Making Crossover Work for Mummy

[atamajakki]

By default, Mummy is a game opposed to crossover content. It frames the World of Darkness in an Irem-centric, Arisen-centric manner, and doesn't care much for anything that doesn't fit that paradigm. That's totally fine; this thread isn't for shaking that up. Instead, I want to see what all we can put together from the other lines to enhance all of our Descents with a little bit more spice.

Vampire has the most natural potential, in my opinion. It's nice to have someone else immortal to share the endless night with, and that the Kindred as a whole have heavy ties to Ancient Egypt. Of particular interest to us here are the Usiri bloodline from Ancient Bloodlines, who cast themselves are the guardians of memories (who would hold onto them while elders slumbered) and shepherds through the terrors of the underworld. We also have the Khaibit (from Bloodlines: the Hidden), who are a group with a sacred purpose of servitude and the ability to see and combat spirits. It may just be me, but the Khaibit seem like they could be the remnants of a Cult, long abandoned and half-remembering their original purpose. The Mnemosyne (Shadows in the Dark - Mekhet) are another bloodline, and these guys have a signature Discipline that revolves around the manipulation of memory.

Pile onto that the Hollow Mekhet (from Shadows in the Dark - Mekhet), whose Ka explicitly wander around separate from their bodies, and the ever-popular Strix, who seem to be like nothing more than hungry disembodied Sheut, and there's a whole mess of other critters running around for the Arisen to bump into and possibly exploit. There's the oldest Shadow Cult, the Followers of Seth/Cradle of Chaos, who act as agents of pure chaos in the name of maintaining cosmic balance; for the Arisen (who serve the Judges that brought the Law to mankind) they make ready opponents

I love the idea of a Cult that's at least partially made of vampires, a constant across the Descents who have their own struggles against the Fog of Ages but know loyalty to their Arisen.

[reseru]

What makes it opposed to crossover? Not many of the 1e core books spend time on crossover, and few of their supplements come to mind: the big three have enough supplements that can mention other splats (but I can't think of any?) so, of the once-limited lines, Promethean and Changeling are notable exceptions.

Demon, yes, talks in its core about this stuff

[StSword]

Coming up with story ideas for a crossover is not hard, it's logistics of working in mummies that would be an issue- a character slowly getting weaker instead of stronger and then going to take a dirt nap to recharge.

Vampire- Theban Sorcery is named that because it comes from Thebes, a lance scholar looking into the origins of their magic might end up researching into relic making and iremite sorcery.

A mummies cult could come into conflict, or contact with a mekhet blood cult.

Werewolf- A mummy's cult could recruit a wolf-blood. The mummy's cult might attract spirits, perhaps even a totem. Or a mummy's cultist might become a werewolf.

Mage- The mysterium research occult secrets,and collect magical oddities, and as of second edition mage orders include not mages, so perhaps there are sorcerers among them. Or perhaps a would be lich decides to study the arisen.

Promethean- Osirans are quite possibly an attempt at arisen 2.0. Since human demiurges is even more of a thing in second edition, a mummy looking for a sorcerer might find he has an osiran friend for protection.

Changeling- Perhaps a mummy's cultist is a fetch the changeling is going for, there is a changeling entitlement of cult leaders, so again cult on cult conflict possibilities.

Hunter- AO, Aegis, Cheiron, Barret Commision, these guys would be on mummies like white on rice. Do the keepers of the source sense sekhem? Did the promethean brotherhood stumble upon iremite sorcery?

Demon- A demon could have an identity as a mummy cultist, or perhaps a demon with an identity of a ghost runs across a mummy.

Geist- An easy one. Necromancy and egypt go together and peanut butter and chocolate. Both deal with ghosts, so there's that. Both form cults, so there's that. Heck, a sin-eater's geist might have been a mummy's cultist in life, and the mummy's servant in death.

And beast, beast is all about crossovers.

[atamajakki]

I can (and have!) written an essay on the weird parallels between the temakh and Geists, and the implied similarities between the Shan'iatu's goal and what I think the fate of a Tier 3 krewe is.

