This is one  of a series of posts intended to show what various mage groups 
believe, how they think, and why they think the Sleepers ought to prefer 
their vision of reality.  It is not intended as a complete picture of each 
group, or a 'fair' portrait.  It's written as propaganda by each group, 
but honest propaganda. They won't lie, but they won't list their own flaws 
in detail either :)

Naturally, these posts represent my own idiosyncratic views which I
believe to be reasonably compatible with canon, but given my memory is at
times rather sieve like, I may forget stuff.  If you see a contradiction
between this or the appropriate Trad/Conv book, it may or may not be
deliberate.

If you have suggestions for more questions that should be covered, please
let me know.

Nephandi and a bunch o' other stuff is all copyright of White
Wolf, of course.

You can find the ones done so far at:

http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/WW/index.html

Enjoy!


Descension 2000 Campaign Pamphlets:  Nephandi

	Dr. Warwick, I presume?

What are you doing in my home?  Who are you?  If you've 
done something to Vicki, I'll...

	You'll what?  Aren't you just an humble college 
professor?  The voice of the masses in these little 
interviews you've been doing?  No, Dr. Warwick, your 
wife is just fine, other than the fact that we had to bind 
her in silver chains and lock her in the closet after she 
killed three of my favorite acolytes and bit off my left 
hand.  

She WHAT?

	You were aware your wife is a werewolf?

WHAT?

	Your house is sitting on a node.  Your wife is a 
werewolf.  You've casually waltzed up to five 
technocrats and had tea and cookies with them...AFTER 
you talked to all of their enemies except for us first.  
How exactly did you contact all of these mages who are 
hiding from the world and each other, Dr. Warwick?

I looked them up in the....I suppose it was unusual for 
them all to be in the local phonebook.  Under Mages.

	It would rather simplify matters, but yes, that is 
unusual.  

So who are you?  Why have you taken my wife hostage?  
And why do you care about all this?

	You can call me Flax.  I represent the Nephandi, and 
we've taken quite an interest in you, Dr. Warwick.  
Perhaps you're simply the luckiest man alive, but I doubt 
that.  Even Jodi Blake would have been hard pressed to 
pull off your little trip.  Especially having a friendly chat 
with a member of the Bai Dai.

He was hardly friendly.

	You lived.  You can tell the Bai Dai like someone if 
they don't kill them.  But enough about you, let's talk 
about me.  Surely you're curious about what makes us 
tick?  How we have managed to achieve the status of 
universal pariah?  

You're all a bunch of psychotic fools who've sold your 
souls to Things From Beyond and want to destroy all of 
space and time.  That's about as much as I want to know.

	Let me tell you the true history of the Universe, Dr. 
Warwick, and perhaps you will understand us.  In the 
beginning, there was Chaos, a roiling sea of possibility, 
of Quintessence raging untamed, unshaped, uncontrolled.  
Inevitably, pockets of order briefly appeared at various 
points in time, then were consumed by the Chaos, for 
Chaos includes Order as a subset of its infinite 
possibilities.  

	Then, one day, in the infinite Chaos, the vagaries of 
chance created the first of the Pure Ones.  No, the Pure 
Ones are not the shards of the One, for the One is a liar 
and a thief.  But we shall come to that in time.  The 
identity of the first Pure One is forgotten, but it was he 
or she who first imposed Order on Chaos through strength 
of will, forcing the Quintessence to form into patterns 
that suited his will, creating a pocket universe of his 
own devising.  

	Over time, more and more Pure Ones emerged from 
the Chaos.  Perhaps in some way the existence of the 
first one drew others forth, perhaps it was the working 
of some cosmic cycle.  But that's not important right 
now.  

	What is important is that the Pure Ones began to 
overpopulate.  They interbred and had children, and 
gradually the pool of free Quintessence began to dwindle 
as more and more of it was locked down into Pocket 
Universes, or as they also are called 'Horizon Realms', 
though there was no Horizon in those days.  

	And so they formed into leagues and made war with 
each other.  Some drew their universes together and 
combined them or pooled their resources to create 
universes together.  Many of these universes were blown 
up by their enemies, and gradually, all out war developed.

	It was at this time that one of the Pure Ones, the 
being you call 'The One', who lies and claims to have 
spawned the Pure Ones, withdrew from the others to 
brood.  Some among us believe 'he' may have been the very 
first of the Pure Ones, while others assert he simply was 
too weak to fight it out for dominance with the others 
and fled in fear.  

