Mummies and Possession in 2e

[Aurumae]

I'm wondering how Mummies interact with possession in 2e. It seems like 2e has made them much more vulnerable to possession than they were in 1e, particularly in crossover games, and it seems to be an intentional change. First Edition had this to say regarding possession:

Possession Immunity: The Rite fuses itself with a mummy's remains completely, leaving no room for ghosts or other spirits to enter to gain control of the undead flesh. Any such attempt automatically fails, wasting any cost paid for the attempt

A narrow reading of this would be that they were only immune to possession by ghosts, spirits, and other ephemeral entities. However it seemed clear that Mummies were intended to have a broad immunity to possession and similar powers. Dark Eras Companion expanded upon this. In Princes of the Conquered Land there is a section dealing with crossover between 2e Mages and Mummies. Under Mages Affecting Mummies it says the following:

Sekhem and the Descent: As an envelope around an Arisen soul, Sekhem prevents any force from stealing, disrupting, or otherwise manipulating it ... A mummy's Sekhem also renders her immune to any form of possession

Here again we see a very broad immunity against possession (from Mages at the very least). However in the preview for Second Edition this immunity seems to have been dialled back considerably:

Ephemeral Ward: Ephemeral entities (p. XX) are incapable of possessing mummies. Any attempt to use the Possess Manifestation (p. XX) on a mummy automatically fails.

This is a much weaker form of possession immunity than in either First Edition or in Princes of the Conquered Land. This ability only protects against Ephemeral Entities and only against the Possess Manifestation. Anything else, such as a Vampire using Dominate 5 or a Strix using Possess Kindred would presumably be able to use their powers without interference.

However this seems to be contradicted again later on. The sidebar Grand Theft Sahu under the section on Body Thieves states "Usually, the Arisen are immune to any form of possession", which would seem to imply a much more broad protection against possession (although the same sidebar does go on to then say that Body Thieves can pull off possession of a mummy for a limited time under certain circumstances).

It's not like broad forms of possession immunity have not appeared in Second Edition either. Geist Second Edition gave Sin-Eaters very broad immunity to possession, essentially saying that anything that looks like possession or tries to replace the Sin-Eater's mind with another's automatically fails.

I wanted to do a sanity check here on the forum. Am I reading this part of 2e correctly? Did I miss something? Do you think thematically that Mummies should be totally immune to possession the way Sin-Eaters are, or doe it make sense for them to be vulnerable to beings such as the Strix in crossover games?

[White Oak Dragon]

In my games, they’d be immune. It’s really what works best for the story, though. Grand Theft Sahu is a deliberate exception to the usual rule.

[Sith_Happens]

Immunity to only one kind of possession would be weird, I’m going to assume whoever wrote that page just forgot to crossover-proof it.

[ajf115]

It seems to me that this may be the kind of thing that goes in the manuscript but (hopefully) gets fixed in the final release.