Hi, gang. Last week, we presented one of the foundational design elements of Mummy — the decree — along with a look at a sample decree (the decree of spirit). This week, we offer a little behind-the-scenes action as Malcolm rejoins me to dish on our thought process behind the Arisen.
A note on one of the half-dozen scraps of paper produced by phone calls with CAS says, “Fuck it, you start as the prince.” Like all brainstorming, it’s not exactly where things ended up, but it’s good enough to root this next bit. Mummy twists a popular formula: Invest time in your characters and you get to do cooler things, unlock more impressive challenges, and make your mark on the world. You level up, build your domain, and kick the prince’s ass. Over the years, various games have spun the formula. Maybe you start out as a badass and progress to universe-wrecking power. Perhaps the “you” in the equation is your player-self and you earn author-style narrative control. Whatever.
But fuck it. It’s Mummy. You can start out as the “prince.” If you want servants, you’ve got them. You step from the sarcophagus at the peak of innate power. And why not? You’re immortal. But unlimited time doesn’t mean the right time. The Arisen obey magical cycles, and try to synchronize them with their goals. There’s a big difference between a thousand years and the right year, week, or hour. You’re strong. The cult obeys your commands. But power is fleeting, and regulated by the god-things of Duat, the Underworld. CAS and Greg Stolze developed a great system to determine how the Arisen’s power ebbs and flows, and it plugs right into the game’s central themes. But watch out… Stolze is cruel.
The Deep Myths
One can design supernatural protagonists for the World of Darkness with two basic approaches. First, you can get archetypal with walking “builds” and “toolkits,” sacrificing specificity for breadth. On the other side, you can get specific, so their backstory and mythology sets the foundations. These are really poles, not either/or options, and like all contrasts there’s a little bit of bullshit, but it’s enough to define mummies further. The Arisen have a specific origin in the strategies of a Stone-Age empire, and the sorcery of its ruthless culture heroes. The Arisen remember fragments of the past; they want more. The virtual boxed set reintroduces the separation of player and Storyteller knowledge found in classic games to support this motivation (not to give Storytellers authority by hiding what the players need). Read what you want; the game organizes its mythology so that you’ll understand what characters know, and what they might discover about themselves over the course of a chronicle. This also helps the Storyteller determine when a mummy had uncovered an ancient secret — an act rewarded by Sebayt Experience, which can enhance her Memory.
Does a specific mythology make Arisen the only immortals around? That’s up to you. CAS’s vision of the World of Darkness hews to the original design documents, which discourage supernatural theories of everything in favor of lots of strange threads. Mummy: The Curse weaves together a world of Arisen, ghosts, magicians and monsters, but leaves plenty of undefined space for Storyteller expansion. Beyond the flow of Sekhem, the threat of the Devourer, and the remnants of the City of Pillars, the world contains anything you desire.
Until next time,
Senebti!
That… is quite awesome.
If I may ask, though, what do you mean specifically when you say “threads vs. theory of everything?” I wasn’t quite sure there WAS a theory of everything (but I could have missed it down the line).
That’s the point, I believe. The nWoD doesn’t do theories of everything.
Yes! This is what I’m talking about. You’ve been around for a few millenia, you should have taken a few things into account. Sounds like you’ve found a way to keep it balanced, but at the same time its reasonable for your ancient immortal to have not been an idiot and planned for things.
This is the way it should be. Thank you.
I love this concept of…I guess “temporal aiming” is as good a term as any. The idea that you can prepare for a precise deployment of massive power, both temporal and supernatural, but still miss your mark…
“Well, my armies are gathered, and I have the blessings of all the gods, but f*ck it, I forgot to factor in Daylight Savings Time”.
Oh man what a bombshell.
That’s a ton of gooey good information that still keeps so much of the wonderful main plot hidden that it drives up the desire and want to critical levels.
I love the idea that this virtual boxed set has a seperation between historical information that the characters are going to be scratching desperately for. It gives the Theme and Mood you guys are aiming for such gravitas… almost like you did it on purpose! 🙂
It’s interesting to see that one of these main game lines is returning to the Underworld again, but it does make sense in that the Underworld is huge and old and still has unplumbed depths. I look forward to see what comes of this.
Again, you guys have my money the instant you put this up for Kickstarter.
Keep up the great work gang, i’m with you!
A quick query as I don’t have time at the moment to go over this all as thoroughly as I would like. In Vampire there has been some talk of how the ideas that various vampires have about their clan’s origins leads to some ideas that vampires are not so much a singular supernatural “species” with one common origin but a variety of entities that simply share a large number of characteristics. The vibe I am getting with talk of “CAS’s vision of the World of Darkness hews to the original design documents, which discourage supernatural theories of everything in favor of lots of strange threads” is that the other non Arisen mummies is something like this. A jumble of supernatural occurrences some parts known, some not. Coming together to bare out similarities but not enough to create a theory so to speak.
This post has definately settled some of the points of confusion, while just answering so much as to leave us wanting more.
I am glad my question about Duat was answered ^^ This leads me to wonder what their relationship with the Kerberoi and Deathlords are, and whether Sin-Eaters have encountered the Judges of Duat (Of course, the Arisen may not see a particular difference, and refer to both Kerbs n DLs as Judges).
Now.. when we say stone age, are we talking more or less aligned with the pre-Naquada cultures of Egypt? Or are we talking further back? For some reason, when they said that.. I immediately thought of the movie 10,000 BC, where a single empire had risen technologically and socially above all of its peers, who had barely even discovered farming yet. This would not be a bad thing, as it gives the Arisen MORE than enough time to wander pretty much anywhere (Perhaps even ordering their cultists to sail them over the bering strait and wandering the Americas).
