The Followers of Set as an enemy faction in Werewolf

[Asmodai]

So going back to the cults.

One of the ideas that's often seen in the classic (especially Hammer) horror interpretation of the Mummy involves a cult that brings the mummy back to life. This is something that we should play up for the Bane Mummies, they are likely to lead relatively short existences if we are pitting them against Werewolves, trapping them for a long period of time in the Underworld without a easy way of getting back to the game on a chronicle's usual time-frame.

So maybe we could build up on the sacrifice thing that brings the Ka back to the mummies, and that if you have enough faithful performing enough sacrifices of the right kind it's trivial to replenish your Ba, healing the damage and coming back to life. These could be sacrifices directly tied to the weaknesses of the mummies, replenishing what they covet and desire the most and infusing them with fresh spiritual energy and allowing them to heal their bodies faster and return on a more. These sacrifices could be Talismans, Ushabti, recovered pieces of the mummy, organs of the living, or even more ephemeral things such as emotions and vices performed by the cult or their victims (after all we have 7 Bane Mummies and the sample one is obviously Gluttony).

The key question is why would these cultists serve the Bane Mummy, what's in it for them? Ammit is clearly not a kind and thankful master and is as likely to eat his own cult as he is to leave them be. The Cults of Cthulhu book has an excellent set of tables to help us out with this and the later work we may want to do on the Followers of Set Cults.





Clear options here for someone like Ammit would be a Cult whose goals are violence or feeding the addiction (gluttony). Their means may be Service or Destruction, playing up the Wyrm as the devourer and a Apophic cult seeking the day that the sun is devoured in the name of their patron and the God that he serves.

[voidshaper]

So maybe we could build up on the sacrifice thing that brings the Ka back to the mummies, and that if you have enough faithful performing enough sacrifices of the right kind it's trivial to replenish your Ba, healing the damage and coming back to life. These could be sacrifices directly tied to the weaknesses of the mummies, replenishing what they covet and desire the most and infusing them with fresh spiritual energy and allowing them to heal their bodies faster and return on a more. These sacrifices could be Talismans, Ushabti, recovered pieces of the mummy, organs of the living, or even more ephemeral things such as emotions and vices performed by the cult or their victims (after all we have 7 Bane Mummies and the sample one is obviously Gluttony).

I really like the idea of introducing a Bane Mummy via a cult that tries to bring them back from the dead. If I were to construct a ritual for this (you gotta have a grand ritual for this) within canon, there are a few things that we can use; using traditional funerary implements, the items themself work as very cool plot devices if you combine them with game canon:

- a shadow-box, which holds the sheut of the mummy, something that could tie into the Wraith Shadow concept. Maybe for Amenti or Shemsu-Heru this serves as an anchor for the mummy's Shadow when they travel through the Shadowlands. For a Bane Mummy, this could fulfill a similar function so they don't lose their agency while they're dead, because I imagine their Shadows would be quite powerful.

- contents of canopic jars could be used to symbolically re-unite the khet and sah, and maybe need to be inbued with Sekhem for the ritual, probably through blood sacrifice.

- Amulets might act like Fetters for a wraith. It might be interesting to consider what would be a Fetter object for each Bane Mummy and further emphasize their individuality.

- Mummies also have something called Phylacteries, which are basically the reverse of Wraith Relics - a thing of forged Plasm or Soul brought back to the Skinlands. These would make excellent ritual foci to guide the ka and ba back to the body, as well as unusual artifacts for the players to discover.

- Ushabti as servants have been mentioned, but there are also Ersatzköpfe, which are of unknown function and thus open to all kinds of creative use.

Looking at CoC for the cult motivation is a great idea, that list is super useful.

[Father Enoch]

So going back to the cults.

One of the ideas that's often seen in the classic (especially Hammer) horror interpretation of the Mummy involves a cult that brings the mummy back to life. This is something that we should play up for the Bane Mummies, they are likely to lead relatively short existences if we are pitting them against Werewolves, trapping them for a long period of time in the Underworld without a easy way of getting back to the game on a chronicle's usual time-frame.

