can they find redemption? Perhaps… but most don’t even care to find out.

Among these three types, the barabbi seem most dangerous to other mages, with the widderslainte providing tragic counterpoints, occasional pathos, and existential horror. It’s the pawns, though, that command the board, if not the strategies, in the Nephandic deep game. If belief shapes reality, and the majority of people accept perversity, hate, and selfishness as the natural order of things, then reality itself becomes perverse, hateful, and selfish.

Perhaps the weird manifestations of Paradox – so often blamed on the Technocratic paradigm – are actually reflections of twisted human belief. That would explain entities like Old Man Wrinkle and the essence of Paradox Realms. What better manifestation, after all, could there be for a selfish world than to take its most brilliant souls and lock them up – out of sight, out of mind – in a metaphysical reality jail? The Nephandi, then, might even be shaping the Paradox Effect, turning reality itself into a weapon without casting a single spell.

That’s the essence of Nephandic strategy: get your enemies shooting at shadows… or at one another… while winning them over to your point of view, all the while seeming like their best friend in the world.

Fallen Sects

Nephandic influence reaches from Wall Street to heavy-metal vomit parties. In few of those places, though, is it obvious. Again, the most prominent sects provide moving targets and shock-troop overkill when the Fallen need it. The ones without oogie-boogie masks exert Nephandic influence across the mortal world.

Some of the groups most likely to enter a Mage chronicle include…

• The K’llasshaa
• Malfeans
• Infernal Cults
• The Gatekeepers
• Technephandi
• The Decadenti
• Los Sangrientos
• Hammer Security Response (a.k.a. God’s Hammer)
• The Pipers
• The Golden Bull

Nephandic Tactics

The Fallen didn’t attain their position of power by being stupid. Although rival mages might occasionally cross spells with wild-eyed demon-cultists, such ploys are diversions for bigger things. When Nephandi want to accomplish some important goal, they typically use a mixture of the following tactics:

Indulgence

An oldie but a goodie, this tactic appeals to the target’s desires. Vast knowledge? Great sex? A killer rack in any interpretation of that term? The Fallen have got what you want. And although disciplined souls might believe they’re above such gambits, the Fallen can offer up ascetic pleasures too. A quiet mind? An unspoiled grove? The ability to dismiss carnal pleasures with a glance? Sure, they can get that for you. The price? No price – they’re just doing you a favor. Of course, those favors add up, so when the friend needs a little favor too, it just seems like the right thing to do to give him what he wants…

Most people, though, are easier to tempt. Money? Fame? Security? Revenge? That car or guy or house or whatever else you’ve had your eye on all this time? It’s yours. Why shouldn’t you have it, after all? You have a right to enjoy yourself! The Fallen One offers up a slide, pours Crisco all over it, and then invites her target to hop on and slide down and… well, it’s an obvious game if you’re not the person on that slippery slide. Everybody, though, wants something, and the Fallen are expert procurers. Typically, they don’t have to do anything more. A person on that slip-n-slide has many opportunities to damn himself and make other folks miserable while he’s doing so.

Deception

The Fallen rarely present themselves as who and what they really are. Unless a tempter’s appealing to a teenage Satanist or something (and really, there’s no lack of those in the World of Darkness!), she’ll be whomever her target wants her to be. An evangelist meets a fellow believer; an anarchist meets a kindred spirit. An artist meets his Muse, and a cop meets the perfect partner. That Nephandus does whatever it takes to get that target believing in their friendship. And from there, the lies keep on coming…

The president’s a Nazi? Yep – here’s proof. Lilith was a love goddess framed by the Patriarchy? Sure she was. Nephandi are masters when it comes to getting folks to believe what they want to believe. Most members of Hammer Security Response are dedicated Christians who truly believe God wants them to kill minions of the Antichrist. And by mixing truth in with the lies (those damned witches sure look like minions of the Antichrist!), the Fallen move their pawns and initiates around like chessmen on a board that no one sees except them.

