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Introduction:
Death and Resurrection
Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from
all eternity; and the implication of causes was from
eternity spinning the thread of your being.
Marcus Aurelius
For millennia, the Nile Valley has cast its irresistible
spell over the youngest of the worlds children. From its
source near the site of the earliest evidence of man at
Olduvai to the great rivers outlet near the deserts where the
prophets walked, the valley of the eternal river has been
mans kindest cradle. Now, like the sun rising after a long
night, an ancient power returns to the Nile Valley.
Osiris, the oldest and greatest of the Egyptian gods, has
long reigned in the Lands of the Dead. A recent cataclysm in
the underworld has roused Osiris from his seeming slumber
to take an active hand in the living world once again. The
agents of this ancient power are themselves things of legend.
They are deathless beings who defy the grasp of mortality.
They are mummies.
In Mummy: The Resurrection, you are invited to play
one of these immortal beings.
Most of us think of a mummy as a bandage-wrapped
corpse from ancient Egypt, but a mummy in this game is
nothing so clich. Your character is a combination of old and
new. He is a hybrid of ancient Egyptian spirit and modern
day soul who has been empowered by Osiris with an ages-old
mission. Your character is a warrior for balance, who seeks to
preserve life against the ruin and oblivion that long-standing
evil threatens to unleash.
But how does a modern man or woman become the
undying force of an ancient gods will? Whether because of
Mummy: The Resurrection
an unfortunate accident or active malice, your character has
died before his time. Only by bonding with a portion of an
ancient soul can he return to the living world. In return for
a second chance at life, your character becomes an agent of
redemption in a world of despair.
Your character has something special that cries out to
Osiris and his followers, some strength or insight that never
reached full bloom in life. Responding to this unrealized
potential, an ancient Egyptian spirit bonds with your char-
acter and begins an arcane ceremony to return your character
to life. Upon returning to the living world, your character
works with others of his kind, fellow mummies fellow
immortals to restore the balance of justice to a world that
is sliding ever faster into corruption and decay.
Even in the face of death, accepting immortality is not
as easy to do as you might think. His transformation from
earthly to eternal changes your character forever. His scope
of understanding broadens dramatically, but new mysteries
are revealed in the process. The world is a grim place, the
victim of centuries of atrocities carried out against it. Crea-
tures supernatural and mundane advance malign agendas to
hasten the downward spiral of society, to snuff out the flame
of hope and innocence in humanity.
When he returns to life, your character has the power to
stand against these forces. He has been given an opportunity
for a second chance, a new beginning.

Mummies
Over the course of thousands of years, ancient Egyptians
perfected the art of preserving the bodies of the dead. Their
intent was to maintain the body for the family of the
deceased. After death, the individuals soul passed into Duat,
the Egyptian underworld. There, in the spirit city of Amenti,
Osiris ruled over the dead. The god Anubis guided new
arrivals before the judges of the afterlife, so that they could
determine the spirits reward for its life.
When incorporated with the mummification ceremony,
the Spell of Life that had been set down by Osiris and his
sister-wife Isis created an eternal link between soul and
corpse. Although the spirit still ventured into the under-
world upon its death, it could now return across the Shroud
(which divides the living and spirit worlds), infusing its dead
flesh with life. Proper service in the underworld realm of
Amenti allowed the mummy to gather sufficient spiritual
energy to return to the living world. Months, even years,
might pass, but a mummy would always eventually return to
life no matter how many times he was slain.
The followers of Isis and Osiris performed the resurrec-
tion ceremony on a small number of their members. Because
of an imperfect understanding by Osiris and Isis when they
created the spell, however, the ancient mummies were subtly
flawed. Although their flesh was warm and their hearts beat,
the touch of death never left them entirely. Although they
had been infused with life eternal, they were completely
sterile. Mystics found mummies auras dull and their blood
strangely lacking in life force.
Despite being small in number, the undying breed made
formidable opponents. Horus, the son of Osiris and greatest
of the Undying, led most of the mummies in a crusade to
cleanse the world of his murderous uncle, Set who was
himself the servant of Apophis. The faithful Followers of
Horus, the Shemsu-heru, returned again and again from
beyond the grave to stand against the evil of Set and the dark
gods venomous children.