So maybe we could build up on the sacrifice thing that brings the Ka back to the mummies, and that if you have enough faithful performing enough sacrifices of the right kind it's trivial to replenish your Ba, healing the damage and coming back to life. These could be sacrifices directly tied to the weaknesses of the mummies, replenishing what they covet and desire the most and infusing them with fresh spiritual energy and allowing them to heal their bodies faster and return on a more. These sacrifices could be Talismans, Ushabti, recovered pieces of the mummy, organs of the living, or even more ephemeral things such as emotions and vices performed by the cult or their victims (after all we have 7 Bane Mummies and the sample one is obviously Gluttony).

The key question is why would these cultists serve the Bane Mummy, what's in it for them? Ammit is clearly not a kind and thankful master and is as likely to eat his own cult as he is to leave them be. The Cults of Cthulhu book has an excellent set of tables to help us out with this and the later work we may want to do on the Followers of Set Cults.





Clear options here for someone like Ammit would be a Cult whose goals are violence or feeding the addiction (gluttony). Their means may be Service or Destruction, playing up the Wyrm as the devourer and a Apophic cult seeking the day that the sun is devoured in the name of their patron and the God that he serves.

Stolen and printed for use with any cults that crop up in my Chronicle.

[Bluecho]

The "Violence" entry on the first table has me imagining a Bane Mummy that is an ancient warrior. Drawing more on Set's identity as a war god, than on his tempting or desert aspects.

His primary followers - the "stable" set - create subsidiary cults that are made to believe the Bane Mummy is a powerful avatar of war, who if resurrected will lead the cult into glorious battle. The cult is taken from the ranks of the military, law enforcement, and various adrenaline junkies. Their desire for strength, purpose, and violence exploited for the mummy's own ends.

Indeed, at the culmination of the rite that revives their master, the Bane Mummy will mark them, mystically branding their foreheads with corrupt Hieroglyphic script. They believe it will empower them, and to an extent it will. It makes them stronger, but also makes them fall into berserk fury when in stressful situations. It also, unknown to them, allows the Bane Mummy shunt damage off onto them.

He'll lead them into battle alright. But they're first and foremost cannon fodder. The whole subsidiary cult is a disposable resource, which the "true" servants foster and direct from the shadows. Ready to pick up the pieces, retrieve the master's body, and clean up the evidence once "nature" has "taken its course". Dozens of such cults probably exist across the world at any given time, their members whiling away the days doing drills and performing rites. Always under the promise that, when the time comes, they'll join the master in "the final battle". A final battle that has played out many times before, and will likely play out many times again.

(I imagine the Order of the Golden Fly and these guys poach from the same pool of potential recruits. To much the same effect. Just replace "Bane Mummy" with "Fallen Angel with an axe to grind", and they're not too dissimilar.)

[voidshaper]

Because it seemed fun to do, I wrote out the resurrection ritual - or rather, sequence of rites and rituals. I tried to make it so they can provide plot hooks and include components that could act as MacGuffins.

So, a (Bane) Mummy is dead. What can a cult do to hurry the resurrection along?

1. Preserve the body
2. Protect and empower the spirit
3. Aid the spirit in its journey through the underworld
4. Help the spirit find and enter its body at the end of the journey


The physical administration is the continuous process of preserving the khet. This necessitates that as many of the Mummy’s body parts as possible are accessible to the cult. Most crucially the body and the heart, but also the viscera preserved in canopic jars (or modern equivalents). The body must be embalmed and kept free of decay.

- Likely performed by an alchemist, mortician, or medic

- Related implements are the sarcophagus, canopic jars, formaldehyde, liquid nitrogen, etc

This would also make a base of operations necessary, as lugging the body around is very impractical.

The second part would be more time intensive, and there are multiple things a mortal cult can do to support the spirit in the underworld. The foremost concern in accelerating the resurrection would be to find a way to help the Mummy to accumulate ba, since this is the crucial resource. Egyptian (and plenty of other) funerary rites have this covered with grave goods, which are literally there to perform this task. Some ideas for this phase:

- The cult knows rites to reliably create relics and send them to the Shadowlands. The Mummy may have need of an artifact on the other side of the shroud that is currently in a museum or collection.

- Ushabti are fetishes that contain a bound soul or spirit. A necromancer can force them to directly assist the Mummy in the Shadowlands. There may arise the need to harvest new souls to replenish them in preparation.

