Reposting my old 1001 Mummy Story Hooks thread here, because that sort of thread tends to be useful.
Please be aware that the numbers won't be consecutive - I created this thread on three separate fora.
.) The first time a PC increases her Memory, she recalls that her Judge, back in Duat, warned her about one of her fellow Arisen being a traitor of the Lost Guild. The PC can't remember which Arisen the Judge was talking about. Time for some paranoia and internal conflict!
.) One of the Arisen peers of the PCs was once one of the ancient masters of an entire guild, a guardian of limitless secrets and a peerless savant of the arts of the respective guild. She's also, currently, at Memory 1, which severely limits her usefulness.
In order to reach their goals, the PCs need some really important guild-related information that only she possesses, or rather, used to possess. The PCs need to help her refresh her memory.
.) The Arisen steps off of the train, his feet touching the first stones of the city, and in that moment his head churns sickeningly. All around him, the features of the city distort and twist into vaguely-familiar features, as though the city were made of cloth whose threads had slackened to allow him to see through to his memory. People he meets play the dual role of their place within his mission and as phantom actors dressed in his reverie. Time is short, and he must choose, does he speak to his past or to his present purpose?
.) The instructions wrack her mind, as though they had been carved by plow and filled with salt and fire: PERFORM THE CEREMONY. So simple, so clean, and already her eyes feel heavy with the sleep of eternity. But these words are... wrong. Her fingers spread across the ancient scroll, each symbol aligning with the next in a harmony that seems all but sound. But it is wrong, says some small voice in the back of her mind. Fragments are there, a feverish fear of discovery, a hand that goes to alter a sacred ritual vital to the very world, and it is her hand that holds the blasphemous writing tool. What caused her to alter it? What has changed, so significant and so subtle that even the Judges do not see?
5.) Your cult's high priest(ess) doesn't seem right. You didn't notice at first, no, because you were too busy.. but more and more.. (s)he seems to be more of a mockery of a person than the real thing.. your other cultists see it too.. and one of them swears (s)he was picking splinters out from under her nails. ((Bit of a crossover with Ling, priest(ess) is a fetch.
.) Why is the Greater Amkhat who ate one of your meret calling you "master"? Why do you have faint memories of performing an elaborate ritual serving no purpose other than to create one of these monsters?
.) The PCs get to meet a little boy who, for some reason, knows more about the Nameless Empire than the PCs are able to recall, can quote ancient Iremite texts and knows the location of seriously powerful buried relics and Arisen compatriots of the meret. Supernatural scans of the boy turn out negative - he appears to be just a young kid.
Twist: the Judges order the PCs to kill the boy.
.) The PCs, after having started their new Descent, find themselves being hunted by pretty much the entire nearby Arisen population. What did they do in their previous Descent to draw the ire of all the guilds?
.) The PCs are tasked with reclaiming a relic that is directly responsible for the miraculously good fortune of people desperately in need of it; disaster victims, the poor downtrodden underclass of a community, etc.
.) The Shuankhsen lack the ability to truly resurrect their physical remains, having to possess dead bodies instead. However, when an Arisen first sees a Shuankhsen, the Shuankhsen's true corpse form will reveal itself to him.
One of the PCs, while seeing a Shuankhsen in action, recognizes her as someone he knew in his first life in the City of Pillars - a friend, or perhaps even a relative. Can the ancient, long-lost feelings of kinship be rekindled? Could an Arisen make her peace with a Shuankhsen - against the will of the Judges, Ammut and the Arisen guilds?
.) Individual members of the meret's cult show up dead, with the number "43" cut into their foreheads. The cult has, prior to the killings, commenced extensive research on the topic of the 42 Judges of Duat.
One of the player characters suffers from regular nightmares about his experiences in Duat during the Rite of Return, in which he saw a shadowy figure behind the 42 thrones of the Judges of Duat.
.) While serving her cult, one of the PCs, a Tef-Aabhi, comes across an building whose architectural design appears to be strongly aligned towards mystical principles first developed by the Tef-Aabhi - forbidden designs, those that make the building steal positive energy from people living and working inside. This might also be why terrible luck seems to follow everyone inside around constantly.
These forbidden mystical principles and designs have, 6000 years ago, first been discovered by the *player character*, back then one of the chief architects of the Tef-Aabhi.
Who stole her designs and built this structure, and for what purpose?
.) One of the PCs, who starts the game with an Ab rating of 0, finds out, after having Arisen, that her heart is missing. Not just the Ab pillar and its metaphysical properties, but the character's actual physical heart. The character is still fully functional, even without her heart.
Where's the mummy's heart? And why is she feeling emotions entirely unfamiliar to her, emotions that are distracting her from her First Purpose?
.) The PC Arises, called back from death by his cult, with strong memories of one of his cultists being directly responsible for his death at the end of his last Descent. The cultist in question has a strong alibi for the time of the murder, with many high ranking cultists vouching for his devotion to the Arisen and their purpose. Could the PC simply misremember and blame the cultist of a crime he didn't commit?
.) As one of the PC slowly regains memories of a Descent that holds great emotional significance to her, she recalls one of the lovers she's had throughout the millenia - against the wishes of her Judge, of course -, a Roman horseman in the 3rd century BC.
One of the people the PC has met while fulfilling her First Purpose looks exactly like her lover.
Can't be him, of course. He's been dead for more than two millenia.
And yet - the exact same appearance, mannerism, gestures, similar behaviour.
Did the PC's lover come back to her from the grave? Is she finally going insane?
.) The country of Tibet is about to start an excavation in an as of yet unexplored region, in which, if the PCs recall correctly, a huge amount of Iremite magical weapons of mass destruction is assumed to be buried. The guilds do not want these implements to be discovered by anyone at all. For once, instead of digging up lost relics, the PCs have to prevent others from doing so.
.) One of the PC's Arisen compatriots Arises with startlingly little of her original personality and identity left (Memory 0). She's little more than a vessel of her Judge, a puppet of the Divine Will of Duat.
And yet - her actions, under the constant, strict guidance of the Lords of Duat, leave the world a better place. The mummy punishes sin as much as she rewards virtue. Those who violate the laws put forth by the Judges are corrected, and the world is a little bit of a safer place near her.
Perhaps it would be best if all Arisen surrender their will and individuality to the Judges, as she did? Some of the Su-Menent certainly begin to see it that way.
.) The meret awake to find that their cult has become involved in drug dealing. This has left them in connection with some very dangerous connections like drug cartels. Complications that may derail the merets goals and bring unwanted attention. Can the meret disentangle their cult from the cartel? And does doing so create new and dangerous enemies?
XX.) As the Sothic Turn awakens the Arisen. Something else is awakening. The cultist are disappearing; some are turning dead, frozen. The PC Arisen must track down the fiends. For something else as awoken with the turning of the Sothic Cycle. The Frozen, those mummified by ice or liquid nitrogen, are awakening as well. For Mummies who have not received the Rite of Return, why are they experiencing the energies of the Sothic Cycle?
.) A woman introduces herself to the meret, claiming to be a Shan-iatu. She appears to possess both knowledge about the Nameless Empire (she claims it had once a name) that the PCs are entirely unfamiliar with, as well as abilities as of yet unseen and incomprehensible, including that of increasing and decreasing an Arisen's Sekhem through an effort of will.
She attempts to convince the PCs to rebel against the Judges, whom she regards as traitors.
.) As a high-memory Arisen character watches people - ordinary, non-cultist people, blissfully unaware of the dangers of the World of Darkness - enjoy themselves in some way entirely unfamiliar to an Egyptian mummy who died 6000 years ago - such as ice-skating, or bungee-jumping or listening to modern music; feeling alienated and disconnected with this world and its people, he breaks, retreating into a shell of his own memories and nostalgia, seemingly lost to the world.
Can the PCs, likely as alienated and disconnected as he is, bring him back to sanity?
.) One of the Su-Menent, embittered by her cult's magical practices in particular and religious worship in the modern age in general (hollow copies of the true faith of the Nameless Empire), convinces herself that all magic is the property of the Judges, and that this modern age doesn't deserve to wield ancient magic. She slaughters her cultists and attacks the cults of other Arisen in an effort to destroy mortal magical knowledge.
And the Judges don't seem to punish her or hasten her Descent in any way for doing so.
.) A particularly charismatic Falcon-Headed Tef-Aabhi gets it into his head that this degenerate age needs the true guidance of a firm-handed leader, someone imbued with the wisdom of ages. Someone like him.
The Judges punish his attempts at reaching out with his cult, grasping the local infrastructure and subverting the culture like crazy, but his message rings true to like-minded Arisen, many of them followers of the Ba like him, as they start creating the first empire ruled by the Arisen. Many opposing Arisen cults are simply swallowed by the collective might of their secret societies.
.) The scrolls of the Sesha-Hebsu explain that the metaphysical properties of the Sothic Wheel have been incorporated into the Rite of the Return affecting all Arisen, allowing them to reverse their natural state, that of being dead, every 1400-something years.
Recent findings suggest the existence of a 260-day Sacred Round cycle, whose properties might in some way correspond to specific complexities the Su-Menent remember about the process of the Rite of Return. It seems unlikely but plausible that the Arisen might, given enough time and the discovery and correct use of very powerful relics, commit the heresy of artificially simulating a locally generated Sothic Turn that will cause all Arisen of an entire continent to come back to life prematurely .. repeatedly every 260 days.
