Hi, gang. A couple weeks ago, we introduced the concept of the decree — a personal polarity that defines the core of a given mummy’s soul — and then last week we offered a sneak peek at the cults of the Arisen. Beyond these differences, mummies also organize themselves into guilds: circles that teach Arisen magic and cultivate the old ways. The Deathless begin with instinctual, fundamental knowledge, but require training to attain real skill. Along with the lore of a particular method, the guilds also impart certain philosophies and secrets.
Here’s a look at a sample of one of the five Arisen guilds:
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The importance of funerary tradition in ancient Egypt is well known to even the most casual scholar of the age. The artifacts recovered from the period reveal this at every turn, as one notices the fine eye for ritual detail and the prevalent intention of preserving as much worldly wealth and reputation as possible in hopes that the dead would enjoy what they had acquired in life. Although these early cultures built vast tomb structures and spent ungodly amounts of gold, stone, and labor to insure such transferences of wealth, the preparation and intent with which they did so paled in comparison to the utterly zealous methods used in the Nameless Empire.
Although it was the Shan’iatu who crafted the Rite of Return from the darkness of time before time, it was the lesser priests of the Su-Menent who poured over the tablets, gathered the reagents, and prepared the bodies for the ruling elite’s sacred work. Unflinching and removed from the menial levels of politics, these death priests clung to the laws of their masters and developed a prodigal grasp of Irem’s darkest magics. They selected would-be members not only for the power of their minds and faith but also for their ability to stomach the bizarre and gory vicissitudes of the sorcerer-priest’s often cruel experiments, and the guild of shells manifested alongside the mystical operations that would one day make the Su-Menent eternal.
Between the advancement of this new magic and the never-ending need for the rites of burial and preservation, the power of the priests grew, limited only by the nature of their service. All peoples of Irem feared death, and it was the Su-Menent who shepherded the entire process. The Shepherds of the Chamber slipped a dark noose around the fears of the Nameless Empire, and in this way became great and terrible… if at a price.
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Until next time,
Senebti!
Comments
28 responses to “Mummy: The Guild”
By golly.
Immortal death priests of the City of Pillars in the Nameless Empire. Like something out of Lovecraft, or maybe Clark Ashton Smith. These teasers continue to impress.
Lovecraft fan here. Felt a little silly I never noticed that Lovecraft apparently DID model some stuff after the Nameless City.
Things are really shaping up to reflect a dark pulp environment. With stuff like the God Machine and Strix Chronicles. I wouldn’t mind seeing a Mummy book with rules tweaks to go full Two Fisted Tales with Mummy and the WoD in General.Something almost Adventure! meets NWoD.
Oooh… You’re on to something there. You could adapt some Daredevil knacks from Adventure! as merits for nWoD. Set a game in the 1920’s. There’s a lot of awesomeness waiting to be tapped in that idea.
They said Irem. Its official. Muwah ha ha.
So are guilds based entirely around the mummy’s role in the nameless empire? Or their favored magic type? And if so, do the mummies also form ideological organizations separate from the guilds?
That’s a good question. If the Rite of Return is no longer being used as some people have theorized, then it would pretty much negate the purpose of the Guild of Shells. However, I have a feeling that, in addition to the funerary rites, they performed other “necromancy” or somesuch for the Nameless Empire. I suppose we would have to see the other four guilds for proper context.
And that last paragraph makes me wonder.. how many Arisen are there? I originally thought them to be rather rare, reserved for handfuls of elites. The last paragraph suggests something more like Ancient Egypt, but better.. that is, anyone who is anyone should become immortal. The Paris Hiltons, the local mayor, the senators.. everyone. It is likely somewhere in the middle.. more common than I expected, but certainly less populous than any other monster breed (Save perhaps their.. accidental cousins, the Prometheans). However, if there are more mummies in every generation within Irem, it certainly supplies plenty of PCs and NPCs to go around, even in any given city. It also expands on potential character backstories and whatnot.. after all, if only heroes and godkings are made immortal, then thats mostly how all the characters will start off.. but if a spoiled prince, a wealthy theif lord, and a physician whose master decides he wants to keep around can all become Deathless, there will be a lot more variety.
