Did Irem know about Spirits?

[atamajakki]

Forrgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems like nothing in Mummy ever touches on spirits or the Shadow; it's the only game that treats Twilight as its oen distinct realm, but populates it almost entirely with ghosts and the occassional rare cosmic horrors like the Black Huriyah. Was the Nameless Empire unaware of spirits?

[YeOfLittleFaith]

I wouldn't say they were necessarily unaware, but they didn't deal with spirits or pry into their matters, in part because they had no need to. Knowing that the advent of the Nameless Empire followed the Sundering, I think we can say with greater certainty that spirits and their ilk weren't a threat to Irem's necromantic power and ghostly servitors such that they felt endangered or even inconvenienced to the point of developing specific responses.

[Azahul]

Technically, one of the Affinities that lets you perceive Twilight (Enlightened Senses, I think?) specifies that it allows you to see Spirits, whereas other variations of the power (like Deathsight) specify ghosts. My group ended up just interpreting all the powers as letting you perceive Twilight equally, but that was more a function of the game not involving spirits than anything.

[nothri]

Of course they knew about spirits. They wouldn't make all those references to that one god that squished people into bloody wine if the Empire didn't know how to make boozes.

[reseru]

Book of the Deceived touches on it the most, I think, but it's not really the focus 2e Werewolf doesn't really talk about ghosts either, for example, does it?

[Omegaphallic]

What about the Fae, do you guys think that Irem would have known about Changelings, the True Fae, and the Hedge?

[reseru]

I think the fae are kinda funny when I'm thinking about Mummy. A lot of people view the latter as a game that, at least compared to other game lines, contains little crossover and, arguably, discourages it.

Despite some supplemental material, I always thought of Changeling as that kind of game. Underworld, Shadow, ghosts, spirits, Ulgan, Mages, and Vampires all kinda blended together, but Changelings existed in their own little fae world.

So to answer your question, sure why not? I think they might have worked to prevent kidnapping of mortals, preferring to keep humans to themselves but also the Court rituals Changelings use to ward off the Fae (in 2e) might have gone hand in hand with the other archaic occult trappings of the Empire.

Maybe the Gentry and Arcadia are part of the Lower Depths like Duat? Not that that means they see each other as kindred

[nofather]

I always thought Mummy was good for crossover, practically encouraged it what with them being basically homing beacons of power that can just 'pop up' in the middle of anyone's territory.

As for the True Fae I'm sure Irem had its legends and folklore and stories about them.

[ArcaneArts]

In regards to spirits, one thing you have to remember is that they exist on a different frequency from ghosts, and Irem's powersets were, well, necromantic rather than animistic. This isn't to suggest that they didn't know about spirits-they would probably know just because werewolves still happened and gave them insight into it. Why it wouldn't have come up as a subject for them to deal with is probably a mixture of some sort of use of the Uratha and the fact that most of the spirits work within their paradigm, with a dash of them probably only seeing the Claimed and Ridden as the bigger issue, which the Shan'iatu could handle.

As for the Fae, every culture has it's boogeymen and demons that people must warn each other about. Irem might have been a safer city in it's way than most other cultures at the time, but their catalog of demons probably includes some fae. A Freehold that wanted to blend into the city could easily build off of Azar's story and just piggyback off of the city's systems.

[Shock]

In regards to spirits, one thing you have to remember is that they exist on a different frequency from ghosts, and Irem's powersets were, well, necromantic rather than animistic. This isn't to suggest that they didn't know about spirits-they would probably know just because werewolves still happened and gave them insight into it. Why it wouldn't have come up as a subject for them to deal with is probably a mixture of some sort of use of the Uratha and the fact that most of the spirits work within their paradigm, with a dash of them probably only seeing the Claimed and Ridden as the bigger issue, which the Shan'iatu could handle.

I'd figured that the Uratha were still in the fallout of their Fall and didn't have the numbers to deal with the Nameless Empire in it's prime. Also considering the projects that the Shan'iatu were focusing on, there is little incentive to mess with spirits at all other than to kill/put up barriers to drive them when they started to act up.

[ArcaneArts]

My assumption is that the Uratha were something akin to sacred slaves of the empire-the Shan'iatu has no obligation to teach them, but on the other hand, they serve functions.

This, of course, presupposes that the Uratha didn't make a concerted rebellion action or something.

[atamajakki]

My assumption is that the Uratha were something akin to sacred slaves of the empire-the Shan'iatu has no obligation to teach them, but on the other hand, they serve functions.

This, of course, presupposes that the Uratha didn't make a concerted rebellion action or something.

At least according to the Forsaken Chronicler's Guide, the Forsaken of this time were much more potent, worshipped as divine and ruling openly as kings in Sumer. I don't see Irem easily conquering them, but more likely at constant war or else uneasy detente.

[reseru]

I think the death of Father Wolf was a long time before Irem was built and Sumer a long time after.

At any rate, is not Anpu the lord of spirits or some such? Mummies generally don't handle with spirits but there's more than you might think to imply they weren't ignored

[atamajakki]

Father Wolf is dead for at least a thousand (more likely two thousand) years by the time of Irem's peak, but one would assume that if the Werewolves of the time before and after the Nameless Empire are stronger than their modern counterparts, then they'd likely be stronger during the time of the Empire as well.

Anpu seems to have some lordship over Twilight/Neter-Khertet, but Mummy's handling of Twilight as a separate realm rather than as a sort of state of being doesn't fit neatly with the cosmology of the wider CofD. I guess it depends on rather or not the demons of Duat are spirits or not.

[Arcanist]

The Forsaken of Bau are still almost 1700 years off from the fall of the Nameless Empire, and I would hesitate to judge the power of the Uratha back then until we can benefit from The Sundered World setting in Dark Eras. Irem itself is implied to be the cause of the collapse of early Sumerian civilization, which was itself perhaps a magical civilization supported by the Awakened and possibly by Mother Ocean (who may or may not be the Idigam waking in Bristol) with the Brineborn as its servants.

Either way, I doubt the Shan'iatu didn't know about Spirits and the Shadow, but I think it's likely that they thought the Shadow would be much harder to control than human ghosts, or perhaps Spirits- as pure Ephemeral Beings -can't provide the Sekhem the Shan'iatu desired. Perhaps most importantly, we really have no idea how powerful an unbroken and undiminished temakh is. Book of the Deceived only suggests it with the power of the fully unleashed Blessed is the God-King, and if Why The Stars Fall is any guideline, I'm not sure we'd want to see an undiminished temakh.