Mummy: The Resurrection

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Mummies are part of a legacy that dates back to Ancient Egypt, granted immortality by the Spell of Life. While they can be killed, they always come back after a sojourn in the Underworld; it's near-impossible, even in the World of Darkness, to finally kill a mummy once and for all. Such an ability is vital in their mission: they are warriors in the fight against Apophis, the Great Serpent, who seeks to devour existence. They also have potent Egyptian magics to assist them in their battle.

That much, at least, remained constant across Mummy's various iterations.

Mummy's long history began in the early years of White Wolf's Old World of Darkness, with a supplement released shortly after the first edition of Vampire: The Masquerade, titled simply Mummy.

The truth behind Set's murder of his brother Osiris was that the various participants were - or became - supernaturals of one type or another. Osiris and Set were vampires, Isis and Nephthys magic-workers. When Set murdered and dismembered Osiris, Isis and Nephthys resurrected Osiris with magic, and he returned having learned secrets of life and death. Together, they pooled what they knew to create the Great Rite, the Rite of Rebirth, the Spell of Life, and used it to save the life of Osiris' and Isis' son Horus.

Set slew Osiris once more, sending him to the Underworld. Horus rose to avenge his father, driving Set into hiding, but he continued to manipulate Egypt from the shadows, expanding his influence into the wider world. Over the millennia that followed, Horus and his followers would use the Rite to create new immortals to assist in the battle against Set and the other servants of Apophis - the mummies.

Mummy second edition expanded and updated the original, bringing it in line with the WOD circa Changeling: The Dreaming.

Then, in 2002, as part of the "Year of the Scarab" (a Middle Eastern-themed year), White Wolf revamped Mummy, giving it its own hardback: Mummy: The Resurrection.

The final book for Wraith: The Oblivion had unleashed the Sixth Great Maelstrom, the Dja-akh, laying waste to the Underworld. Across the world, the immortals of prior ages saw that new champions would be needed to take action against the darkness heralded by the Maelstrom. Osiris roused from his dormancy to pass on a new Spell of Life, joining a shard of an ancient soul shredded by the Dja-akh to a modern mortal with a flawed spirit, creating the Amenti, the new Reborn. The mallki of South America merged with the souls of their descendants to create the Teomallki. The Eight Great Immortals of China, cast out of heaven, sought followers of the Tao, souls in balance, to be given the gift of immortality, forming the Wu T'ian, the family of heaven.

Resurrection was the first version to introduce splats, known as dynasties. Amenti dynasties were based on the type of soul-shard the new mummy had bonded with, Teomallki dynasties on which culture the mallki had come from, and the Wu T'ian on whether they were aspected to yin or yang.

The Resurrection corebook gave full writeups for the Amenti, with guidelines for the others; they received full writeups of their own in the Mummy Player's Guide.

Unlike the oWOD's main games, Resurrection didn't provide core rules in the main book, requiring a main WOD corebook to play. There was only one supplement, the Mummy Player's Guide.

Mummy elements have popped up in the New World of Darkness, notably the Osirans of Promethean: The Created, the Purified of Immortals, and Geist: The Sin Eaters. A new Mummy-based limited gameline was announced for 2012. How close it will be to its predecessors remains to be seen.

Tropes used in Mummy: The Resurrection include:
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