The Su-Menent, loyal to the Judges, don't like the theological implications of these findings. Still, to many of the Arisen, the prospect of being capable of returning to life in that frequency and without the constraints of a First Purpose, is a very attractive one.
.) There's a serial killer on the loose. Tv footage has shown him during a shootout with the police, shouting something about "you'll die so that I can follow" and "Irem rests in Duat, and so will I" as well as a few quotes in the Iremite language that cannot easily be translated.
The bullets seemed to stop him, but the disappearance of the body from the hospital morgue still can't easily be explained.
The PCs know him. He used to be one of the most prominent researchers of the Sesha-Hebsu, a savant on the topic of the Nameless Empire.
.) The Am-heh Rosetta is a relic of particular interest to Arisen, rumored to bring back lost memories. The Judges are expected to reward Arisen who uncover the Am-heh Rosetta and bring it to them highly.
One of the PC's Arisen rivals has made it public that he has found the Rosetta. As the PCs plot to steal it away from him, he suddenly disappears. Rumor has it that he has joined the ranks of the prospective students of the Heretic.
As the Rosetta eventually comes into the possession of the PCs, they figure out that it's actually a very well made forgery and not the actual Am-heh Rosetta. The forgery, however, is still a relic, except that it doesn't bring back lost memories; it instead creates artificial memories.
.) A one time rival Arisen shows up at the PC's door. He has recently started his new Descent, and there are strong gaps in his memory.
For one, he recalls strong hatred towards the PC, but he doesn't remember the precise reason.
The rival wants to rebuild his memory and personality. This is why he's asking - begging - the PC to help him discover the reason as for why he harbors such strong hatred towards the PC.
How will the PC handle this unusual request?
27.) During a chronicle set sometime in the past, the PC gets flashes of memories that aren't familiar, and that don't seem to be related to the world around him. Investigating history shows that these aren't memories of the past, but memories of the future. What's causing this, and can it be stopped? Does the mummy want it to stop?
.) The PCs need to infiltrate a multinational company that's actually a cult of one of their enemies among the Arisen. Other than the obvious obstacles (using some sort of Affinity or relic to hide from the supernatural senses of their Arisen enemy), the PCs, 6000 year old mummies, better learn to pass as corporate businessmen without standing out quickly.
29) A PC is constantly haunted by flashbacks of one of the mortals he had fallen in love with long ago. While his memories are still unclear, he remembers watching her brutally slain, remembers holding her body as her sekhem drained away and her soul went to Duat. While he remembers her fondly and often thinks of her to give himself strength, he is forever haunted by the moment of her death.
Especially once his Memory score rises high enough to remember that he was the one that crushed the life from her. He cannot understand why, but he has a vivid memory of the brutal attack that left her dead. His Memory was not faded when he did so, so he cannot blame it on her accidentally waking him from slumber. No.. she MUSTVE done SOMETHING to get him to kill her.. right..? Or.. was he really so different now, so different he can't for the unlife of him fathom WHY.
...as an optional crossover, the Mummy's cult then comes across a man that claims to see and visit with the long dead, deep in the underworld, to help them move on. The Mummy wonders if this strange "sineater" could find the ghost of his dead lover, so that he might gain closure, perhaps forgiveness.. but at the very least, he hopes to learn what caused him to kill her, and why he would do such a thing that seems so appauling and unnatural to his current personality.
.) The local Maa-Kep, in their function as secret police among the Arisen, have declared all local Sesha-Hebsu to be enemies of the Arisen, causing an open war among the Deathless. Cultists are used as pawns in bloody conflicts.
Although the Deathless fight constantly, wars between entire guilds are unprecedented in the annals of the Sesha-Hebsu.
.) One of the PCs has, in the past, clashed with a charismatic Mesen-Nebu, whose political convictions are particularly at odds with those of most ex-citizens of the Stone Age. He seems to think that power should go to the people and that people should fight for their basic rights and similar ridiculous nonsense. He has been active around the Peasant's Revolt in England in 1381, the Labour revolts of France in 1831 and many others before.
After the Occupy Movement, his methods have grown increasingly radical. Now his cult has found some way to reach the mainstream audience with their anti-capitalism message, and their numbers are stronger than ever. Something needs to be done.
.) The Su-Menent would like nothing better than to reintroduce the religious beliefs of the Nameless Empire to the people of this degenerate age. The retirement of the Roman Catholic pope creates an opportunity that the priests of Duat must use.
No Deathless could ever serve as pontifex to these cynical masses. A skilled puppet cultist loyal to the Su-Menent would, however, be well suited for the job of "adjusting" Catholic dogma to the needs of the Su-Menent, if he had a chance of being elected.
.) Iremite Law forbids violence between husband and wife. Some 6000 year old immortals take the laws of their upbringing terribly serious, which is why Piye, guildmaster of the Mesen-Nebu, is reluctant to make her dreams of disembowelling her husband, Taharqua of the Maa-Kep (again), true. That's why she's trying to blackmail the PCs into getting the deed done. It helps if none of the PCs are Mesen-Nebu, so as to avoid a diplomatic incident.
Problem is, Tarhaqua has only very recently been awoken and is currently at very high Sekhem levels.
.) One of the PCs had a prolonged affair with a mortal during the last Sothic Turn, taking advantage of Sekhem's refusal to drop below 1 without provocation during that time-frame to maintain a loving relationship and cultivate Memory. The relationship was, sadly, cut short when the PC fell in their lover's defense and returned to Duat.
How then, are they still around to greet them when 2012 arrives?
.) Recent findings suggest that the Utterances known a Words of Dead Fury, Words of Dead Glory and Words of Dead Hunger are actually, to mystical savants, known as lesser versions of these Utterances.
Cultists shudder to think of what mummies who knew the greater Words could be capable of.
.) The PC has been Arisen to retrive an artifact...thing is, they remember looking for it before.
And it is not until they remember why they didn't hand it over last time.
.) The combination of a seriously misinterpreted Rite of Return and the zeal of the cult trying to make it work has led to the creation of an Osiran Promethean. Can the cult be convinced that their god-king is nothing of the kind before everyone in the vicinity goes insane?
.) A Sadikh has found a way to detach herself from the mummy who created her, regaining her free will. Problem is, her immortality is also gone. Luckily, there's a way around that one. It just involves cannibalizing the Pillars of Arisen.
.) Exacting a horrifying revenge on people who violate a mummy's tomb allows an Arisen a certain grace period in which the Descent is slowed and the loss of Sekhem is kept at bay. A meret of Arisen has thought of a way to exploit this law of Deathless existence by forcing people (hapless victims) to violate their tomb, again and again, so as to stop losing Sekhem. A few corpses every now and then are a small price to pay for immortality, right?
For bonus points, this is the PC meret before they got repeatedly murdered and shoved back into Duat a while back.
They're finding out about this in retrospect and the possibility is beginning to tempt them again.
.) The so-called Heretic isn't the only of his kind. One of the Jackal-Headed has recently gained notoriety as well as the enmity of the Su-Menent for her heretic dogma. This Arisen believes that the number of Judges of Duat isn't necessarily fixed, and that it might well be possible for individual Arisen of sufficient dedication and ruthlessness to ascend to their numbers.
The Judges are, obviously, opposed to her beliefs, but not to her methods. The heretic claims that, in order for a Deathless mummy to ascend to the ranks of the Judges, she has to destroy everything that made her human. Only a mummy with no memories of human existence (Memory 0) could ever transform into a god.
.) One of the Arisen claims to have found a way of escaping the tortures and punishments of the Judges - swallowing a heart. Not one's own heart - this is where Egyptian mythology is dead wrong - but that of innocent mortals.
There is no evidence confirming that this gruesome practice actually works, but why should that stop curious Arisen?
.) No Arisen has spoken to Hsekiu, Arisen of the Tef-Aabhi, in centuries. He lies, like so many of the Deathless, dead but dreaming. No cultists revere his image (and if they do, then in secret). No Arisen utter his name, even as a whisper.
The guilds do not precisely remember why they are so afraid of calling him back to life. There are faint memories of blood .. pain ... fates worse than death, especially for the Deathless. His tomb remains undisturbed, and if the guilds have their way, it shall remain so forever.
.) The Descents of a number of Arisen have recently been ended prematurely. Evidence suggests involvement of the Lost Guild, the Deceived, masters of the occult art of Nomenclature.
None of the attacked Arisen have thus far been able to successfully defend themselves against the Deceived threat.
The guilds' hope rests on one of the PCs, who, in her first life in the Nameless Empire, has been an active member of the Lost Guild, until she later decided to quit in order to join one of the other guilds. It is up to her to rebuild her memory of her first life and figure out some defense against the magics of the Deceived.
43) A Meret wakes up from their individual slumbers on the same day, all summoned by their prospective cults. When the they question their cults as to their individual purposes, the cults express confusion. Their god just told them to wake them up, many long years ago, but refused to tell them why, just that it was of utmost importance.
