RPG Antagonists: The Abyss (Mage: the Awakening)

Now, I've covered my love for both Mage: the Awakening and Ascension, and I've made clear that I see them as two very different settings (with very similar mechanics). Now, one of the main themes of Ascension is that no one really is the bad guy. The vast majority of the Technocracy are genuine idealists, who believe to the core of their beings that a world without 'Magic' would be a better one for everyone. Marauders are often not at fault (although obviously there are exceptions) for the damage that they cause, and even the Nephandi can be portrayed sympathetically if you imagine them as trying to mercy-kill the world. Ascension is a game about belief, and everyone needs to believe in what they're doing to accomplish anything at all.

Awakening has a different theme. If Ascension's core premise is that 'everyone can make a difference, and that's awesome,' Awakening's premise is 'everyone can make a difference and that's awesome and occasionally, fucking terrifying.' Awakening's antagonists are brutal. The Seers of the Throne are a far cry from the Technocracy, seeing Magic as their divine right and purposely crushing innovation and creativity among the human race for the specific purpose of ensuring that no one will ever be able to challenge them. Goetia can bring the worst aspects of humanity to life, even the most positive spirit of happiness could eat your face off if it thought it would increase its power, and mages of all stripes are just as often good-guy freedom fighters as they are batshit insane monsters, and all of them can warp reality to their whim. None of these can compare even remotely to the horror of the Abyss. The Abyss is an unreality. The Abyss is quite literally something that shouldn't exist.

The word 'Lovecraftian' is thrown around a lot, especially in horror circles, and the more it gets thrown around, the more misused it becomes. The core premise behind Lovecraftian horror, at its base is a universe that doesn't care about the individual, and is incomprehensible. In Lovecraft's mind, incomprehensible meant ancient, skyscraper-sized elder gods with tentacles from the sea. It also meant ancient aliens from beyond the stars and sentient colors. The Abyss takes that entire premise and really runs with it. Beings from the Abyss almost never incarnate as gigantic, tentacled monsters, not because it is outside of their power, but because it is far too comprehensible and predictable.

Understanding the Abyss requires understanding how it came about. When the Exarchs ascended to the Supernal in the distant past, they forced the worlds apart, taking the vast majority of magic with them from the aptly named Fallen World. The wound that they left behind in the universe was the Abyss, an endless realm of nightmarish, mind-twisting horror that separates the Fallen World (ours) and the Supernal World of magic, and it is constantly trying to invade both worlds and devour them. The Abyss has no true form. Nothing that could be contained within the physics of the Fallen World even if it allowed for Cthulhu to be sleeping in the ocean's depths. The Abyss needs to 'cloak' itself, infecting something within the Fallen World and spreading its influence. The Abyss can infect, insinuate itself into anything. Living beings are just one option.

Now, the sourcebook that covers the Abyss, 'Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss' details some truly incredible and bizarre monsters. The Abyss can be anything, from a titanic, void-born monstrosities, to sentient memetics, to strings of genes hidden within backwood communities, to in one particularly terrifying case, a sentient, alternate timeline. The Abyss manifests in these abstract concepts because it has no understanding of the Fallen World and will grab onto anything in its reach and attempt to use it as an entry vector. In forcing itself into the Fallen World, the Abyss can take some truly bizarre forms, very often as conceptual and metaphorical as they are physical and tangible. Obviously, this makes Abyssal infestation quite hard to fight, but mages are reality warpers as well. Banishing the Abyss tends to involve cutting away the contaminated parts of the world, exiling the intruders, but lessening the Fallen World slightly, widening the gap between our world and the Supernal. This is, however, only applicable to mages. Mortals and even other supernatural beings are truly screwed facing off against anything from the Abyss. How do you fight an entity that's a sentient time of day, or one that can contaminate any kind of representation of the number nine?

