#Tuvia Rosenbloom (OC)

[hyperpotamianarch]

Pleasant music playing. The logo of Camp Nephillim appears on a sky-blue background. The logo is a tilted Star of David in which all the points are stylized as wings, with the words "Camp Nephilim" above and the Hebrew equivalent - "מחנה הנפילים" - below. Underneath the logo is a tagline - a quote from the Tanach.

The logo & background slowly fade. The music also fades, though a bit later than the logo.

[Setting: Int., an office of some sort. The back wall is covered with book shelves, with many of the books being in Hebrew - the Talmud, multi volume edition of the Tanach and such books. There's a table in the middle of the room. Behind it sits Tuvia Rosenbloom, an adult Jewish man with curly dark hair, a short beard and sharp green eyes. He wears a blue Camp Nephilim t-shirt, with a Tzitzit under it and a yarmulke on his head. He sports a friendly smile.]

Tuvia (with a noticable British accent): Shalom! Hello, and welcome to Camp Nephillim. I am Tuvia Rosenbloom, the camp councelor, and I'm here to explain to you about what this camp is and why you're here. Your journey here was likely shaking, so in the meanwhile take your time to relax and drink a cup of water while you're watching this orientation video. Please remember to say the blessing before!

[He lifts a cup of water, says the blessing and drinks before continuing]

Tuvia (cont.): So, first thing first: you should know that many thing that you may have thought were merely myth are, in fact, quite real. This includes angels and demons - though they aren't exactly the same as you might've imagined them. No, the whole "Biblically Accurate Angels" meme wouldn't prepare you enough either. Angels can also sometimes appear differently than their natural form, and can even seem like regular humans. They sometimes fall in love with humans, which is how most Nephilim come to be.

[Tuvia's office disappears, to show instead a Chumash opened in the Book of Genesis, chapter 6]

Tuvia (cont.): What are the Nephilim? Well, as the Torah says,

"It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth—when divine beings cohabited with the human women, who bore them offspring. Such were the heroes of old, the men of renown."

[Setting returns to Tuvia's office]

Tuvia (cont.): So, those are the Nephilim, then: children of Divine beings and humans, who are heroes and men of renown. And you are likely one of them.

[Tuvia takes another sip from his cup, then sets it aside]

Tuvia (cont.): You might need some time to digest that, feel free to pause the video for a few minutes. Getting back on topic, though: you are, likely, the child of a divine being. If you always grown with a single parent who only rarely reminisced of another parent you don't know what happened to them - you are likely a Naphil. It may grant you certain abilities relating to the position your divine parent served in the universe. Note, however, that those divine beings aren't gods. We do not worship them or offer them sacrifices, even as mediators between as and G-d. Some of those Divine Beings do like to consider themselves gods and were worshipped by old civilizations - the Greek and Norse pantheons, for example. That doesn't make them any more gods than the Angels known in Jewish lore - they are merely forces. Powerful, but not omnipotent.

[Tuvia pauses for a moment, letting that sink in]

Tuvia (cont.): There are other types of people who might find their way to Camp Nephilim, however. Perhaps you were training in magic under the Egyptian ḥartumim of Per Ankh and felt uncomfortable during Passover; maybe you studied under the tutelage of the Chaldeans in New Jersey, and they were harsh on you during Tisha b'Av; or maybe you were either born with the Re'iyeh, the Sight, or were granted it by an experiment gone wrong. I, personally, am descended from one of the few Jewish bloodlines that inherited the Re'iyeh from one of our ancestors. We can see the hidden world, and the threats within... and they tend to look back. Which leads us to demons.

[Tuvia leans back in his chair, putting his hands together]

Tuvia (cont.): It is important to remember that Demons - or Shedim, as they are known in Hebrew - aren't what you've come to expect from beings with such a name. They aren't evil monsters, hell-bent on tempting you to sin. Rather, they are... adjacent beings to us, not dissimilarly to elves or goblins in modern popular media. However, they are nothing like you may have come to expect from elves of the Tolkeinian kind. They are wilder than them, and prone to hurt humans. They aren't always murderous or impossible to reason with either. Some of them, like our lore instructor Yonatan Shida, are rather friendly. Many of them crave blood, though, and nothing is tastier to them than the blood of the Nephilim, or other humans capable of seeing them. They live in the edges of society and can feel when someone is looking at them. And when you do... when you acknowledge seeing them... you become fair play.

[Tuvia returns to his previous posture, lifts his cup and takes another sip]

Tuvia (cont.): You likely had a significant encounter with Shedim, or maybe other types of monsters, on your way here - but it probably wasn't your first time seeing them. It might have been a man who, upon a second look, had chicken legs. Perhaps you could've sworn that a weird stranger who seemed to follow you had two heads. You may have seen a horse fly on the horizon, or encountered a tall person with an umbilical cord tying them to the ground on a field trip. They were less of a threat to you back then. But yo have grown, and your powers and abilities grew with you - along with the Shedim's ability to sense you. They will be coming for you - which is why you're here. Camp Nephilim is a place for Jewish Nephilim and Ba'alei Shem to train. To get used to the powers granted to us by virtue of our parentage or via other means. We're not the only place for such training; Camp Half-Blood in Long Island offers training for children of entities from the Greek Pantheon, while the 21 Nome of the House of Life in Brooklyn offers training in Egyptian magic, and the Chaldean school in Jersey City will train you in the Mesopotamian vain. None of those, however, is built with Jews in mind: the worship of pagan gods is common in all these places. They don't supply you with Kosher food, tend to not care for our holidays and often enough rife with latent antisemitism. We offer a Jewish alternative - no matter what is your level of observance or what congregation you belong to, you can be sure we have here at least one synagogue you can daven at and one you'd never set foot in. We do not worship any god but G-d here - you can honor your parents in ways fitting the traditions of the Torah, but even if a divine parent asks of you to worship them you are not required to. Another difference between us and the other Camps and Schools is that you aren't trained to slay Shedim here. You're trained to keep them at bay, imprison them if necesarry. Unlike other monsters, Shedim die like humans do, and so killing them should be only taken as a last resort: if your life are in danger you should kill whoever threatens you, but otherwise killing Shedim is like murder. We would ask you to refrain from doing that unless necessary.

[Tuvia gets up]

Tuvia (cont.): That is it for the orientation video for now. Further explanations on your sleeping arrangemnt and schedules will be given to you when you exit the room. Welcome to Camp Nephilim! We hope you enjoy your time with us.

[Outro music playing, the picture of Tuvia's office is replaced by the blue background with the Camp's logo to the side while the credits are shown on screen]

———

Writer wishes to note he knows nothing about writing stage instructions.