Mummy (Pathfinder Second Edition Archetype)
(art by Uriak on DeviantArt)
And it’s time for another archetype from Book of the Dead that lets you play an undead character! This time it’s a pretty interesting one in that we’re looking at: mummies!
Mummies have been in RPGs since the beginning, but their presence as undead creatures is actually relatively recent compared to the age of the culture they come from. That’s right, there are straight up no stories of mummies rising from their grave to torment the living in Ancient Egypt, presumably because a mummy, by necessity, was one that had undergone all the proper rites of death and therefore didn’t have any reason for stories of them rising and complaining about it.
Heck, even The Curse of the Pharaohs, the idea that those that dare disturb the tombs of kings would be cursed with a painful death is fairly recent, with the closest thing we actually have from the various dynasties and periods of the nation being warnings to not disturb or desecrate the tombs and sarcophagi of a pharaoh lest they lose the favor of the gods, but those are more akin to having the awareness to realize that your successor is probably gonna deface any statue of you they can find and strike your name from all records they can get ahold of, because that happened a lot.
The actual undead mummy is actually a creation of foreign writers, going as far back as the 1840s with Gautier’s The Mummy’s Foot, and 60 years later with Bram Stoker’s (yes, that Bram Stoker) The Jewel of the Seven Stars, along with others in that period like Arthur Conan Doyle, and so on.
Curiously, most of these undead mummies were not monsters per se, having no hostile intentions towards mortals, but rather, were often love interests for the protagonists, which smacks of elements of the exotification and sexualization of the East, which is unfortunate. On the other hand, if there’s any online community that can emphasize with the idea of dating an immortal being from a bygone era, it’s tumblr. This focus on desire also explains why even more horror-focused mummy fiction often gives the mummies ways to “rehydrate”, regenerating themselves into a fleshy, lifelike form, if only temporarily and usually at the expense of some poor sap, cursed or otherwise.
Mummies as horror monsters didn’t really start until the 1930’s with Boris Karloff in the Universal Studios The Mummy movie, and even that retains the notion of the mummy regaining a semblance of life, since he only spends one scene of the movie as a shambling corpse and the rest as an offputting older gentleman who politely insists not to be touched.
Beyond that, mummies in fiction have ranged from being similar undead sorcerers to being particularly dusty zombies that may or may not have a would-be necromancer commanding them, and their appearance in tabletop games has similarly varied.
In Pathfinder, the generally accepted paradigm is that mummies range in power from the basic variety, which were typically mere servants or mummified accidentally by extreme outdoor conditions such as bogs, deserts, or extreme altitudes, whereas greater mummies (represented by the Osirian Mummy and Mummified creature templates in First Edition) were a step above, retaining their skills and sense of self. Meanwhile, at the pinnacle were mummy lords, created from the bodies and souls of the most powerful and magically-skilled pharaohs.
However, a detail that was brought into focus with Second Edition was that mummies, no matter what culture they belong to or where they are found, are undead tied to the land, which makes sense due to the way that every mummification process involves at least some level of environmental process, from being soaked in anaerobic bog water/peat to being desiccated by the sun or natron salts, and so on. That connection is what gives many mummies their strange powers over the environments they hail from (like conjuring sandstorms or turning into clouds of sand and the like). Of course, that connection also subtly taints the natural world around them wherever they go, given their status as undead beings.
While it is possible to play a character who underwent the ritual to become a mummy in recent times (either just after death or more horrifyingly while still alive), the nature of this archetype lends itself better to playing a time-displaced undead character who only just woke up from their eternal rest. Whether you’re a millenia-old citizen of a now-defunct desert kingdom or some poor explorer that died in a bog and only clawed their way out a century later when someone accidentally stepped on their head while wading through the muck, there’s a lot of potential there.
So let’s take a look, shall we?
Like all undead archetypes and certain other spellcasting ones, you can technically take this archetype at first level, but must obviously take the dedication as your 2nd level feat. In this case, the dedication provides the basic undead benefits, as well as increased physical durability at the cost of fire vulnerability. Additionally, their unarmed strike becomes stronger as they pull water from their targets on contact. Meanwhile, they also establish a bond with an extreme terrain predominant to the region they were mummified within, which determines the aesthetics of later abilities as well as what terrain certain other abilities function with.
Case in point, most are able to stride through difficult terrain in their bonded environment with ease, as well as see through concealment within it as well, be it the snowstorms of the arctic or mountains, the sand of deserts, or the fogs of the marsh.
Whether it be from their strikes or from another ability, they can use the moisture drawn from other creatures to trigger a transformation, regaining a semblance of life and vitality for a short time.
Many also develop the greater benefits of undeath, as well as resistance to actively harmful aspects of their bonded terrain as well.
Whether they were mummified alive or merely endured the traumas of their soul being bound to their corpse, the process of becoming an undead mummy is filled with anguish, which they can then weaponize in one of their more infamous abilities as an aura of despair. While not yet potent enough to paralyze with fear, it can send foes fleeing.
While this archetype can’t grant true mummy rot, they can inflict a withering necromantic affliction on foes when they get a particularly lucky blow on foes, consuming their vitality and body while it lasts.
Some of these mummies can call upon atmospheric phenomena from their bonded region to summon concealing storms of mist, sand, and the like, making their presence obvious but their exact position impossible to determine, making for a useful defense.
Those of a warrior disposition often learn to channel their lesser curse through weapons rather than their limbs.
While otherwise ordinary cloth, many mummies can infuse some of their malevolence into their wrappings to briefly animate them, following up a strike to entrap foes with them.
Taking their bond with the terrain further, some learn to actually become the terrain, turning into flying clouds of an appropriate substrate such as mist, snow, sand, bog water, and the like.
In a horrific display of their mastery of moisture and life force, powerful mummies can suck both right out of foes in a wide conical area with a horrid inhalation, harming them and healing themselves.
Finally, some refine their despair aura so they can do so more often, and those that are especially affected are outright paralyzed with fear for a few critical moments.
The mummy archetype does a good job of emulating the powers most commonly associated with undead mummies in a balanced way, and can certainly be fun for any sort of character without requiring you to invest super heavily into it. If the game takes place in a lot of set pieces covering their favored terrain, it can be quite powerful if you spec for that, or you can just focus on being an especially tanky undead melee character. Certainly the despair ability is useful for every character, and being able to enshroud oneself or turn into clouds of particulate is useful for close and ranged characters alike. As such, there is no one specific build for this archetype, but you can choose to add it’s benefits to whatever build you’re going for.
Like I said before, it is entirely possible to play a truly ancient undead with this archetype, which opens up some interesting roleplaying opportunities. Obviously culture clash between your original culture and those that exist in the modern era is one, but also consider the knowledge that you bring with you from your old life. After all, undead mummies have included royalty, high priests, mages, and more in fiction, so their perspective can be interesting.
His hairs all fallen out long ago and his husk as dry as an old waybread wafer, Nshantu the Ensnared is the oldest storyteller among the anandi, though that’s hardly an impressive boast since he ventured high into the mountains to become a mummy. Still, the silk-bound arachnid boasts the deepest pool of knowledge in the region, which he will share with those who offer him information in exchange.
In their quest to defeat the risen pharaoh that has kidnapped their patron, whom he believes is a reincarnation of his lover, the party finds a lead in references to one of his old servants, a jaathoom, or djinn genie who still dwells on the material plane.
Ever since the party made it through Blackwater Bog, something has been following them. They sometimes sense something on the edge of the firelight that vanishes when they try to find it, and just yesterday the woman they’ve been escorting found a muddy handprint on her bag. But is this stalker foe, or friend?
