Nephilim appearence?

[Mimus03]

Does anyone know why some nephilim are monsterous (Nekima and Barbaros) while some look human (Lilith and Angel eyes)? 

 

[Vorschlag]

Angel Eyes is a black blood infected Human - supposedly part of Nekima's new army building stratagem.
Lilith may simply choose to take a more human form to allow her to walk among the vermin who have invaded her realm while Nekima probably revels in the fear her form generates.
-Lucius suggested in one of the stories that a human could never capture the true form of a neverborn, however he may have simply meant his breed of Neverborn.

[-Loki-]

Mr Graves is also a Nephilim, and appears entirely human. I'd guess the more powerful Nephilim have some degree of control over their own appearance.

[D_acolyte]

Graves and Tannen are neverborn skinwalkers or skinshifter, I do not have my first ed book on me but I will check.

[Sybaris]

One hint to the origin of this appearance variation is, as far as i can tell...that the initial Wyrd Miniatures range of models included many varied and unlinked pieces.

When they decided to create a lore and game from that range in order to make a story out of it, they linked Lilith to the nephilims and so the "mother of monsters" was born in the way we know it. At the time, Lilith was the only Nephilim to have a very human appearance and she stood out in contrast.

But she wasn't the only Neverborn to look human from the start, in fact the doppleganger, pandora, candy, baby cade and viktoria's "sister" and the dreamer boy were all examples of neverborns who displayed human form. Since Neverborn are the stuff of nightmares for humans, it was normal that many inhabitants of Malifaux would look like them in parts. Aren't we our own worse nightmares in the end? So it was a good choice for the Neverborn.

Since then, the lore had it that Neverborn could take different forms and we've got many variations of that trait. As the lore evolved, they expanded on the ability to control shape and also possession. In the case of Graves and Tannen, i believe i remember (maybe wrong, again) that it was a case of possession more than a shape change. With Tuco came another trait  specific to the Nephilim this time, which is to infect humans...and this is quite different from Lilith's change of appearance. So now we get quite a few half-breeds who have both nephilim and human traits.

 

[horvagab]

Graves and Tannen also have the Mimic Characteristic, so I assume they have abilities that allow them to take humanoid shapes.

 

As for Lilith, she has magical powers that are unlike the magic  that other Nephilim (Nekima, Shaman, Scion) are using, so I think her apperance might be related to that, instead of something that all Nephilim have innately.

[Sybaris]

Lilith, Pandora and Nekima are sisters, meaning they probably had the same abilities at the start. Obviously they went a different path, but I remember reading something along the lines that Lilith chose that form to better suit her goals. Unlike Nekima who wants to slaughter everyone...she is waging a very different war of terror vs humans.

That's also why i never found Lilith to be a convincing mother of monsters no matter how powerful, in fact Nekima and Titania feel like they actually spend more time leading and less time scheming. They also look the part much better but that's just my opinion of course.

Speaking of which...or witch, the case of Zoraida is interesting, since she's not even Neverborn to begin with, but is considered as such by them. We know she's from the first wave, but not why she was accepted while other humans are not.

 

[Da Git]

The other Nephilim that haven't been mentioned are the Twins; Lilitu & Lelu.  Although these are also Nightmares & Woes. (Are they the only cross-over species? They start out as Nephilim, so how do they become Woes & Nightmares?)  Has it been spelled out what the relationship between Woes & Nephilim is? @Sybaris where did that info that Lilith & Pandora are sisters come from?  It's kind of been hinted with Lilith, Pandora & Zoraida looking like a trinity of women-hood, but to the best of my recollection it's never been flat-out stated that they're sisters.  To me, Nephilim and Woes have always been sub-species, making their being real sisters impossible.  Zoraida of course, was originally human, so can't be a sister and Lilith & Nekima have been stated as sisters more than enough.

Another kind of mystery is the Cherub.  He doesn't really fit in with the Nephilim growth cycle, being somewhere between Tot & Young.  Is he unique?  He doesn't have horns & has a good head of hair.  His feathered wings are also unique, all the others have bat-like wings.

Speaking of hair & horns, it's actually another interesting topic. Both Tots & Mature (but he has a mane) are bald but Young (& Barbaros, who's trapped as a young on the growth cycle) have hair.  Lilitu & Lelu as well as Nekima also all have hair.  All have horns.  Lilith & Cherub have hair, but no horns.  There's no consistency.

Wings is another one.  Only Lilith, Lilitu & Lelu don't have wings. 

Sorry, I know all this just adds more questions.

As an aside, for my Lilith, I've given her the Nephilim head from the TTB female sprue (it's bald and has horns) & given her Alt Barbaros' wings (she always has Wings of Darkness!).  This makes her look much more consistent with her crew.