The handful of mummies battled Sets corruption down
through the millennia. Then came the Dja-akh, the ghost
storm, that ravaged the underworld. Even the eternal Shemsu-
heru could not withstand the fury of the Dja-akh, and many
of their number perished in the destruction of great Amenti,
the Dark Kingdom of Sand. Without the wisdom of Osiris,
the god of resurrection, all might have been lost.
Amenti
In the aftermath of the spirit storm, the old Spell of Life
has lost its potency. It now bestows not so much as a twitch
in a warm corpse. Osiris, active and interested in the affairs
of the living for the first time in generations, has delivered a
introduction: Death and Resurrection
7
new Spell of Life to priests and priestesses of unwavering
integrity and honor. Osiris centuries beyond the Shroud
may have given him greater insight into the bond between
spirit and flesh. This new spell is without flaw, and it is far
more powerful than its predecessor. The newest spell of
resurrection imbues the dead with a life force that flows as
strong as the great river Nile.
Part of the spells strength comes from the new manner
in which the Reborn (as mummies are also called) are
created. Those resurrected in the wake of the Dja-akh are the
product of a union of one of the storm-shattered souls from
Amenti and the flawed soul of a mortal who has died
recently. Only the strongest shards of the souls of the ancient
Egyptian dead were able to survive the maelstroms savage
winds. At Osiris behest, the remnants of these ancient
spirits including many old mummies whose souls were
fractured by the howling soul tide of the Dja-akh are
spreading across the world seeking those whose weaknesses
needs their strength. They solicit a bond with individuals
whom they can complete and complement.
From the perspective of those in the underworld, a
person who is soon to meet with death evinces a mark or sign
shortly before his end in the physical world. Spirits call these
prophetic markings death marks. When one of the Amenti
spirits finds a compatible individual bearing the spiritual
death marks, the tattered entity waits nearby in the tumul-
tuous ghost world. At the moment of death, the Amenti
spirit fragment reveals itself to the newly deceased and offers
to restore him to life. Should he agree, the shard of the
Egyptian soul animates the individuals dying form with just
enough life energy to make a desperate pilgrimage. The
spirits goal is the Web of Faith, a network of holy sites
scattered across northern Africa to the Middle East, and
infused with the life force of Osiris himself a life force that
is vital to the resurrection ceremony.
In the Lands of Faith, the priests and priestesses of Isis
and Osiris wait for the joined spirits, and their sacred magic
calls to the returning dead. Once the animated corpse is
taken in at one of the secret sites, the beloved of Isis and
Osiris perform the divine ritual of resurrection.
While the exact practice of the ritual of rebirth varies
from cult to cult, the key elements remain consistent. The
body is soaked in natron (a salt mixture common to the
Egyptian embalming process) and wrapped in protective
bandages that have been inscribed with spells. As long as the
ritual is performed within the Web of Faith, the deceased is
flooded with a surge of life force. The power of Osiris flows
into the corpse, burning away the weak portions of its soul.
The fragment of the ancient Egyptian soul replaces the
flawed or impure portion of the modern soul, and it is called
a tem-akh, or completing spirit. The new soul joins
seamlessly with old; the hybrid then faces the Judges of
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Maat. After receiving this arcane spiritual bodys judgment,
the newly empowered soul merges once more with the body.
The resurrected individual referred to formally as an
Amenti in honor of the lost city of the dead may undergo
small changes as the body adjusts to its new, more powerful life
force, although these alterations tend to be subtle ones. The
most significant changes that the Spell of Life brings are clear.
The recipient has come back to life, and the weakest portion of
his soul has been replaced with the powerful tem-akh.
The Resurrection
Before death and subsequent rebirth, a person who
experienced the resurrection invariably led a stunted and
largely hollow life due to some weakness or flaw in his
character. Being made whole by the tem-akh grants the
individual an entirely new way to experience life. Some
describe it as finding a conscience that they never had. Some
compare it to finding a new best friend that they will never
lose. Some describe it as awakening a great hunger for justice
that cannot be denied. None go unchanged.