The Nameless Empire! I’ve been rereading Mage’s Secrets of the Ruined Temple. It mentions in passing that the Atlanteans viewed the Nameless Empire as totally evil and removed it from reality. Like the Exarchs trying to erase Atlantis itself, it seems they missed the sections they actually wanted to get. The backstory for Mummy is going to be fascinating. Especially for me, judging by the comments here, as I’m not a horror reader and I don’t know the stories White Wolf are inspired by.
That might not be the same Nameless Empire, though.
Oh, right. Mage’s Nameless Empire is nameless because they erased it from reality (or tried to), and Mummy’s Empire is Nameless because it was so long ago the mummies have forgotten its name. Or I think that’s what been said.
Wow, so it wasn’t the divine that smote Irem with fire, brimstone, and sandstorms.. it was mages?
Though, this may not be all the details. I could see Atlanteans being pretty horrified by Irem and its practices.. and as an empire of immortal godkings, something pretty big would have to happen to whipe the Nameless Empire and its name from the history books. Imperium? Reeeeally big spells? A prayer to the God Machine to debug amd troubleshoot the area? All at once?
Can’t see mages being a factor in Mummy.
Irem being destroyed by Mages from M:tA sounds like a terrible idea honestly.
Irem was not destroyed by mages from Mage.
Yeah, 🙂 I figured that specification would be important.
A big factor? No, not at all. But for the immortal mummies to not know that mages are there is a stretch. Almost as big of a stretch to think mages wouldn’t be extremely interested in mummies and irem (almost as much as changelings and arcadia).
But the thing is, is that mages might NOT be there. And the core rulebook isn’t going to have anything related to any of the other templates. So we’re not gonna have any of our “how does mummy and ABC work together” questions answered, not right away at least.
Well, almost every core book has a one paragraph blurb about the other monster splats, the depth and detail determined by the gameline and how much that monster type would feasibly know. I don’t need any more than that one paragraph, any more and it’d get awkward.
And I think with Guilds, the terminology might be the only overlap. The Guilds of wraith had their own feel because of the powerlessness and hopelessness of the gameline’s theme–each guild represented the one thing a Ghost could still do to impact the quick. I think the guilds of M:tC are more about translating an ancient Iremite into modern times–what you did then, what you do to earn immortality, and what you do now.
>almost every core book has a one paragraph blurb about the other monster splats, the depth and detail determined by the game-line and how much that monster type would feasibly know.<
This is true. In fact, I think I got to write the first batch of those (for Vampire). With Mummy, though, it’s key to remember we’re talking about a slightly different breed of animal. It’s not so much the latest in a long line of nWoD games as it is the first of a new kind of nWoD game, if that makes sense. And one of those points of subtle variation lies in the extent to which the other game-lines/archetypes are even mentioned, let alone taken directly into account.
Put simply, this game uses its precious wordcount on itself. Between the rich tone, the specific themes, and the mechanics innovations, there just isn’t room to do anything else. Like previous nWoD games, its design *allows* for ample crossover (and personally, I eagerly await hearing that first anecdote about how some fiendish Storyteller dropped one of the Deathless into his ongoing Vampire game, or whatever). But unlike those earlier nWoD efforts, the tapestry of this new game’s setting is painted much more meticulously and consistently (since tone is so very important to what we do, especially in horror and dark fantasy gaming). In the world of Mummy, what we definitely have are mummies and their various in-game allies and antagonists (including sorcerers, ghosts, and various mummy-specific villainry). And that’s it. The setting assumes by default that nothing out-of-context exists… until it does.
So, you have three delicious-sounding supplements on the schedule. Do you plan to cover “until it does” in any of them?