The information that the cults do have is a list of location to several tombs, all aligned to each other in a strange occult way. These are the tombs of the other member of the meret. The Meret do not remember eachother, but their cult insists that these locations were given to them by the Arisen in a time long ago. When the Arisen search throug their memories of their last summon, all they remember is feverishly working towards discovering a secret that MUST be brought to the Guilds attention, each one placing certain vestiges and relics in safe spots so that they could be recombined at the next time.
The Arisen set out to search for the vestiges and relics that they once had but could not let Duat have yet, and amidsts the ancient ruins, they are attacked by groups of organized Shuankensen, and these Lifeless seem to be working together in a concerted effort, all bearing the mark of a Scorpion eating itself. Is there a new movement in the Shuankensen? Have they created a Guild of their own? The Shuankensen meet them as old enemies, but the Arisen have no understanding as to why besides their nature. Can the meret uncover the secrets before the next Sothic Turn, a date that each of their cults has been told is the coming of a great and terrible conflict between the Lifeless and the Deathless? Do they have the time before they Descend to rally the forces nessecary, or are they looking forward to the power vacuum of a Shuankensen uprising?
44) The Arisen awakens to steal back an artifact that was reported stolen by his cult, but the reported artifact cannot be sensed, and only the taker can be tracked into a world of occult mysticism and secret societies, all protecting or searching for a strange book. Once the Arisen find the book, it seems to be a journal that speaks of days in Irem and details another Arisen's pursuit of Apotheosis. But there is something else, the book is annotated with correct or incorrect additions, and entire passages seem to be marked out as false or unreadable by the annotator, including the last chapter, the only letters decipherable on the page are H. E. R. E. T. I. C, seemingly purposefully left unmarked, and circled by a third hand. What more, the Second hand seems to be the Arisen's own writing.
What is really going on with this journal? Are the annotations correct, or do they herald a worse heresy, or a conspiracy far greater? Who does the third set of handwriting belong to?
.) As one of the PCs slowly starts to rebuild his memory of the lifetimes before the current one, it occurs to him that he's seen the mortal beggar down the street, the one who always asks him for a penny and a piece of his soul, before. The PC has met him in every single Descent he can remember, up to and including 5000 years ago. And it's always the same beggar, the same pleading look and the same question, ever and ever again.
.) The Sirius (Sothis) star inexplicably reduces in brightness during the first quarter of 2013, with none of the experts being able to come up with a convincing explanation. It seems as if the Sothic Cycle, for the first time in a six-digit number of years, will be late. It seems unlikely that the Arisen will live to see the next Sothic Turn in the next couple thousand years.
47: You're angry. Why? You have awoken to find that your cultists are dead, killed without a mark on their bodies. Your tomb has been defaced and cleared of all your accumulated knowledge and relics. Whoever did this knew exactly where to hit, how to hit, and what to take. A relic is missing too, a sacred creation that something deep inside you screams is vital to what you are.
By the time you manage to contact someone who knew about your existence, they mention other attacks like yours, tombs disturbed and cultists killed en masse. Only the attacks are inconsistent. Some are as you saw. Others involve explosions and mortal law, or local leaders rallying against cultists. The message is clear suddenly. A memory of your last *Whatever the hell they call a mummy's waking, I don't have the book yet okay?!*, a group of armed men and women forcing you back into your tomb. Sealing you in with knowledge you thought impossible to find. Are they the same ones this time too?
48. In the middle of a Sothic Cycle, the Arisen decide to go see a play at Shakespeare in the Park. It's their 1.5-milennium time off, and this pale imitation of culture might spark some memories or something. In the middle of the performance of Hamlet, however, someone in the Audience — apparently one of their fellow Arisen, blazing with the glory of Sekhem — runs onto the stage and beheads the frightened and confused man playing Claudius, shouting in the tongue of Ancient Irem, "You murdered my High Priest, Ignoble Claudius! For this you must die!" A little investigation reveals that similar incidents have happened at every performance of Hamlet, and the only reason they staged it this year was because they had been assured by someone that the "man" who plagued them was dead and gone.
.) A Lion-Headed Arisen has convinced himself that he has unlocked the secrets of the Rite of Return. Willing to spread the flame of immortality and create a new generation of servants for the Judges, he has asked his Arisen peers to select cultists willing to undergo ritual suicide in order to appear before the Judges.
It is likely that the rite will simply kill the cultists, but the Lion-Head and his enthusiastic, armed and dangerous followers refuse to believe that.
For additional fun, the rite instead creates a new generation of lesser, weaker Shuankhsen.
50.] A recent earthquake has shaken the Sahara desert, and under its dunes in the west archealogists have found an interesting natural formation, a large, previously unknown system of tunnels, are starting from a wide opening that has been scrawled with strange, hieroglyphics that don't seem to coincide with any of the known Egyptian languages. The Judges strictly forbid any Arisen to seek it out, but more and more Fate seems to put the jounrey in front of the Arisen, until finally, in an epileptic fit, one of the cultists mentions a great mouth, open to the moon and sky that sends their light and magic into the Underworld. What more, one or more of the Arisen receive phone calls, emails, or other forms of electronic communication, signed by loved ones long dead that read "They have me, but they are willing to give me to you..."
If it all an elaborate scheme, or is there something out in the white sands of the West that the Judges are hiding? Can those loved ones really be back, or is it a trap?
von Greg Stolze:
40) When the Arisen last woke, during the 1950s, his sect was persecuted for its 'non-traditional' beliefs, so he presented some more... vigorous commandments about secrecy and defense, and also promoted more aggressive leaders. Today he arises to find that his cult has evolved from "we are willing to kill if it's absolutely necessary!" to "we are willing to kill if it's Thursday!" Can he correct them gently? Is a bloody purge the wrong way to steer cultists away from casual murder? Is it better to accept their murderousness in the name of efficiency (and remember, he woke up for an entirely unrelated mission!) or is it better to burn out the nest and start again from scratch?
41) A Mummy from the next Sothic Turn, the one in 3400-something, uses a Gate of Thoth to return to the present day with a duffel bag full of advanced future-technology and a dark future to avert. Or does so in orbit, using a space ship, because we're doing a crossover with the Infinite Macabre setting...
.) During her Descent, an Arisen PC gets to meet a member of her own guild. In a past life, the PC killed the guild journeyman for having peaceful relations with the Shuankhsen and providing them with information on the relics of other guildmates. The PC remembers everything about it. The other mummy, nothing.
The PC needs the mummy's cooperation in order to achieve her goals. How long until the journeyman recalls his past and murder at the hands of the PC? Will his traitorous ways repeat themselves?
.) One of the PCs, preferably one with a high Intelligence trait, has, in his first life, been a guild member of a certain notoriety. His obvious brilliance manifested in a way that made him a creator of artifacts and objects of madness - as a Mesen-Nebu, he might have devised alchemical concoctions that altered the basic nature of humans. A brilliant Tef-Aabhi might have constructed buildings whose geometric attributes influenced the destinies of all nearby people. A Su-Menent might have been an expert creator of necromantic weapons of mass destruction. A scribe of the Sesha-Hebsu could have put down words and pictographs that were obvious blasphemies, devouring the minds of those who read them. Etc.
The Shan'iatu thought long and hard before making the decision of granting him immortality, in the end, deciding that the PC's brilliance in his first life needed to be preserved.
As an Arisen, unable to recall much of his past, and irrevocably changed by 6000 years of undeath, the PC might well be terrified by his accomplishments as a creator of monstrosities and terrors - or, alternately, willing to embrace his dark past fully.
53) As the PC's Arisen rise from their deathless slumber (woken by their cult), a great ceremony is held in honour of the Judges. As the ritual proceeds, the PC' are told by their high priest, last time they promised to perform some great deed when they would rise next time. Of course, the Arisen don't remember what it was and why they should have made a promise like that.
So, they'll have to deal with their disappointed cult, whose members expected some kind of miracle to happen for years. Some of them seem to have developed disbelief and impatience. Further, something seems to be wrong. If the Arisen remember correctly, the cult made use of way too much blood while performing the ceremony. They did it wrong. Blasphemy.
How will the Arisen discover that a powerful vampire (a member or the Circle of the Crone or maybe - i would like that - a Setite from the cWoD) has infiltrated their cult over the past few decades, embraced a child of his own (high priest? someone else?) and uses taht child and his ghouls to take over this religious group. And if they find out, how will they fight him? For he seems to remember much more about the Arisen than they remember about themselves.
.) Rekhetre was once one of the most popular of the Su-Menent, renowned for being a death priest of unusually high compassion. The Rite of Return, the most powerful feat of magic ever performed by men, wasn't strong enough to change her caring nature, and it was to noone's surprise when she declared her decree to be that of the Heart.
Her experiences in Buddhist India gave her compassion focus and guidance, as she refined her beliefs and learned about the suffering inherent in all life.
Millenia later, Rekhetre, still a priest of death, brings everlasting peace to those who need it - and, in the end, everyone does. She still means well, as she always did, which is why her methods of passing the sacrament of death on to others are gentle, but neither she nor her cult of extremists are particularly discriminating as to who they murder in the name of compassion. Sooner or later, they'll figure out some way of using modern weaponry for the purposes of sharing their sacrament with hundreds or even thousands of people all at once; and on that day, Rekhetre, a Bodhisattva who chose to live and feel and suffer for all eternity, so that others don't have to, will weep with joy for bringing peace to so many people.
