Nephilim
Stretched
rubber skin, frozen shredded flesh, wheezing
and deep engine growls, chemical
sweat and cold blood
Hit
Dice: 7, saves as 7th-level
fighter
Hit
Points: 65
Armor:
As plate and shield, although they are unarmored.
Move:
2x standard, long lumbering strides
Experience
points: ##
Morale:
8
Attacks:
1d10 bite attack OR 1d8 grip, grapples on successful hit
Encountered:
One alpha (+1 HD) and 1d4 pack members
Variations:
1d4 head:
Sea
Lion: +1 to attack rolls.
Whale:
+2 to magic-related saves.
Orca:
Can smell blood 1 mile away.
Walrus:
+1d6 damage.
1d2 arms:
Fins:
Double swim speed.
Human:
+1 to non-magic saves.
Encounter
Flow:
1)
Could I kill this
creature?
a.
If yes, kill it.
b.
If no:
i.
Is it hard to kill?
1.
If yes: wait until I
can kill it.
2.
If no: leave it
alone.
ii.
Is it a threat to me?
1.
Test morale. Success:
fight. Fail: run away.
Ancient texts speak of the offspring
of God and Man – the Nephilim, the first heroes
of the earliest days.
Maybe
in the Real, they were heroes. Maybe the first children of nature and humanity truly
were agents of both God and Man: giants among ants, carrying out divine mission
on the nascent Earth.
The
Nephilim in the ocean tell a different story: one of fear and naïve conquest. Perhaps
the biggest separation between Man and the natural order is that man has and always
will manipulate. They are guided by ego and lust and not instinct. Man will kill
buffalo for the sport, not for hunger. Our greatest achievement was to separate
ourselves from the natural hierarchy.
Nature
also has its own ways. A man facing a lion will almost always die – but that lion
usually has good reasons to kill. Nature is terrifying, and although we understand
it, we still cannot face it. Not with our frail, thinking bodies.
Take
these two concepts – Man, the manipulator, and God, the natural structure, and combine
them. Nephilim in the Ocean were once dominant kings of the natural order. They
were the apex.
One
day, a Nephilim killed a sailor for food and felt something. They felt a tinge of
conquest. Hunger was replaced by lust – by the primal joy of killing, of utterly
dominating another. From then on, the Nephilim were no longer animals.
They
were not entirely human either – but for every high concept they could not grasp,
their love of lust and anger grew. Children, essentially, in the hormonally mutated
body of a demigod. Beasts who play with corpses like toddlers play with blocks.
Nephilim
are usually about ten to twelve feet tall and look like gigantic muscled humans
except for their heads. They are always naked, and completely hairless. Their skin
is slick and rubbery like a dolphin. Muscles rope and knot underneath, undulating
in constant work.
Their
heads are of animals, most commonly early aquatic mammals. These animal heads are
different, more primal. Hairless and smooth, forms of future beasts that just crawled
out of the primordial ooze.
A
Nephilim sees any target as a toy. Their brains are too under-developed to ever
truly learn anything, but their young human intelligence drives them to interact.
If
you see one, run. They are stronger than you. They will play with your limbs until
they get bored or hungry. They can never understand language, but they do understand
screams – that means that the toy is weak, and that means that it can be killed.
Seeing a Nephilim in its
prime is terrifying but seeing them in weakness is even more so. They bawl with
extreme frustration – deep, soul-cutting animal sobs. It cannot be helped. They
will never learn. Even with their poor intelligence, they know this. Some deep part
of their budding conscience tells them that they are monsters.
Do not remind them of this fact.
Mawhi, the Whaleman, painted by Marko Miladinović
Nephilim are bigger than Mawhi here - and they wouldn't be wearing clothes. This is a fine figure, though.
Also this draft has a lot of errors, and I'm for sure not done with it, but I like to keep an archive of ideas how they initially appeared in writing.