Sebti barely seems to acknowledge Saedue as she takes the stage, her eyes taking in the crowd below and slowly flicking from person to person. Following them for a second she wasn't sure what she saw there, or what she was looking for, the gathered sea of people brimming with activity and life. Snatching up the small map gifted to her, she tried to recall anything she might know about the city of Wati and its massive necropolis, but her mind came up blank instead, the pressure of the moment making her head feel like it was stuffed with cotton. Swallowing hard she bowed once more and made her way back towards her comrades, sparing a fleeting glance to the stage. The other priests of Pharasma seemed more tense than Sebti, faces a mixture of restrained anger and discomfort.
It hadn't been the first time Saedue and her fellow mercenaries had seen such displays of emotion. Despite any protestations to the policy, The Ruby Prince had been adamant in his desire to see the tombs opened. Khemet III gave the church a very simple and public choice when they began to express concerns over the process. They could voluntarily take part and cooperate, thus having some degree of limited authority over how the tombs were explored and the entire process. or they could be silenced and have no say in the entire situation. Faced with such a choice the church opted for the former of the two.
Amal and Bjoern watched the crowd instead of the stage. Both saw handfuls of interesting individuals who seemed a both competent and extravagant. Though the chaos of it all made it hard to distinguish just a few, the two couldn't help but run over the three very basic rules that had been outlined for them when they had registered for the lottery, the rules Sebti had mentioned;
Remember How This Came to Pass: Nearly two thousand years ago, Wati was nearly destroyed by the plague of Madness. More than half the population died over the course of a month, all while the authorities of the cities were engulfed infighting and political maneuvering. This rule is to remind them that the necropolis is a holy place, and that those who engage in needless conflict and banditry are not only criminals, to be tried to the highest degree, but accursed by the gods and ancestors of the city and its people.
Every Slave's Hut is a Memorial: Though they have been given leave to enter into allotted spaces and take what valuables they may, this does not mean they have been given free reign to do as they please. Each and every structure in the necropolis is a testament to the people who lived and died there. Explorers and adventurers must not desecrate or vandalize any standing structure or tomb.
Honor the Departed: If the interred need to be disturbed to recover an antiquity or relic, they should be returned to their resting place carefully, with the utmost dignity and respect. Many corpses are old and brittle, which is understood, but this does not mean the dead and the contents of their resting places may be summarily discarded and destroyed with little thought. This rule, however, does not apply to any undead or abominations that might yet linger.
The rules were iron tight, a fact made very clear to the Reclaimers before they had finished signing on the dotted line.
Though the question seemed to be one of ability to enforce. From what they had seen, neither the priesthood nor the town guard oft ventured into the Necropolis, both woefully under-staffed and equipped. Punishing the crimes would be a trial indeed, especially considering some of the more dangerous and veteran looks some of the gathered explorers have.
Rejoining the group, Saedue showed off the map and their first lottery result. They had been allotted the Tomb of Akhentepi, a good draw by all accounts. Saedue had noted that the person before her, who had represented a collection of Ulfen warriors with fiery red hair, had drawn a brewery as their location and seemed rather upset over the outcome, loudly arguing that there would be little worth finding in such a place before storming off to join his kinsmen. The six knew little of the tomb, beyond that it predated the Plague of Madness, which made it over two thousand years in age.
Mummy's Mask Official Start
Chapter 1: The Half-Dead City
Part 1: The Tomb of Akhentepi
Returning to the Tooth & Hookah for a night of rest goes uneventful, so the group know as the Reclaimers heads to the lottery the next day.
"Wait endures, or so the local saying goes. The people of Wati, known for their even tempers and shrewd wit, prefer understatement. They have known war and peace, poverty and prosperity, and survived decimation at the hands of a mad god's cult. But Wati's people answer each challenge with innovation, tenacity, and the deep bonds of community. They do not endure their hardships so much as grasps them, white-knuckled and screaming, until the world permits them to return to their quiet lives, surrounded by their honored dead." - Priestess Ankhtah Shepses
Water is life in the desert, a fact that remains true for much of Garund. Empires have risen and fallen all through the control of the silt laden lands where rivers merge and run. Wati is one such city, where the rivers Asp and Crook merge together to form the powerful Sphinx. For thousands of years Wati has been a cultural hub of the great empire of Osirion, withstanding the tides of time as the world has sifted all around them. If a city could talk, many tales would Wati have. Perhaps though, it's greatest tale is yet to come, as five brothers and sisters in arms known as The Seekers make their way through the streets.