The worst part of the Abyss is that all magic must cross over it when mages draw it down from the realms Supernal, and sometimes, it manages to cling on and contaminate a mage's magic. In Awakening, this is the reason for Paradox, as every mortal carries a small mote of the Abyss in his or her soul, and that sympathy allows some of the Void to invade whenever a spell goes awry. These things can be simple little things, like tearing into the unfortunate mage's pattern or branding him with some abstract weirdness from another realm. it could drive the mage partially insane as he stares into the screaming Void between worlds, or worse, it could bring an actual entity into the world, one that can only be banished by its summoner's death. Almost every act of magic, every mote of Supernal essence pulled into the Fallen World via magick has a chance of bringing Abyssal infestation with it, and a mage's hubris is the entire reason that the nightmare reality exists.

Here are some neat pieces of fiction to inspire a campaign dealing primarily with the Abyss:

Doom Patrol: Particularly Grant Morrison's run, where the themes and baddies really start getting weird. Many abstract villains appear, like the Brotherhood of Dada, literally a group of villains that defy logic and sanity. There are others, like Scissormen, monsters from a fictional city that can 'cut' their victims out of reality, a painting that absorbs matter and may contain the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, or the ghost of a broken mirror that eats time. All of these things could be Abyssal manifestations, and really drive home the mind-bending horror of things that defy conventional reality.

The Number 23: A cerebral little thriller about a man being stalked by a number. It sounds insane and it is, and it's really thrown up in the air whether something supernatural is happening, or whether the protagonist is just stone-cold crazy. As reality and fiction blend into one, it's the sort of movie that makes a person feel paranoid and shows how scary it can be when the world is just slightly 'off.'

Occulus: A movie that really goes out of its way to ensure the protagonists are prepared for anything, and it really doesn't help. The baddy is a mirror with illusory powers among other things, and the protagonists study it, setting up video cameras that can't be fooled by illusions, potted plants at regular intervals to see how far the creature's influence is spreading (it drains the life out of small creatures) and even setting up an axe on the ceiling to go off if a timer isn't reset, to prevent it from simply killing them. Like the Number 23, the Mirror appears to warp reality, but it could all just be the protagonist's paranoia, and no one can be quite sure if what's happening before their eyes is real.

- Kephn

Tremere Liches (Mage: The Awakening)

So, controversial opinion time. I've been giving a lot of love to Mage: The Ascension, and people who read this blog may very well have me pegged as a Classic WoD fanboy. Now, it may shock you, but I actually came across the majority of the  World of Darkness through the New WoD, and I've always thought that they were a fantastic series of games. I have my criticisms for all of them, but they'll always hold a special place in my heart. Vampire: The Requiem I've always found excellent, but ultimately can pretty easily be used for as a sourcebook for Masquerade or vice versa. A lot of things are lifted wholesale from Masquerade (like the entirety of Camarilla society, with the -not-Camarilla Invictus and the -not-Anarchs Carthians) with the serial numbers filed off, and while they do add some fantastic ideas, like the Stryx (who I shall devote an entire article too soon), I've always felt that nVampire and nWerewolf could easily be used as sourcebooks for the old line.  New Mage on the other hand, is different.

NMage is really when I felt that the New World of Darkness really came into it's own, because it's the game that really has the fortitude to truly be different from its predecessor and stand out. NMage focuses a lot more on the morality and hubris of magic, as well as a hefty load of real, absolutely terrifying cerebral and cosmic horror, which is a far cry from the Old Mage which was ultimately a lot more optimistic and could be argued to be played as a normal superhero story. Now, don't get me wrong, I love them both, but I really do think that they offer a very different feel. NMage for example, has some real, awesome ideas for Dark Magic that doesn't involve inverting your soul and going Nephandi, but is arguably equally as horrifying. Today, we're going to be looking at my absolute favorite examples of evil Magi who nontheless claim their souls as their own, along with everyone else's. I speak of none other than the Tremere Liches.

What are the Tremere Liches?
Now, the New WoD had this silly habit of naming things that were sort of conceptually similar to stuff in the cWoD after their main inspirations, so, for the purposes of this, forget the Masquerade clan of fallen Hermetic vampires. In Mage: The Awakening, the Tremere are a name for a Legacy (think a specialized Craft that branches off from a main Tradition) that focuses on handling souls, specifically, eating them and living forever. As you can probably expect, this is not the most socially acceptable hobby in the world, and while particularly lenient Consiliums will turn a blind eye to the activities of a Lich if it targets their enemies and doesn't get in their way, publicly advertising yourself as one is tantamount to admitting to being a serial killer or a child molester. It's a great way to get murdered.

