WoD Sobek Reimagined - Sobek-Re

[monteparnas]

So, I was just reading about the real mythology of Sobek and its transmutations through time. As usual badly depicted in popular media, Sobek was a violent deity, but a protective one. It was deemed one of the greatest protectors of Egypt and, by the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, started to become more and more seen as an aspect of either Horus or Ra.

Then I started to get myself thinking. What could Sobek be in the WoD?

I think the legend of Sobek as an Abomination could be real, but with a twist. According with some myths, Sobek is a healer and helped Isis in reuniting the pieces of Osiris. Also, crocodiles were mummified in his honor. So what if the Mokolé Sobek, for his efforts and deeds in the fight against Apophis and proximity to the magics of the leaders of the League of Horus, indeed ended up cornered and Embraced by Set? But instead of having the usual end as the vampire predicted, it was blessed by Helios and turned into something else?

Well, this is the basics of the idea. I would like opinions and suggestions on which direction to develop this and what to do with.

[Black Fox]

Exact relations of real mythological figures to potential characters in the WoD is always controversial. They could be "real" "deities" (Incarna, Aeons, whatever umbral figure), euhemerized figures based on a WoD supernatural figure, completely made up, or any combination of multiple things.

For me, I usually based Egyptian gods on original euhemerized figures from the WoD games, later elaborated into legend and myth after they are dead. That's because so many of their gods are already identified as vampires, mages, mummies, etc. So I want to keep it as a story and have other figures be characters. Since many of the Egyptian gods are animal-headed figures, a lot of them are Changing Breeds. I would probably make Sobek originally a Mokole who was later turned into a mythological figure with various stories and myths added later. It's also possible "Sobek" was a series of Mokole, perhaps the most powerful or leader of the community over a series of decades or centuries.

All of the Changing Breeds are already so violent because of Rage, I don't see any compelling reason why to introduce being an Abomination. It just complicates things.

That's just my personal taste.

[Reasor]

All of the Changing Breeds are already so violent because of Rage, I don't see any compelling reason why to introduce being an Abomination. It just complicates things.

That's just my personal taste.

I have a pet theory that somebody at White Wolf just went through a phase at one point where they were really enamored with the idea of making Set the Final Boss for every game line.

It didn't get far before minds were changed, but we're left with this legacy in print of him having been a deadly archenemy to multiple splats.

[Baaldam]

So, I was just reading about the real mythology of Sobek and its transmutations through time. As usual badly depicted in popular media, Sobek was a violent deity, but a protective one. It was deemed one of the greatest protectors of Egypt and, by the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, started to become more and more seen as an aspect of either Horus or Ra.

Then I started to get myself thinking. What could Sobek be in the WoD?

I think the legend of Sobek as an Abomination could be real, but with a twist. According with some myths, Sobek is a healer and helped Isis in reuniting the pieces of Osiris. Also, crocodiles were mummified in his honor. So what if the Mokolé Sobek, for his efforts and deeds in the fight against Apophis and proximity to the magics of the leaders of the League of Horus, indeed ended up cornered and Embraced by Set? But instead of having the usual end as the vampire predicted, it was blessed by Helios and turned into something else?

Well, this is the basics of the idea. I would like opinions and suggestions on which direction to develop this and what to do with.

Why not have him as a mummy instead, considering mummified sacred crocodiles were definitely a thing?

[monteparnas]

All of the Changing Breeds are already so violent because of Rage, I don't see any compelling reason why to introduce being an Abomination. It just complicates things.

Mostly to accommodate a legend that already exists in-game, but with a twist.

I have a pet theory that somebody at White Wolf just went through a phase at one point where they were really enamored with the idea of making Set the Final Boss for every game line.

It isn't just you, and I'm not sure if it was a small thing. They pretty much made Ancient Egypt into the first big-crossover-super-alliance where everyone went against Set and many, many Egyptian gods were made into canon characters of several splats. Anubis is a Wraith and still around, Osiris is a vampire, Isis is a Mage, several Changing Breeds had confirmed activities back them, and everyone was allied against Set.

Because.

Why not have him as a mummy instead

First because the legend is about him being an Abomination, second because canonically the Mummies are actually a recent development, unless he was turned right before the original spell was lost, and I'm not sure if doing him a Mummy would be easier or harder. It is a good idea, though, I can think about it.

[Black Fox]

First because the legend is about him being an Abomination, second because canonically the Mummies are actually a recent development, unless he was turned right before the original spell was lost, and I'm not sure if doing him a Mummy would be easier or harder. It is a good idea, though, I can think about it.

