Forumite Heresy: Mummy: the Curse and the Classic World of Darkness

[Guest]

Satchel thanks 😊. I guess reaching Apotheosis would make an Arisen more like one of the Undying from WoD.

[nothri]

Just throwing this out there, while Mummy: the Resurrection is largely the anti-thesis of Curse in many respects, I find much more in common with the second of edition of Old Wod Mummy and the game in Chronicles.

[Dataweaver]

But... the Resurrected (Classic World of Darkness) go to the Judges when they die... so, how are they similar to Arisen who have achieved Apotheosis?

As I said, it's not a particularly good fit; but then, nothing about the translation between Resurrection and the Curse is a particularly good fit. The connection that I see between the protagonists of Resurrection and the mummies in the Curse who have achieved Apotheosis is that both represent a surprisingly hopeful mood and positive themes: the former are frequently described not as undead, but as being more alive than the living, and are defined in terms of what fatal flaw they no longer have; the latter, as Satchel pointed out, are no longer enslaved to eldritch masters.

One of the key differences between Resurrection and the Curse is the nature of the Judges in each: in the former, you get the sense that they are fair and just, and that submitting to their judgements results in the protagonists becoming better people. In the latter, they're monstrous entities that their servants chafe under; and “becoming better people” involves defying them and attempting to hold onto what's important to you in the face of the Judges' efforts to strip it away. The Arisen who have achieved Apotheosis manifest this by not periodically returning to Duat and being stripped down to their bare essence before being sent back to gather some more resources for their masters; their final Descent never ends. They still go through alternating life-cycles and death-cycles, as do all of the Arisen; but in the Curse, a death-cycle exists within a Descent, and does not involve returning to Duat for judgment. That only happens at the end of a Descent, when your power stat gutters out — which never happens one you achieve Apotheosis.

Translating Resurrection to such a mummy would involve translating other aspects than the submission to the Judges, such as the fact that the dynamics of how Resurrection's Ma'at works map far better to an Apotheosis Arisen's Memory than to a regular Arisen's Sekhem. As well, achieving Apotheosis lets the Arisen manipulate Sekhem in ways that weren't possible before Apotheosis; taking a few liberties with that, the powers available to the protagonists of Resurrection might be translated over as powers that Apotheosis unlocks. The result would be significantly different from the vanilla Apotheosis presented in the Curse, which thematically is rooted in the notion that the Arisen gives up his power in order to be free; but it wouldn't be a Translation if the result wasn't different.

[Guest]

Why couldn’t both the Undying and the Arisen exist in the same universe. Two separate origins: the Arisen created by the Shan’iatu, the Undying created directly by Azar/Osiris and Esit/Isis. Would that work or would that be inherently contradictory?

Idk that much about either Mummy setting, but it sounds like it might work if you could get the mechanics to mesh. What do you guys think?

[LordHeru]

Personally I am of the mindset to basically just take the mechanics I like of the Arisen and make them the Undying from Resurrection.

Oooh, I should mention, one of the big elements of Curse is that the power stat goes 10 to 1 rather than 1 to 10. You wake up with all the power that then slowly fades till it goes to 1 and you sleep again. So power doesn't get built up, it gets reduced the longer you are active before coming back the next awakening. (Needless to say, not a fan, not a fan at all.)

As for your suggestion Guest nothing says it couldn't as the CoD is roomie enough for multiple immortal splats. That said since it will never be officially brought over the players have to do the work, and that is a lot of work for little game.

Besides the 10 to 1 thing with the power splat the Pillars, Affinities, and Utterances of Curse are really fantastic. My mindset is find away to make power go upward and then keep everything else rather than to make everything again.

In Curse 2e, a bit better than 1e in my opinion due to certain thematic expansions they did, there are Sekhem Sorcerers which can basically raise Sekhem and gain Pillars, Affinities, and Utterances and I plan on using them as a sort of a beginning point.

[Alqamar Alaswad]

Uhmmm... sounds awesome, and the more WoD players I know, the more a fan I become of the 10-to-1-then-sleep "power-stat"... Uhmmm...

[Alqamar Alaswad]

One of the key differences between Resurrection and the Curse is the nature of the Judges in each: in the former, you get the sense that they are fair and just, and that submitting to their judgements results in the protagonists becoming better people. In the latter, they're monstrous entities that their servants chafe under; and “becoming better people” involves defying them and attempting to hold onto what's important to you in the face of the Judges' efforts to strip it away. The Arisen who have achieved Apotheosis manifest this by not periodically returning to Duat and being stripped down to their bare essence before being sent back to gather some more resources for their masters; their final Descent never ends. They still go through alternating life-cycles and death-cycles, as do all of the Arisen; but in the Curse, a death-cycle exists within a Descent, and does not involve returning to Duat for judgment. That only happens at the end of a Descent, when your power stat gutters out — which never happens one you achieve Apotheosis.

Aha, so this is VERY interesting... So the Judges are more like Lovecraftian deities that the Judges of Ma'at in Resurrection.
Cool...

[LordHeru]

So, I have been making my comments based on the assumption that what you were looking for was Resurrection brought into CoD. Your last two comments made me realize that that might not be true. To that end I say honestly look the game up. DriveThru has Mummy the Curse pdf for 20, which if your interested is not really bad. You could also look up actual reviews to see the details and such. But yeah if the whole 10 to 1 thing sounds awesome to you and so does the nature of the Judges and the other elements mentioned here then truthfully I say look the game up, you might find it something you love.