What makes the Liches so creepy, and such great antagonists is the fact that it confers great power, and allows a Mage to extend his lifespan without going through the soul-shattering embrace of Vampirism, or anything else that might limit his magical potential. The universe of Mage: The Awakening is amoral, and thus, something as horrifying and disgusting as literally eating souls doesn't really pose any major or serious barrier toward enlightenment, self knowledge, and ultimately Ascension. Many Liches join the legacy in hopes that they will uncover the secret to Ascension or Archmastery before their natural lifespans run out. This to me, strikes me as a much more realistic motive for turning to dark and forbidden magic, as opposed to turning Nephandi or Infernalist in oMage, which literally involves throwing away your chance at Ascending.

More than just immortality, however, being a Tremere Lich confers some really great power. Legacies in NMage confer spells that confer no paradox and are literally supernatural powers inherent to the mage himself, and Tremere Liches get this for tearing people's souls out. Think about that for a second. With no paradox, and in front of as many witnesses as they like, a Lich can tear a person's soul free and eat it with no consequence. Tremere Liches are also a Moros Legacy (ascetic necromancers sort-of-but-not-really in the vein of the Euthanatos), meaning that they can do some truly nasty things with the Death Arcana (essentially a nasty lovechild of the Entropy and Spirit spheres from Mage: The Ascension). The Tremere Liches represent temptation, the lure of secret power and the very uncomfortable idea that the universe is free to be shaped by anyone, no matter how disgusting or twisted.

Tremere Liches in Mage: The Ascension
Now, I think a lot of apostates or Left Handed Legacies can and should easily be ported over to OMage, because they show the allure of evil and dark magic that nontheless keeps the soul pure and untainted, unlike a Nephandus, but the Tremere Liches are a special brand of evil that can bring some real horror to your game. This is my write up of the Liches as a pseudo-craft.

The Tremere Liches are arguably one of the darkest secrets, a result of collaboration between the Euthanatos and the Order of Hermes. Both orders are violently repulsed by these monsters. Both Traditions publicly execute and subject the soul-eaters to Gilgul whenever they can. Both of the orders however, secretly study their works, and sometimes even turn a blind eye to the workings of the Liches. The Liches, after all, are not Nephandi. They are in full possession and control of souls, be it their own or anyone elses. Even their name is an in-joke among the Hermetics, referencing the fallen House Tremere who became vampires, and muddying the issue as to what they are collaborating with. The Euthanatos and Hermetics tolerate these aberrations privately because they hold the key to unlocking one of the most cloying mysteries of the Awakened: the nature of the Avatar.

Becoming a Lich is no easy task. First of all, the Mage must be of at least Arete 4, and must be initiated by another Lich. Any Mage can join the Craft, however they are immediately declared barrabi and subjected to Gilgul if caught. Worse, no Avatar will voluntarily want its host to join for obvious reasons, and will resist the change with all their might. However, once the rites are conducted, the senior Lich tears the Avatar out of the aspirant, replacing it with a ragged, sucking paradox-wound, and initiating the aspirant into Lichdom. From there, the following changes take place.

