Mummy Lord, 10th-Level Cleric

Mummies are preserved corpses animated through the auspices of dark desert gods best forgotten. They usually inhabit great tombs or temple complexes, maintaining a timeless vigil and destroying would-be grave robbers.

These horrid creatures are often marked with symbols of the dire gods they serve. While other undead often stink of carrion, the herbs and powders used to create a mummy give off a sharp, pungent odor like that of a spice cabinet.

Mummies attack intruders without pause or mercy. They never attempt to communicate with their enemies and never retreat. An encounter with a mummy can end only with the destruction of one combatant or the other (unless the mummy’s foe elects to retreat).

Unusually powerful or evil individuals preserved as mummies sometimes rise as greater mummies after death. A mummy lord resembles its lesser fellows, but often wears or carries equipment it used in life—ancient bronze armor, a runemarked sword, or a magic staff.

Mummy lords are often potent spellcasters. They are found as guardians of the tombs of high lords, priests, and mages. Most are sworn to defend for eternity the resting place of those whom they served in life, but in some cases a mummy lord’s unliving state is the result of a terrible curse or rite designed to punish treason, infidelity, or crimes of an even more abhorrent nature. A mummy lord of this sort is usually imprisoned in a tomb that is never meant to be opened again.

Most mummies are 5 to 6 feet tall and weigh about 120 pounds. Mummies can speak Common, but seldom bother to do so.

Mummy lords fight with both physical and magical powers, using spells to protect themselves and enhance their combat abilities.

Despair (Su): At the mere sight of a mummy, the viewer must succeed on a DC 17 Will save or be paralyzed with fear for 1d4 rounds. Whether or not the save is successful, that creature cannot be affected again by the same mummy’s despair ability for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Mummy Rot (Su): Supernatural disease—slam, Fortitude DC 17, incubation period 1 minute; damage 1d6 Con and 1d6 Cha. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Unlike normal diseases, mummy rot continues until the victim reaches Constitution 0 (and dies) or is cured as described below.

Mummy rot is a powerful curse, not a natural disease. A character attempting to cast any conjuration (healing) spell on a creature afflicted with mummy rot must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check, or the spell has no effect on the afflicted character.

To eliminate mummy rot, the curse must first be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to cast healing spells on the victim, and the mummy rot can be magically cured as any normal disease.

An afflicted creature who dies of mummy rot shrivels away into sand and dust that blow away into nothing at the first wind.

Typical Cleric Spells Prepared (6/7/6/5/5/4; save DC 15 + spell level): 0—detect magic (2), guidance, read magic, resistance, virtue; 1st—bane, command, deathwatch, divine favor, doom, sanctuary, shield of faith; 2nd—bull’s strength, death knell, hold person, resist energy, silence, spiritual weapon; 3rd—animate dead, deeper darkness, dispel magic, invisibility purge, searing light; 4th—air walk, dismissal, divine power, giant vermin, spell immunity; 5th—insect plague, slay living*, spell resistance, symbol of pain.

*Domain Spell. Domains: Death and Protection.

Possessions: +2 half-plate armor, cloak of resistance +2, ring of minor energy resistance (fire), brooch of shielding. (Different mummy lords may have different possessions.)