The Structure of Tombs

The afterlife of the Egyptians is the Field of Reeds, a part of the Magic Realm where the ghosts (ka) of the Egyptian dead dwell in great comfort. Unlike Christian people who go to their Heaven and dwell eternally in bliss, a ghost that travels to the Field of Reeds cannot remain

Each tomb, at its least elaborate, has two rooms, housing three essential parts. These are: the mortuary chapel, which is where offerings to feed the ghost are left by its descendants; the serdab, which is the home of the ghost on Earth; and the sepulcher, where the body is kept. In the simplest tombs, the serdab is included in either the sepulcher or the chapel. The chapel is designed for mortal access, but the other two elements are defended by barriers, wards, traps and guardians.

At least once a year, the ghost is required to return to the mortal realm and partake of mortal food, to restore its strength in the Field of Reeds, so a small room at the front of most tombs is set aside for this purpose. This is the only room which is easily entered by mortals. These are usually priests or descendants, who bring offerings for the sustenance of the dead. The spirit of the dead person enters this room, after the visitors have gone, to consume the spiritual energy of their offerings.

In later tombs, a desire for greater security for the grave goods altered the chapel's form. In some tombs it is merely a niche at the entry, with an offering table. The niche stands in front of a symbolic door, which cannot be opened. In others, the chapel is detached from the tomb.

The chapel always includes a statue of the tomb's inhabitant. A popular depiction is of the person, standing upright, walking out of a false door, into the chapel. In other chapels the dead person is seated in state. This is a convenience for the ghost: when the supplicants leave, it can animate that particular statue, as consuming the spiritual sustenance it requires is easier in material form.

In later tombs, a couple of changes occurred which made life easier for the descendants. A method was discovered of feeding

ghosts using representations of food. Initially these were placed as statues in the chapel, then later they were represented by paintings in the sepulcher, where they were less likely to be disturbed by tomb robbers. A method of simplifying prayers to the dead was also devised. In early tombs, descendants would give sacrifices to gods on the basis that the gods would pass on some portion of the sacrifice to the ancestor. In later tombs, stelae were placed outside the tomb, commanding gods to provide certain, often exorbitant, provisions for the dead. These were triggered when passers-by read them.

A Note on Tombs

Sagas vary in their tone, so this chapter presents a guide for the construction of simple, realistic tombs, and for the labyrinthine necropolises of treasure seeker manuals. Troupes may include tombs of various types within a single saga. Assume the simpler tombs were constructed earlier, when the technologies of tomb defense were less developed, as the resting places of less wealthy individuals, or after Egypt had suffered a long drought.

The second room is a private space for the dead person's spirit to inhabit. The serdab is often buried in the masonry of the tomb, with no passage of human size permitting access. It is filled with grave goods. These include either real objects or representations of everything the dead person needs in the afterlife. Except in early serdabs, made before this technology was developed, the walls of this area are covered with depictions of useful things. An Egyptian ghost can manifest, as part of its ethereal form, any item found in its grave goods or depicted on its tomb walls, provided they have not been stolen or defaced. These items can, at the ghost's discretion, affect mortals. After the idea of depiction became popular, it was taken to extremes. Many walls show fields full of agricultural laborers, growing food and drink for their dead master.

Stele

The serdab also contains a doorway (a stele) to Duat, the afterlife which contains the Field of Reeds. The stele is a vestige, usually aligned to the Form of Mentem. The stele takes the form of a linteled door facing west. Generally the stele is merely the representation of a door; the ghost walks through it in a spiritual rather than physical sense. In some tombs, the stelae are tiny representations, because the ghost does not need to physically enter and so their size does not matter. In the very early tombs, this is instead a narrow passage, a few inches wide, punched through the western wall of the tomb from the serdab outward.

In early tombs the stele is unadorned. In slightly later tombs the name of the person appears on the stele, perhaps to prevent ghosts using each other's stelae to steal grave goods. Over time the decoration became more complicated. Late stelae include the name and biography of the dead person, and hints for them about how to live in the afterlife. These hints sometimes include spells, or, at least, incantations that the creatures of the Field of Reeds accept as binding them to act in certain ways.

Statues

Egyptian ghosts in the mundane world prefer to be incarnate. While material they

Some creatures guard an entire graveyard, not a specific tomb. Characters are less likely to meet these beings than the guardians of the particular tomb they are attempting to enter. The use of powerful magic in the graveyard may draw them to the entrance of the tomb in which the player characters are active, to ambush the characters as they emerge.

Canocephalus Decapitators

These are the spirits which dissuade most people from tomb robbing. Decapitators are more active at night, and often appear in pairs.

Faerie Might: 25 (Animal)

Characteristics: Cun +5, Per +3*, Pre 0, Com n/a, Str +7, Sta Tireless, Dex +2, Qik +3

Size: +2

Virtues and Flaws: Greater Powers x 2 (Chilling Laugh or Howl, Damaging Effect, Decapitate), Huge; Feast of the Dead (recovers 2 Might when it inflicts a Heavy Wound or greater), Hybrid Form, Improved Initiative x2 *; Incognizant,

Traditional Ward (Removal of the medallions – see accompanying story hook).

* Included in statistics given below.

Personality Traits: Hates defilers +5

Reputations: Homicidally Territorial 5 (General)

Combat*:

2 knives**: Init +5, Attack +11, Defense +8, Damage +12***

Bite: Init +7, Attack +8, Defense +7, Damage +8***

* If a pack of these creatures gather to defend a graveyard they fight as a trained group.

** These knives are large enough to use the statistics for shortswords, for smaller characters, but are still a Brawling weapon in the hands of the huge guardians of graveyards.

