Apologies and Throw the Mummy off the Train!

From: Erik Sieurin <BV9521_at_utb.hb.se>
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 20:10:12 +0100


First, my sincere apologies for being a complete nitwit; I failed to notice that I had not cut away a large amount of junk from my last letter. Aaaargh!

And then to something completely different: Phil Hibbs:
> Thomas Doniol-Valcroze:
> >where and how can you find mummies in Glorantha?
> These are created by the Sorcery spell, "Create Mummy", and looking at RW
> mythology, that seems to me to be a quite adequate explanation,
(comments abot Create Vampire, with which I agree heartily, snipped). I don't agree about mummies, though.
Mummies as _undead_ in RW stories seems to be like any ghost attacking those who disturb its grave, it is just that it manifests through its mummified body, which it appearently animates. In some horror stories there is the idea that the mummy is someone who have gained immortality in this way, but that's not the main point.

IMG there are two main type of mummies: Complicated animations and embodied ghosts.

The first type is the result when you animate a mummified body instead of a rotting corpse: It will not be destroyed as easily (rot away etc) and not stink, and its hard, dried limbs has some AP. On the other hand, it is even slower than the normal animated corpse, which is slooooow.

The second type is what I talked about above: Some ghosts and wraiths may animate their remains. Sometimes this is "tiring" (loses MP), sometimes not. When you are dealing with a mummified corpse, it only means the corpse will last much longer than a normal corpse, which will soon rot away and become barely-hanging-together-bones which are much less useful when you want to tear off the head from the bastard which desecrated your grave.

I have a heretical view of undead and ghosts, quite different from that of the rulesbook; is anyone interested? Some is rulesy, but much is not - there is some philosophizing connected with "what is an undead" as was asked earlier on this list, and variant undead for the variant cultures of Dragon Pass.

Erik Sieurin


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