• Tremere Liches, have no personal Avatar. They do however, immediately gain the power to sever the Avatar from a victim (only a sleeper at this point). While they cannot attach it to themself without the senior Lich present (at least until they reach Arete 6, at which point they gain the ability to attach the Avatar to themselves and utilize it as their own), when it is attached, the Avatar is awakened and can be used by the Lich to access his or her own spheres. The Avatar is slowly and painfully digested over the course of several weeks, sustaining both the Liche's immortality and magic, until they are fully digested and destroyed forever (such an Avatar does not re-enter the cycle of reincarnation, and are instead annihilated forever). At Arete 8, A Lich gains the ability to steal an Awakened Avatar, and may use one sphere from his or her victim after it is attached. This soul-theft ability is not a magical ability and can be used without an Avatar or even if the Lich is cut off from regular Sphere magick. Victims roll Avatar + Arete + Willpower (Difficulty 9) to resist having their Avatars severed. Tremere Liches can only use this power on an individual once a month, and if they fail, the victims are immune to this power.
• Tremere Liches are subject to the whims of their stolen Avatar. While their Arete doesn't change, they gain the Essence and Rating of their stolen Avatar (Sleeper Avatars are a random number between 1-3). The Avatar is also universally antagonistic to the Lich and will often refuse to lead it on seekings, as it is being slowly devoured. The Lich however, may automatically lower the Sustaining time limit of the Avatar by one week, painfully devouring a portion of the Avatar to torture it into co-operating.
• Avatars last for one month per Avatar rating. They keep their rating until they are fully devoured.
• If their Auras are somehow sighted, Tremere Liches always have a tainted aura, covered in black veins, similar to vampiric diablerists. Their resonance is also deeply disturbing and often contains elements desperation and being eaten alive.
• The ultimate aim of Tremere Liches is to eat the soul of an Oracle and finally Ascend. Not one has accomplished this yet.
• Tremere Liches are despised by literally EVERYONE who is not another Lich. The Traditions and Technocracy rightfully consider them ghastly aberrations and kill them on sight to free their current Avatars. Even Marauders, Infernalists and Nephandi do not fancy the idea of slowly and painfully devouring the immortal parts of their souls and will not risk truck with them for too long. 
• A Tremere Lich who devours a damaged Avatar, such as a Marauder's broken soul or a Nephandi's inverted one effectively becomes a Marauder or Nephandus for the time they use it, but ultimately, when the Avatar is digested, their are no permanent ill-effects.
• An Avatar-less person (Lich or Victim) loses the ability to do magick, and in extreme cases, lose any kind of creative thinking if they go for an amount of weeks equal to their Avatar rating. Liches keep their soul-severing ability, but no other magick. 

Tremere Liches maintain their own heirarchy, and aim to truly and totally understand the nature of the Avatar and the Soul. Unlike Nephandi, Liches are perfectly capable of Ascending with a stolen Avatar, and that is the sole reason that the Euthanatos and Hermetics may sometimes tolerate them secretly. Liches provide great weapons against the enemies of the Traditions, functioning as literally a walking Gilgul engine, that can be used to ensure, permanently, that an enemy is truly, and utterly destroyed. Euthanatos and Hermetics who are particularly corrupt enjoy feeding Nephandi they capture to the Liches in their ranks, and use them to gain understanding on tainted magickal theories. Many Liches are masters of many Arts, as they are capable of stealing a person's former rotes and in the cases of exceedingly old Liches, even begin to manifest them as supernatural abilities like Soul-Theft.

(Special Note: One awesome guy on Facebook who sadly disagrees with me on Awakening's coolness suggested making these guys Gilgul survivors, which I think is a great idea as well)

 Tremere Liches in Mage: The Awakening
 A nice, easy rundown of the Liches and their abilities and organization in Awakening. Now, if you've read that, you'll see that the Liches are pretty well fleshed-out in NMage. The main, major change I'd make is that I'd make their Legacy open to any Path, (though because of their Attainments, they'd be an obvious choice to the Moros, who would make up the vast majority of their ranks) to really drive home the idea of power being open to corrupting everyone. All the Paths have Reaper legacies, and it makes sense that the Tremere can assimilate anyone or anything who deals with souls, making corrupted Reaper houses out of any Path or Legacy, effectively making them a 'sixth' Path to be Awakened to. They also provide a neat tool for particularly amoral Consilums or Ministries, who may see the Liches' power as a particularly horrible weapon to be used against their enemies.

Playing a Tremere Lich is something that could be really fun, but the Wisdom mechanic in NMage (That I almost always port over to OMage when I can) makes it a pretty risky prospect. That said, a Mad Tremere would be a terrifying force indeed, and really could make for a great Big Bad for a chronicle.

Houses of the Soul-Eaters
Because the Left Hand Path book has some really cool ideas for Houses (assimilated reaper Legacy conquered by the Tremere), here are some sample Houses I've created. I haven't made up Attainments for them yet, but if you think of any good ones, by all means, stick them in the comments. They will be coming soon when I think of them, but for now, enjoy the flavor of them.