- To prevent a Mummy from succumbing to their Shadow, it is fettered to an item in the Skinlands and must be kept in rapture as much as possible on this side to distract it from the Psyche. Unique to Bane Mummies is their merged nature with bane spirits, so keeping a bane infused Shadow entertained enough to ignore its Psyche is probably very fun. The item could be an amulet or something similar that is forced on a mortal victim.

- To directly fuel the Mummy with ka¹, the cult needs to perform acts of devotion that evoke the Mummy’s Passions, like it would create Pathos for a Wraith. The goal would be to create certain emotions within large groups of mortals that the Mummy can siphon.

- Accomplished necromancers or mediums might try to directly interact with the underworld to garner support from parties on the other side of the shroud. There may even be Wraiths that are part of the cult surrounding the Mummy.

One part I feel no Mummy can skip - for metaphysical reasons - is their spiritual journey through the underworld. Bane Mummies wouldn’t be excluded either, but may have a unique advantage in the Bane spirit they were fused with. This could allow them to take some ‘shortcuts’ through the Labyrinth. There is little a mortal cult could do to help here, but having an oracle that could divine key points of their journey or a medium to convey the current needs of their master might offer some assistance. On the other hand, this provides some time for opposed parties to counter-act the resurrection.


Finally, when the Mummy has accumulated enough ba, it needs to return to its khet. The cult would set up a beacon that is visible in the underworld and draws the spirit to the body. This is the finale of the ritual and would likely be as Hollywood as possible. You would want a time and place with as thin a Shroud as possible, so this lends itself well to an in-game deadline and a secluded space for possible fights.

Possession of a Fetter item of the Mummy would greatly enhance the effectiveness of all the above actions for the cult, while at the same time it would provide a powerful option for sabotage to an opposing party. A race between players and cult to acquire it would be a good option for an intermediate milestone in a chronicle.

Edit:
¹Changed ba to ka as pointed out by Black Fox (below)

[Asmodai]

When a Bane mummy dies... what does it actually do in the Underworld? It's not like Anubis is the one letting it go back, nor does it go through the trials. What would generate ba for it? Are they but Spectres or is there a different agenda they may have while dead? Maybe destroying the land of the dead and the holdings of the Shemsu Heru and their allies? Destroying traces of Relics and respite for their ghosts?

So who lets them go back, and what reclaims their Ba for them?

[Shadeprowler]

According of Mummy: The Ressurection p 199.:
Unlike Amenti, though, the soul of a Bane Mummy descends directly in to the hell of Apophis upon its host's death, to be vomited forth when its master has need of it once more

[Asmodai]

According of Mummy: The Ressurection p 199.:
Unlike Amenti, though, the soul of a Bane Mummy descends directly in to the hell of Apophis upon its host's death, to be vomited forth when its master has need of it once more

That's the easy way out of course, and one to consider just in case we don't figure out anything better. We've mostly been mostly going by 1/2E Mummy in the thread so far. I'm not near the books, any idea if it's any different there?

[Black Fox]

The Bane Mummy is suppose to manifest in Malfeas as opposed to the Underworld, but it is entirely possible that a portion of Malfeas essentially abuts (spiritually) the Labyrinth of Oblivion so the point is moot. That's where they were originally sent during Set's corrupted rite. That's how I would handle it.

In terms of collecting Ba, it should be along the same way as Mummies do. That tends to be more narrative than mechanical. I don't think the exact way it can accrue Ba matters from an ST perspective. What matters is the general time it should take before the Bane Mummy can resurrect. I would have it be along the same lines as any other Mummy given the other circumstances the Bane Mummy must do. So it is likely years or decades or perhaps even centuries. It should not be noticeably faster or slower than it would be for mummies in general.

[Black Fox]

- To directly fuel the Mummy with ba, the cult needs to perform acts of devotion that evoke the Mummy’s Passions, like it would create Pathos for a Wraith. The goal would be to create certain emotions within large groups of mortals that the Mummy can siphon.

My understanding is that people can fuel the mummy's Ka by things they do in the real world. But Ba accrual is limited to things its form in the Underworld does for itself. But I am no expert on Mummy and might have neglected or forgotten some rule that allows this.

