Locus of the Nephilim Order.
The Nephilim were a race of large and long-lived humanoids, believed to be the descendants of "fallen angels" whose actions reputedly contributed to an immense cataclysm remembered as the Great Flood of Biblical legend.
Biology[]
Nephilim resembled adult humans of above average height, akin to giants, who possessed a variety of skin tones resembling baseline human diversity.[1]
They appeared to have lifespans that well exceeded that of a typical person. Abgal, a male giant over three meters tall in stature and gladiator of the Roman Emperor Nero, maintained a hibernation-like state of rest into the early half of the 20th century.[2]
Nephilim were shown to have a higher degree of durability and strength than normal humans, but they were not truly immortal, as they could be killed.[1] Gibborim, a giant who was killed during the Battle of La Forbie during the Crusades—hundreds of years after his first recorded appearance in history—took much effort to be felled by the Mamluk defenders of the city.[2] Similarly, Junia was depicted being overwhelmed before meeting her demise and even then her attackers were taken down in the process.[1]
History[]
According to their own legend, the Nephilim were the descendants of Biblical angels whose actions contributed to the Great Flood by corrupting God's creation. As a result, surviving giants who sought to atone their ancestral sin united to protect the secret of Noah's Ark from those who would seek to harness its powers of world-spanning teleportation for nefarious means. The first records of their race appeared in ancient Egypt, some tens of thousands of years after Noah's time, and in the following millennia they would ally with the early Christian Church under Saint Peter to further protect the secret of the Ark as well as early Christians from Roman persecution. Eventually, the Vatican allowed this "Nephilim Order" to build a monastery underneath St. Peter's Basilica at the behest of Augur the Giant. The Nephilim were known not only to the Catholic Church, as they were also tasked with protecting the secrets of the Ark as far afield as Sukhothai in Siam, where they were known to have entertained themselves with puzzle games.[1]
Nephilim persisted well into the 20th century while actively maintaining a low profile from the modern world. However, the actions of the Nazi archaeologist and occultist Emmerich Voss brought light to their activities, with Voss and his Nazi subordinates apparently having killed a giant in Giza to obtain their secrets related to the Great Circle.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The Nephilim as featured in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle[1] are based off of the Biblical legend of the Nephilim, said to be a race of humans of great size and strength and the descendants of angels who interbred with humanity. Other sources suggest that they were more associated with authority and power as opposed to size and that they were the descendants of the bloodline of the Biblical Cain.[3]
For the most part, only male giants are depicted the duration of the base game,[1] with Junia, the only known female Nephilim, appearing in the form of a statue within her tomb in the DLC campaign "The Order of Giants".[2]
