Hello, mummy fans!
Sorry for as much radio silence as there’s been on my end, but I’m happy to report that Book of the Deceived is in layout in time for the Halloween season, and that’s appropriate since it contains some of the creepiest material you’re likely to see for the World of Darkness. The tone of the book and its protagonists, the mystery-shrouded members of the so-called Lost Guild, starts with the one element that sits at the core of all Deceived being…
The Temakh
Almost all supernatural character creation rules for the World of Darkness instruct players to construct a mortal character with mortal traits first, and then apply the appropriate template. In the case of the Deceived, one supernatural trait breaks this rule: the mummy’s accursed completing soul fragment, called the temakh.
The seven temakhs are entities of a sort, existing both outside and within their servants. Long ago, they counted themselves among the very Shan’iatu—the guildmasters of the Akhem-Urtu. Each presided over a specific form of artistic and cultural expression. Accordingly, they sought out followers who were adept at these same crafts, guiding and growing and molding that talent to serve their will. This means a Deceived’s temakh shaped her mortal traits almost as much as it continues to shape her supernatural ones.
The temakhs are eternal and human no longer. They are not spirits, nor gods, nor ghosts, but discorporate and chthonic presences that find collective embodiment in those deathless souls still bound to them. The mummies of each temakh are the flesh and hands by which their shared and scattered master grasps the living world. Without their mummies, who knows what the temakhs would be? Perhaps unmoored souls, screaming silently in the solitude of unending blackness and time; perhaps something darker still. Connected to their former guild underlings in this unique way, the temakhs might witness and shape the living world as even the Judges of Duat dare not.
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For the first time, we also have a sneak peek at some of the forthcoming new material! Click the following link to check out one of the temakh splats from Book of the Deceived. Feel free to spread the link around, as this early look is for everyone.
Senebti!
CAS
Comments
13 responses to “Development Tease: The Deceived [Mummy: The Curse]”
Awesome, so instead of decrees of soul you get an Shan’iatu another part of your soul.
Obviously, Mummy is new enough that I don’t think we will see a 2nd Edition any time soon. But are there any plans to put out a (possibly free) rules update to bring it in line with the other 2nd Edition games?
Hell, I wouldn’t mind paying for such a thing.
Being a line that is still actively being published I suspect this won’t happen. According to a developer post I read a while back, there are no more “limited lines.” So Mummy will likely keep getting releases for as long as it sells well enough to cover the paychecks of everyone involved in writing the books. So if they did a 2e patch like Mortal Remains, all subsequent books would have to pick what rule set they were using: 1e, like the core, or 2e like the patch. OP’s policy is to make each supplement usable with only the core book for the line and the WoD core. I don’t have Mummy or any of its supplements (though I am incredibly curious due to reading the blogs) so I don’t know if anything “breaks” because of streamlined xp costs, the slightly altered damage mechanics for combat or the new vice and virtue mechanics. I suspect this is one of those things where if people really want to do it, then they just need to divide the XP costs by 5 and make up appropriate conditions for the Mummy powers as needed.
There are a number of odds and ends that get weird when you apply the GMC rules; for example, the spoiler talks about the benefits that come with sharing someone else’s Virtue and/or Vice — something that has very different implications when you have seven Virtues and seven Vices vs. when Virtues and Vices are totally freeform.
Yep. Mummy was developed pre-GMC, and was always intended to operate outside the realm of those tinkerings, and although the GMC changes are essentially few and non-formative, you’re right that they’d be ill-suited to retroactive application to our nWoD design.
I noticed that it says the Deceived do have the Memory trait but it didn’t say if they had favored Pillars? Maybe they’re ‘equal’ as in equally shitty, not that they don’t have high Pillars but in that they don’t care about them since a Temakh fills the ‘void’ of their Pillared soul (Shuankhsen have broken Pillars, but even Arisen must reclaim their whole soul by reaching all Pillars to 5 before Apotheosis).
And I wonder what seba is?
Thanks for the spoiler
It’s been heavily implied before that all the Deceived have the Name Decree(They’re all Whisperers). I’m assuming that continues on here.
It looks like the Deceived are like 7 guilds into one, very interesting!
And it seens that at least according to their Mandate one of their objectives is to spread their art to the mortals, like strange mummy Muses!
Mummy muses that devour the inspiration they’ve inspired. The music remains brilliant, but no one listens to it any more.
Disturbing.
Thanks for the preview!
seba = star
[…] Mummy’s Book of the Deceived: The Deceived […]
What the Deceived remind me of the most are the protagonists of Mummy: the Resurrection — but instead of the divisions being based on the parts of the soul, they’re based on the arts.