For centuries, Wati's famed necropolis has remained closed. Sealed off and under nearly constant guard by the people of the grand city. To them, robbing these sacred tombs is the pinnacle of savagery and barbarism. Though many of their names have long since been forgotten, these are their ancestors, men and women whose blood, sweat, and tears were sacrificed to build the foundation for what they have today. Yet the time has come. A new Pharoh rules in Osirion, and a new age is dawning for the ancient empire. By royal decree the tombs of Wati are to be opened, under the oversight of the priests of Pharasma located in the Grand Mausoleum in Wati, ancient sites distributed by lottery so explorers and adventurers from far and wide might come and exhume the riches buried there. Not one to miss such an opportunity, the Seekers now head toward the lottery ceremony, clear in intent.
Arriving just a day ahead of the opening ceremony, the Reclaimers registered their names and fellowship with the local temple, a priest recording the name of their group, size ,and names of its member. Further, they were given a special token unique to their group, one that was to be used in the lottery during the opening ceremony and would determine which plot of land they were to be given access to. Prepared as best they might be, the newly formed adventuring group made their way to the Sunburst Market, the location of the opening ceremony and lottery. It was a day in Pharast, a blistering 106 degrees but not as hot as it would be in the coming months.
All about them the entire city of Wati seemed to be bursting at the seems with excitement. Adventurers, would be explorers, and scholars from all across the Inner sea gathered beneath the great fire orb in the sky to explore the tombs of Wati. All that was left was the lottery, to be assigned their first sites for exploration. Surrounding the participants, it seemed as if the entire city had made a show of it, gathered so as to observe the opening ceremony. Dancing through the crowd, a few keen merchants saw an opportunity to make some coin, hawking goods and refreshments to participants and spectators alike.
Even though it seems more festival than anything else, the truth of the ceremony sets in, as merchants pass not only selling refreshments, but all kinds of adventuring gear. A man loudly proclaims his rope to be the strongest in Wait, coiled from only the finest silk and hemps. Another admonishes any who would be caught without one of his backpacks, expertly crafted from thick and durable leather and able to carry the heaviest of treasures. Most telling though were the merchants who carried nothing but dry and dirtied bits of parchment. Scribbled across them in large black letters, in many different tongues, were varied bold claims, all with a single message. They, and only they, would buy any recovered treasures and antiques for the highest price in town, offering fair and equitable trade to foreigners and locals alike.
Located just in front of the Grand Mausoleum, itself an imposing and towering figure that dominated much of the skyline of Wati, a stage had been constructed. Decorated pillars and richly colored tapestries covered the awning, providing what cover they might from the high noon sun, priests of Pharasma gathered to oversee the lottery. Two urns sat atop a table elevated a few feet above stage, the high priestess of the Grand Mausoleum behind the table. Her name was Sebti, or the Crocodile as she was known by many in the town. Eyebrows careful plucked and painted, her lips were a vibrant blue, skin a beautiful shade of amber. Her skin was unlike the farmers and traders, unlike those who had spent a life bent over the broiling sun of Osirion. Skin soft as silk, soft as sin. Behind her acolytes buzzed like wasps, darting too and fro as the ceremony was soon to start.
Gathered around the stage were a united nations of the Inner Sea, members of nearly every nationality and race the Inner Sea might muster. A group comprised entirely of halflings argued loudly over which of them would come away with the greatest hall, a golden dog stitched into the backs of their cloaks. Six women, each with skin bronzed by the Osirion skin and having a sultry air of danger about them, scowled at the halflings, flashes of their bare forearms showing matching blue tattoo's of an odd rune.
Stepping forward, Sebti threw back her cowl and exposed her long and slicked back locks of silken black hair. She was young, but showed not a hint of hesitation, exuding and air of confidence that commanded the respect and silence of those both around her and those who looked on from below. As silence takes hold in the crowd, Sebti invokes her goddess, reciting a familiar invocation to the Lady of Graves. Once finished she offered a brief, and thankfully concise, history of the crypts.
History of Wati:
In –1608 ar, Pharaoh Djederet II ordered the construction of a grand city to mark the birthplace of the Osirion’s greatest natural resource: the River Sphinx, springing from the confluence of the Asp and the Crook. With its early foundations magically laid by the church of Nethys, the city sprang to life within just a year. Named Wati, the riverside town soon dominated trade across southern Osirion. Hardwoods and spices from Katapesh and the Mwangi Expanse bound for Sothis, and manufactured goods and luxuries from the nations surrounding the Inner Sea bound for Osirion’s southern territories, all paused long enough in Wati’s warehouses and markets to make its citizens famously wealthy. For centuries, Wati endured through political upheaval and the births and deaths of entire dynasties as it dominated its younger sister cities of An and Tephu.