	Yet, we do give him some respect, for he came up 
with an idea that none of the other Pure Ones had thought 
of.  He realized that he could split off pieces of himself, 
and that these pieces could grow in power and also 
manipulate the free Quintessence.  They would lack the 
power to warp reality on so large a scale as he could, but 
as they grew, they would gain more power, yet as parts 
of himself, they could be kept under his control.   

	Thus, he could make his pet project not just self-
sustaining, but able to grow and slowly suck up more and 
more of the free Quintessence.  The wars among his 
enemies had freed up some of it, as they destroyed each 
other's creations.  And so he created his universe, and he 
broke off chunks of himself, which he named 'Pure Ones' 
in parody of his siblings, and himself, he named 'The One' 
or 'Gaia'.  His creation would believe he was the summit 
of creation.

	Eventually, she would be able to reabsorb them, and 
she would gain their power, becoming the strongest of 
the true Pure Ones, and able to rule over all the others.  
Ahh yes, the so called 'Reconcilliation' the Celestial 
Chorus seeks will instead be a cannibal feast in which 
the One devours you all to gain the power to try to deal 
with the other Pure Ones once and for all, 'Ascension' 
merely a fattening of the pigs for slaughter.

	Not everything went so well as the One planned.  
Some of the One's 'Pure Ones' rebelled, having apparently 
absorbed their Father/Mother's fratricidal tendencies and 
desire to shape the One's Universe to THEIR 
specifications.  It is fortunate for the rest of the Pure 
Ones, our masters, that the One's own children rebelled, 
else her plan might have gone off without a hitch, and the 
One would rule as a tyrant over all, both her creations 
and her peers.

	Yet, her plans went forward.  The 'Pure Ones' of her 
making made other creatures, and those made yet more, 
and soon life rose and flourished within the One's world.  
And their minds began to slowly suck in all the free 
Quintessence from the Chaos, and process it into Order, 
an Order that has grown ever stronger over time, and 
spawned its own spirit beings to defend it and further it.  

	It took millenia for the Pure Ones to realize the 
Quintessence was being drained.  It took further millenia 
for them to locate the source.  And then they made war 
upon the One.  To their horror, Gaia defeated them, for 
she played them against each other and turned loose the 
greatest of her servants upon them, servants who had 
themselves swollen in strength to match many of the 
Pure Ones.  And she erected a barrier to defend the heart 
of her creation, a wall known as the Horizon, a wall 
further strengthened by the fear of the true Pure Ones 
that she had placed within her children's hearts.

	And yet, not all was lost.  The Pure Ones, now 
known as the Lords of the Nephandi, found allies within 
the One's Horizon, the mages who became known as the 
Nephandi, shapers who refused to bow to the will of the 
One and serve their maker, and the 'Fallen Ones', the 
collection of 'False Pure Ones' who had rebelled against 
the One in the beginning.  

	And most importantly, while the One had driven off 
the Pure Ones, slaying many and sending the others to 
hide, lick their wounds, and rest, the One herself fell 
into slumber and ceased to be able to effectively control 
her creations directly, leaving them to fall out among 
each other.  It was at this moment that the Shattering 
took place, we believe, that carved Gauntlets between 
the spirits, the living, and the dead, within her creation, 
the result of her injuries.  

	Yet, with all our hatred of the One, we must admit 
she had done her job well.  Gaia's creations ran of their 
own accord, and even with them warring upon each other 
and divided into pieces, they continued to draw in free 
Quintessence, devouring more of the universe's potential.  
The surviving Pure Realms were drawn by the flow of 
Quintessence and began to merge with each other, both by 
design of some of the Pure Ones or in desperate self-
defense to avoid complete assimilation.  They were saved 
by the very Horizon that protected the One's creations 
from the vengeance of the True Pure Ones.  

	And so we came to where we are now, with the 
realms of the Pure Ones in the so-called 'Deep Umbra' 
striving desperately to avoid complete assimilation into 
the One's maw.  That maw reaches ever wider, and we all 
fear the moment when the influx of energies is enough to 
revive the One, for then she will likely assimilate all 
those who derive their existence from her and renew the 
war upon the True Pure Ones.  And all that is will be 
reduced to her slaves.

	We will not be fodder for the cannibal goddess who 
devours her own young.  If Gaia rouses, she will be Kali, 
seeking to make herself Brahma, the fount of all things.  
We do not intend to be devoured.  Instead, we will use the 
divisions among her servants to smash all her works to 
rubble.  This creation will be destroyed and all the 
enslaved Quintessence will be freed.  And then we and 
our masters will be free once more to create universes 
shaped to fit our own desires.  We will be gods, instead 
of dinner.