.) After a period of unknown length, the PC awakens to a new Descent. Before they complete their Purpose (or at any point, if it's during a Sothic Turn), they notice that a human has their hand. As in, grafted onto the human's wrist is an exact copy of the Mummy's hand. What's worse is, the human appears to be able to understand the language of Ancient Irem, write the script of Ancient Irem, and even duplicate one of the PC's affinities. How did this mortal get one of the Arisen's hands? And why did the Rite allow this human to keep the hand?
.) One of the arch-enemies of the meret, a known Deceived member of the Lost Guild, a very dangerous master of nomenclature, shows up. He's obviously having trouble remembering much of his past - including his enmity to the PCs. He even claims not to remember his guild affiliation!
He's obviously playing the PCs. Right?
Could a Deceived mummy be rehabilitated?
.) The PCs and all Arisen they know start receiving visions of the Judges, in which the Judges command the Arisen to bring them as many vessels and relics as possible, now. The Judges appear to be in visible distress, which has never happened before in the memory of the Arisen.
.) As one of the PCs dies and experiences a death cycle (i.e. he doesn't go back to Duat, as he still has Sekhem left), Anpu shows up and offers to help him "find his way", regaining his personality and sense of self. The character starts experiencing visions of past lives that are in some way relevant to current events in the chronicle.
- Each of the visions, all of which last a single scene, allow the character to gain a small amount of sebayt experience points.
- The character may freely decide to experience as many visions as he wants, uncovering more and more of his past.
- The visions are experienced in real time. As the character delves into his past, the other PCs continue their Descent.
- While allowing the character to rapidly increase his Memory trait, the visions exhaust his Sekhem just as quickly. Treat each scene as two scenes for the purposes of tracking time left until the next Descent roll.
.) Not every individual the Shan'iatu sent to the Judges made it through the Rite of Return. The Shan'iatu weren't perfect - sometimes they chose unwisely. Some of the souls they selected weren't suited for immortality.
When faced with the task of pronouncing a decree and declaring one of the parts of one's soul to be inviolate and stronger than all others, some would-be immortals simply failed. Most of these individuals were simply sent to the Devourer as sacrifices. The Judges still found some use for a few of these failures, however.
In Kabbalistic cosmology, the Qliphoth are metaphorical “shells” surrounding holiness. They are spiritual obstacles receiving their existence from a divinity only in an external, rather than internal manner.
A Qlipoth is a Lifeless servant of the Judges. The Qlipoth lack free will - they are extensions of the Judges' will, unable to defy their masters in any way.
There are only very few Qlipoth - if the Judges found it easy to create and use these monstrosities, then the Arisen wouldn't be needed. They are the "big guns" of the Judges, to be used when the Arisen and their annoying free will would interfere with the success of one of the plots of the Judges.
.) None of the Arisen know their true names, as they have chosen to give them to the Judges during their Rite of Return.
An Arisen with rebellious tendencies decides that, given the fact that he can't have his true name back, in order to free himself from the grasp of the Judges, he needs to create a new name for himself. If a Christian baptism doesn't work, then perhaps using Deceiver rites to steal a name from someone else might?
.) One of the Arisen has found a way to change the curse of a relic in a way that allows him to steal the life energy of those who use it. The mummy's pillars (and, possibly, Sekhem) recharge as hapless mortals use the relic in question for their own ends.
.) A mortal who knows much more about the Deathless than he has any right to develops a plan to achieve immortality that might actually work .. depending on one's definition of "immortality". He infiltrates one of the PC's cult and subtly sabotages events so as to prematurely end the PC's Descent in a way that destroys the PC's body entirely.
Then, as the cultists attempt to bring the mummy back, he offers his body for the mummy to possess (rules are on page 152 of the corebook, "The Twice Arisen").
The mummy Arises with both its own memories and personality and that of the cultist. In a twisted way, he has found a method to partake in the mummy's immortality.
.) One of the PCs figures out that one of the human NPCs he's met during his Descent is actually one of his direct mortal descendants (there are a number of possibilities as to how a mummy might come to this conclusion, including magic, appropriate relics, ghosts, etc.).
The mummy's (very distant and still alive) relative has fallen on hard times and is in dire need of (supernatural?) assistance. Cue stories focused on themes of fatherhood/motherhood, responsibility, family and alienation from mortals.
64) One of the Su-Menent decided long ago that the acquisition of Memory was not only risky in the face of the Descent, but inherently blasphemous against the Judges and Duat. The prolongation of the existence of the Arisen, apart from their promised reward in the afterlife, is due to the eternal repetition of this sin.
Only in stillness and obedience, in which no self may linger, can the Arisen find freedom and true eternity.
Only in surrender will they be rewarded.
This would be okay in its own right, if they kept it to themselves, but they have taken after the example of modern religion and begun spreading the word. By force.
.) A recently awakened Sesha-Hebsu, confused and lacking in Memory, has started to believe the dogma of her own cult - in which she is revered as a goddess incarnate.
This in and itself wouldn't be a problem, if the cult wasn't powerful and/or well-connected; but it is. It also has excellent marketing.
Very soon, cult members and indeed even the mummy herself start having public appearances on local TV and radio stations, spreading the word and gaining new followers by the hour. After only a couple months, the cult is a trend religion, to which all the cool modern kids belong to.
The Maa-Kep certainly do not approve of an Arisen being that much of a public figure; especially if she's disseminating actual occult truths of the Sesha-Hebsu as part of her religious teachings.
von Greg Stolze:
58) It looks like a standard rise-and-recover job. An artifact has been noted and it falls to the Arisen to seize it for their masters. But there are a few unpleasant elements in play here. a) The object has no obvious Iremic legacy, it's associated with some religion the mummies have never even heard of. b) The device is keeping several humans alive (at least for the time being) which would normally be a nugatory concern, but these people really do seem to be selfless and compassionate and doing lasting good in the world. Recover the item and it could doom their legacy. But it's not like the Arisen have the time to let them finish--they'll Sekhem out long before the peace process/AIDS cure/whatever is complete. c) The object does not have an obvious curse, which makes no sense in an Iremic paradigm... though the religion of its owners explains it all perfectly...
66) A Tef-Aabhi PC is called back by his cult in order to pass on some secret lore pertaining to the geomantic structure of the city. After having done so, the cult doesn't require his services any more and his first purpose is completed.
The information the PC gave away is actually quite dangerous in the hands of the wrong people - the entire city could be influenced or even destroyed by controlling the geomantic patterns underlying its buildings.
67) After a series of intense conversations with a Catholic priest, one of the Su-Menent decides to quit her guild; arguing that the priesthood of death is obsolete in the modern world, and that it is much more productive and better for the world to put one's faith in a benevolent god that exists for the people.
The errant priestess needs to be corrected - with arguments and logic. It is time for a Su-Menent priest to rekindle her faith and demonstrate to her why the world is in dire need of the timeless priesthood of death and their services even in this degenerate age.
68) After a series of occult findings, one of the PCs (a Maa-Kep or a Tef-Aabhi) recalls the existence of a conspiracy among the Maa-Kep and Tef-Aabhi guilds. Perhaps the PC was once part of the conspiracy, or in staunch opposition.
The conspiracy's beliefs are intricate and detailed; members believe that one of the quintessential curse of the Arisen is being forced to watch as history and, with it, everything the Arisen are familiar with, passes by and withers and dies. As static creatures, the Arisen slowly become obsolete themselves as history continues on without their guidance and control. In order to fight this loss of meaning and to create a world that is more accomodating to the Arisen (and as unchanging and static and lifeless as they are), these Maa-Kep and Tef-Aabhi subtly direct events an arrange opportunities that allow them to control the history of the world - not just the present and the future, but also the past and people's awareness of past events.
The PC has reason to assume that this conspiracy is still very much active. Will he join them or fight them?
.) The Arisen as a whole share few commonalities. If there is one thing all of them agree upon, it is their discontent about the modern world and its people.
A circle of Sesha-Hebsu scribes has convinced itself that one of the quintessential problems of this modern world is the literacy of the common, uninitiated people. The ability to write was once the purview and right of none but the Sesha-Hebsu. This is why it should be seen as hubris and best and blasphemy and an affront against the gods for those not initiated into their ranks to read or to write.
This is why this meret seeks to destroy all literacy.
Their attempts to do so are diverse and manifold, ranging from supporting censorship and sabotaging political education systems to bombing internet servers and assassinating writers. The results are few, but this might just mean that they aren't yet desperate enough to escalate the conflict in ways that might cause more damage than a few deaths every now and then.
.) The PC Arises with the memory of a name - an entirely human, mundane name - and an incredibly strong, all-consuming need to find the person bearing that name, a need that should well stand in opposition to the PC's first purpose.
As the PC eventually finds the person in question - he still hasn't remembered why exactly he needed to find him. There's nothing overtly supernatural about her. She's a housewife, a daughter, an ex-husband. And she quite obviously knows nothing about mummies, relics or cults.
Except that there's a group of Shuankhsen, of all creatures, subtly supporting her and making her life easier in small, subtle ways. The Lifeless are also fiercely protective of her. They wouldn't behave in such entirely uncharacteristic ways without a good (bad) reason.
