The Kingdom
So @biomechanicaltomato and I were discussing favorite lore entries the other day, and I admitted mine was the Kingdom. But I mean, everyone assumes that’s out of personal bias and it’s actually NOT. I do love the mummy mafia and all but if you haven’t properly read the Kingdom’s lore.. savored it.. .read it a loud... you’re missing out. I’m going to break it down just because there’s some lines I REALLY ADORE so the lines below the bold are me.
Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.
TRANSMIT - initiate Ka signal - RECEIVE - initiate Ba syntax - IT KEEPS GOING AND GOING AND GOING - initiate the Going-Forth-By-Day lexicon - THREE CAN KEEP A SECRET, IF ALL OF THEM ARE DEAD - the necrotic prerogative - WITNESS - The Kingdom.
Staccato city sounds beat the tempo. Cue the Danse Macabre.
Can we just discuss the beauty of this line? Like the sheer way this clicks on your tongue when you say it allowed? Staccato city sounds beat... it already is setting up a rhythm for the entry, pulling you into this almost whimsical pulse.
The hand that deftly holds the smartphone is skeletal with rot, skin like old tea leaves. The ears are mostly withered away. A tongue like a dried date waxes eloquently into the receiver, setting the pieces, playing the game. Empty sockets stare from sunglasses. They still have a formidable wink. The drawn rictus always grins knowingly. Frowning is a fad of the living. He smells oddly sweet - honey and the wilted flowers of an absentee lover. With perfect suavity, he adjusts a silk tie and tips his hat.
All of these lines. Talk about romanticizing a mummy. I mean, it’s keeping the beat introduced. The lines flow into one another “dried date waxes eloquently” “frowning is a fad of the living”... and the attention it draws to him. Of course, there’s some startling lines, like skeletal with rot to remind you that it’s not prince charming. But “hand that deftly holds” “old tea leaves” “a dried date” “formidable wink” “grins knowingly” “honey and wilted flowers of an absentee lover” “perfect suavity”. These are all literally things that are tactile and romantic, even noting the silk tie. You’re introduced towards the senses by flat out being told about his hand and it’s deftness. You can visualize old tea leaves. You don’t really see the tongue as horrific because you’re almost too busy imagining a dried date. You know he can’t wink from the previous line but you still feel there’s something undoubtedly charming and charismatic about him. He grins knowingly... you can imagine the scent of honey and flowers. The paragraph even uses the TERM “lover”. This is not your average horror mummy. He can never be your average horror mummy. If it wasn’t for the fact he was a mummy and the fine details about his ears and skeletal, he’d be almost out a freaking romance novel.
He shambles away with such undying style. His name is Saïd. At least, that's the name he would give you. No one remembers Saïd's name. Not even Saïd.
The dapper dead strut the streets of modern Cairo in Armani suits. There are levels of panache the breathing never achieve. In the deep shade, they tickle the strings - kingpins of Egypt's criminal underbelly. Hidden, fearless, outside the bounds of any faction - no rules save what they create. Their chests are hollow, but their ribcages pound with lust and debauchery. These embalmed princes pursue the one sanctity left in this world: money. They are the Kingdom.
I don’t have much to say about these lines except to love ‘undying style’ ‘panache the breathing never achieve’ ‘ribages pound with lust and debauchery’ and to note the delightful beat of the alliterations ‘dapper dead’ ‘strut the streets’ ‘princes pursue’. Further proof this entire lore entry is written like the dance it challenges you to at the beginning. It has a rhythm.
Initiate internal scan - dry bodies contain eternal souls. Initiate the secret histories. What is time? We stand outside - everything has happened - everything is happening - into the past - the connecting frequency is the clink of coins.
I have nothing to say here except swoon over the way ‘connecting frequency is the clink of coins’ flows. And again note how sensory the lore is for something that is supposed to be about undead. You can’t help but HEAR coins clinking, it draws you in.
In the before - they are all rich men - merchants, nobles, and priests - living fine lives in the golden age of the land of Pharaohs. But death is blind to wealth. These men of affluence obsess over immortality and afterlife access. Their coin buys potent rituals. Something goes horribly right. Something goes wonderfully wrong.
... I adore the almost slant/true rhyme of this. If you read it smoothly, ‘living fine’ and ‘death is blind’ seem to echo each other. ‘of affluence obsess’ ‘afterlife access’ do as well.
A bizarre accident - the spark of life hibernates within their mummified husks. Time passes, first in years, then in decades. Their souls rebuild - spirits ever-living, flesh ever-dead. They open their shrivelled eyes. Oh, the shock. Oh, the best laid plans.
There’s actually less of a rhythm in this verse. It’s still present, but it’s subdued. Which is fitting as this is the reference where the dance is interrupted. Their lives of debauchery and wealth, their plans are wrong. Everything has changed.
