A return to the printing press.

Oh man... this old thing.

It's been a while since I've had any use out of this blog. A shame really, but it's an old habit of mine, picking something up, enjoying it, putting time and occasionally effort into it. Then loosing interest and never really going back to it.

But I'm bored, so what the hell.

Interests have changed of the years since I last posted any updates, educations were completed, friends were found and the world went into an economic meltdown which only seems to get worst with every passing week. Leaving thousands, maybe even millions destitute and ensuring that nothing will ever be the same again.

I could say something pithy and oh so witty, but all the good lines have already been taken by people far cleverer and more tuned in to Global economical events and the ever increasing socio-political fall out which surounds them like a cloud of flies on a corpse. So I'll talk about something which interests me instead.

For the past few years I've become something of a Role Play fan. Role Play being dungeons and dragons as opposed to sexy nurses/teachers/police officers in the bedroom. This is an important distinction to make early on or otherwise you're all going to start thinking that my sex life is very odd indeed.

Recently I've been spending much of my time exploring the many and varied Splats put out by White Wolf. Primarily in it's New World of Darkness lines, (henceforth referred to as NWoD) these range from the typical big three of Vampire, Wearwolf, and Mage. To the smaller games of Hunter (Supernatural the RPG), Changeling (People who escaped from imprisonment by fairies), Promithian (Frankinstines monster gives you cancer), Geist (I don't even know how to explain this one), and a new upcoming edition to the world.

Mummy.

Mummy: the Curse to give it it's full title, involves, shockingly, Mummys. As they attempt to fulfil the needs and whims of their dark gods, remember who they were, keep their Cult happy, and generally fuck up anyone who gets in their way. Of which they are really good at.

White Wolf have changed up the game plan with Mummy. As opposed to the previous lines wherein the players would be persistently active within the game world, Mummys (Mummies?) only wake up when certain conditions are met. Spending the rest of the time sleeping in their tombs and being tended to by their cults. Said conditions range from Peeps breaking in and nicking stuff, the Cult waking you up or the stars being right. This conditions are pretty convenient plot hooks for your players to sink their teeth into right off the bat, and the system actually rewards payers who work towards the goal as opposed to just fucking about and not getting anything done.

It does this via a reversal of the usual progression of power most NWoD players go through. Every supernatural has a stat related to measuring the innate power which makes them what they are. In the vampires case this is 'Blood potency' or with the Werewolf it is referred to as 'Primal Urge'. These Powerstats universally begin at 1/10 giving the player plenty of time to become familiar with the mechanics of their character before taking them (in some cases) to godhood.

Mummy: the Curse starts it's characters with a Powerstat of 10/10. Making a freshly arisen character one of the most potent supernatural creatures on the planet. But here's the catch, their Powerstat, called Sekhem (roughly translated to 'life energy' I think) slowly drops as time goes on. Giving Mummies limited tenure to do what they gotta do. Fucking about will make it lower faster, cutting time between each separate Decent role. Where as working towards your goal and pleasing the Gods will grant you a reset to the counter before the next Decent role comes along. The degeneration will inevitably happen there's no two ways about it, but doing what you're supposed to be will let you stay at the top tiers that much longer.

In another reversal the Morality stat is replaced with Memory and starts you off at the bottom of the gauge as opposed to the top. In this case Memory represents how much of their existance the Mummy can remember. The lower it is the less they can remember, but the easier it is to tear a guy limb from limb and not feel all guilty over it.

Both of these changes gives the game an interesting new flavour, and has the added bonus of focusing the players on what's important to the campain. They can go off and do their own thing by all means, but don't go crying to the GM when your Sekhem starts dropping like a stone. Sekhem is also be spent for a number of other things, such as repairing Aggravated damage on the fly, or restoring all used Willpower dots. It's useful but risky tactic that can bring a Mummy closer to their end, but be the very thing they need to complete their objective.

I haven't mentioned Utterances and Affinities, well these are the powers granted to the Mummies. Affinities are small traits which can give the Arisen some cool little powers. Like seeing ghosts, being amazing at parkour, or punching through a bank vault door. The Affinities also have a quality which I'll talk about later but for right now I'm focusing on the positive.

Utterances are the bigger magical powers. Crazy shit like breathing fire, summoning swarms of Scarabs, or... I don't know... BEING THE STAR WHICH LEAD THE THREE WISE MEN TO BETHLEHEM AND THE ANGEL WHO APPEARED TO THE SHEPHERDS.
THAT IS A THING.
THAT YOU CAN DO.

I fucking love it!

Some of the Utterances are bible inspired (Like the one which let's you part bodies of water), where as others are inspired by film and TV (making sand storms eat people). There's a lot of variety and pretty much all of them do some really cool things.

The actual progression of the powers is pretty unique as well and ties into my next point. When you get an Utterance you have three 'tiers'. Each one does something different all of them have their uses. Unlike the normal powers in NWoD, you only need to buy an Utterance once. As long as you meet the requirements for the next tier you can cast it. Meaning that clever players will plot out their purchases ahead of time to take maximum advantages of their pillars.

Oh yeah, Pillars.

The Mummies have a thing called a "Five part soul" each part represented by one of the five Pillars. Ab (Heart), Ba (Spirit) Ka (Essence) Ren (Name) Sheut (Shadow). Mummies can have up to five levels in each pillar. These Pillar points are used to fuel their abilities, from stat boosts, to improved healing, powering Utterances, and activating Relics. Unlike other Supernaturals a Mummies max pool is twenty five Pillar Points, so five dots in each pillar. However the relatively low cost of the Mummies abilities makes that a very minor problem. The level of the individual Pillars is used to work out which Tiers have been unlocked on the Utterences. So expect a Mummy with a lot of Pillars to be able to throw around a lot of moves.

The thing is, that while you might start out with access to the cool awesome powers and shit tone of Pillar points. The slow inevitable decline of your Sekhem stat will eventually hit a point where it will start to lower your statistical maximums. Your attributes, skills, Pillars, and by extension your Utterances and affinities will ether be capped or disappear completely, loosing you access to your cool shit as your overall power weakens.

But the powers aren't lost, you simply don't have enough energy to fuel them. And thankfully there are ways to get it back. The primary being, break the things the gods what you to get in the first place. The world is littered with Artefacts, objects containing Sekrem granting them strange abilities. It is these Artefacts that the Mummy is occasionally woken up to find. For the most part grabbing it and stuffing it inside your tomb works for your fickle gods. However, if you fancy some more time running about the mortal world, or theres that one guy you really want to kill before you go and have your nap, you can drink Sekhem from the Artefacts and re-energize yourself.

This comes with it's own dangers, creating horrific monsters, weakening or destroying the artefact, and pissing of your god. Which is a very bad idea. Do it enough and he might just wake up some other mummies to come and stomp your face in. They're kinda dicks like that.

Speaking of getting your face stomped in I've yet to talk endlessly about the unique enemies that Mummy brings to the table. But I suppose that that and the background details can wait for another time. This is pretty long as it it.

So stay tuned for part two, where in I talk about the bad guys, the setting, and maybe even how to integrate Mummies into other NWoD games.