Mummy 2e does a very good job of tying Mummy into the actual setting of the underworld and providing a real basis for game mechanics that were obviously lacking when Mummy 1e came out, and it only had the Vampire rules to go by.

[Asmodai]

My understanding is that people can fuel the mummy's Ka by things they do in the real world. But Ba accrual is limited to things its form in the Underworld does for itself. But I am no expert on Mummy and might have neglected or forgotten some rule that allows this.

Yes, but this came from two questions we analysed

• What do the Bane Mummies do while "Dead" ? Is there something you can counterplay? Maybe challenge them in the Shadowlands or block them from coming back that way? Shadeprowler said that MTR just has them come back when Wyrm sees fit
• How could a cult speed up the return of the Mummy as normally the return of a mummy will be years at best ? Voidshaper had some cool ideas here

[voidshaper]

My understanding is that people can fuel the mummy's Ka by things they do in the real world. But Ba accrual is limited to things its form in the Underworld does for itself. But I am no expert on Mummy and might have neglected or forgotten some rule that allows this.

This is correct, I was taking a shortcut here because I think strengthening the Ka will arguably lead to a faster accrual of Ba. The actual mechanic is more similar to Renown, imo.
I was pretty liberal with my application of Wraith mechanics to Mummies which is perhaps a mistake, as they function somewhat differently. They don't have Pathos or Angst, and it's unclear whether they have Fetters. They do have a Shadow, though.

What do the Bane Mummies do while "Dead" ? Is there something you can counterplay? Maybe challenge them in the Shadowlands or block them from coming back that way? Shadeprowler said that MTR just has them come back when Wyrm sees fit.

I just skipped through the 2e book again, and the only thing I found about Bane Mummies in the underworld is that they don't retain their Taints. I'm with you that the description in MtR is.. bland.

Ultimately, neither the exact mechanics nor the lore would be overly important for Werewolf antagonist NPCs, but let's speculate.
A Bane Mummy's Journey could be the escape from the Abyss, braving the Labyrinth, facing Harrowings and reforging their resolve until Apophis lets them go again. There isn't really a mythological background to plunder, as something like Hell simply didn't exist in ancient Egyptian religion- at least as far as I am aware.

[Bluecho]

I like the idea that when a Bane Mummy travels out of the realm of Apothis, it's literally crawling through the bowels of the serpent itself. Not sure how it would affect the process mechanically or narratively, but it's a harrowing image nonetheless.

[Shadeprowler]

That's the easy way out of course, and one to consider just in case we don't figure out anything better.