Isolation

A related tactic, isolation, removes the subject from external influences. The target finds himself in an echo chamber that reinforces the Nephandic line, one where every other message is a lie from Them. They, of course, are out to get you… and in the World of Darkness, where countless secret societies really do exist, that impression might just be accurate.

In a world where real and imaginary grudges are the stock-in-trade of various groups and corporations, this tactic is remarkably efficacious. People are already willing to believe the worst about their fellow primates, and so pushing such buttons (often from a distance on the Internet) is a fun and easy game. The Fallen One might not have to lie at all – or she could twist the truth just enough so that any reasonable person could believe it. All the while, the Nephandus draws her target further away from dissenting voices. She encourages the target to get angry at everyone who doesn’t think they way he does. You actually believe in gun control? You vote Republican? You eat meat or worship Jesus or follow a different sect of Islam than I do? You’re everything WRONG with the world!!! Especially in the age of the Internet, this tactic is incredibly effective, and mages – being at least halfway isolated from the Sleepers to begin with – are especially vulnerable to it. This, more than any other tactic, allowed the Fallen to corrupt the Technocracy and Traditions without tipping their hand in the process.

Escalation

Once a Nephandus gets her monkey dancing, she speeds the music up, inspiring him to jump higher and perform more daring moves. Escalation takes the other tactics and ratchets them up until the target wouldn’t recognize himself anymore. A few hits breed heroin addiction; the frustrated dude on unemployment finds himself blaming THEM for all his problems. The wizard who used to accept Hermetic discipline decides that summoning a demon or two isn’t really dangerous because she knows what she’s doing. Around this point, joining the Nephandi starts looking like a really good idea…

Corruption

…and that’s when the trap closes. Either the target becomes a reliable pawn in the Fallen game or walks into the Cauls of his own volition. In the old days, folks called this tarnation of the soul: a level of degradation where the subject’s old ideals have been scourged away by his activities. Here’s the difference between a Nephandic victim and a Nephandic convert: the victim gets overwhelmed by external forces that break him in ways he never wanted; the convert chooses to do what he does and thus breaks himself… a far more desirable option for the Nephandi.

Force

And then there’s force – a blunt but popular option in which the Nephandus simply beats the living shit out of her prey.

Better still, she has someone else do it for her – a cult, a demon, seduced pawns, unwitting authorities, whatever causes maximum pain with minimal risk! Sure, some Nephandi enjoy carnage, and all of them have a little agonizing fun with victims they pick specifically for play. As a tactic, though, force is a dangerous option, especially when you’re dealing with the Awakened, the Night-Folk, or potent mortal forces like the police. Violence holds no guarantees, and the Nephandus who wades into a fight might not walk out under her own power. Thus, force is a last-resort tactic unless the Fallen have stacked the odds toward overwhelming success.

Dark Arts

To Nephandi, magick is the power of the Absolute. They channel the Void through their intentions and rites, and because that power comes directly from the End of All Things, it’s theoretically more potent than any other form of magick. In game terms, of course, it’s all the same thing. The Fallen, however, view their Arts as ultimate manifestations of nothingness.

Fallen mages embrace the most nihilistic paradigms imaginable: Everything is Chaos, an Illusion, a One-Way Ride to Oblivion. Might is Right, and anyone who can’t accept that fact deserves to be prey for those who do. At the lower levels of experience, many Nephandi still hold onto dark beliefs: they’re ultimate predators, warriors of Satan, brave inheritors of forbidden knowledge, and so forth. Those who survive to reach the higher (or lower) reaches of their Path, however, have such illusions torn away from them. The aswadim understand that they’ve become vessels for the Absolute, living avatars of cosmic oblivion.

Lesser Infernalists make pacts with malignant entities. Signing away bits of their souls, they assume handfuls of petty, hardly even magic powers. A few Awaken, but most do not. Given weird investments like goat legs or flaming breath, these Infernalists believe they have power but fall pathetically short of True Magick.