House Ghul
Spawned from a truly repulsive Arabian legacy of Necromancer Reapers, House Ghul is a visceral branch of the Tremere Liches who make even their fellow soul-eaters uncomfortable. Ghul are the absolute masters of necromancy, and their cannibalistic rites are known throughout the order to be truly nightmarish. Ghuls have a tradition that they do merely steal the soul, but magically preserve the life and consciousness of their victims while they eat them alive, holding them in suspended animation until they have consumed the last bite, at which point they capture the fleeing soul and devour it. This House is almost an Infernalist house, with some of the truly deranged members believing themselves to be Arabian demons in human bodies, and many fall to become the Mad very quickly. Their lairs are festooned with paralyzed but still horribly alive and conscious victims, and while the Tremere hesitate to deal with these wayward cannibals, they are happy to leave these vile abominations to burn their Wisdoms and souls out doing truly disgusting jobs for their fellow Liches.

House Dracos
A House spawned from a Reaper legacy that was hidden deep within the Mysterium of the Pentacle orders. The Dracos believed that the only way to access the Supernal was to force a human to awaken, and consume their souls at the very instant they visited the Supernal, accessing their memories and learning more about the Supernal in the process. When they were conquered and assimilated by the Tremere, the Liches saw them as a useful resource to find any clue about their mysterious, Watchtower of the Soul, to research if anyone could truly Awaken to it with no stimulus. Dracos are the lorekeepers of the Tremere, managing vast libraries of Atlantean lore, that are defended both by members of the rogue Mystagogues, and by other Tremere as well.

House Demiurgos
A house assimilated from a Seer Legacy, that focused on ripping the souls out of Sleepers before they could awaken. This house specializes in destroying Awakened opponents, negating magics and possessing the truly feared ability to rip the souls of the Awakened out far more easily then their brethren. Unusually, while they are loyal only to the Liches, it is not common knowledge that the Legacy has been devoured, and many of its operatives still infiltrate the Seers, eating the souls of any who discover their new allegiance.

House Nihilous
Nothing disgusts the Tremere like a traitor, and this absolutely repulsive House has earned the disdain and censure of even the most base and vile of beings, their fellow Liches. Declared heretics by the rest of the Tremere, House Nihilous is hated and hunted, both for what they represent and for what they may yet do. Assimilated from a Scelestus Legacy, which tore the souls out of their victims and feeding them wholesale to their Acamoth masters, the Tremere felt that the Nihilous would help in giving the Tremere access to the Antinomian magic of the Scelesti. House Nihilous, however, was corrupted, going not to the Watchtower of the Soul, but to its Abyssal Dur-Abzu reflection, where they inverted not just their torn and fractured souls, but the souls of all they ate as well. No one knows exactly what the Rogue House serves, but they have access to both Tremere attainments and the Antinomian sorcery of the Scelesti, and are more dedicated than ever to feeding the souls of the Fallen World directly into the Void.

- Kephn

Fallen Lords

Hello again, internet. Now, if you've read my blog at all and are a fan of Mage: The Ascension, you might know that I'm a huge fan of the Nephandi, the main antagonists in Mage. Now, this might seem a bit paradoxical (heh), given that the Nephandi don't really get a lot of love in official texts. Everything in Mage canon that mentions them essentially makes them baby-eating supervillains, and really, that point of view irks me a little. Nephandi represent the desire of perversity, the idea of doing something wrong simply because it is, and I think that it can spawn some of the very coolest villains and even player characters imaginable. Nephandi are mages, which means inherently that each Nephandus is first and foremost an individual, with their own intensely complicated and personal hopes, dreams, ideas and methods. Now, with M20 coming up, and a sourcebook for the Nephandi (Book of the Fallen, being released in the M20 line), this is my attempt to give my favorite villains a bit more characterization.

Be aware, that this isn't really canon as far as Mage goes, any more than my homebrew stuff is. I've tried to stick as close to canon as possible, while inserting my own ideas and nicking a few from the Scelestus of Mage: The Awakening, who are essentially a spiritual successor to the Nephandi (and yes, I like both Mages. I find nMage really good for the horror elements and the Abyss, and the moral ambiguity. Sue me.) to make my vision of the fourth and final sect of the Ascension War.