But Wati’s destiny was forever warped in 2499 ar, when the cult of Lamashtu unleashed the Plague of Madness among the city’s thriving populace. Many of those whom the fever did not immediately kill were driven to murderous insanity, and within months, more than half the city had fallen in painful, anguished death. Most of the survivors fled Wati to make new homes elsewhere, but a stubborn minority remained behind, determined to reclaim their city. But even once the plague had run its course, their livelihoods collapsed as An and Tephu took over Wati’s onceexclusive
trade routes, and their floundering community struggled against recurring outbreaks of the undead from the city’s many abandoned buildings-turned-tombs.
It took almost half a millennium for Wati’s fortunes to reverse thanks to the church of Pharasma. With the tacit permission of Osirion’s Keleshite sultan, a Pharasmin priest named Nefru Shepses marched on Wati in 2953 ar with a small army of alchemists, masons, and morticians under his banner, intent on consecrating the entire city to the Lady of Graves, beginning with a new, monumental temple to Pharasma called the Grand Mausoleum.
Over the next 30 years, Nefru Shepses and his followers recovered the bodies of those slaughtered in the Plague of Madness from their hasty, makeshift graves and the Pharasmins walled off that portion of the city that had been abandoned, transforming it into a metropolis of makeshift tombs. Thousands of corpses were given formal burial rites and reinterred in this dead copy of the living city, which continues to serve as Wati’s necropolis today.
The consecration of the city and its necropolis revitalized Wati, and though it never reclaimed its dominance among the cities of the south, over the next 1,700 years Wati grew until its necropolis—once more than half of the city— took up less than a quarter of the city’s total area. Today, long after the necropolis’s completion, Wati continues to produce a great variety of grave goods for Osirion’s honored dead. A steady stream of burial figures, canopic jars, embalming f luids, prayer books, and sarcophagi sail downstream on the Sphinx, outpacing Wati’s crop and textile exports. Even Wati’s criminal underworld revolves around death, as competing gangs regularly raid the necropolis for valuables and even human carrion.
After finishing, the gradual murmuring that had built up as the more restless fidgeted in place seemed to disappear in an instant, a gradual inhalation as the priestess lifted her arms and smiled wryly, savoring the attention. "Let the lottery begin!" She proclaimed, deep and rough voice like the crack of a whip, a raucous cheer rippling through the crowd. "Although many of you have requested specific sites to explore, we must leave these matters to fate. The Lady of Graves is a far better judge of destiny than we mortals." As she spoke, the small crocodile skull that hung about her neck dangled back and forth, her speech now more animated and lively than the histories and invocation.
"The gates of the necropolis will open at sunrise tomorrow. Use this evening to prepare yourselves for the task ahead. Let these rules guide you in your endeavors in this holy place: remember how this came to pass, every slave's hut is a memorial, and honor the departed. May you go with the Lady's blessing." Smiling throughout, she took a short bow, hands extended wide as the crowd clapped and cheered. A few throughout the crowd could be seen scowling, locals who liked not the plundering of their ancestors resting place. Withdrawing, two acolytes stepped forward towards the two large jars.
One held a token that matched the ones previously distributed, and would signify the chosen group. The second corresponded with a predetermined location, marking where they would be able to explore. First called was a group of well armored northerners, a mix of Ulfen and Taldane heritage. Representing their group a woman encased in heavy armor, taller than most by a head, pushed her way through the crowd and to the stage. Presenting her token, matching the one that had been called, the woman was shown on a large map where her group was given reign, and presented with a smaller map in return.
Before there was much chance to react, the second, third, and fourth tokens were drawn. Nearly ten minutes passed before the Reclaimers were summoned, their token drawn in the middle of the ceremony. They were to send one member forward to collect the small map, and to be shown the first area they had been allocated, two more to come in the weeks to follow.
Mummy's Mask Official Start
Chapter 1: The Half-Dead City
Part 1: The Tomb of Akhentepi
"Wait endures, or so the local saying goes. The people of Wati, known for their even tempers and shrewd wit, prefer understatement. They have known war and peace, poverty and prosperity, and survived decimation at the hands of a mad god's cult. But Wati's people answer each challenge with innovation, tenacity, and the deep bonds of community. They do not endure their hardships so much as grasps them, white-knuckled and screaming, until the world permits them to return to their quiet lives, surrounded by their honored dead." - Priestess Ankhtah Shepses
Water is life in the desert, a fact that remains true for much of Garund. Empires have risen and fallen all through the control of the silt laden lands where rivers merge and run. Wati is one such city, where the rivers Asp and Crook merge together to form the powerful Sphinx. For thousands of years Wati has been a cultural hub of the great empire of Osirion, withstanding the tides of time as the world has sifted all around them. If a city could talk, many tales would Wati have. Perhaps though, it's greatest tale is yet to come, as five brothers and sisters in arms known as The Seekers make their way through the streets.