Please be aware that the numbers won't be consecutive - I created this thread on three separate fora.
.) The first time a PC increases her Memory, she recalls that her Judge, back in Duat, warned her about one of her fellow Arisen being a traitor of the Lost Guild. The PC can't remember which Arisen the Judge was talking about. Time for some paranoia and internal conflict!
.) One of the Arisen peers of the PCs was once one of the ancient masters of an entire guild, a guardian of limitless secrets and a peerless savant of the arts of the respective guild. She's also, currently, at Memory 1, which severely limits her usefulness.
In order to reach their goals, the PCs need some really important guild-related information that only she possesses, or rather, used to possess. The PCs need to help her refresh her memory.
.) The Arisen steps off of the train, his feet touching the first stones of the city, and in that moment his head churns sickeningly. All around him, the features of the city distort and twist into vaguely-familiar features, as though the city were made of cloth whose threads had slackened to allow him to see through to his memory. People he meets play the dual role of their place within his mission and as phantom actors dressed in his reverie. Time is short, and he must choose, does he speak to his past or to his present purpose?
.) The instructions wrack her mind, as though they had been carved by plow and filled with salt and fire: PERFORM THE CEREMONY. So simple, so clean, and already her eyes feel heavy with the sleep of eternity. But these words are... wrong. Her fingers spread across the ancient scroll, each symbol aligning with the next in a harmony that seems all but sound. But it is wrong, says some small voice in the back of her mind. Fragments are there, a feverish fear of discovery, a hand that goes to alter a sacred ritual vital to the very world, and it is her hand that holds the blasphemous writing tool. What caused her to alter it? What has changed, so significant and so subtle that even the Judges do not see?
5.) Your cult's high priest(ess) doesn't seem right. You didn't notice at first, no, because you were too busy.. but more and more.. (s)he seems to be more of a mockery of a person than the real thing.. your other cultists see it too.. and one of them swears (s)he was picking splinters out from under her nails. ((Bit of a crossover with Ling, priest(ess) is a fetch.
.) Why is the Greater Amkhat who ate one of your meret calling you "master"? Why do you have faint memories of performing an elaborate ritual serving no purpose other than to create one of these monsters?
.) The PCs get to meet a little boy who, for some reason, knows more about the Nameless Empire than the PCs are able to recall, can quote ancient Iremite texts and knows the location of seriously powerful buried relics and Arisen compatriots of the meret. Supernatural scans of the boy turn out negative - he appears to be just a young kid.
Twist: the Judges order the PCs to kill the boy.
.) The PCs, after having started their new Descent, find themselves being hunted by pretty much the entire nearby Arisen population. What did they do in their previous Descent to draw the ire of all the guilds?
.) The PCs are tasked with reclaiming a relic that is directly responsible for the miraculously good fortune of people desperately in need of it; disaster victims, the poor downtrodden underclass of a community, etc.
.) The Shuankhsen lack the ability to truly resurrect their physical remains, having to possess dead bodies instead. However, when an Arisen first sees a Shuankhsen, the Shuankhsen's true corpse form will reveal itself to him.
One of the PCs, while seeing a Shuankhsen in action, recognizes her as someone he knew in his first life in the City of Pillars - a friend, or perhaps even a relative. Can the ancient, long-lost feelings of kinship be rekindled? Could an Arisen make her peace with a Shuankhsen - against the will of the Judges, Ammut and the Arisen guilds?
.) Individual members of the meret's cult show up dead, with the number "43" cut into their foreheads. The cult has, prior to the killings, commenced extensive research on the topic of the 42 Judges of Duat.
One of the player characters suffers from regular nightmares about his experiences in Duat during the Rite of Return, in which he saw a shadowy figure behind the 42 thrones of the Judges of Duat.
.) While serving her cult, one of the PCs, a Tef-Aabhi, comes across an building whose architectural design appears to be strongly aligned towards mystical principles first developed by the Tef-Aabhi - forbidden designs, those that make the building steal positive energy from people living and working inside. This might also be why terrible luck seems to follow everyone inside around constantly.
These forbidden mystical principles and designs have, 6000 years ago, first been discovered by the *player character*, back then one of the chief architects of the Tef-Aabhi.
Who stole her designs and built this structure, and for what purpose?
.) One of the PCs, who starts the game with an Ab rating of 0, finds out, after having Arisen, that her heart is missing. Not just the Ab pillar and its metaphysical properties, but the character's actual physical heart. The character is still fully functional, even without her heart.
Where's the mummy's heart? And why is she feeling emotions entirely unfamiliar to her, emotions that are distracting her from her First Purpose?
.) The PC Arises, called back from death by his cult, with strong memories of one of his cultists being directly responsible for his death at the end of his last Descent. The cultist in question has a strong alibi for the time of the murder, with many high ranking cultists vouching for his devotion to the Arisen and their purpose. Could the PC simply misremember and blame the cultist of a crime he didn't commit?
.) As one of the PC slowly regains memories of a Descent that holds great emotional significance to her, she recalls one of the lovers she's had throughout the millenia - against the wishes of her Judge, of course -, a Roman horseman in the 3rd century BC.
One of the people the PC has met while fulfilling her First Purpose looks exactly like her lover.
Can't be him, of course. He's been dead for more than two millenia.
And yet - the exact same appearance, mannerism, gestures, similar behaviour.
Did the PC's lover come back to her from the grave? Is she finally going insane?
.) The country of Tibet is about to start an excavation in an as of yet unexplored region, in which, if the PCs recall correctly, a huge amount of Iremite magical weapons of mass destruction is assumed to be buried. The guilds do not want these implements to be discovered by anyone at all. For once, instead of digging up lost relics, the PCs have to prevent others from doing so.
.) One of the PC's Arisen compatriots Arises with startlingly little of her original personality and identity left (Memory 0). She's little more than a vessel of her Judge, a puppet of the Divine Will of Duat.
And yet - her actions, under the constant, strict guidance of the Lords of Duat, leave the world a better place. The mummy punishes sin as much as she rewards virtue. Those who violate the laws put forth by the Judges are corrected, and the world is a little bit of a safer place near her.
Perhaps it would be best if all Arisen surrender their will and individuality to the Judges, as she did? Some of the Su-Menent certainly begin to see it that way.
.) The meret awake to find that their cult has become involved in drug dealing. This has left them in connection with some very dangerous connections like drug cartels. Complications that may derail the merets goals and bring unwanted attention. Can the meret disentangle their cult from the cartel? And does doing so create new and dangerous enemies?
XX.) As the Sothic Turn awakens the Arisen. Something else is awakening. The cultist are disappearing; some are turning dead, frozen. The PC Arisen must track down the fiends. For something else as awoken with the turning of the Sothic Cycle. The Frozen, those mummified by ice or liquid nitrogen, are awakening as well. For Mummies who have not received the Rite of Return, why are they experiencing the energies of the Sothic Cycle?
.) A woman introduces herself to the meret, claiming to be a Shan-iatu. She appears to possess both knowledge about the Nameless Empire (she claims it had once a name) that the PCs are entirely unfamiliar with, as well as abilities as of yet unseen and incomprehensible, including that of increasing and decreasing an Arisen's Sekhem through an effort of will.
She attempts to convince the PCs to rebel against the Judges, whom she regards as traitors.
.) As a high-memory Arisen character watches people - ordinary, non-cultist people, blissfully unaware of the dangers of the World of Darkness - enjoy themselves in some way entirely unfamiliar to an Egyptian mummy who died 6000 years ago - such as ice-skating, or bungee-jumping or listening to modern music; feeling alienated and disconnected with this world and its people, he breaks, retreating into a shell of his own memories and nostalgia, seemingly lost to the world.
Can the PCs, likely as alienated and disconnected as he is, bring him back to sanity?
.) One of the Su-Menent, embittered by her cult's magical practices in particular and religious worship in the modern age in general (hollow copies of the true faith of the Nameless Empire), convinces herself that all magic is the property of the Judges, and that this modern age doesn't deserve to wield ancient magic. She slaughters her cultists and attacks the cults of other Arisen in an effort to destroy mortal magical knowledge.
And the Judges don't seem to punish her or hasten her Descent in any way for doing so.
.) A particularly charismatic Falcon-Headed Tef-Aabhi gets it into his head that this degenerate age needs the true guidance of a firm-handed leader, someone imbued with the wisdom of ages. Someone like him.
The Judges punish his attempts at reaching out with his cult, grasping the local infrastructure and subverting the culture like crazy, but his message rings true to like-minded Arisen, many of them followers of the Ba like him, as they start creating the first empire ruled by the Arisen. Many opposing Arisen cults are simply swallowed by the collective might of their secret societies.
.) The scrolls of the Sesha-Hebsu explain that the metaphysical properties of the Sothic Wheel have been incorporated into the Rite of the Return affecting all Arisen, allowing them to reverse their natural state, that of being dead, every 1400-something years.
Recent findings suggest the existence of a 260-day Sacred Round cycle, whose properties might in some way correspond to specific complexities the Su-Menent remember about the process of the Rite of Return. It seems unlikely but plausible that the Arisen might, given enough time and the discovery and correct use of very powerful relics, commit the heresy of artificially simulating a locally generated Sothic Turn that will cause all Arisen of an entire continent to come back to life prematurely .. repeatedly every 260 days.