What is a Nephandus?
A Nephandus is an awakened human who, rather than a regular Avatar like every other awakened being, possesses an inverted Avatar. Now, this is a very simple distinction, but the ramifications are deep and intrinsic. Normal Avatars encourage their hosts to better themselves and the world around them. Normal Avatars, whether possessed by Traditionals, Technocrats, or even Marauders are ultimately a creative force that wants to add to the universe, and uses their host as something of a lens to focus its additions through. A Nephandic Avatar is not like that. Inverted Avatars intrinsically oppose their hosts. They break down rather than build up, and gear the soul toward ultimate Descent, rather than Ascension. It makes the magick of the Nephandus inherently destructive, and impossible to truly use for the positive.

Usually, to gain an inverted Avatar, the Nephandus has to travel through a Caul, an otherworldly gateway that leads, just for a second, Outside the universe. Nephandi don't like addressing what goes on inside it, but suffice to say, the human language probably doesn't have words to do it justice anyway. Once the Nephandus comes out, their Avatars are inverted. Whatever their aspirations before, Nephandi have come to believe that the world they are living in is either a prison to be escaped, an illusion, or simply something disgusting that cannot be allowed to exist, and should be destroyed either for the natural order, or simply out of mercy. This is what unites Nephandi ultimately. They do not want temporal power, except as a means to further their ultimate goal. However a Nephandus justifies it to him or herself, or whatever they may believe may come after, Nephandi want, in their heart of hearts, to destroy the universe.

In game terms, Nephandus is a seven point flaw that characters can take. They can take it in game after passing through a Caul, or at character creation, representing a Widderslainte (reincarnation of a dead Nephandus). It automatically comes with a derangement (Usually, but not always sociopathy. Finding out reality is an utter lie sort of makes conventional morals irrelevant) and confers the following benefits and flaws.

• Nephandi are hunted. A known Nephandus gains the flaw Enemy: Non-Nephandi.  Everyone not Nephandi will do absolutely everything they can to either kill him or get away from him.
• Nephandi gain an additional point of paradox every time they would gain some. Their magick is inherently corrosive to reality and reality in turn harms them more.
• Nephandi may only harvest half the Quintessence from a node or Tass, though they can violate the sanctity of an Avatar to rip Quintessence directly out of a person's pattern.
• Nephandi can never Ascend, and their Magick becomes Qlipphothic, inherently destructive.
• Qlipphothic Magick, due to its very nature and the Nephandic paradigm, cannot create anything. Things that look like acts of creation are merely a Nephandus drawing matter in from Outside reality and shaping it, after they have torn a hole in the Tellurian. If cut off from their patrons, Nephandi cannot create anything that was not already there.
• Qlipphothic Magick, however, is incredibly dangerous and corrosive to reality itself. Any damage dealt utilizing Qlipphothic Magick automatically deals aggravated damage, as Nephandic Magicks dissolves patterns and reality itself. Nothing destroyed by Qlipphothic Magick can ever be restored. It is simply annihilated.
• While both have forfeited their souls, Nephandi and Infernalists are very different. Nephandi do not suffer the frozen Arete that mere Infernalists do, as by stepping through the Cauls, they have dedicated themselves to Oblivion on a far greater level than mere Infernalists.
• Nephandi resonance becomes tainted and feels deeply unpleasant.
• Nephandi are Nephandi forever. No Nephandus can ever be untainted, even via the most powerful Spirit and Mind Magicks. They will return forever more as Nephandi in all their lives.

Reasons
The mere act of trying to destroy the universe seems a totally irrational one, especially considering that the Nephandi live there. There are many myriad reasons that a Nephandus can fall and choose to end the universe.

Opportunists - These 'fair-weather' Nephandi don't really care about Descent, or think that it will happen some lifetime far beyond their own. They are enticed into the Cauls because they are pursuing something, or have been tempted with money, power or knowledge. Nephandi have access to incredible stores of lore and contact with beings that literally have overseen the creation of the world. Most 'true' Nephandi look down on these people, but take what help they give.

