Defenses

Tombs filled with grave goods are obviously temping to thieves, and so the ancient architects lavished care on the defense of each tomb's contents.

The simplest way of keeping non-magical thieves out of tombs is to bar their way. Iron was rare in ancient Egypt, so passageways within tombs are often barred with rubble. In wealthier tombs, granite blocks bar passageways. These are so large and hard that treasure hunting manuals advise patiently quarrying through the limestone that surrounds them. Pits, placed not as traps but simply to deter entrance, are common. Some passages, particularly those sloping downward, were filled with a mixture of sand and lime, then soaked with water. This mixture sets into a loose cement, which is time consuming to break apart even with iron tools.

Architects can make robbing a tomb more difficult with little flourishes of design. As described earlier, some tombs have jackets of stone which hide the entrances. Many tombs contain unfinished chambers, which are designed to convince the tomb robber to stop looking for treasure in this particular place. Tombs with false chambers usually have a section of false wall or floor, behind which a sealed passage leads to the functional rooms of the tomb.

Ancient mechanisms are made with exceptional cunning and skill. Treasure-seeker manuals often discuss the cunning devices used by the ancients, and give instructions for making these machines safe. Ancient devices made of bronze and clockwork power traps that reload projectiles, reset between victims, move large objects, and respond to pressure plates or hidden levers. These mechanisms may be hidden in the walls, floors or ceilings of tombs, or may be contained in an ark or statue in the room where the trap lies. Destruction of the mechanism can cause a trap to seize in its current position. Spells that detect metal can help pinpoint the mechanism's location, allowing magi, or strong characters with mining tools, to break through the intervening stonework.

Traps serve a different purpose in Egyptian tombs stories than in many other role-playing games: they give player characters a chance to show how skilled and powerful they are, by overcoming the obstacle in interesting ways.

As an example, a maga and her retinue are proceeding cautiously along a passageway in a tomb. The lead character, a grog, breaks through a layer of plaster over a pit, and begins to fall. Each player needs to frame an interesting thing for his character to do, and each rolls only for that thing.

The player with the grog says "I notice the sound of the plaster cracking and then vault clear to the other side" or "I hear the sound and smash the tip of my sword so hard into the wall that I can hang off it" or "I do a flip backward so I can grab the solid edge of the pit, that I just stepped off onto the weak area."

The player of the companion standing behind the grog says "I throw myself flat on the ground and reach out for him if he falls. I hold him up until other people can haul us in. My heavy armor should stop him pulling me into the pit with him, right?" or "I run at him and catch him in a tackle which sends us both sprawling to the other side of the pit" or "I grab him and make sure I'm under him when we hit bottom, because I'm really tough, and he's a weedy little guy."

In each of these cases, the player suggests to the troupe what the appropriate roll is and

if the troupe finds it plausible, the storyguide provides an Ease Factor for the roll. Each trap is assigned a base Ease Factor, indicating the complexity of its construction. The storyguide should feel free to adjust these base Ease Factors by three, six, or more points either way for each character in turn, depending upon the difficulty of the attempted action. The table on page 7 of Ars Magica Fifth Edition can be used as a guide. A maga using magic to respond to a trap must use a Fast-Cast spell; the success of her actions is not affected by the trap's Ease Factor but adjudicated normally. One magus might turn the falling grog into a bat so that he flies free, another may fill the pit with human hair, to provide a cushioning surface, and so on.

The actions are resolved in order of Quickness, but with the character actually in danger always being treated as fastest, and the trap always going last. Quick characters can therefore affect or even interfere with the actions of slower ones. If a conflict between character actions takes place, then an Action Priority Roll might be appropriate (each character rolls Quickness + an appropriate Ability; the one with the highest total acts first; fast-casting magi use Finesse in this roll). Those characters affected by the trap who failed their rolls and were not assisted by the other characters then suffer the consequences of the trap's mechanism.

Examples of traps and their Ease Factors are given later in this section.

Some tombs contain rooms which can only be passed by completing a puzzle. These are a sort of complicated locking mechanism, mixed with a trap. In Ancient Egypt, the leisured class was small, and the literate class even smaller. Puzzles based on board game movements excluded those who did not have the leisure to

If you think your troupe is interested, have them play a historical game to pass through a puzzle room. If they like combat, have the player characters take a place on the board and fight the pieces they take, or that attempt to take them. If the player characters use magic, let them cheat.

master boardgames. Those based on touching the right hieroglyphs in sequence limited access to literate people who knew the codeword, and a memory prompt in the form of a sign or riddle is often found somewhere before the lock.

The most popular board game for puzzles in Egyptian tombs was called senet and is no longer played in Mythic Africa. Treasure seekers occasionally overcome locks with blind luck, and a dedicated magus might collect these accounts and determine the rules. Alternatively, some ancient Egyptian ghosts know the game. Many treasure hunters report backgammon-themed rooms, although people familiar with the history of this game questions their presence. Some suggest these have been placed in tombs by faeries.