The Su-Menent, loyal to the Judges, don't like the theological implications of these findings. Still, to many of the Arisen, the prospect of being capable of returning to life in that frequency and without the constraints of a First Purpose, is a very attractive one.
.) There's a serial killer on the loose. Tv footage has shown him during a shootout with the police, shouting something about "you'll die so that I can follow" and "Irem rests in Duat, and so will I" as well as a few quotes in the Iremite language that cannot easily be translated.
The bullets seemed to stop him, but the disappearance of the body from the hospital morgue still can't easily be explained.
The PCs know him. He used to be one of the most prominent researchers of the Sesha-Hebsu, a savant on the topic of the Nameless Empire.
.) The Am-heh Rosetta is a relic of particular interest to Arisen, rumored to bring back lost memories. The Judges are expected to reward Arisen who uncover the Am-heh Rosetta and bring it to them highly.
One of the PC's Arisen rivals has made it public that he has found the Rosetta. As the PCs plot to steal it away from him, he suddenly disappears. Rumor has it that he has joined the ranks of the prospective students of the Heretic.
As the Rosetta eventually comes into the possession of the PCs, they figure out that it's actually a very well made forgery and not the actual Am-heh Rosetta. The forgery, however, is still a relic, except that it doesn't bring back lost memories; it instead creates artificial memories.
.) A one time rival Arisen shows up at the PC's door. He has recently started his new Descent, and there are strong gaps in his memory.
For one, he recalls strong hatred towards the PC, but he doesn't remember the precise reason.
The rival wants to rebuild his memory and personality. This is why he's asking - begging - the PC to help him discover the reason as for why he harbors such strong hatred towards the PC.
How will the PC handle this unusual request?
27.) During a chronicle set sometime in the past, the PC gets flashes of memories that aren't familiar, and that don't seem to be related to the world around him. Investigating history shows that these aren't memories of the past, but memories of the future. What's causing this, and can it be stopped? Does the mummy want it to stop?
.) The PCs need to infiltrate a multinational company that's actually a cult of one of their enemies among the Arisen. Other than the obvious obstacles (using some sort of Affinity or relic to hide from the supernatural senses of their Arisen enemy), the PCs, 6000 year old mummies, better learn to pass as corporate businessmen without standing out quickly.
29) A PC is constantly haunted by flashbacks of one of the mortals he had fallen in love with long ago. While his memories are still unclear, he remembers watching her brutally slain, remembers holding her body as her sekhem drained away and her soul went to Duat. While he remembers her fondly and often thinks of her to give himself strength, he is forever haunted by the moment of her death.
Especially once his Memory score rises high enough to remember that he was the one that crushed the life from her. He cannot understand why, but he has a vivid memory of the brutal attack that left her dead. His Memory was not faded when he did so, so he cannot blame it on her accidentally waking him from slumber. No.. she MUSTVE done SOMETHING to get him to kill her.. right..? Or.. was he really so different now, so different he can't for the unlife of him fathom WHY.
...as an optional crossover, the Mummy's cult then comes across a man that claims to see and visit with the long dead, deep in the underworld, to help them move on. The Mummy wonders if this strange "sineater" could find the ghost of his dead lover, so that he might gain closure, perhaps forgiveness.. but at the very least, he hopes to learn what caused him to kill her, and why he would do such a thing that seems so appauling and unnatural to his current personality.
.) The local Maa-Kep, in their function as secret police among the Arisen, have declared all local Sesha-Hebsu to be enemies of the Arisen, causing an open war among the Deathless. Cultists are used as pawns in bloody conflicts.
Although the Deathless fight constantly, wars between entire guilds are unprecedented in the annals of the Sesha-Hebsu.
.) One of the PCs has, in the past, clashed with a charismatic Mesen-Nebu, whose political convictions are particularly at odds with those of most ex-citizens of the Stone Age. He seems to think that power should go to the people and that people should fight for their basic rights and similar ridiculous nonsense. He has been active around the Peasant's Revolt in England in 1381, the Labour revolts of France in 1831 and many others before.
After the Occupy Movement, his methods have grown increasingly radical. Now his cult has found some way to reach the mainstream audience with their anti-capitalism message, and their numbers are stronger than ever. Something needs to be done.
.) The Su-Menent would like nothing better than to reintroduce the religious beliefs of the Nameless Empire to the people of this degenerate age. The retirement of the Roman Catholic pope creates an opportunity that the priests of Duat must use.
No Deathless could ever serve as pontifex to these cynical masses. A skilled puppet cultist loyal to the Su-Menent would, however, be well suited for the job of "adjusting" Catholic dogma to the needs of the Su-Menent, if he had a chance of being elected.
.) Iremite Law forbids violence between husband and wife. Some 6000 year old immortals take the laws of their upbringing terribly serious, which is why Piye, guildmaster of the Mesen-Nebu, is reluctant to make her dreams of disembowelling her husband, Taharqua of the Maa-Kep (again), true. That's why she's trying to blackmail the PCs into getting the deed done. It helps if none of the PCs are Mesen-Nebu, so as to avoid a diplomatic incident.
Problem is, Tarhaqua has only very recently been awoken and is currently at very high Sekhem levels.
.) One of the PCs had a prolonged affair with a mortal during the last Sothic Turn, taking advantage of Sekhem's refusal to drop below 1 without provocation during that time-frame to maintain a loving relationship and cultivate Memory. The relationship was, sadly, cut short when the PC fell in their lover's defense and returned to Duat.
How then, are they still around to greet them when 2012 arrives?
.) Recent findings suggest that the Utterances known a Words of Dead Fury, Words of Dead Glory and Words of Dead Hunger are actually, to mystical savants, known as lesser versions of these Utterances.
Cultists shudder to think of what mummies who knew the greater Words could be capable of.
.) The PC has been Arisen to retrive an artifact...thing is, they remember looking for it before.
And it is not until they remember why they didn't hand it over last time.
.) The combination of a seriously misinterpreted Rite of Return and the zeal of the cult trying to make it work has led to the creation of an Osiran Promethean. Can the cult be convinced that their god-king is nothing of the kind before everyone in the vicinity goes insane?
.) A Sadikh has found a way to detach herself from the mummy who created her, regaining her free will. Problem is, her immortality is also gone. Luckily, there's a way around that one. It just involves cannibalizing the Pillars of Arisen.
.) Exacting a horrifying revenge on people who violate a mummy's tomb allows an Arisen a certain grace period in which the Descent is slowed and the loss of Sekhem is kept at bay. A meret of Arisen has thought of a way to exploit this law of Deathless existence by forcing people (hapless victims) to violate their tomb, again and again, so as to stop losing Sekhem. A few corpses every now and then are a small price to pay for immortality, right?
For bonus points, this is the PC meret before they got repeatedly murdered and shoved back into Duat a while back.
They're finding out about this in retrospect and the possibility is beginning to tempt them again.
.) The so-called Heretic isn't the only of his kind. One of the Jackal-Headed has recently gained notoriety as well as the enmity of the Su-Menent for her heretic dogma. This Arisen believes that the number of Judges of Duat isn't necessarily fixed, and that it might well be possible for individual Arisen of sufficient dedication and ruthlessness to ascend to their numbers.
The Judges are, obviously, opposed to her beliefs, but not to her methods. The heretic claims that, in order for a Deathless mummy to ascend to the ranks of the Judges, she has to destroy everything that made her human. Only a mummy with no memories of human existence (Memory 0) could ever transform into a god.
.) One of the Arisen claims to have found a way of escaping the tortures and punishments of the Judges - swallowing a heart. Not one's own heart - this is where Egyptian mythology is dead wrong - but that of innocent mortals.
There is no evidence confirming that this gruesome practice actually works, but why should that stop curious Arisen?
.) No Arisen has spoken to Hsekiu, Arisen of the Tef-Aabhi, in centuries. He lies, like so many of the Deathless, dead but dreaming. No cultists revere his image (and if they do, then in secret). No Arisen utter his name, even as a whisper.
The guilds do not precisely remember why they are so afraid of calling him back to life. There are faint memories of blood .. pain ... fates worse than death, especially for the Deathless. His tomb remains undisturbed, and if the guilds have their way, it shall remain so forever.
.) The Descents of a number of Arisen have recently been ended prematurely. Evidence suggests involvement of the Lost Guild, the Deceived, masters of the occult art of Nomenclature.
None of the attacked Arisen have thus far been able to successfully defend themselves against the Deceived threat.
The guilds' hope rests on one of the PCs, who, in her first life in the Nameless Empire, has been an active member of the Lost Guild, until she later decided to quit in order to join one of the other guilds. It is up to her to rebuild her memory of her first life and figure out some defense against the magics of the Deceived.
43) A Meret wakes up from their individual slumbers on the same day, all summoned by their prospective cults. When the they question their cults as to their individual purposes, the cults express confusion. Their god just told them to wake them up, many long years ago, but refused to tell them why, just that it was of utmost importance.