Psychopaths - Some people are just plain nuts and magi are no exception. These mages join the Nephandi to give full expression to their desire to hurt as many people as possible on the greatest scale possible. These Nephandi almost universally go out in truly extravagant displays, killing themselves, their enemies, their allies and everyone unfortunate enough to be around them, however, a few last for years, slowly plotting acts of shocking sadism that ruin millions' of lives.

Gnostics - The most common 'rational' reason for the Nephandi to join. Many Nephandi believe that the world is nothing more than an illusion. They see the world as a cage, and see Ascension as just a way of becoming further trapped. Nephandi argue that the only way out of the cage is to degrade it, destroying it and freeing everyone ultimately.  They see demons, Outer Gods and Oblivion itself as the only beings worthy of respect as they come from Outside, and they share the mutual goals of opening the gates of reality. Other Nephandi see the same demons and elder things to be nothing more than extensions of the cage, who will vanish along with it when it is broken.

Faithful - Some Nephandi may very well be sincerely worshipful of their patrons. They believe that they will be rewarded when they finally open the gates for their masters.

Nihilists - Finally, there are those magi who are simply overcome with despair. They may believe that the world is beyond saving or redemption, or that the only possible way forward is by forcing it through the Void, to see what emerges on the other side. These mages may very well believe they are saving the world, or that they are doing it a mercy.

Factions
Factions are something of a misnomer among the Fallen. Many outside them believe that Nephandi are divided among lines of devil-worshipers, worshipers of the Wyrm and worshipers of the Outer Gods. In truth, while those are the most prevalent, it's a joke that's lost on most outsiders. Nephandi know very well that these three are the most common manifestations of the Outside, what lurks beyond the walls of reality. Nephandi call upon these powers because they work, and they violate reality in the way that very few other powers can, but they have no illusions that they are in any way 'separate' from each other. The Outside adopts many masks, but ultimately, an Infernalist calls upon the same power as a Malfean. Many Nephandi do not even subscribe to this dichotomy, and form personal traditions and philosophies on the end of all things. Many have their own separate, unique, and truly bizarre paradigms. Unlike the Traditions however, Nephandi are organized. They work together because they want the same thing, and don't really care what way another Nephandus chooses to look at the Outside.

The Nephandic Condition
Being a Nephandus means confronting, more than any other magus, the truth that conventional reality, and thus morality is a lie. In some ways this is incredibly freeing, and in other ways it's incredibly unsettling. Reality is a comforting place, and Nephandi recognize the trap of comfort as easily as any other trap. Yet, all Nephandi know the call to Descend, and know that in their hearts of hearts they cannot accept the world as it is. They consort with dark powers, perform absolutely and utterly unspeakable rituals, do things that would drive normal humans insane, and all for the simple fact that they would do anything to get out. It's all an illusion, so it shouldn't matter either way, right? Many Nephandi go mad from the strain, becoming brutal, hedonistic psychopaths who desire nothing but to spread misery and woe. Others become depressed, slowly becoming more twisted as they expose themselves to horrors no mortal mind should face. Worst of all, Nephandi face all this alone. The Traditions and the Technocracy will kill them on sight, and as the Nephandi must hide amongst their enemies, they need to keep their disgust for the lie a secret.

Among their own kind, Nephandi fear no judgement. All of them are aware of the illusory nature of the Tellurian, and no sin can shock someone who doesn't truly believe it's real. When Nephandi gather in their Labyrinths, they commit some of the most horrific atrocities imaginable, and when working their Magick, they are unafraid of dealing with absolutely anything.

Crafts
Nephandi, more than their Tradition, Technocratic or even Hollow brethren, are truly fragmented and egalitarian in their paradigms and methods. Despite falling into the 'big three' of Infernalism, Malfeanism and K'llassha, there are many myriad lesser Crafts and even truly unique Magickal systems to a specific individual among the Nephandi. Below are some samples of my own creation.