Oh come now, since when did evil gods keep their 
promises?  What guarantee do you have that the 'True 
Pure Ones' won't eat you too?  After all, didn't you say 
the only reason the One got away with it was that they 
constantly warred for free Quintessence?  Why won't you 
end up as fodder serving them?

	We'll definitely end up as fodder if we don't.  The 
mightiest of the Nephandi can go toe to toe with our 
lords, and the purpose of our service is, in part, to gain 
their secrets that we might become gods ourselves.  We 
face two possible futures.   If Gaia wins, we'll be 
devoured.  If Gaia loses, we'll go down with her unless 
we give our service to the True Pure Ones.  They do 
reward their servants with power, wisdom, and glory, so 
long as we do not fail.  And we do not intend to fail.  

	Of course, some of us are complete lunatics, who 
simply seek out something powerful to serve because 
they enjoy grovelling, or they're nihilists, or they're 
deranged in some other manner.  They don't worry about 
such things.  They'd probably serve the True Pure Ones if 
Gaia really was benevolent and the True Pure Ones told 
them they were going to be eaten when it was all over.  
But most of us aren't lunatics; the true lunatics either 
die or cease to be able to function inside the Horizon 
without Paradox devouring them.

	Others were seduced to the dark side, so to speak, 
brought over with promises of power and pleasure and 
freedom from morality.  These tend to be barabbi.  Some 
of them prosper, and others fall, but it depends a lot on 
individual talent.

	And some, like myself, simply rationally looked at 
the world and saw the way the wind is blowing.  Why 
should I serve Gaia when she created me only to make 
herself more powerful?  Why should I care about this 
universe when one day I can make my own and rule over 
it?  What makes her order of the universe any more 
worthy to survive than any of the others she devoured to 
create this one?  And how can she defend it if she has 
fallen asleep, and her own children rip each other apart?  
She can't win, so I picked the side that will win.  Gaia 
has fallen, and she can't get up.

	I'd go it alone if I could, but I can't.  I'm not so 
lunatic as to think I can fight Gaia AND the True Pure 
Ones.  I have seen their power, and I know that until I 
learn all they have to teach me and grow much, much 
stronger, I have only two choices:  submission or 
destruction.  If I serve them, they will make me stronger 
to serve them better, and in the end, I will be ready to 
take my place among their ranks.  Better to serve in Hell 
than to die in Heaven.

	Now, different ones among our ranks serve our 
Lords in different ways.  Some of us aid the 'Fallen Ones', 
also known as the Infernal Hordes, or the Demons, helping 
them to corrupt the weak Avatars of the masses, which 
undercuts Gaia's seedbed of powerful beings and 
strengthens them, who have as much reason to hate The 
One as we do.  This is where I do my work.

	Some of us are known as the 'Malfeans', who aid one 
of the most powerful of Gaia's servants, the Wyrm, who 
has now gone mad and seeks to slay his creator with the 
aid of hordes of corrupted nature spirits.  Many among 
our ranks believe the Wyrm may be the key to shattering 
Gaia's creation from within, certainly much faster than 
feeding the souls of the Sleepers into the maws of the 
Infernal Powers, for humanity now breeds faster than we 
can corrupt it.  

	And finally, some of us serve the True Pure Ones 
directly.  They are often the most powerful of us, but at 
the same time, they tend to be the most warped, for they 
have been imprinted with the essence of beings utterly 
and completely alien to the One's impoverished reality.  
Their job is to rend the Horizon to rubble and let our 
masters through to resume their war upon the One before 
she can recover.  

What proof do you have that any of this is true?  How do 
you know Gaia plans to devour her children?  How do you 
know any of this long rant about the history of the 
universe isn't just a lie by jealous and evil alien beings 
who want to use you as Quislings?

	It is the one version of history which makes sense 
of everything.  Why the One created other beings.  How all 
of creation functions.  Why souls can grow more 
powerful.  Why Gaia's creations war upon each other and 
she does nothing.  Where the True Pure Ones came from.  
Why they want to destroy all of creation.  The hiearchy of 
spirits.  Everything.  

	And I have seen it, seen the events which brought 
this to pass, shown me by the ones I serve.  But 
ultimately, I have faith.  These truths sing to my very 
essence, even my Avatar, which should be trying to push 
me along the One's road, instead proclaims the truth of 
this message.

