"Nephilim" is a French roleplaying game that was adapted by Chaosium back in the early 1990s. Since then there have been more versions in French, with the Chaosium version ending after a few supplements were published.
For me, it's one of the ones "that got away". It's billed as an "occult roleplaying game", the players take on the roles of the Nephilim, magical beings who incarnate periodically through human bodies. There is a deep backstory and complex system, based on BRP. It's a field day for anyone interested in the occult, conspiracy theories or secret societies, with the enemies represented by the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, the Thule Society and the dark Nephilim, the Selenim.
I think this game came along at the wrong time, and also suffered from a clear lack of focus. It has so many fantastic ideas and yet there isn't a clear sense of what should be done with the game. The Nephilim themselves are described vaguely, and the magic system is complex, though true to real-world occult concepts.
One of my favorite parts of the game is the past-life incarnations that are done in character generation. A Nephilim could have been a god in ancient Egypt, or a monk in medieval France. Your occupation, life and even how you died are all chosen or calculated. You accumulate skills and magical knowledge across each of these lives with the personal goal of reaching Agartha, transcendence. Add to that the symbolism of classic elements and the Tarot, and you have something unique.
Some of the supplements had great material though also made the system more confusing in some ways, and it's sad this wasn't revised and integrated into a new edition. I believe that some of the newer French editions are a lot more playable.
I'm now thinking of trying a hack of this game using Vincent Bakers "Apocalypse World" system, which would be a very personal project. I've never designed a game and this is the one that I always wanted to improve because I think it has so much potential. Look for that to surface next year!
I think that Nephilim fits rather well with the Old World of Darkness setting, though one must engage in quite a bit of alteration of the rules system to adapt it to the WW process. Even so, it offers some very interesting things to the system, yet like many of the WW games, has not particular support for any one set of myths or religion.
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