[Malcolm]

Mummy does crossover more like Vampire than, say, Mage. Vampire doesn't go out of its way to make room for anybody else. The room is there, but the game concentrates on its own themes and worldview. That integrity is a big part of what Mummy is about. As a 1e game it treats ghosts as a common resource (as they were in 1e) but otherwise, the presentation is always Mummy-first. I mean, I think I have an idea of where or what Duat might be defined as in another line, but in Mummy it's Duat, and its description in Mummy is the most accurate, and it's not "really" anything else. There might be common territory, but nobody has a better map than anybody else.

[Azahul]

Yeah, the accusations of Mummy not being crossover friendly always puzzled me. It presents the game from the Mummy worldview, but there are definitely elements written with crossover in mind. Rebuke the Vizier is probably the biggest example. Tier 3 uses all of its text on examples to describe how it works on Vampires and Mages, without bothering to address how it effects Arisen mechanics at all (which is really, really annoying given that it might, or might not, be able to effect boosted attributes, Sealing the Flesh, and Affinities to some extent, but how isn't discussed because it wants to spend its time talking about Disciplines...).

[FallenEco]

New information regarding Mage/Mummy crossovers. The recent blog 'To The Strongest', has clarified which Arcana transpires to which Piller.

Ab	Spirit
Ba	Mind
Ka	Prime
Ren	Fate
Sheut	Death

The Weret-Hekau even have a section on Mummy crossovers.

Those Who Cross Over
As stewards of one of the world’s oldest civilizations and skilled record keepers, the Weret-Hekau have accumulated a significant amount of information about supernatural beings who have interfered in their nation’s history. Unfortunately Hemka are not immune to internal rivalries, so to dig anything up, a sorcerer needs to trade favors for access to a library or talkative expert.
A disciplined seeker of the truth would discover that after the fall of the Scorpion quasi-dynasty their creations, Arisen as detailed in Mummy: The Curse, dragged themselves out of the sand during the reign of Unas, sparking a conflict that drove most of them from the region and hurled Kemet into chaos. Few Arisen have been seen since, but lesser (though dangerous) entities called Shuankhsen can still be found hidden among the populace. Weret-Hekau believe these beings are the result of incautious experiments with Sekhem. In contemporary terms, Sekhem is not “Supernal,” but the stuff of existence as it actually manifests. Awakened magic interacts with it like a smith holding tongs, while the Predynastic ancients preferred to grab this molten stuff with the spiritual equivalent of their bare hands. Weret-Hekau do not necessarily believe the works of Irem (a name few of them know) to be evil, but dangerous. Hemka have attempted to learn the old arts before, but progressing beyond elementary knowledge . . . damages them.

[atamajakki]

Glad to know the Awakened view the Nameless Empire as it was; fueled by batshit insane geniuses.

[atamajakki]

And now we have Beast to play with.

Anyone else thinking about having one of the Begotten as a tomb guardian or high priestess?

[Shock]

And now we have Beast to play with.

Anyone else thinking about having one of the Begotten as a tomb guardian or high priestess?

"WHERE THE FUCK IS MY TOMB!"

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS PLACE?!

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE JUDGES IS THAT!!!"

krrrrrrraaaaaaannnnngggg!

[Arcanist]

I don't know, seems more likely they'd go "AMKHAT! DIE!"

[ArcaneArts]

And now we have Beast to play with.

Anyone else thinking about having one of the Begotten as a tomb guardian or high priestess?

High Priestess? Sin-Eater. Tomb Guardian? Abso-freaking-lutely.

[Satchel]

How would people rule the interaction between the Deceived's material anchoring and the effects of opening a Primordial Pathway, incidentally?

[ArcaneArts]

Extremely uncomfortable for the Deceived. On top of that, a Deceived juststraight up can't crossover, and will never run the risk of being spirited away. Being in the presence of a Pathway to a lair, the two worlds overlapping, feels like being dashed against the rocks-enough that I'd say they'd take penalties to actions.

[Kirby Jerusalem]

Just on a personal level, I have some idle notes combining Mummy with Vampire, Geist, Promethean and Inferno demons. In particular, I like to think that the Strix and the Inferno demons were some of the horrid creatures that that the Shan'iatu had to contend with while building their Empire (well, actually in my personal notes the Shan'iatu might have ripped holes in the cosmos to let them out into the world in the first place, but those notes were written pre-BotDeceived, so the nature of the Shan'iatu is much different than canon's).