In the new mummy, the child of the modern age and the
abandoned child of a lost time come together. Two lives fuse.
Each portion grants strength where the other was weak.
Millennia worth of wisdom combine with the enlightened
attitudes of a new world. The fading essence of the tem-akh
merges with the frenetic energy of the modern mind, and the
resultant soul brings a unique perspective into being. The
self-styled Undying refer to this existence as the Third Life.
Upon returning to life, the Amenti is more alive than ever
before. His senses are more refined, and sensation is more
intense. Lights seem more colorful and brighter. Sex is more
fulfilling. Food is more flavorful. As every tactile sense is
heightened, life becomes indescribably more sensuous. Al-
though the mummy still spends periods of inactivity within the
dead realms, the joys that life has to offer remind him constantly
to strive to return. The world that the Modeler has created is too
beautiful not to savor, and the spark of the divine wakes an
incomparable appreciation for living.
With a deep awareness of the preciousness of life comes
a heavy feeling of responsibility. Most of the Resurrected
realize that they have been called back to life to help retake
the world from the corrupting forces of Sets master, Apophis.
Some seek to improve the societies that have adopted them
in the Lands of Faith. Others return to their previous lives in
hopes of healing the damage that they caused through their
thoughtlessness or selfishness. Those who understand the
principles of Maat best are inspired endlessly to change the
world for the better and drive out the minions of darkness.
Djinn
Mummies are not the only supernatural beings in the
world. Like the rest of the World of Darkness, the Lands of Faith
are home to a variety of preternatural creatures, some of which
Mummy: The Resurrection
are as ageless as the trackless desert itself. Islamic texts speak of
the djinn, beings created from smokeless fire by Allah before the
coming of man.
A handful of mystics of the World of Darkness believe that
those who are slain and rise as vampires are actually reanimated
by the bestial spirit of a lesser djinn known as a ghul, which flows
into the body along with the tainted blood and inspires an
unholy hunger. The same scholars say that the shapeshifters,
nature spirits and faeries of legend are but forms of djinn and ifrit
as well. Tales of King Solomon trapping thousands of djinn
within various magical vessels continue to inspire wonder.
Wizards sometimes seek to follow in the Biblical kings footsteps
by binding djinn to perform great tasks.
Apophis
The entity known as Apophis knows only one thing:
corruption. It has been around since time began, and it exists to
defile and destroy. It is the ultimate trickster, the overwhelming
darkness and the unceasing perversion. Among the minions of
Isis and Osiris, Apophis is considered the source of all evil. Many
are drawn into the Great Serpents snare unwittingly as their
natural desires for success and wealth grow slowly tainted by
Apophis insidious influence.
The Great Serpent does not fear engaging in outright
conflict, but it is just as skilled at using subtlety to achieve its
goals. Likewise, its minions are corruption incarnate, perverting
the innocent and defiling the unspoiled. Set was the Corrupters
mightiest champion, slaying Osiris and battling Horus through
the march of years.
The greatest threat Apophis presents comes from the
subtle depravities it uses to influence even the staunchest of its
opponents. The corrupted Bane mummies are but one example
of the Great Serpents ability to turn its enemies into its tools.
The Holy Land
To understand the ancient component of a mummys soul,
its important to understand the land from which it came. The
Near East of the Arabian Peninsula and northern Africa have
long been recognized as the cradle of civilization. Certainly, the
three great monotheistic religions were all founded in the
greater region of the Middle East, and their influence extends
around the world. However, the ancient homeland of mankind
has become infested with agents of chaos and imbalance, and it
roils with madness, violence and bloodshed. In the World of
Darkness, those who seek the unseen adversaries of mankind
here need not seek far.
On the surface, the Lands of Faith appear much the same
to the supernatural denizens of the World of Darkness as they do
to the mortals among whom they walk. The same ancient
buildings crowd the same dusty streets, sheltering their inhab-
itants from the suns harsh gaze. National borders seethe with
eternal tension. Fanatics target tourists, bystanders and