The Disciples of Oppenheimer - Nephandic technomancers who respect J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so called 'father of the atomic bomb', for helping to shape their paradigm and methods. This particular craft of the Fallen focuses on the interactions between matter and energy and the power released through the breakdown of matter. Many experiment with 'anti-matter', attempting to create a true annihilation of physical reality and seeing it as a key to breaking the bonds of reality itself. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Matter

The Dead Dreamers  - The Dead Dreamers are a very old Nephandic tradition, and very popular among the K'Lassha, and other less sane members of the sect. The Dreamers believe that the world is nothing but a dream, either their own or someone else's. The Dreamers see the Outer Gods as a reflection of their own souls and bodies in the 'real world' Outside, and welcome their insane dreams into their minds and souls, hoping to experience visions of true reality, outside the illusion. They experiment with waking nightmares, pulling horrors from their own deranged minds into reality in an attempt to 'shock' themselves and others into wakefulness. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Mind

Mutilators - The dark reflection of the Verbena, the Mutilators are druids and dark scholars of the ecology of the Outside, summoning grotesque monsters from beyond the Gauntlet and dissecting them. Mutilators believe that by understanding the ecology of the Elder Gods, it can be replicated within reality and thus, allow those Outside passage. Mutilators can be ancient druids in lonely fields, reading the future in the guts of a horror, or be based in labs, dissecting aliens captured from beyond time and space. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Life

The Strange Aeon - This craft is the most common among Infernalist Gnostics, and has it's roots in different Christian Gnostic heresies. Its primary philosophy is that God is actually the Demiurge, a malevolent being that has denied humanity its divinity and created the universe to trap us. To escape, the Aeon believes that its members must indulge in all sin, defy God's will in every way it can, and in ultimate evil, ultimate Satanic enlightenment, they shall Descend and be free. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Prime

Architects of the Void - A craft of Technocrats who became a little too fascinated with spatial anomalies and other 'flaws' within physics and the universe. They study Black Holes, Dark and Strange Matter, and anything else that seems to represent the dissolution of physics and reality. Gravity especially, is a fascination of theirs, for its seeming ability to warp time and space, and their methods often involve drawing the energy from things, with the eventual goal of bringing about the Heat Death. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Forces

Unweavers - One of the most common Nephandic crafts, and one that is arguably the most easily applied to any Nephandic paradigm. These Nephandi see the universe as a pattern, and argue that minor changes inevitable in all patterns eventually lead to dissolution. These sorcerers specialize in bad luck and decay, and work to unravel patterns wherever they find them, seeking to use these methods to unravel the greater pattern of the universe. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Entropy

The Singularity Front - This Craft represents a method rather than a unified paradigm, but all Nephandi who belong to it see space and separation as an illusion. They see these things as metaphorical walls, which when broken, will allow the entire illusion to be pulled into a single point and quashed altogether. Through this idea, they specialize in sympathetic magick and enjoy the destruction of areas of space, seeing it as the eventual fulfillment of their ideal. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Correspondence

The Church of the Black Hourglass - A popular Craft among particularly powerful Nihilists, especially those gifted in Time Magicks. The Black Hourglass argues that choice is pointless. The Universe adapts and branches off with every choice, spawning an alternate reality to house and contain every possibility. The Church claims that it has destroyed thousands of alternate worlds, only find that, like a hydra, more alternate universes keep springing forth. Their ultimate aim is to seek the 'Genesis Point,' the very first act that set all things in motion, and in that single slice of existence, annihilate and negate it. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Time

The Doomsday Lodge - The classic Craft for Malfeans, the Doomsday Lodge arguably forms the main stereotype for the Nephandi. It is the Lodge that primarily deals with spirits, communes with them, and deals with entities from beyond the Gauntlet. The Lodge are the sages of the Nephandi, the points of contact between them and their otherworldly patrons. The Lodge negotiates deals and delivers orders from the Outside, and ultimately work to weaken the barrier between the worlds of flesh, spirit and beyond. Specialty Sphere: Qlipphothic Spirit

These, of course, represent only a very small portion of the total methods of Nephandic Magick. Individual Nephandi forge their own points of contact, make their own methods, and as long as it destroys reality, their brethren will work with them with no real complaint. The Nephandi may differ in beliefs, magick and motives, but ultimately, when the battle is won and reality falls, they will have forever to work out their differences.

I will leave you with Owlman, from Justice League: A Crisis on Two Earths, the best representation of a Nephandus in a work of fiction I've seen in a while, for some final thoughts.

- Kephn