Puzzle rooms often force the entrant to cross the room before attempting the test. The architect can plan all kinds of horrible things for the thief if the test is failed. Hermetic magi can subvert the traps in such rooms, for example by performing the test using Rego magic, while standing outside the entry door.

The combat magic of the ancient Egyptians was poor. Moses and the finest magi of the court of the richest of the pharaohs performed a sort of primitive certamen, which is recorded in the Bible. Each performed their mostly flashy Ritual spells, and challenged the rival to copy the effects. The most powerful spell effects created by the Egyptians are weak by the standards of the spirit masters of modern Arabia, and seem simple enough, in many cases, for Hermetic apprentices to replicate them.

There are rare exceptions, a scant handful for the thousands of years of Egyptian power. In particular, their ability to create lasting enchantments in the form of curses, talismans, and wards was exceptional in some cases. These were created using a lost form of magical craftwork described in Chapter 5, and can be studied as a source of insight by characters wishing to restore or adapt this art. It is unusual for the magical defenses of tombs to have been entrusted to one-use objects such as seals or temporary amulets. For the most part, Egyptian curses, talismans, and

wards should be designed using the rules for Hermetic magic items, but some might be more suited to Learned Magic (in Hedge Magic Revised Edition) with the provisos noted in the next chapter regarding magical craftwork. Egyptian enchanters always used opulent materials. This countered their weaker ability to force magic into material objects.

Curses are a special variety of tomb enchantments (see later). Most tombs have at least one curse, and some may have many multiclause maledictions that promise a number of horrible fates to anyone who defiles the tomb. These curses were designed and enchanted by lector priests using long-forgotten magic. A curse is written, usually in hieroglyphs but sometimes in Demotic, in a prominent location.

All curses have two parts: a condition and one or more excoriations. The condition lists the circumstances by which targets will incur the curse. Typical formulae include the following:

"As for him who shall destroy this inscription..."

"They that break the seal of this tomb..."

"As for anyone who shall enter this tomb in their impurity..."

"They that disturb the rest of this pharaoh..."

How literal these conditions should be taken is up to the storyguide: what precisely constitutes disturbing a corpse's rest? What type of purity is required to avoid the curse?

The excoriation is the magical part of the curse, describing the penalty that will be incurred if the warning is ignored. Examples are given later in this section.

A reworking of the Rogue (ArM5 page 23).

Magic Might: 15 (Mentem)

Characteristics: Int 0, Per +1, Pre 0, Com +1, Str –1, Sta 0, Dex +4, Qik +4

Size: 0

Virtues and Flaws: Magic Spirit, Magical Monster; Great Dexterity, Great Quickness, Improved Characteristics (x2), Light Touch, Perfect Balance, Puissant Legerdemain, Puissant Stealth; Avaricious (Major), Dark Secret; Ability Block (Illiterate), Compulsion.

Personality Traits: Avaricious +3, Defend the Tomb +3, Daring +2, Sociable +2

Magical Qualities: Increased Damage x2, Improved Powers, Lesser Powers x2, Personal Powers

Combat:

Fist: Init +4, Attack +7, Defense +7, Damage +5*

* Includes +6 Increased Damage.

Soak: 0

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapacitated (16–20), Dead (21+)

Abilities: As per ArM5, page 23. Includes Legerdemain 5 (picking pockets) and Stealth 5 (being quiet).

Powers:

Possess statue, 0 points, Init +3, Terram: Allows the ghost to take a statue of itself as a body. ReTe 25. Personal Power (25 levels, –3 Might cost, +2 Init from Improved Powers)

Thief after death, 1 point, Init 0, Terram: Allows

the thief to carry material objects in his hands (Base 3, +1 Touch, +1 Conc) Lesser Power (10 levels, –1 Might cost) Strangler, 0 points, Init 0, Corpus: Allows the thief to wrap his hands around the neck of a victim and choke him. This causes the loss of a Fatigue level. PeCo 15 (Base 10, +1 Touch) Lesser Power (15 levels, –3 Might cost, +1 Init)

Equipment: None of note Vis: 3 pawns, Mentem, hand.

Appearance: The ghost of a young tomb robber, killed by the guardians of the dead.

After the thief's death, the tomb's owner humiliated him further by carving a diminutive soapstone ushabti, and forcing the thief to animate it. While possessing the ushabti, his statistics are:

Characteristics: Str –9, Qik +8

Size: –4

Magical Qualities: Increased Damage (x2) Combat:

Fist: Init +8, Attack +7, Defense +11, Damage –2*

* Includes +6 Increased Damage.

Soak: +15 (soft stone)

Wound Penalties: –1 (1), –3 (2), –5 (3), Incapacitated (4), Dead (5+)