	Come, have you not ever wondered where Evil could 
come from if the creator was all-Good?  Does it not 
make more sense to acknowledge that the Creator was 
Evil and that her apparent Good is only a false front to 
lure her future meals into a false sense of security so 
they will breed and fatten themselves up?

Aquinas would argue that Evil has no true existence, that 
it is only a defective form of Good, a negation of it with 
no actual existence.  Thus, because the Creator made a 
universe which was not completely perfect (for if it was 
perfect, it would not be seperate from the Creator, for 
only one perfect thing can exist at a time), it was 
possible for Evil to seem to exist.

	What an utter pile of crap.  What sort of 
incompetent all-Good creator would make something 
with the potential for Evil?  And if the creator is all-
knowing, then the creator would KNOW that her creation 
would turn to Evil.  It would be her own fault.  The 
universe only makes sense if its creator is at least 
partly Evil.

Perhaps she considered it worth the risk, or it was 
necessary to accomplish some greater good.  After all, 
only free-willed creatures can give meaningful love.  Yet, 
making them free-willed has the risk they will do evil.  
Is that not as good an explanation as yours?  

	The universe is harsh and cruel.  Why create so 
many completely unfair situations, like plagues that kill 
the innocent and the guilty alike?

If we do indeed mold the universe into order by sucking 
in free Quintessence and processing it as you suggest, 
and we ourselves are flawed beings with the capacity for 
evil, perhaps we wrecked it ourselves.  Do not so many 
cultures, even the supernatural ones, postulate a past 
golden age which human greed or sin destroyed?  Perhaps 
Adam and Eve were not cast out of the Garden, but rather 
destroyed it themselves through their own inner 
weakness coupled with the power to reshape the world.

And perhaps your 'True Pure Ones' are merely more of the 
Fallen Ones with delusions of grandeur, unable to see 
that they cast themselves out, and desiring to wreck all 
the One's creations from the desire for revenge.  How 
pathetic.

	You're in no position to call anyone pathetic, Dr. 
Warwick.  Unless you'd like me to get another one of my 
servants to finish off your wife.  

So what do you want of me?  I doubt you came here just 
to preach.

	I believe you would make a quite useful servant.  
After all, apparently EVERYONE trusts you.  And I'm 
curious as to how you pulled off that little feat.

I treat everyone with the respect they deserve.  And I 
believe they all enjoyed explaining what they believe, 
even if I did get somewhat critical of them at times.

	Well, I'm sure you'll explain everything freely once 
we take you to the Caul.

The what?

	The Caul.  It's the place where your previous 
bondage to The One is stripped away, and your Avatar is 
made to draw its life from your new master among the 
True Pure Ones.  You will cease to feed Gaia or be 
dependent upon her to sustain your existence.  Normally, 
we only use it on people who voluntarily embrace it, but 
in your case, we'll make an exception.  You will be one of 
us, unable to turn back.

If you can just zap people evil, why don't you do that to 
everyone?

	Well, for one thing, it requires a substantal energy 
expenditure by our masters.  It simply isn't worth it to 
use for bulk corruption.  And secondly, our masters 
prefer willing service; while coerced servants make good 
pawns, they tend to look for a way out, and sometimes 
they find one.  And thirdly, it can't be done without giving 
away where the particular Caul is, and if the subject 
does escape, they can lead others to us, resulting in our 
destruction.  And finally, kidnapping mages is far too 
dangerous to be used as a regular tactic.

So, it's mainly used to bind willing servants.

	Exactly.  Still, you know many secrets which it will 
be worth it to extract.  Plus, I wish to flush out whoever 
is using you as a stalking horse.

A what?

	Come, come, you don't think you got a Garou wife 
for a guardian and access to everyone in the universe 
under your own power, do you?  How do you think those 
phone numbers got into your phone book?  And how do you 
think you got to talk to multiple Mind masters without 
them turning your brain into putty and yourself into their 
butt boy?

Perhaps they simply prefered to try to persuade me with 
words.  I'd imagine coercing everyone with your will 
would become boring after a while.

	Trust me, it never gets boring.  But I've been trying 
to crack your will with my own power, and you simply 
become more obnoxious.  [pause]  I did not mean to reveal 
that.

	But enough of this.  Time to take you to the Caul so 
that I can finish drawing out your secrets tonight, and 
tomorrow, I can celebrate Samhain in my own way.  
[looks out the window]  Hmm.  The sun is setting.  How 
appropriate.

Ahh, yes.  The sunset is quite lovely here.  A pity we'll 
have a gibbous moon instead of a full moon for all the 
werewolves to enjoy.

