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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Mummy Names

While I finish up the spectral undead, I'm also working on mummies. Originally, I figured a mummy would just be a specific variant of the corporeal undead, but then I had a few ideas about what could make them distinct as an entire "class" of undead, with a progression of powers and behaviors uniquely their own.

The problem, though, is that there's only one mummy-like undead listed in OD&D. So I have to come up with a bunch of names for greater and lesser varieties of mummies. That may delay me a bit.

If anyone knows of some legendary mummy-like creatures, that might help. Please, no unique fictional creations.

2 comments:

  1. Might be hard to find mythical mummy references. I think the idea of a mummy as an undead threat didn't exist until Karloff did it on the silver screen. But I might be wrong...

    You could re-tool existing (x)D&D monsters a bit by extending what it means to be a mummy.

    In my campaign, the major difference between a Mummy and a Lich is the Lich did it to himself on purpose, whereas the Mummy had it done *to* them to guard the dead, treasure or what-have-you.

    Further, if think of them as taylor-made guardians, you can look to Golems, Caryatid Columns and even the Gods of Lankmar as inspiration. Re-skin the mechanism to make them all undead and you got your Mummy "class".

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    1. Indeed, I wound up going the movie route and taking Kharis as one end point, Imhotep as the other.

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