Merits & Flaws

Long ago, it has been said, immortals walked the earth, siring offspring whose descendants still live among us now. The Hebrew Bible refers to them as nephilim, an ambiguous word that seems to be related to root words for “fallen,” “prisoners,” and “overseers.” Later transliterations refer to them as giants, monsters, watchers, and the fallen (or violent) ones. Were they gods? Angels? Demons? Not even the Awakened know for sure; you, however, have a bit of High Umbral essence within you, and this nephilim inher­ itance – known sometimes by the demon-blooded name of laham – marks you as something more than merely human (Awakened or otherwise).

A living crossroads between the Astral Realm and the mortal world, you exist in a heightened state of spiritual essence. Your aura burns with unearthly intensity, and your presence frightens many Otherworldly denizens. Your connection to High Umbral entities might involve a distant relationship to primordial sires, or the far more recent ac­ tivities of mortals and spirits who shared a distinctly carnal relationship. (“Mom, seriously – I need to know the truth about Dad”) Are you part-demon? Descended from an angel? Sired by an entity whose nature transcends mortal concepts like “good” and “evil”? You probably don’t even know, although events in your chronicle might reveal the truth whether you want to learn it or not.

System

-wise, this Merit confers the following drawbacks and benefits:

• As noted above, your aura blazes with inhuman clarity and brilliance.

• Your temperament favors your Umbral ancestor, and you tend to act accordingly.

• You must take at least three points’ worth of Physical Flaws to reflect the unstable nature of your physi­ cal form and the surging metaphysical energies it contains. These Flaws do not count toward your total Flaw points, nor do you get points for taking those Flaws.

• Those energies give you a Quintessence rating of 7, and those points automatically refresh up to that seven-point maximum each time you go to sleep, regardless of your Avatar rating.

• If your chronicle employs the Resonance rules in Chapter Two, you begin play with three points in Resonance, not one. If not, you get three points’ worth of the Flaw: Echoes. Again, those phenomena reflect the tempera­ ment of your Umbral ancestor.

• You subtract -1 from the difficulties of your casting rolls when you cast Effects using the Mind Sphere, the Spirit Sphere, or both in relation to the High Umbra. If, for example, the demon-blooded laham mage Jenatrix wanted to read someone’s mind, her casting difficulty would be normal; if she wanted to project her astral self into the High Umbra, however, she’d reduce the difficulty by -1.

• You can travel physically into the High Umbra by using a Mind 4 /Spirit 3 Effect.

• When attempting to intimidate, command, or bargain with High Umbral entities, you add two dice to which­ ever dice pool you happen to be using in that attempt. (For details, see The Bargaining Process in How Do You DO That? pp. 91-95.) Despite your advantage, however, using your uncanny heritage as leverage will not exactly endear you to the entities in question. In such negotiations, it’s generally more constructive to use a carrot than a stick.

• On a related note, you suffer a penalty of +2 to the dif­ ficulty of your rolls to resist, soak or counter rituals cast by Hermetic High Ritual wizards or Awakened clerics from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian denominations. These folks have spent millennia studying your kind, and be ye angel or be ye demon, they know how to deal with you more effectively than most mages do. (By rituals, we’re referring to extended-roll ceremonial magicks, not off-the-cuff spells. Your chances are as good as anybody else’s if a wizard tosses a lightning bolt at you; if he draws up a summoning circle, though, you’re kinda screwed.)

• At the Storyteller’s option, you may also receive up to sev­ en points in the Advantages described in Mage 20, p. 658 (and expanded further in the Mage 20 sourcebook

Gods, Monsters & Familiar Strangers). Demon-blooded

laham characters may, instead, take up to seven points in the demonic Investments described in the Mage:

The Sorcerers Crusade sourcebook Infernalism: The Path of Screams or the Mage 20 supplement The

Book of the Fallen. In either case, these additional and optional benefits get balanced out with a five-point Derangement Flaw of the Storyteller’s choice (see Mage

20, pp. 648-650).

Although the player might not know what sort of entity her character is descended from, the Storyteller ought to de­ termine the character’s heritage, and then plant clues (dreams, visions, weird greetings from characters who seem to know more about the mage than she knows about herself…) throughout the story. He ought to feed roleplaying notes to the player, too: This Realm seems familiar even though you don’t recall having been here before, You can almost taste the evil in that girl’s soul, Man, you just wanna rip that dude’s throat out and you’re not sure why… The player, of course, can draw her own conclusions – conclusions that might not necessarily be accurate at all.

This Merit goes well with Merits like Legendary Attributes,

Nine Lives, and Too Tough to Die, Flaws like Immortal En­ emy, Primal Marks, or Cast No Shadow or Reflection, and

Background

s like Cult, Demesne, and Past Life. As with the Merit: “Immortal,” (above) this Trait could be too powerful for player characters to take. Supporting characters, however, could be nephilim-descended, which would make for potent friends and memorable enemies.