In
the Egyptian afterlife and in the land of the living as mummies, heroes
do battle with the serpent god, Apep, and it's minions, to preserve
order...or face final and ultimate oblivion.
Worldly Goods: An examination of gear for ancient Egypt.
Djehetsut: An example character
Origin & Inspiration
This one goes way back...when I was 14, my father had taken me to the Rosicrucian museum in San Jose, CA circa 1984 or so. It sparked a fascination with ancient Egypt. Then in 1989 or so, that fascination started life in the most basic state as a 2nd Edition AD&D game, one where I had set up a fictional desert empire (with a big river and delta) in a fantasy world. There were pyramids and mummies, and for all intents and purposes, it was a ripped-off Egypt. The concept wasn't stellar, and game play revolved around a mummified dragon who was causing trouble. It never saw completion but I always had the idea that in order to defeat the dragon for good in the living world, the players would have to essentially sacrifice themselves, become mummified, and do battle in the spirit world with the dragon to end its immortal life and save the kingdom.
Fast forward to the present day and I'm listening to Rob Zombie's Dragula for like the millionth time and for some reason, this one time, the line "conquering the wyrm" just jumped out at me and I made an immediate connection to that old D&D campaign.
I sat down to bring it all to life again as a Risus setting, but again, as originally written, it wasn't good. Eventually I decided to stop with the Egypt-wannabe and just go with actual ancient Egypt. As I did research, an idea started to bubble "what if the characters are already long dead?" From there I shifted the main action to the Egyptian afterlife. This changed everything for me, and turned it from 'meh' to 'hell yeah!' kind of setting.
The real challenge for the setting was trying to condense 3000+ years of mythology and history to 10 pages - making it playable, setting up the central conflict of the setting, including all game mechanics needed, and doing justice to a rich and detailed culture. I hope I succeeded. The rest is of course, just details.