I do agree, the description is a bit... bland
But in the meantime it gives you creative freedom
The "Hell of Apophis" is a very interesting thing for example - it will be long, but if you are interested, hope it will helps
The concept of hell in the ancient Egyptian religion is very similar to those of our modern religions. Those who were judged unfavorably faced a very similar fate to our modern concept of hell, and perhaps even more specifically to the more Middle Age concept of it as a specific region beneath the earth. For the damned, the entire, uncontrollable rage of the deity was directed against those who were condemned through their evils. They were tortured in every imaginable way and "destroyed", thus being consigned to nonexistence. They were deprived of their sense organs, were required to walk on their heads and eat their own excrement. They were burned in ovens and cauldrons and were forced to swim in their own blood, which Shezmu, the god of the wine press, squeezed out of them.
One difference between our modern concept of heaven and the ancient Egyptian one is that even the blessed faced perilous obstacles in the Netherworld, such as demons that guarded the gates of the netherworld, which required a knowledge of spells to overcome. It sometimes appear that they had to travel through the same hell of the damned, but conceptually, at least, they occupied a very different space.
This nocturnal journey of the blessed, along with the sun god through the underworld was not a prominent theme in the oldest royal mortuary literature, the Pyramid Text and the descriptions of hell are therefore absent from these spells. By contrast, the concept that emerges from the Books of the Netherworld is reflected in the non-royal funerary spells found in the Coffin Text and the Book of the Dead (The Book of Coming Forth by Day), even though these do not contain elaborate descriptions of hell either. That is not very surprising, considering that these spells take for granted that their owners will not be judged favorably in the weighing of their hearts in the afterlife. Spells that mention the dangers of the world of the damned, which the blessed dead pass on their nightly journey are plentiful, but these spells are aimed principally at steering clear of such dangers, and the subject of the fate of the damned is therefore usually avoided as well.
The crimes of those who are condemned to hell consist of nothing more and nothing less than having acted against the divine world order established at the beginning of creation. Hence, they have excluded themselves from ma'at, while at the same time revealing themselves as agents of chaos. After death, they became forever reduced to a state of nonbeing., which was the chaotic state of the cosmos before creation. For them, there is no renewal and no regeneration of life, but only a second, definitive death. Rather than being the followers of Ra, they are the "gang of Set." - the god who brought death into the world by murdering Osiris. They might also be referred to as the "children of Nut." Nut was the mother of Set, and therefore of the first generation of mankind who rebelled against Ra.
In every respect, the fate of the damned is the opposite of that of the blessed. When the righteous died and were mummified and buried with the proper rites, they could expect to start a new life in the company of Ra and Osiris.
However, when the damned died, their flesh was torn away by demons and their mummy wrappings were removed so that their bodies were left to decompose. In the underworld that the blessed successfully navigate, their order of things is reversed, even to the extent that the damned have to walk upside down, eat their own excrement and drink their own urine. Their hands are tied behind their backs, often around stakes. Their heads and limbs are severed from their bodies and their flesh is cut off their bones. Their hearts are removed and their ba-souls are separated from their bodies, forever unable to return to them. They even loose their shadows, which were considered an important part of the ancient Egyptian being. They have no air and suffer from hunger and thirst, as they receive no funerary offerings. Worst of all, they are denied the reviving light of the sun god, who ignores them, even as they cry out load and wail when he passes them in the underworld at night.
Hence, they are excluded from the eternal cosmic cycle of renewal and are instead assigned to the "outer darkness, the primeval chaotic world before creation, which is situated in the deepest recesses of the underworld, outside the created world. They are continuously punished by demons, who are the representatives of chaos. Indeed, the demons are often recruited from the ranks of the damned themselves, so that they torture and kill one another. They are subjected to knives and swords and to the fire of hell, often kindled by fire spitting snakes. These horrible punishments were carried out in the "slaughtering place" or "place of destruction", and presided over by the fierce goddess Sekhmet, whose butchers hack their victims to pieces and burn them with inextinguishable fire, sometimes in deep pits or in cauldrons in which they are scorched, cooked and reduced to ashes. Demons feed on their entrails and drink their blood.
Another location was the Lake of Fire, which was first mentioned in the Book of Two Ways in the Coffin Text (Spell 1054/1166) and illustrated in the Book of the Dead (Chapter 126). Like the "outer darkness," it is a place of regeneration for the sun god and his blessed followers, to whom it provides nourishment and cool water, but a place of destruction for the damned. Birds even fly away from it when they experience the burning, bloody water and small the stench of putrefaction which rises from it. In chapter 126 of the Book of the Dead, its shores are guarded by four baboons who sit at the bow of the barque of Ra and who are usually connected to the sunrise. There, they act as judges of the divine tribunal in order to decide who might be granted access through "the secret portals of the West" and who will be delivered to the hellhound, who, according to another spell, is in charge of this place. That demon-god is the "Swallower of Millions," responsible for devouring corpses, or their shadows, snatching hearts and inflicting injury without being seen (Am-heh was a dangerous god from the underworld whose name can be translated as 'devourer of millions', or eater of eternity. He lived in a lake of fire and was represented as a man with the head of a hunting dog.)
The judgement of Ma'at and devoured by Ammit was actually an "easy death" compared others
The interesting you can spot... Apep is not mentioned.
Apep led an army of demons that preyed on the living and the dead. To defeat this malevolent force a ritual known as “Banishing Apep” was conducted annually by the priests of Ra. An effigy of Apep was taken into the temple and imbued with all of the evil of the land. The effigy was then beaten, crushed smeared with mud and burned. Other rituals involved the creation of a wax model of the serpent which was ritually dismembered and the burning of a papyrus bearing an image of the snake. The “Book of Apophis” is a collection of magical spells from the New Kingdom which were supposed to repel or contain the evil of the serpent.
Apep embodied chaos and darkness and was thus the opponent of light and Ma'at, and was commonly believed to have existed from the beginning of time in the waters of Nu of primeval chaos, "brother" of Ra and resided in the empty void between the stars, in the darkness of creation. In this story, Neith emerges from the chaotic waters of darkness and spits some out as she steps onto the ben-ben, the first mound of land. Her saliva becomes the giant serpent who then swims away before it can be caught. When Neith was a part of the waters of darkness, gave birt to Ra, as in the other tale, everything was unified; now, though, there was diversity. Apophis goal was to return the universe to its original, undifferentiated state. Once creation was begun, Apophis was angered because of the introduction of duality and order. Prior to creation, everything was a unified whole, but after, there were opposites such as water and land, light and dark, male and female. Apophis became the enemy of the sun god because the sun was the first sign of the created world and symbolized divine order, light, life, and if he could swallow the sun god, he could return the world to a unity of darkness.
Sooo... in WoD perspective, Apep either is really the Wyrm (or even the original Balance, in a sense) or Oblivion - "Apep led an army of demons that preyed on the living and the dead." is very similar to the Oblivion and Specters, and the Bane Mummies made with a Specter.
In my humble oppinion the "Hell of Apophis" is either the Labyrinth or the Abyss under it. Condemned to such a place would fit the Bane mummies old description of "When they died, their spirits journeyed to the Underworld, where they suffered unspeakable torments until being reborn. This cycle of agony had caused them to become psychopathically insane"
Not to mention would make an epic story - hunting down their soul and destroy it forever or make sure they not come back for a loooong time; be bound
Compared to the mummies of old, or the Amenti, destroying a Bane Mummy would be much harder, True Death can and sometimes happens with a Mummy (well It is also possible for a mummy to end her existence by themselves. Osiris doesn't force eternal life on anyone...) so it is possible a Bane Mummy would face this, just becasue where it reside untill reborn makes it way harder to parmanently get rid of it
End a Bane Mummy I think would be on par in the sense of story, like ending a Maeljin or a Yama King. Extremly hard, but worthy to Legends.
The strange thing is, the Followers of Set even could help in this task... or want to use/manipulate them to do the deed, or die trying. Win-win. Not that it not happenbed before, I mean the tricking/foolig the Garou to do something stupid; when the Ananasi achived their mission to aim the Garou to assault Malfeas and they cracked the Opel their Queen was kept in, so communication re-established with the Spider-folk and their Creator...
This little fact - I think - the Bane Mummies are in the Hell of Apophis, waiting to be thrown bakc to the Land of the Living to cause trouble could make the Followers of Set an extremly dangerous foe, either because of the manipulation, they want to destroy their master wayward creations, or want to hasten their return... either way, it in my humble oppinion would be a bonus point in the "Followers of Set as an Enemy Faction in Werewolf" YES, they would be great list ^^