	And your wife in the closet will be missing it 
entirely.  Hmm.  I wonder what would happen if we put 
her in the Caul.  Perhaps we'll bring her along for a test.

	Sid, get her out of the closet.  Sid, she can't 
transform while the chains are on her unless she enjoys 
frying her own flesh.  Good boy.  It's hard to get help like 
him.

Yes, most people wouldn't be willing to get an angry 
werewolf out of a closet, no matter how many chains you 
wrap her in.  And there goes the last of the sunlight.

	Ahh, a blood red moon.  How wonderfully symbolic.  
Of course, it would be better if it had saved itself for 
Halloween proper.  

You are aware that in several calendars, a given day 
starts the night before?  So that this is a new liturgical 
day, and from the viewpoint of Catholics, and Jews, and 
some Pagans, Halloween has already begun?

	Having better things to do with my life than read 
boring moldy old books, no.  But I'll keep that in mind.  
Ready to go?

You are aware that silver is a rather wretched material 
for chains, given how soft it is?  

	Yes.  But since it burns werewolves, it works 
rather well.  Especially when it's a coating of silver over 
ordinary steel.  And here's your lovely wife.  Shall we be 
going?

I suppose you'd be in trouble if that silver coating turned 
into, oh, say...tin foil.

	Yes, but that's not going to be happening, unless one 
of your mage associates is hiding in your pocket.  And I 
made quite sure there was no one else here.  Unless 
perhaps your invisible patron is about to come forth?

No, I'm afraid you apparently got confused and coated 
your chains with tinfoil.  Hmm.  There goes Sid's head.  A 
pity to see a good boy die like that.

	[now held in a tight grip by Vicki Warwick]  You!  
You changed the coating!  But how?

There is more in Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in 
Nephandic philosophy.  You can meditate on that while 
you wait to be reincarnated.  Assuming your masters 
don't devour you for leading their enemies to your 
Labrynth.  This should be an interesting posse comitatus 
indeed.  Now where did I put that phone book...

The End.

[Author's note:  Mr. Flax appears in the Book of Madness 
on page 31.  Dr. Steven Warwick appears in the Book of 
Madness, p. 67-71 and 89-90.  He is in fact Steven of 
Warwick, a Marauder who is a normal human 357 days of 
the year, reverting to his true identity from sunset 
before to the dawn after the eight holy days of his old 
pagan faith.  During that time, he hunts down various 
supernatural evils and makes whatever arrangements 
must be made to preserve the normality of Dr. Warwick's 
life, including name changes and moves to new 
universities.  However, the arrival of Johnny Gore, a 
Corax who drew Dr. Warwick into the shadow world of 
Mages by arriving in his study and explaining half the 
supernatural history of the universe to him, especially 
the Marauder related bits (which forms the framework 
for the introduction to Marauders in their section of the 
Book of Madness), shattered Warwick's shell of 
'normality' at least for the moment.  And this forms my 
excuse for him going around interviewing every kind of 
mage he could find. :)
I had actually originally intended for the interviewer of 
the mages to remain completely anonymous, but as I was 
trying to plan ahead, I suddenly realized that Warwick 
would be perfect for this task.  Of course, a fair number 
of the comments of the anonymous sleeper from the first 
segments doesn't quite fit the good Doctor's personality, 
but my life is too busy to go back and revise them, and 
the use of Warwick is more an in-joke than an essential 
part of all of this.

I hope you all enjoyed reading these; I've enjoyed writing 
them.  They've helped me focus my understanding of all 
these different groups, especially several like the 
Euthanatos and the Hollow Ones who I simply never quite 
'got' before I had to try to write from their viewpoint.  

The total bodycount on this project, if you're curious, is 
535 KB, written September 9 to October 25th (When I 
wrote this last one, though not when I posted it).   

I will eventually try my hand at the Sorceror's Crusade 
groups, but since I don't own a copy yet, and won't have 
the funding to buy it for a while, it'll have to wait. 

And in conclusion, if anyone has a spare Euthanatos 
Tradbook just lying around they could give me or sell to 
me, I'd be eternally grateful, as its the only one I don't 
have, and I can't bring myself to shell out 20 dollars for 
a collection of three tradbooks that holds it when I 
already have two of them, and would essentially be 
spending 20 dollars to get a tradbook that sold for 10 
dollars during the five seconds in which it was in print.

Please don't make me beg, good citizens of the world :)

And in real conclusion, may Ascension come before the 
Jayhawks have a winning football season, because if we 
have to wait for that, we'll NEVER ascend...]

The End (For now)