The information that the cults do have is a list of location to several tombs, all aligned to each other in a strange occult way. These are the tombs of the other member of the meret. The Meret do not remember eachother, but their cult insists that these locations were given to them by the Arisen in a time long ago. When the Arisen search throug their memories of their last summon, all they remember is feverishly working towards discovering a secret that MUST be brought to the Guilds attention, each one placing certain vestiges and relics in safe spots so that they could be recombined at the next time.
The Arisen set out to search for the vestiges and relics that they once had but could not let Duat have yet, and amidsts the ancient ruins, they are attacked by groups of organized Shuankensen, and these Lifeless seem to be working together in a concerted effort, all bearing the mark of a Scorpion eating itself. Is there a new movement in the Shuankensen? Have they created a Guild of their own? The Shuankensen meet them as old enemies, but the Arisen have no understanding as to why besides their nature. Can the meret uncover the secrets before the next Sothic Turn, a date that each of their cults has been told is the coming of a great and terrible conflict between the Lifeless and the Deathless? Do they have the time before they Descend to rally the forces nessecary, or are they looking forward to the power vacuum of a Shuankensen uprising?
44) The Arisen awakens to steal back an artifact that was reported stolen by his cult, but the reported artifact cannot be sensed, and only the taker can be tracked into a world of occult mysticism and secret societies, all protecting or searching for a strange book. Once the Arisen find the book, it seems to be a journal that speaks of days in Irem and details another Arisen's pursuit of Apotheosis. But there is something else, the book is annotated with correct or incorrect additions, and entire passages seem to be marked out as false or unreadable by the annotator, including the last chapter, the only letters decipherable on the page are H. E. R. E. T. I. C, seemingly purposefully left unmarked, and circled by a third hand. What more, the Second hand seems to be the Arisen's own writing.
What is really going on with this journal? Are the annotations correct, or do they herald a worse heresy, or a conspiracy far greater? Who does the third set of handwriting belong to?
.) As one of the PCs slowly starts to rebuild his memory of the lifetimes before the current one, it occurs to him that he's seen the mortal beggar down the street, the one who always asks him for a penny and a piece of his soul, before. The PC has met him in every single Descent he can remember, up to and including 5000 years ago. And it's always the same beggar, the same pleading look and the same question, ever and ever again.
.) The Sirius (Sothis) star inexplicably reduces in brightness during the first quarter of 2013, with none of the experts being able to come up with a convincing explanation. It seems as if the Sothic Cycle, for the first time in a six-digit number of years, will be late. It seems unlikely that the Arisen will live to see the next Sothic Turn in the next couple thousand years.
47: You're angry. Why? You have awoken to find that your cultists are dead, killed without a mark on their bodies. Your tomb has been defaced and cleared of all your accumulated knowledge and relics. Whoever did this knew exactly where to hit, how to hit, and what to take. A relic is missing too, a sacred creation that something deep inside you screams is vital to what you are.
By the time you manage to contact someone who knew about your existence, they mention other attacks like yours, tombs disturbed and cultists killed en masse. Only the attacks are inconsistent. Some are as you saw. Others involve explosions and mortal law, or local leaders rallying against cultists. The message is clear suddenly. A memory of your last *Whatever the hell they call a mummy's waking, I don't have the book yet okay?!*, a group of armed men and women forcing you back into your tomb. Sealing you in with knowledge you thought impossible to find. Are they the same ones this time too?
48. In the middle of a Sothic Cycle, the Arisen decide to go see a play at Shakespeare in the Park. It's their 1.5-milennium time off, and this pale imitation of culture might spark some memories or something. In the middle of the performance of Hamlet, however, someone in the Audience — apparently one of their fellow Arisen, blazing with the glory of Sekhem — runs onto the stage and beheads the frightened and confused man playing Claudius, shouting in the tongue of Ancient Irem, "You murdered my High Priest, Ignoble Claudius! For this you must die!" A little investigation reveals that similar incidents have happened at every performance of Hamlet, and the only reason they staged it this year was because they had been assured by someone that the "man" who plagued them was dead and gone.
.) A Lion-Headed Arisen has convinced himself that he has unlocked the secrets of the Rite of Return. Willing to spread the flame of immortality and create a new generation of servants for the Judges, he has asked his Arisen peers to select cultists willing to undergo ritual suicide in order to appear before the Judges.
It is likely that the rite will simply kill the cultists, but the Lion-Head and his enthusiastic, armed and dangerous followers refuse to believe that.
For additional fun, the rite instead creates a new generation of lesser, weaker Shuankhsen.
50.] A recent earthquake has shaken the Sahara desert, and under its dunes in the west archealogists have found an interesting natural formation, a large, previously unknown system of tunnels, are starting from a wide opening that has been scrawled with strange, hieroglyphics that don't seem to coincide with any of the known Egyptian languages. The Judges strictly forbid any Arisen to seek it out, but more and more Fate seems to put the jounrey in front of the Arisen, until finally, in an epileptic fit, one of the cultists mentions a great mouth, open to the moon and sky that sends their light and magic into the Underworld. What more, one or more of the Arisen receive phone calls, emails, or other forms of electronic communication, signed by loved ones long dead that read "They have me, but they are willing to give me to you..."
If it all an elaborate scheme, or is there something out in the white sands of the West that the Judges are hiding? Can those loved ones really be back, or is it a trap?
von Greg Stolze:
40) When the Arisen last woke, during the 1950s, his sect was persecuted for its 'non-traditional' beliefs, so he presented some more... vigorous commandments about secrecy and defense, and also promoted more aggressive leaders. Today he arises to find that his cult has evolved from "we are willing to kill if it's absolutely necessary!" to "we are willing to kill if it's Thursday!" Can he correct them gently? Is a bloody purge the wrong way to steer cultists away from casual murder? Is it better to accept their murderousness in the name of efficiency (and remember, he woke up for an entirely unrelated mission!) or is it better to burn out the nest and start again from scratch?
41) A Mummy from the next Sothic Turn, the one in 3400-something, uses a Gate of Thoth to return to the present day with a duffel bag full of advanced future-technology and a dark future to avert. Or does so in orbit, using a space ship, because we're doing a crossover with the Infinite Macabre setting...
.) During her Descent, an Arisen PC gets to meet a member of her own guild. In a past life, the PC killed the guild journeyman for having peaceful relations with the Shuankhsen and providing them with information on the relics of other guildmates. The PC remembers everything about it. The other mummy, nothing.
The PC needs the mummy's cooperation in order to achieve her goals. How long until the journeyman recalls his past and murder at the hands of the PC? Will his traitorous ways repeat themselves?
.) One of the PCs, preferably one with a high Intelligence trait, has, in his first life, been a guild member of a certain notoriety. His obvious brilliance manifested in a way that made him a creator of artifacts and objects of madness - as a Mesen-Nebu, he might have devised alchemical concoctions that altered the basic nature of humans. A brilliant Tef-Aabhi might have constructed buildings whose geometric attributes influenced the destinies of all nearby people. A Su-Menent might have been an expert creator of necromantic weapons of mass destruction. A scribe of the Sesha-Hebsu could have put down words and pictographs that were obvious blasphemies, devouring the minds of those who read them. Etc.
The Shan'iatu thought long and hard before making the decision of granting him immortality, in the end, deciding that the PC's brilliance in his first life needed to be preserved.
As an Arisen, unable to recall much of his past, and irrevocably changed by 6000 years of undeath, the PC might well be terrified by his accomplishments as a creator of monstrosities and terrors - or, alternately, willing to embrace his dark past fully.
53) As the PC's Arisen rise from their deathless slumber (woken by their cult), a great ceremony is held in honour of the Judges. As the ritual proceeds, the PC' are told by their high priest, last time they promised to perform some great deed when they would rise next time. Of course, the Arisen don't remember what it was and why they should have made a promise like that.
So, they'll have to deal with their disappointed cult, whose members expected some kind of miracle to happen for years. Some of them seem to have developed disbelief and impatience. Further, something seems to be wrong. If the Arisen remember correctly, the cult made use of way too much blood while performing the ceremony. They did it wrong. Blasphemy.
How will the Arisen discover that a powerful vampire (a member or the Circle of the Crone or maybe - i would like that - a Setite from the cWoD) has infiltrated their cult over the past few decades, embraced a child of his own (high priest? someone else?) and uses taht child and his ghouls to take over this religious group. And if they find out, how will they fight him? For he seems to remember much more about the Arisen than they remember about themselves.
.) Rekhetre was once one of the most popular of the Su-Menent, renowned for being a death priest of unusually high compassion. The Rite of Return, the most powerful feat of magic ever performed by men, wasn't strong enough to change her caring nature, and it was to noone's surprise when she declared her decree to be that of the Heart.
Her experiences in Buddhist India gave her compassion focus and guidance, as she refined her beliefs and learned about the suffering inherent in all life.
Millenia later, Rekhetre, still a priest of death, brings everlasting peace to those who need it - and, in the end, everyone does. She still means well, as she always did, which is why her methods of passing the sacrament of death on to others are gentle, but neither she nor her cult of extremists are particularly discriminating as to who they murder in the name of compassion. Sooner or later, they'll figure out some way of using modern weaponry for the purposes of sharing their sacrament with hundreds or even thousands of people all at once; and on that day, Rekhetre, a Bodhisattva who chose to live and feel and suffer for all eternity, so that others don't have to, will weep with joy for bringing peace to so many people.
