Pathfinder 1e Monster / NPC: Mummy

Created to guard the tombs of the honored dead, mummies are ever vigilant for those who would desecrate their sacred ground.   Mummies are created through a rather lengthy and gruesome embalming process, during which all of the body’s major organs are removed and replaced with dried herbs and flowers. After this process, the flesh is anointed with sacred oils and wrapped in purified linens. The creator then finishes the ritual with a create undead spell.   Although most mummies are created merely as guardians and remain loyal to their charge until their destruction, certain powerful mummies have much more free will. The majority are at least 10th-level clerics, and are often kings or pharaohs who have called upon dark gods or sinister necromancers to bind their souls to their bodies after death—usually as a means to extend their rule beyond the grave, but at times simply to escape what they fear will be an eternity of torment in their own afterlife.   Easily the most feared ability of mummies is their notorious curse: mummy rot. Both a disease and a curse, this affliction proves exceptionally difficult to cure, even for accomplished healers. Part of this blight’s infamy comes from the specifics of its symptoms. While many mummies cause a curse that gradually withers away its victims till nothing but desert sand remains, the affliction itself proves highly variable and unique to many atypical individuals. In each case, the effects prove the same, but the symptoms can be wildly distinctive.   Not just any corpse can spontaneously manifest as a mummy. GMs interested in creating mummies resurrected “naturally” (rather than by spells like create undead) should consider the passion and force of will of the would-be mummy. By and large, a corpse should be of a creature with a Charisma of 15 or higher and possessing at least 8 Hit Dice. In addition, it should have a reason for caring about the eternal sanctity of its remains in excess of normal mortal concern. As such, priests of deities with the Death or Repose domains, heroes expecting a champion’s burial, lords of cultures preoccupied with the afterlife, or individuals otherwise obsessed with death or their worldly possessions all make suitable candidates for resurrection as mummies—though countless other potential reasons for resurrection exist.