Awakened Nephandi are a different breed. The Caul seals their pact and Awakens them if they hadn’t been Awakened before then. To them, power flows through the Qlippoth: the nine shells of the Spheres, regarded as the shadow side of Creation. Again, in game terms, these Qlippothic Spheres are exactly the same thing as the usual nine Spheres. A Fallen magus, however, regards those powers as the Nine Keys to Hell, or Nine Shadows of the Absolute, whose total essence forms the tenth Sphere, the Absolute. Supposedly, total understanding of each of these Fallen Spheres unlocks dark godhood and brings the seeker to a new level of existence which few have seen and from which no one can supposedly return.

Tools of Maleficia

For the most part, Nephandi mages use the same tools as other mages: art, rituals, instruments, and activities that focus a mage’s Will. For Nephandi and other Infernalists, however, those tools and actions become maleficia: injuries, offenses, and crimes. And so, their tools and rituals concentrate on hurting people, twisting symbols, and inflicting as much harm as possible under the circumstances.

Although they also employ plenty of subtle tools – eye contact, soft words, caresses, and other apparently innocuous things – the primary ritual and castings of infernal mages take conventional tools and then drench them in blasphemy. Dances become obscene; prayers invoke demonic powers; self-sacrifice goes to horrific extremes, and as for the sacrifice of others… well, we’ll simply say that the victims who get off with a dagger to the heart are the luckiest ones around. (See the Art of Desire, Dominion, and Maleficia entries in Chapter Ten, p.573-580.)

Castings and Resonance

As the name implies, malficia is intended to harm people. Nephandi use their Arts to sow discord, weave temptations, produce enticing goods, charm people, and generally do things an honorable mage would not attempt. When necessary, infernal pyrotechnics – firestorms, black lightning, tornados, and so forth – back up more subtle Effects. Nephandi even heal people if it serves their purposes to do so… although the definition of healing, and the techniques involved, probably won’t be very pleasant. (See, for instance, the New Youth Foundation, above.)

As a result of both the mage’s intentions and the Qlippothic energies behind these Arts, Fallen mages almost always leave tainted Resonance behind. Unless they take some measures to cloak their identities (and often even then), Nephandi magick creates a metaphysical bad taste in your mouth. The effects might be minor (chills in the air, wilted plants, weird buzzing sounds, and so on) but could get ugly (withered limbs, singing insects, a thick stench of brimstone, that sort of thing) when major magicks get involved.

Because Nephandi are master infiltrators, the Fallen prefer to avoid showy displays of Qlippothic Art. A true Black Mass is a rare thing in this group, and if one is staged, it’s probably for the benefit of Satanist pawns or perverse thrill-seekers. In many cases, such mages prefer to use tools that seem innocuous: a black candle in the room, a perfume prepared with infant blood, a gun that’s been used to murder a priest, and so forth. Barabbi mages use the same tools and rituals they’d employed before… though with slightly more extreme and destructive applications. The Progenitor who conducts particularly excruciating experiments and the Dreamspeaker who calls upon especially nasty spirits both embody the Nephandic approach to the Arts.

Remember that saying, “The end justifies the means?” That’s how so many Nephandi get away with the things they do. It’s especially obvious in the Technocracy, where Black Suits torture Reality Deviants as a matter of course or Pharmacopoeists drug kids up with psychoactive chemicals in order to get them to behave normally. It’s true even in the mortal world, though, where rock stars talk about armed revolution or pundits shame people that their audience has been told to despise. When “extreme” is a marketing strategy and illusion becomes reality, it gets easy to slip malficia and other corruption into popular culture. Maybe it is really just talk, or only a game. But when hate and selfishness, violence and obscenity become real life… and perhaps they always have been that way… the tools and Arts of malficia become easy to employ.

Mages have always been extreme by nature… so if a certain mage is a bit more extreme than others, who’s to say she’s actually a Nephandus? Where and how do you draw the line unless you can see into her soul?

It’s pretty hard to do that, really. Which is why the Fallen are so very good at what they do…