For centuries, Wati's famed necropolis has remained closed. Sealed off and under nearly constant guard by the people of the grand city. To them, robbing these sacred tombs is the pinnacle of savagery and barbarism. Though many of their names have long since been forgotten, these are their ancestors, men and women whose blood, sweat, and tears were sacrificed to build the foundation for what they have today. Yet the time has come. A new Pharoh rules in Osirion, and a new age is dawning for the ancient empire. By royal decree the tombs of Wati are to be opened, under the oversight of the priests of Pharasma located in the Grand Mausoleum in Wati, ancient sites distributed by lottery so explorers and adventurers from far and wide might come and exhume the riches buried there. Not one to miss such an opportunity, the Seekers now head toward the lottery ceremony, clear in intent.
Arriving just a day ahead of the opening ceremony, the Seekrs registered their names and fellowship with the local temple, a priest recording the name of their group, size ,and names of its member. Further, they were given a special token unique to their group, one that was to be used in the lottery during the opening ceremony and would determine which plot of land they were to be given access to. Prepared as best they might be, the newly formed adventuring group made their way to the Sunburst Market, the location of the opening ceremony and lottery. It was a day in Pharast, a blistering 106 degrees but not as hot as it would be in the coming months.
All about them the entire city of Wati seemed to be bursting at the seems with excitement. Adventurers, would be explorers, and scholars from all across the Inner sea gathered beneath the great fire orb in the sky to explore the tombs of Wati. All that was left was the lottery, to be assigned their first sites for exploration. Surrounding the participants, it seemed as if the entire city had made a show of it, gathered so as to observe the opening ceremony. Dancing through the crowd, a few keen merchants saw an opportunity to make some coin, hawking goods and refreshments to participants and spectators alike.
Even though it seems more festival than anything else, the truth of the ceremony sets in, as merchants pass not only selling refreshments, but all kinds of adventuring gear. A man loudly proclaims his rope to be the strongest in Wait, coiled from only the finest silk and hemps. Another admonishes any who would be caught without one of his backpacks, expertly crafted from thick and durable leather and able to carry the heaviest of treasures. Most telling though were the merchants who carried nothing but dry and dirtied bits of parchment. Scribbled across them in large black letters, in many different tongues, were varied bold claims, all with a single message. They, and only they, would buy any recovered treasures and antiques for the highest price in town, offering fair and equitable trade to foreigners and locals alike.
Located just in front of the Grand Mausoleum, itself an imposing and towering figure that dominated much of the skyline of Wati, a stage had been constructed. Decorated pillars and richly colored tapestries covered the awning, providing what cover they might from the high noon sun, priests of Pharasma gathered to oversee the lottery. Two urns sat atop a table elevated a few feet above stage, the high priestess of the Grand Mausoleum behind the table. Her name was Sebti, or the Crocodile as she was known by many in the town. Eyebrows careful plucked and painted, her lips were a vibrant blue, skin a beautiful shade of amber. Her skin was unlike the farmers and traders, unlike those who had spent a life bent over the broiling sun of Osirion. Skin soft as silk, soft as sin. Behind her acolytes buzzed like wasps, darting too and fro as the ceremony was soon to start.
Gathered around the stage were a united nations of the Inner Sea, members of nearly every nationality and race the Inner Sea might muster. A group comprised entirely of halflings argued loudly over which of them would come away with the greatest hall, a golden dog stitched into the backs of their cloaks. Six women, each with skin bronzed by the Osirion skin and having a sultry air of danger about them, scowled at the halflings, flashes of their bare forearms showing matching blue tattoo's of an odd rune.
Stepping forward, Sebti threw back her cowl and exposed her long and slicked back locks of silken black hair. She was young, but showed not a hint of hesitation, exuding and air of confidence that commanded the respect and silence of those both around her and those who looked on from below. As silence takes hold in the crowd, Sebti invokes her goddess, reciting a familiar invocation to the Lady of Graves. Once finished she offered a brief, and thankfully concise, history of the crypts.