Very good. I for one will be exceedingly happy if crossover doesn’t get covered, and if the precious wordcount will instead be spent on exploring the setting of Mummy!
Am I the only one who reads ‘guilds’ and immediately thinks of Wraith? However, these guilds are very different than their cWoD, Stygian counter-parts, seems. Very nice… I believe White Wolf will be getting more money from me again. 😛
As regards the Cults last week, I was wondering two things:
A) As the guy who habitually runs games, I found my blood running cold at the idea of 3 to 6 mummies at my table, each with their own corporation full of NPCs to track and deal with. So, I was wondering if there would be any support, either mechanical or just advice on how to run that kind of thing, to take some of the Cult workload off the shoulders of the ST?
B) I also found myself wondering if there would be any rules that let the PCs take advantage of, say, being the CEO of Starbucks or something. Such as being able to leverage your corporation to make society run the way you want it to, grind rival corporations into dust, or otherwise act on a long term wide scale?
The new “design” reminds me a bit of Orpheus in the OWoD. Which was ruleswise something like 3.5 and even stated to play in it´s own “bubble”.
What i do not get is, what is it all about this city Irem?
The main similarity with Orpheus isn’t the non-crossover bubble. That bubble in Orpheus was a cunning bluff anyway – Orpheus was far more directly linked to Wraith’s metaplot than it let on initially, as players who went through the whole cycle found out.
It’s more that they share a clearer distinction between Storyteller knowledge and Player knowledge than the other games. Orpheus came with a default chronicle built into it, Mummy has seperate Player and Storyteller books. It’s possible to be “spoiled”, like with a movie, if you’re a player of either.
As for Irem, it’s a city mentioned in the Quran in a list of cities destroyed by Allah for crimes of oppression and corruption. The only thing known about it is that it was known for raising great “pillars” and had been destroyed or lost long before the time Mohammed mentioned it. Noone knows where it was or anything else about it, though in the spirit of archaeologists who think Plato may have been riffing on cultural retellings of the Thera Explosion when he invented Atlantis, there are theories linking Irem to the pre-Arabic nation of Ubar.
(Other people point out that “city of pillars” might mean “lots of lots of tents”. Mohammed actually includes Ancient Egypt in his list of smote civilisations, in the same section, calling Pharoah “owner of the Stakes”, so there’s a lot of poetry going on)
Anyway. Those theories are wrong in the World of Darkness. Irem existed.
Oh, this is the nameless city from cthulhu-mythos? Guess i´ll have to read the story again. 🙂
I like the sound of that actually 🙂 honestly, most of the “in brief” crossover stuff was usually common sense. Besides, with mummies, I have a feeling a lot of it would be the usual elder’s attitude–theyve been there and done that. Other monsters come and go. A vampire might be novel for a bit.. but not enough to warrant overmuch attention. Though, from the sounds of things, it is pretty obvious and apparent to the forumgoers on how to handle the crossovers with Mummies, and already in greater detail than the blurbs usually are.. so, it sounds like a good decision to leave it out this time around.
I am extremely excited to hear of a gameline getting storyline that could be spoiler material. I think it’ll also help guide players and storytellers who might be intimidates by the prospects of finding things for a bunch of ancient, powerful immortals to do. If the storyline is set up, it can serve as a foundation.. upon which several thousand years worth of backstory, history, and other plot hooks can be piled. Irem went from an idea I was a little wary about, to something I can’t wait to hear more about. Every taste of it piques my curiosity.
And now for another question that the devs may or may not be able to answer.. how BIG was the Nameless Empire? Are we talking a powerful citystate that bossed around its neighbors, or are we talking the Rome of the Sands? Somewhere in the middle is likely, but I wonder how far and wide Irem’s reach was, and how far from Egypt one might find their artifacts.
Yeah, seperated st/gamer infos and knowledge. you´re right.
anyway, besides wraith there was no real Owod in Orpheus. so that stroke me first somehow.
New blog post is up, guys. 🙂