.) After a period of unknown length, the PC awakens to a new Descent. Before they complete their Purpose (or at any point, if it's during a Sothic Turn), they notice that a human has their hand. As in, grafted onto the human's wrist is an exact copy of the Mummy's hand. What's worse is, the human appears to be able to understand the language of Ancient Irem, write the script of Ancient Irem, and even duplicate one of the PC's affinities. How did this mortal get one of the Arisen's hands? And why did the Rite allow this human to keep the hand?
.) One of the arch-enemies of the meret, a known Deceived member of the Lost Guild, a very dangerous master of nomenclature, shows up. He's obviously having trouble remembering much of his past - including his enmity to the PCs. He even claims not to remember his guild affiliation!
He's obviously playing the PCs. Right?
Could a Deceived mummy be rehabilitated?
.) The PCs and all Arisen they know start receiving visions of the Judges, in which the Judges command the Arisen to bring them as many vessels and relics as possible, now. The Judges appear to be in visible distress, which has never happened before in the memory of the Arisen.
.) As one of the PCs dies and experiences a death cycle (i.e. he doesn't go back to Duat, as he still has Sekhem left), Anpu shows up and offers to help him "find his way", regaining his personality and sense of self. The character starts experiencing visions of past lives that are in some way relevant to current events in the chronicle.
- Each of the visions, all of which last a single scene, allow the character to gain a small amount of sebayt experience points.
- The character may freely decide to experience as many visions as he wants, uncovering more and more of his past.
- The visions are experienced in real time. As the character delves into his past, the other PCs continue their Descent.
- While allowing the character to rapidly increase his Memory trait, the visions exhaust his Sekhem just as quickly. Treat each scene as two scenes for the purposes of tracking time left until the next Descent roll.
.) Not every individual the Shan'iatu sent to the Judges made it through the Rite of Return. The Shan'iatu weren't perfect - sometimes they chose unwisely. Some of the souls they selected weren't suited for immortality.
When faced with the task of pronouncing a decree and declaring one of the parts of one's soul to be inviolate and stronger than all others, some would-be immortals simply failed. Most of these individuals were simply sent to the Devourer as sacrifices. The Judges still found some use for a few of these failures, however.
In Kabbalistic cosmology, the Qliphoth are metaphorical “shells” surrounding holiness. They are spiritual obstacles receiving their existence from a divinity only in an external, rather than internal manner.
A Qlipoth is a Lifeless servant of the Judges. The Qlipoth lack free will - they are extensions of the Judges' will, unable to defy their masters in any way.
There are only very few Qlipoth - if the Judges found it easy to create and use these monstrosities, then the Arisen wouldn't be needed. They are the "big guns" of the Judges, to be used when the Arisen and their annoying free will would interfere with the success of one of the plots of the Judges.
.) None of the Arisen know their true names, as they have chosen to give them to the Judges during their Rite of Return.
An Arisen with rebellious tendencies decides that, given the fact that he can't have his true name back, in order to free himself from the grasp of the Judges, he needs to create a new name for himself. If a Christian baptism doesn't work, then perhaps using Deceiver rites to steal a name from someone else might?
.) One of the Arisen has found a way to change the curse of a relic in a way that allows him to steal the life energy of those who use it. The mummy's pillars (and, possibly, Sekhem) recharge as hapless mortals use the relic in question for their own ends.
.) A mortal who knows much more about the Deathless than he has any right to develops a plan to achieve immortality that might actually work .. depending on one's definition of "immortality". He infiltrates one of the PC's cult and subtly sabotages events so as to prematurely end the PC's Descent in a way that destroys the PC's body entirely.
Then, as the cultists attempt to bring the mummy back, he offers his body for the mummy to possess (rules are on page 152 of the corebook, "The Twice Arisen").
The mummy Arises with both its own memories and personality and that of the cultist. In a twisted way, he has found a method to partake in the mummy's immortality.
.) One of the PCs figures out that one of the human NPCs he's met during his Descent is actually one of his direct mortal descendants (there are a number of possibilities as to how a mummy might come to this conclusion, including magic, appropriate relics, ghosts, etc.).
The mummy's (very distant and still alive) relative has fallen on hard times and is in dire need of (supernatural?) assistance. Cue stories focused on themes of fatherhood/motherhood, responsibility, family and alienation from mortals.
64) One of the Su-Menent decided long ago that the acquisition of Memory was not only risky in the face of the Descent, but inherently blasphemous against the Judges and Duat. The prolongation of the existence of the Arisen, apart from their promised reward in the afterlife, is due to the eternal repetition of this sin.
Only in stillness and obedience, in which no self may linger, can the Arisen find freedom and true eternity.
Only in surrender will they be rewarded.
This would be okay in its own right, if they kept it to themselves, but they have taken after the example of modern religion and begun spreading the word. By force.
.) A recently awakened Sesha-Hebsu, confused and lacking in Memory, has started to believe the dogma of her own cult - in which she is revered as a goddess incarnate.
This in and itself wouldn't be a problem, if the cult wasn't powerful and/or well-connected; but it is. It also has excellent marketing.
Very soon, cult members and indeed even the mummy herself start having public appearances on local TV and radio stations, spreading the word and gaining new followers by the hour. After only a couple months, the cult is a trend religion, to which all the cool modern kids belong to.
The Maa-Kep certainly do not approve of an Arisen being that much of a public figure; especially if she's disseminating actual occult truths of the Sesha-Hebsu as part of her religious teachings.
von Greg Stolze:
58) It looks like a standard rise-and-recover job. An artifact has been noted and it falls to the Arisen to seize it for their masters. But there are a few unpleasant elements in play here. a) The object has no obvious Iremic legacy, it's associated with some religion the mummies have never even heard of. b) The device is keeping several humans alive (at least for the time being) which would normally be a nugatory concern, but these people really do seem to be selfless and compassionate and doing lasting good in the world. Recover the item and it could doom their legacy. But it's not like the Arisen have the time to let them finish--they'll Sekhem out long before the peace process/AIDS cure/whatever is complete. c) The object does not have an obvious curse, which makes no sense in an Iremic paradigm... though the religion of its owners explains it all perfectly...
66) A Tef-Aabhi PC is called back by his cult in order to pass on some secret lore pertaining to the geomantic structure of the city. After having done so, the cult doesn't require his services any more and his first purpose is completed.
The information the PC gave away is actually quite dangerous in the hands of the wrong people - the entire city could be influenced or even destroyed by controlling the geomantic patterns underlying its buildings.
67) After a series of intense conversations with a Catholic priest, one of the Su-Menent decides to quit her guild; arguing that the priesthood of death is obsolete in the modern world, and that it is much more productive and better for the world to put one's faith in a benevolent god that exists for the people.
The errant priestess needs to be corrected - with arguments and logic. It is time for a Su-Menent priest to rekindle her faith and demonstrate to her why the world is in dire need of the timeless priesthood of death and their services even in this degenerate age.
68) After a series of occult findings, one of the PCs (a Maa-Kep or a Tef-Aabhi) recalls the existence of a conspiracy among the Maa-Kep and Tef-Aabhi guilds. Perhaps the PC was once part of the conspiracy, or in staunch opposition.
The conspiracy's beliefs are intricate and detailed; members believe that one of the quintessential curse of the Arisen is being forced to watch as history and, with it, everything the Arisen are familiar with, passes by and withers and dies. As static creatures, the Arisen slowly become obsolete themselves as history continues on without their guidance and control. In order to fight this loss of meaning and to create a world that is more accomodating to the Arisen (and as unchanging and static and lifeless as they are), these Maa-Kep and Tef-Aabhi subtly direct events an arrange opportunities that allow them to control the history of the world - not just the present and the future, but also the past and people's awareness of past events.
The PC has reason to assume that this conspiracy is still very much active. Will he join them or fight them?
.) The Arisen as a whole share few commonalities. If there is one thing all of them agree upon, it is their discontent about the modern world and its people.
A circle of Sesha-Hebsu scribes has convinced itself that one of the quintessential problems of this modern world is the literacy of the common, uninitiated people. The ability to write was once the purview and right of none but the Sesha-Hebsu. This is why it should be seen as hubris and best and blasphemy and an affront against the gods for those not initiated into their ranks to read or to write.
This is why this meret seeks to destroy all literacy.
Their attempts to do so are diverse and manifold, ranging from supporting censorship and sabotaging political education systems to bombing internet servers and assassinating writers. The results are few, but this might just mean that they aren't yet desperate enough to escalate the conflict in ways that might cause more damage than a few deaths every now and then.
.) The PC Arises with the memory of a name - an entirely human, mundane name - and an incredibly strong, all-consuming need to find the person bearing that name, a need that should well stand in opposition to the PC's first purpose.
As the PC eventually finds the person in question - he still hasn't remembered why exactly he needed to find him. There's nothing overtly supernatural about her. She's a housewife, a daughter, an ex-husband. And she quite obviously knows nothing about mummies, relics or cults.
Except that there's a group of Shuankhsen, of all creatures, subtly supporting her and making her life easier in small, subtle ways. The Lifeless are also fiercely protective of her. They wouldn't behave in such entirely uncharacteristic ways without a good (bad) reason.
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