[Sybaris]

I'll get back to you for the reference, or make amends if, indeed, my memory played tricks.

[goth]

The way i see it, I think woes have a kind of misery magic, like they feed off living creatures mental energy.  Nightmares are the kind of creatures you expect to see in the underworld.

I wouldn't expect either to be a standalone race/species.

 

[-Loki-]

Regarding Lilith, the M2E rulebook refers to Lilith and her sisters, plural. But only Nekima I've seen directly referred to as her sister. I kind of assumed Pandora was her sister, but I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere that I know of.

[Sybaris]

Yes i guess i was also under that very same assumption as well since the beginning. It seems it may or may not be exact, and the texts give no clear answers, but i still feel like there's a chance for it. You spotted my assumption above there, so thanks for that. I've tried to search where i actually got the notion.

There's this passage in the M1E Rulebook (p110) where Zoraida flips a 3 of mask for Viktora and warns her that her obstacle to her task will be the 3 sisters, whose true purpose is unknown. Given it is a mask, i made the assumption that it spoke Neverborn sisters. It seems my mind instantly made a link between Lilith and Pandora for some reason, because they were the more proeminent Neverborn females at that time. The assumption that the 3 of masks is related to neverborn is strenghtened by the 2 of masks Zoraida also flipped, directly refering to her doppleganger that Viktoria had yet to meet.

The website tells of many sisters who helped bring the Neverborn together (not Nephilims!), one of which we know (Nekima), so we know that the other(s) would be old and powerful Neverborn, if not Nephilims. It can't be Zoraida since she wasn't even there when that happened.

Lilith seems very close with pandora in the stories, and they both chose to take a near-human appearance and are leader of a "sect" of Neverborn.

There's also the fact that they both appear in front of Titania together, and they behave like sisters would, from my point of view of course.

Anyway, there's also a case to be made for the contrary, since Zoraida, back in Twisting Fates,  tells Lilith of "her" sister...singular form, and that Lelith instantly knows it's about Nekima.

Still fun to think about

Edit: had a double reference.

[-Loki-]

I don't get the impression that Zoraida is considered an 'equal' to Pandora and Lilith. They respect her and the role it seems Fate has chosen for her, but she needs to watch her step around them, particularly around Lilith. 

[Rabbitknight]

Pandora is probably just a figment of the Box's imagination.

With information that the Fey became the Neverborn races, and that the Nephilim are the closest to the Fey, and that the Fey look human, I would think that the Nephilim that are more monstrous are simply further decended from the line of the Fey.

[Sybaris]

If pandora was not at least remotely related to Lilith, she'd be respected for her powers but i wouldn't understand why Lilith ventures and scheme so much with her. Other Neverborn masters are left out of the "plan", like Collodi, the Dreamer, Lucius, who keep to their own stuff mostly. When you read the stories, there is a bond between the two girls and it almost feels like pandora is the younger sibbling to Lilith, especially when they meet with Titania.

But any theory can be right, we just don't know for sure, apart from the fact that it cannot be Zoraida.

 

[Fetid Strumpet]

Not to get too fine a point on it, but you are also trying to ascribe human motivations and human cultural structures to a fundamentally inhuman... (species?), if that is the correct terminology.

While they might look and act in a superficially human way, the better for us the audience to connect with them, they aren't human, and so why they do things could be for a totally alien way. Just mentioning that. I'm not saying the designers have gone that way, or that they haven't. Just that as a faction who seems to have defined itself as essentially Anti-Human, requiring them to adhere to human cultural concepts seems to be a flawed, though not without some justification, sentiment.

[Absolution Black]

I was under the impression that Lilith, Pandora and Zoraida were the representations of the Mother, Maiden and Crone from celtic and many other mythologies.

Lilith was the Mother

Pandora the Maiden

Zoraida the Crone.

 

I never got the impression they were related in any family way.

[Sybaris]

6 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Not to get too fine a point on it, but you are also trying to ascribe human motivations and human cultural structures to a fundamentally inhuman... (species?), if that is the correct terminology.

While they might look and act in a superficially human way, the better for us the audience to connect with them, they aren't human, and so why they do things could be for a totally alien way. Just mentioning that. I'm not saying the designers have gone that way, or that they haven't. Just that as a faction who seems to have defined itself as essentially Anti-Human, requiring them to adhere to human cultural concepts seems to be a flawed, though not without some justification, sentiment.