Hurray, the Arisen start with power! I am glad they found both things to balance the Arisen out as well as continued motivation for the players that allowed them to pull off the Tier 2+ style Mummies. After all, they pointed out a very important fact–half the time, the endgame is just as much fun as the grind to get there, if the designers of the game give focus to it.
Perhaps this question might be a BIT too bold.. but.. is the Redactedland of Mummy origins named/based after a real culture (exaggerated and twisted of course), or is it more of a fictional construct based loosely on both real pre-Pharaoh Egypt and general notions of pre-civilization civilizations?
I believe it has been mentioned that the Mummy corebook answer crossover questions; which is as it should be.
I also think that the Judges will be beings separate from Kerberoi; and there’s also the possibility that Duat won’t be the Underworld in the context of Geist.
Sorry, I meant to say
“I believe it has been mentioned that the Mummy corebook DOES NOT answer crossover questions; which is as it should be. “
Not gonna lie, my favourite thing about this update is the picture.
*laugh* Liked that, did ya? Good.
City of Pillars you say… might that be a reference to Iram? That makes me very happy 😀
There may be a clue on my Facebook page.
I’m not saying there is. But there might be.
“Studied at University of Irem”? 🙂
The city of pillars bit makes me especially happy because I already include the ruins of Stygia and Amenti in all my mental maps of the G:tSE underworld as a “Nobody really knows what these were, but they were huge” easter egg. Whatever the deal turns out to be with this city, maybe I can reconcile it.
I think Iram/Aram is the safest bet, present in both Islamic teachings and Arabian folklore as a buried city.
the fact that it erected “great Pillars” has irony in the Wod. They didn’t just build grand temples and palaces, but eternal soul-pillars that created an immortal legacy. The fact that even these Arisen don’t remember it wholly would be a slap in the face: buried in the sand and forgotten by your own legacy.
And if it is a conanesque protoegyptian empire in a land of hunter gatherers, and fell long ago that Egypt was one of many places descended from its legacy.. well, that is prett much awesome. And oddly ressurects the “web of faith” in anew way, as cultures touched by Iram’s legacy.
It makes me curious about how this plays out with the whole concept of remembering another culture more so than a pre or post Egyptian culture playing into the while stuff people have mentioned about playing “non Egyptian mummies.” In the aspect of ethnicity. So I’m wondering if this will mean that this City of Pillars was like Mage’s Atlantis with people from all over or that the Arisen come from a more narrow ethnic background.
The question of ethnic background is starting to really confuse me. Does the ethnicity of a dead thing from the freaking Stone Age, that’s likely older than agriculture, really really matter?
Thank you, Christian. Thank you.
Not sure how much it matters but I was wondering if it was something they would touch on.
Or to put it another way. I wasn’t asking if it mattered. I was asking if it was brought up. Big difference there Christian….
Well, if the Aram/Iram theory holds weight, it would save the developers from having to type [redacted] all the time.. and it might grace us with which spelling they’re going with.
And honestly, at this point, I am sure that the question is moot, and that the City of Pillars is less of an attempt to be ethnocentric towards egypt and more of a central metaplot to give some backbone to the histories of creatures old as dirt and able to remember a decent amount of that time. A mummy might possibly even forget where they came from entirely, convinced they’d mummified themselves while meditating in the himalayas. A mummy’s skin tone could shift with his identity, allowing him to live amongst any culture. Plus, as a mummy is probably older than ALL the cultures we’ve talked about using in mummy stories, it really comes down to each mummy picking the places they liked the hang around in for a few centuries.
Indeed, if mummies rely on normal means of corpse preservation to keep their bodies from further deterioration during the rebirthing process, then mummies outside of the deserts may even have to rely on the more exotic means to keep themselves “fresh”–ice, salt, vacuums, embalming fluids.. goodness knows what an immortal is okay with doing to its body in its tomb between lives.
Speculation of course, but it shows that all is not lost on the fronts of multicultural mummies. I, for one, have enjoyed how Aram’s character has developed. So far, it doesn’t seem like Atlantis. While atlantis at least preached the image of enlightenment and authority, the City of the Pillars would’ve been a proud, perhaps greedy, and potentially blasphemous and hedonistic culture. Just because there are now two “lost ancient cities” does not meaan they will resemble one another at all. I for one am hoping Iram is more of the conanesque empire of conquering and questionable morals, making pacts with dark gods of duat for cursed immortality, carving monuments in their hubris, colonizing, conquering..
So I gather we are talking about a ST book & a Players handbook type of approach? Nice.
hi CAS! big fan of your work in cWoD! so excited to hear that you’ll be working on new Mummy! =D
question: one of my favorite aspects of the M:tR was the emphasis in the Hekau of physical object based powers such as alchemical potions, amulets, and effigies. i see that Vessels will play a large part of the game as potential McGuffins, but can i expect these new Mummies to be as crafty and object-oriented in their powers as well?
thanks! really looking forward to the game!
I’m not CAS, but I believe that this has been answered in the blog update “Character: the Occult form”.
“So Arisen magic has a visceral, material quality, channeled into bodies and objects, with the latter being of especial importance to them. The Deathless know of invisible forces and abstract, magical power, but these things manifest with less of a New Age, power-up kind of “glow” than you might expect. And although mummies are the heirs of a rich metaphysical tradition, that tradition’s laws demand set, pragmatic manifestations “inscribed” into the soul like a charm painted on a sarcophagus… or carved into the shape of a mystic artifact.”
awesome, thanks Christian! i’ll be sure to re-read that entry as well! thanks again! very excited. =)
More!
Please 🙂
Your wish… well, you know the drill.