[Black Fox]

What do the Bane Mummies do while "Dead" ? Is there something you can counterplay? Maybe challenge them in the Shadowlands or block them from coming back that way? Shadeprowler said that MTR just has them come back when Wyrm sees fit

I think they mainly do the same kind of things that regular mummies do. The Ba of a Bane Mummy should still be doing stuff in the underworld (Tempest, Far Shores, the Isles of the Tempests, Labyrinth, but not the Shadowlands obviously.) They should have a similar "safe refuge" like Amenti serves for the regular mummies, and I would place them somewhere "near" the Labyrinth.

I doubt they interact much with Stygia or other Dark Kingdoms except when they can do something that furthers their Ba accrual there. They might intrigue a bit with Spectre politics, but nothing too much. I would probably have them do things like try to find one of the Far Shores that "Osiris" (or likely some Wraith who depicts himself as such) and ruin it.

How could a cult speed up the return of the Mummy as normally the return of a mummy will be years at best ? Voidshaper had some cool ideas here

I think breaking the rules like that would be fine for the Bane Mummies because they are somewhat special. I would probably limit it to things like their cult performing a special human sacrifice, but it would only work at very specific times like important stellar conjunctions, the anniversary of their destruction when it coincides with a New Moon, and other rare events. I think the Bane Mummies should be out of the picture for a while just as much as the regular mummies are. But something special the PCs could potentially interrupt and stop and thereby delay the Bane Mummy coming back for decades or whatever time, has its uses as a Storytelling tool.