History of Wati:
In –1608 ar, Pharaoh Djederet II ordered the construction of a grand city to mark the birthplace of the Osirion’s greatest natural resource: the River Sphinx, springing from the confluence of the Asp and the Crook. With its early foundations magically laid by the church of Nethys, the city sprang to life within just a year. Named Wati, the riverside town soon dominated trade across southern Osirion. Hardwoods and spices from Katapesh and the Mwangi Expanse bound for Sothis, and manufactured goods and luxuries from the nations surrounding the Inner Sea bound for Osirion’s southern territories, all paused long enough in Wati’s warehouses and markets to make its citizens famously wealthy. For centuries, Wati endured through political upheaval and the births and deaths of entire dynasties as it dominated its younger sister cities of An and Tephu.
But Wati’s destiny was forever warped in 2499 ar, when the cult of Lamashtu unleashed the Plague of Madness among the city’s thriving populace. Many of those whom the fever did not immediately kill were driven to murderous insanity, and within months, more than half the city had fallen in painful, anguished death. Most of the survivors fled Wati to make new homes elsewhere, but a stubborn minority remained behind, determined to reclaim their city. But even once the plague had run its course, their livelihoods collapsed as An and Tephu took over Wati’s onceexclusive
trade routes, and their floundering community struggled against recurring outbreaks of the undead from the city’s many abandoned buildings-turned-tombs.
It took almost half a millennium for Wati’s fortunes to reverse thanks to the church of Pharasma. With the tacit permission of Osirion’s Keleshite sultan, a Pharasmin priest named Nefru Shepses marched on Wati in 2953 ar with a small army of alchemists, masons, and morticians under his banner, intent on consecrating the entire city to the Lady of Graves, beginning with a new, monumental temple to Pharasma called the Grand Mausoleum.
Over the next 30 years, Nefru Shepses and his followers recovered the bodies of those slaughtered in the Plague of Madness from their hasty, makeshift graves and the Pharasmins walled off that portion of the city that had been abandoned, transforming it into a metropolis of makeshift tombs. Thousands of corpses were given formal burial rites and reinterred in this dead copy of the living city, which continues to serve as Wati’s necropolis today.
The consecration of the city and its necropolis revitalized Wati, and though it never reclaimed its dominance among the cities of the south, over the next 1,700 years Wati grew until its necropolis—once more than half of the city— took up less than a quarter of the city’s total area. Today, long after the necropolis’s completion, Wati continues to produce a great variety of grave goods for Osirion’s honored dead. A steady stream of burial figures, canopic jars, embalming f luids, prayer books, and sarcophagi sail downstream on the Sphinx, outpacing Wati’s crop and textile exports. Even Wati’s criminal underworld revolves around death, as competing gangs regularly raid the necropolis for valuables and even human carrion.
After finishing, the gradual murmuring that had built up as the more restless fidgeted in place seemed to disappear in an instant, a gradual inhalation as the priestess lifted her arms and smiled wryly, savoring the attention. "Let the lottery begin!" She proclaimed, deep and rough voice like the crack of a whip, a raucous cheer rippling through the crowd. "Although many of you have requested specific sites to explore, we must leave these matters to fate. The Lady of Graves is a far better judge of destiny than we mortals." As she spoke, the small crocodile skull that hung about her neck dangled back and forth, her speech now more animated and lively than the histories and invocation.
"The gates of the necropolis will open at sunrise tomorrow. Use this evening to prepare yourselves for the task ahead. Let these rules guide you in your endeavors in this holy place: remember how this came to pass, every slave's hut is a memorial, and honor the departed. May you go with the Lady's blessing." Smiling throughout, she took a short bow, hands extended wide as the crowd clapped and cheered. A few throughout the crowd could be seen scowling, locals who liked not the plundering of their ancestors resting place. Withdrawing, two acolytes stepped forward towards the two large jars.
One held a token that matched the ones previously distributed, and would signify the chosen group. The second corresponded with a predetermined location, marking where they would be able to explore. First called was a group of well armored northerners, a mix of Ulfen and Taldane heritage. Representing their group a woman encased in heavy armor, taller than most by a head, pushed her way through the crowd and to the stage. Presenting her token, matching the one that had been called, the woman was shown on a large map where her group was given reign, and presented with a smaller map in return.
Before there was much chance to react, the second, third, and fourth tokens were drawn. Nearly ten minutes passed before the Seekers were summoned, their token drawn in the middle of the ceremony. They were to send one member forward to collect the small map, and to be shown the first area they had been allocated, two more to come in the weeks to follow.