I don't understand what you mean by that mummies are a recent development unless you are talking about Mummy: the Resurrection (a gameline I know very little about). The original WoD Mummy supplements all show mummies to be ancient. Although it's not stated exactly when Horus, the first mummy, was created, during character creation rules it tells players to pick anytime between 3500 BC to 1 BC as their birth year for their mummy character in 1e. In the 2e Mummy book, they mention a much smaller and later spread of "fourth century BC to the second century AD", but I think that was to prevent "elder" mummy PCs from being created as many NPC mummies are clearly much older.

So there's around a 3500-5000 year period (perhaps longer depending on when you place the Osiris/Set/Isis/Horus story) when mummies could be made before the spell of life was lost.

So as an ST, I think you could clearly make your Sobek NPC a mummy. He just can't be an older mummy than Horus, but as a contemporary to Horus's mother, he might have become one of the next mummies to be created afterwards. So it's an option if you like it and want to use the earlier/original depiction of mummies.

[monteparnas]

I don't understand what you mean by that mummies are a recent development unless you are talking about Mummy: the Resurrection (a gameline I know very little about).

That, basically. But I did my research and can actually expand my answer now.

Currently the canon is that there were three versions of the Spell of Life, the Flawed, the Incomplete and the Improved. Mummies made with the 1st and 2nd edition rules are made with the flawed version, created by Isis and used through millennia even in Europe to create the Shensu-Heru and the Caibiti. The versions from other pars of the world are also considered effectively like this. Kemintiri, the crazy Methuselah, is the only person that still knows this original spell. Sometimes.

Bane Mummies were created by the Incomplete version, precisely because with the lacking elements literal Banes substitute the Ba, that just can't return and goes to the afterlife. Set himself is the only one who knows this version, and since they are more trouble than it's worth for him, he never reenacted or taught it to anyone.

After the 6th Maelstrom Osiris brought to the world the Improved spell. It was used on several already existing Mummies (quite literally upgrading them to 3rd edition rules), but mostly used to create new Mummies, the intended protagonists of MtR. I was averse to make Sobek into a 1st or 2nd edition mummy because they're bad rules, but it was my fault on disregarding the possibility so promptly, it wouldn't be such a bad idea for him, except some other factors:

First, as per the canonical lore, only two mummies were created in the time of Sobek, Mestha and Horus, and it would be one thousand years before a third was created. Before that the Spell was not used upon anyone else, so to not disrupt the cycle of life and death without reason. Sobek is cited in at least one account of the battle where the Spell was used and is regarded in that account as fallen, although even in canon this account is unreliable.

Second, and more important, as per page 69 in Mummy 2nd edition, Fera react badly to the Spell. They come back normally for the first time, but by the second time their Ba becomes trapped in the Umbra, and if their body is transported there they come back to life, but become permanently trapped there. The Silent Strider Wepauwet is the single such Shapechanger-Mummy known.

No option is canonically compliant without some "rule-breaking intervention", but in this the Abomination option breaks the rule but kind of complies with lore, while the Mummy option kind of breaks both. Lore, in this sense, in the tales of the past already canonically presented, and kind of because for both it is a piece of trivia that is already unreliable to some extend.

[monteparnas]

It didn't get far before minds were changed

Funnily I also just found out how far it actually goes. And it was a lot.

They started to tinker with the idea of Set being one of the final bosses for everyone right at the publishing of the first Mummy book, before the release of the first WtA, in 1992. It was already intended for crossover with Vampire and the then coming Werewolf.

In the very Mummy 2nd edition, in 1997, they went far further and created the story of the Osirian League and the great war of everyone against Set. The tales account directly for Wraiths, Mummies, Mages, Vampires, Mokolé, Bastet and Garou working together to topple Set.

And while in several other cases the Revised tried to get away from crossing over too much, in 2001 they officially dedicated the entire year to Make Egypt Great Again, so each and every publication that year reinforced the role of Set and the Osirian League in the dawn of the WoD.

Not to mention several citations scattered here and there through everything else. If you look close enough, a reference to Ancient Egypt being the Golden Age of WoD Crossover isn't ever far away.

[Reasor]

I'd love to know the real behind-the-scenes story of how we get from there to "forget Set, he's long dead" by the end of Revised.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

I'd love to know the real behind-the-scenes story of how we get from there to "forget Set, he's long dead" by the end of Revised.

I have nothing to add, but feel the need to say "Set's dead, baby. Set's dead."

[Toby Weingarten]

Or is he. Wasn't the last page of fiction in Gehenna about how Dr. Netchurch was assisting in the rebirth of Set in a human form, or something similar?

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Or is he. Wasn't the last page of fiction in Gehenna about how Dr. Netchurch was assisting in the rebirth of Set in a human form, or something similar?

For the sake of the Pulp Fiction reference, yes.