[Alqamar Alaswad]

So, I have been making my comments based on the assumption that what you were looking for was Resurrection brought into CoD. Your last two comments made me realize that that might not be true..

Oh, sorry, it's actually the opposite. I am looking for ways to bring Curse into OWoD, because I don't play CoD.

[Dataweaver]

One other thing about the Arisen: they're usually a rare phenomenon. There's a Sothic Wheel of 1461 years, and once per cycle all of the Arisen… arise. And act with a degree or independence that they usually don't have. The rest of the time, the vast majority of them are asleep in their tombs, and only arise if their rest is disturbed by Lara Crofttomb raiders or they're roused by their cult; and in both cases, there's a very specific purpose to why they woke up which they address before going back to sleep.

This means that the Arisen are almost unheard of: the last time they all woke up at once was in the latter half of the sixth century; and its only happened four times so far, with right now being the fourth time. So if you want to inject them into the World of Darkness, you can: just assume that some cults of ancient beings that were thought to be entirely fictitious turn out to be serving the Arisen.

[FallenEco]

Oh, sorry, it's actually the opposite. I am looking for ways to bring Curse into OWoD, because I don't play CoD.

Okay...so you are looking to add the ancient sorcerer-artisans (turned slaves of alien demigods) from what is arguably the earliest empire to the world where the first city was created by vampires?* Okay...just remember, the Arisen came from the precursor to Egypt, so the Amenti (and the Shemsu-Heru) are technically successors. I'd also point out that Azar and Esit both died long before the Rite of Return, so I think it be best if the Isis who created the Spell of Life was unrelated to the 'original'. Osiris is still technically King of Duat (first King of anywhere ever actually) in Curse, so he could just be course correcting when he appears in Resurrection.
Heck, the Spell of Life might be inspired by the Rite of Return, but intended as an improvement.

Ammut the Devourer makes sense as an agent of Oblivion, if not Grandmother herself.
Does that make Shaunkshen into a kind of Spectre that resulted from the bargain made with her by the Shan'iatu?

*Well now we have another option for Ki-En-Gir, I guess. Antediluvians would remember them for when they were mere elders. Then there is Set.
Set is one of two gods (unless Anpu is a god) the Arisen hold in esteem, the other being Osiris. Sutekh gave everything free will using his life blood. He is dead now. Deader than Azar, who got to go to the afterlife due to being fed to Esit before she was ritually sacrificed by the Shan'iatu.
So yeah, the Judges try to downplay him to the Arisen, because his ways lead to Apotheosis and freedom.
Not exactly the evil chaos making vampire.

Of course you could strip the Arisen of their Lore but...that makes them less interesting.

[Guest]

FallenEco wym Azar and Esit both died? How did this happen? I know Azar was chopped into tiny pieces by Sutekh, but how did Esit die?

Sorry. Idk that much about Mummy: the Curse.

[FallenEco]

FallenEco wym Azar and Esit both died? How did this happen? I know Azar was chopped into tiny pieces by Sutekh, but how did Esit die?

Sorry. Idk that much about Mummy: the Curse.

The pieces of Azar were fed to Esit, so that when she died, he could hitch a ride to Duat, (since as a god?...whatever he counts as, like the Shan'iatu he couldn't go to the human afterlife). After the Shan'iatu got her to eat the bits of their father figure, they killed her. I like to believe it was a sacrifical ritual, but I don't remember. It is in 'Book of the Deceived', a first edition sourcebook, so it might not be cannon anymore.

But yeah, Azar, Sutekh and Esit are all dead and only Azar is confirmed to still exist in the afterlife. Sutekh is super gone and Ammut presumably devoured Esit's soul (we know it didn't go to A'aru). If she was lucky, Esit might have been kept around by the Judges in Duat, but it is unlikely. Curse is bleak like that. Law of Suffering*, etc.

Fun fact, all of that was pre-Rite of Return history, so that happens before any of the eternally existing Arisen were born.

If you want a look at the background of MtC, there is a slightly sarcastic summary of it here.

*The Law of Suffering is a big deal in Curse and is explictly enforced by the Judges in Duat at least. Short version, Existence is pain, all life exists to suffer.
Edit: Translating the metaphysics over, Dust becomes a somewhat disconnected part of the Labyrinth under the Kingdom of Sand, with the Judges acting as Malfeans.

[nothri]

There's a line in the Player's Guide for Mummy The Resurrection that postulates that the Judges are beings that embody the cosmic scales of existence, and offers the possibility that in some far flung future when the darkness of the world is not so pervasive that the Judges may have to begin supporting entities like Apophis so that those scales can stay properly in balance. In a world where the Arisen and the Amenti both exist, maybe this is the explanation for this disparity. When the world was young and still flushed with hope and life and magic the Judges possessed a darker nature, and by extension their first servants had a colder, more domineering approach to the Law. Now, with the world so poisoned by corruption and malice the nature of the Judges has softened, perhaps even without their conscious will. In other words, the more the scales tip in favor of darkness the Judges inversely become what we would consider to be moral and kind. The older undying creatures they made have not experienced this change in nature, due to the nature of their memories, and cleave to the old black hearted ways of the Judges past.

[Alqamar Alaswad]

Thanks, Nothri, I love that point of view.