They stumble from their tombs like emerging cicadas who find they have no wings. They are strangers in a strange land. But they find one another, and these men of pragmatism accept their cadaverous existence. They are men of talent, now united. Why should they lower their standard of living in this afterlife? Their mouths decay into smiles. They gather their funerary treasures, and the forbidden relics of other tombs. Wealthy once more, they hide from the living, and form a decadent underworld.
The rhythm picks up again in this verse. The first line is very poetic, but ‘men of pragmatism’ doesn’t flow as well as the rest...it’s not quite into pace yet. But then you’re immediately hit with ‘accept their cadaverous existence’ and that flows as smooth as honey. “Men of talent” has more rhythm, and you can almost feel the build up of their glee here as the Kingdom accepts what has happened and makes the best of it.
Time passes, first in centuries, then in millennia. Their dance stays the same - financial acumen and preternatural terror - a hidden empire - a seedy dominion. Cairo is theirs.
Look, there’s a reason I’m pursuing my graduate in Literature despite having my undergraduate in history. Man, ‘financial acumen and preternatural terror’ is this amazing mix of civility and horror, and it flows so well into the next descriptions.
Initiate the now.
Politicians and law enforcement think they rule society. They cannot see their own puppet holes or the desiccated hands jammed inside. Civic planning, excavation rights, gambling, prostitution, black market trade - all these belong to the Kingdom, and they offer access to it for the right price.
First, desiccated hands jammed inside is a major departure from that deftly holds from earlier. But it is strong as hell imagery. The scope we’re shown here is fantastic too. There is no part the Kingdom does not control and that’s rather impressive. But I really have to touch on ‘all these belong to the Kingdom, and they offer access to it for the right price’ because something about this line is very Poe to me. It’s not complicated phrases, but there’s a rhythm to its words that calls to mind The Masque of Red Death ( “ And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”) and that’s really a very fitting story considering that the Kingdom is both the Prince Prospero AND the Red Death in a sense of the original story.
There is no morality or loyalty. Those rotted away long ago. There is no grand plan of world domination. The debonair mummies continue their eternal existence.
Again, I don’t really have much comment on it except to love the Poe feel of these lines, and to adore the alliterative nature of some of them.
The internet has been kind to the shamblers. Information and anonymity, all at a touch. The flesh be persevered, but the spirit be willing. Undead, but not anachronisms, they delight in the digital toys of this faceless age.
One of my favorite lines of the lore ever is ‘Undead, but not anachronisms’. Then we see the alliteration of delight and digital. The rhythm has been back, but here it almost takes center stage again.
Recent events bring the secret societies back to Egypt. The Kingdom has no interest in the ethics or politics of the secret world - the struggles between the factions - but they do watch the movements, eager for opportunity. They offer their services, careful to creep past the eyes of the Council of Venice.
This was a trickier paragraph to highlight as I read over it. There’s a very solid pace to it and intertwining. Depending on the way you read it, that “E” is pretty powerful in it. REcent, Events, SEcret, Egypt, Eager, Eyes. So is the S and Cs at play, secret societies, ethiCS, PolitiCS, Struggles, Services.. and I have to just completely separate out the alliteration of ‘careful to creep...of the Council.’
Watch the dead dance, sweetling. They worry not about the living or of consequence. They do not agonise over the insane cults that have crept up in their backyard, who worship the anathema to all life. Why should they worry? They have already died. The worst is past. And the afterlife has been very, very good to them.
Again, tricky to explain this one, though easier if you just read it and let it flow off your tongue. Watch - Worry- Worship- Why- Worry- Worst. Dead- Dance- Died (with the already setting up a D in front of the last term). Consequence - Cults- Crept. Agonise - Anathema- Afterlife. It’s not actual alliteration as the words only occasionally directly follow one another, but the similar use of the letters creates a distinct pace to the lore here that works brilliantly.
Do you hear the static-twinkle of our laughter? We know a secret, sweetling, and now we will tell it to you: there are always worse things than dying.
This last verse is not so much rhythm. It is the buzzing laughing. “The static-twinkle of our laughter” is another emphasis on sound, this time something more alien than the very earthy examples it drew us into with the Kingom. It is technological. But even here, Static-Secret-Sweetling. We-Will-Worse. The almost use of pace to create a rhyme between ‘sweetling’ and ‘things’ and ‘dying’.
Over all, the lore of the Kingdom could be easily shifted into a modern poem... or given an almost ancient chant feel. It has a beat, a rhythm, a tangling of the words and sounds that is lyrical. THAT’S why it’s my favorite lore. Not just because I love the Kingdom, and I do love the Kingdom. But because it’s gorgeous and intricate writing that I’m almost tempted to record myself reading aloud just so people actually hear the rhythm of it.
And yes, I was just a big enough dork to break down a lore by technique in game without concerning myself over the actual implications within it (WHICH ARE ALSO BRILLIANT OKAY). Send help.