*** Does not include +5 for Damaging Effect Soak: +6 (Light Egyptian armor – boots, pectoral, greaves)

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–7), –3 (8–14), –5 (15–21), Incapacitated (22–28), Dead (29+)

Pretenses*: Athletics 5 (chasing), Aware-

ness 5 (intruders), Brawl 5 (knives), Hunt 5 (in graveyards)

*See Realms of Power: Faerie or just use equivalent Abilities.

Powers:

Chilling Howl: 4 points, Init +1, Corpus: Completely paralyses characters who hear the creature's war cry. Some report the cry sounds like the howl of a wolf, others that it sounds like the mocking laughter of the hyena, others that it sounds like the chitter of a setbeast. (Base 5, +2 Voice, +2 Sun, +2 Group)

Damaging Effect, 2 points, Init –2, By weapon. Causes all of the creatures weapons to become exceptionally sharp for the next two minutes. Damage +5. (Base 5, +1 Part, +1 Diameter) Base is lower than Hermetic level, as per Realms of Power: Faerie page 58.

Decapitate, 4 points, Init –2, Corpus: Cleanly removes the head of a victim struck in combat. (Base 40 (instant death) +1 Touch, 5 levels on cost)

Equipment: Knives of obsidian or alchemically-toughened bronze. Armor or clothes in the Egyptian style, jewelry.

Vis: 5 pawns in the skull of a dog or hyena, found after the body disintegrates at death.

Appearance: This is a medieval interpretation of seals showing the god Anubis. Imagine a fit warrior, with the head of a jackal and a savage expression, surrounded by the corpses of his decapitated enemies.

Story Seed: Medallion Removal

Many of the statues in each graveyard have medallions around their necks. Each medallion shows one of these creatures surrounded by bound and decapitated victims. Seals with the same design are also found on tomb doors, and other architectural features. The absence of these seals almost entirely prevents attack by the decapitators, while skulking around at night in graveyards is substantially more dangerous near these medallions. A character wanting to rob a tomb may visit the graveyard during the day, when the decapitators are less active, and try to remove or deface these medallions, without the humans who watch over the graveyard discovering their vandalism.

Great Guardian of the Tombs

Each of the great Egyptian necropolises has a protective spirit, which is extremely powerful but rarely intervenes. Magi using spells in the graveyard might draw a guardian from its sleep. The most powerful is the guardian for Gizeh, called the Father of Dread. This great effigy of Harmarchis, Horus at Dawn, is called the Sphinx by Greek scholars. The statue faces the opposite direction to that reported by Herodotus, but no-one recalls when it changed position, or why. Between the statue's forepaws is a small Divine aura, which appeared when Mary laid the infant Christ in the shadows here, as they rested. It may be this Divine aura which has locked the Father of Dread in place. It no longer grants predictions to the common person, or moves to give warnings of grave worldly events, but it has found a subtle way to continue protecting the tombs.

The Father of Dread is not designed as a player character.

The Father of Dread

Faerie Might: 65 (Animal)

Characteristics: Cun +3, Per +2, Pre –3, Com –3, Str +26, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik –9

Size: +10 (75 feet tall)

Virtues and Flaws: Ferocity, Huge, Immune to Fire, Sovereign Ward (The Divine), Hybrid Form, Personal Power (Extend Glamour), Time of Power (adds 10 Might while the Sun touches the horizon): Incognizant.

Personality Traits: Ferocity +5, Guardian of the dead +5

Reputations: Almost forgotten god 2 (scholars) Combat:

2 Large Claws: Init –9, Attack +17*, Defense +4*, Damage +27

Bite: Init –9, Attack +14*, Defense +1*, Damage +24

* Does not include Ferocity bonus.

Soak: +8

Wound Penalties*: –1 (1–21), –3 (22–32), –5 (33–43), Incapacitated (44–54), Dead (55+)

* Adjusted for stone body and size.

Pretenses*: Athletics 5 (pouncing), Awareness 5 (victims), Brawl 9 (claws), Hunt (people) 5

* See Realms of Power: Faerie or just use Abilities. Powers:

Chilling Howl: 4 points, Init –13, Animal: Completely paralyzes characters who hear the creature's hunting roar. It sounds like a tremendous lion, whose roar is so deep it rattles the bones. (Base 5, +2 Voice, +2 Sun, +2 Group)

Spirit Away: variable points, n/a, Vim: Spirit Away is a special power described in detail in Chapter 2 of Realms of Power: Faerie. It allows a creature to sweep mortals into Faerie. As characters transgress sacred spaces, or moral boundaries, they become easier to remove from the world. The Father of Dread uses this power to draw mortals into Faerie. Its lands look much like Giza at dawn. It then hunts its victims and eats them. Remember that in Faerie the creature has +10 Might.

Extend Glamour: 0 points, constant, Mentem. This creature is a God of Dawn, and when in Faerie it can cause it to be dawn whenever it wishes, at which time it has an added 10 Might. The creature knows many magical effects end at dawn, and uses cascading dawns to strip magical defenses from its enemies. As the Sun bob ups and down at the horizon, magi must either allow their Parmae Magicae to fail, or spend every round performing the ritual that maintains the shield. It also means that the creature knows where its quarry is. This power needs to penetrate magical defenses, but the creature's Might is so great that few can resist it.

Vis: 13, the skull of a pharaoh built into the Father of Dread.

Appearance: The Father of Dread used to act in the world by possessing the great statue that guards the tombs at Giza; an immense statue of a lion with the head of a human complete with headdress. It has a less weather-worn appearance in Faerie. It also has a ceremonial beard, which has been lost from the mundane statue.