Where does that come from? You seem to have serious insight as to what i apparently try to convey here...i am not giving any human cultural motivation or structure to anyone nor requiring neverborn to adhere to... that's seriously a bit too deep with such a simple assumption about fantasy land. I am just reading stories and stating what i got from them (Lilith and Pandora behave like siblings)...which might turn out to be right or wrong (most likely wrong, in fact). Since the stories and website are all we have...i really don't see how we should assume that Neverborn act differently outside of the texts, otherwise the stories loose all meaning, especially since we follow those characters through world-threatening events, not just "a-day-in-the-life" stuff. Lucius is the one with the mask, as far as i am concerned.

 

[Vorschlag]

I think he means even the term sister could be a reference to a bond with a female you are well aquanted with rather than a genetic connection.

Hopefully thorough the breach will give more insight into the cultures of the different "tribes" of never born and their collective relationships/origins.

It's the same as pointing out the DND alignment scale is flawed when applied to those with ethics or morales alien to our own.

 

[Sybaris]

I do hope we get more info as well, especially with the TTB book that will (hopefully) cover that faction.

I didn't even say that they were sisters in the human way at all, but that they behaved as human siblings would. It could just be Pandora's insanity spilling and Lilith just going along out of necessity.

There's (afaik) really no reference to a mother/father parents for nephilim or neverborn for that matter (the word Neverborn is kind of a hint)...in the game nephilim just sprout out of blood. That's why i kind of jumped at Fetid's interpretation of my post.

We don't even know how exactly Nekima and Lilith are sisters to begin with...and what do Neverborn use the word "sisters" for? Who knows, but they do use it, and my mostly unfounded assumption was that pandora was the third one Zoraida spoke of.

[santaclaws01]

11 hours ago, Sybaris said:

If pandora was not at least remotely related to Lilith, she'd be respected for her powers but i wouldn't understand why Lilith ventures and scheme so much with her. Other Neverborn masters are left out of the "plan", like Collodi, the Dreamer, Lucius, who keep to their own stuff mostly. When you read the stories, there is a bond between the two girls and it almost feels like pandora is the younger sibbling to Lilith, especially when they meet with Titania.

But any theory can be right, we just don't know for sure, apart from the fact that it cannot be Zoraida.

 

Well, why would Lilith go out to try and contact a little kid who has been doing his own things for the past 4(?) years, or a man-made puppet that has also been doing his own thing. Lucius also makes sense that there'd be minimal contact between them in the books because he's the Governer's Secretary and he's got his own stuff he needs to do. He has lackeys or other channels with which he can contact them over anything important(like Titania showing up and paying him a visit).

[Vorschlag]

Lucius and Lilith do not seem to get along very well, he seems to enjoy confounding her and in a previous story she referred to him as a rodent (unmask unmask)

Lilith uses Pandora to community with Nightmare (LCB) as LCB doesnt acknowledge Zoraida as Neverborn and for some reason Lilith didn't approach him herself (cant remember why)

Collodi - well I have to say I'm willing to overlook recent Collodi fluff since he's been retconned into being created by humans rather than predating the first breach - either way he doesnt seem to get embroiled in the politics.

Lynch seems to be connected with Lucius through Tannen and Graves but Lynch also seems to be familiar with Lucius' way of doing things so they may have a deeper connection there.

Leaving only our queen and three madame's to discuss.

[Bengt]

7 hours ago, Sybaris said:

There's (afaik) really no reference to a mother/father parents for nephilim or neverborn for that matter (the word Neverborn is kind of a hint)...in the game nephilim just sprout out of blood. That's why i kind of jumped at Fetid's interpretation of my post.

Well summoning in an abstraction that in some cases means the summoned models comes running (e.g. Dashel summoning Guild Guards), so it's hard to know if Tots actually "sprout" or are assumed to be hiding in the nearby underbrush and gets riled up enough by the blood to join the fight.

The Tot story in the recent Chronicle (#26 Opposing Goals) has the protagonist Tot think a lot about other members of "his brood" and the author seems to be invoking a human-like sibling rivalry between them. So regardless of how human-like Neverborn feelings are actually supposed to be, the writers often use that lens anyway; which is not really surprising, "write what you know" and all that.

[Vorschlag]

Regarding the "Never born" and birth.

Twisting Fates

Page 167

"Miss Squidpiddge, this is Mr. Clarifester Drove, an independent mortuarial and the creator of Droves spirit cabinet, which can be seen weekly at the star theatre, and this is Ms. Divests Honeychild, of the mountback Honeychild, she is an authority on the Never born."

"The Manifestata" the diminutive Divesta Honeychild corrected with a frown.

"The term never born is not only incorrect, but offensive to these poor creatures."

[Bengt]

Been a while since I listened to that story, but isn't Divesta Honeychild characterised as a crank in that story? Making her claim to authority suspect.