So I am running a campaign in which my players are investigating crypts below a string of pyramids. There is a summoner who is attempting to summon " one of the old gods". But to do this he had to summon Anubis in sections. These are now being modeled by golden organs such as the heart, lungs, and liver. When the party gets close I will begin the final stages of the process, being the actuall summoning of Anubis' body. To summon Anubis the summoner must give his own life. Once this is done Anubis will exist in a mortal form. I am assuming that since my players are good they won't let an angry God of death just walk out so I need to create an appropriate monster. He will start off at CR14 and as he collects the golden organs he will gain power. Any ideas on what kind of abilities to give him? I have decided he will weild a pair of Khopesh. Ideas please!!
Personally, I think a cool ability would be to have him point at someone and instantly mummify them(with a save of course). Other cool options could include summoning high-level jackal minions, or allowing him to create better versions of spiritual weapons in the shapes of Khopesh.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
As a Kemetist, I can speak with authority: Anubis would be Lawful Neutral, MAYBE Lawful Evil if you assume he enjoys his duty.
Anubis is the guardian of the law of death, he is a judge and Maat's Feather is the jury. He should be very calm and collected, even if he is violent.
The way Riot portrays Nasus in League of Legends is a very, historically correct idea of Anubis.
Just some RolePlay ideas. Or something.
Thanks dragonflyer1243 and verellius! Other thoughts?
One of the nastiest things that occurs to me is that an avatar of death is not going to have any trouble coming back again after you kill it. Immunity to 'death effects' goes without saying, but you should also examine the abilities the phoenix and the lich have and decide whether you want Instant and Terrifying revivification, or Slow and Unsuspected. I'd also suggest looking at the curses associated with the linnorm dragons - a curse that blasts anyone who 'kills' him is a really nasty one-two punch when combined with spontaneously returning to life...
The idea that inflicting hit point damage will never, ever win them this fight is what I really recommend - to show why nobody else was ever foolish enough to call up this being. They're better off trying to destroy or conceal the power objects - or running away until they can get proper tools such as trap the soul or, at least, banishment prepared.
Set Anubis up with some nice signature ability - enervation or bestow curse both spring to mind - and consider the Quicken Spell-Like Ability feat. I'd also suggest that at least one of the power objects restore his ability to summon outsiders that answer to him (maruts suit his alignment and theme best, but adding multiple maruts to a fight is pretty dirty pool even by my standards.) Another of the organs might grant him the ability to temporarily revivify those he kills so they can defend their new lord - something like the juju zombie template with an automatic one-hour limit on their existence...
Addendum: If you're going with the classic LN representation of Anubis, be prepared for the possibility that your players will want to help him get his powers back. Few would overlook the potential benefits of a highly-placed friend in the afterlife.
Give him full on channel energy and the bonus feats for it. Both positive and negative.
Feats in question
Specific feats would be:
Extra Channel
Fateful Channel
Improved Channel
Selective Channel
Quicken Channel
Siphon Channel
Command Undead
Turn Undead
Virellius touches on something....
Anubis is hardly the sort of guy who would be a raging monster that needs to be put down. A cultist trying to summon him to nefarious ends would probably meet a pretty unhappy future, before anubis just goes back to whatever he was doing in the first place.
In the core pathfinder Pantheon, he's basically like Pharasma. I beleive the Mummy's mask AP also actually has some information for Anubis as a deity in GOlarion, cold be mistaken.
if you want an angry, dangerous, egypt-themed god? Go with Sakhmet. Essentially, the lioness-headed goddess of genocide. That'll keep people on their toes.
Osiris was the one who got cut to pieces and had to be reassembled, BTW. And most proper DEATH gods (as opposed to undeath) are just Lawful, not evil, because they don't really CARE about you, they just want life and death properly balanced/arranged.
But whatever, it's your cosmology, let's roll with the Evil Dead Dude.
First of all, he's all about the death and the negative energy and the cold grave. Cold damage, negative energy damage, and an unblockable "blasphemy" or "unholy" damage seem good.
Next, he's a jackal-headed evil guy, so he has a scavenger/cruelty-of-nature theme asking for summons or shadow creatures that are big (dire hyena/hyaenadon) and given advancements like sneak attack (they are "cruel scavengers" who flank and attack weakness).
He is a boss fight so things can get crazy and as a dual-wielder his armor class is probably not that amazing. Give him 4 giant (so, size of a dining platter) scarab constructs which magically fly and hover around him, blocking attacks like an animated shield (+8 shield bonus to AC total). They can be sundered (provokes unless you have the feat) and they can fly out (dropping his AC by 2) behind cover and let him bounce spells like Enervate off of them to attack the cleric hiding behind total cover. Use stats for Small Adamantine Shield when the Barbarian smashes them, and let them be adamantine treasure afterwards.
On to organs:
The heart used to be where the soul and thought were because people didn't understand biology at all, it is still an engine which can fuel anything from higher stats to spellcasting abilities to the dude's spell resistance. It was also never removed in mummification, whatever that means to you.
In mummification, the lungs were protected by Ha'pi, the baboon-headed god associated with speed (dexterity/movement speed?) and the direction North.
The Liver was Imset's, he was the favored family son with a human face, associated with the direction south and beauty. The liver itself is associated (in many cultures) with courage, energy, beauty, and forward-thinking. Bonus to initiative, attack, and an insight bonus to AC?
The Stomach and the East were protected by Duamutef, and is associated with vitality, bonus to con (or if he is undead, bonus hit points). Duamatef was not the favorite son, but he tried harder.
The intestines were protected by Qebehsenuef, the brother's cooler, and associated with the west, grisly disembowelment, and in the case of horrible undead monsters; making a grapple attack.
Other thoughts...he's associated with desert, sand, and dryness so he could cause dehydration (I don't remember the effects, but I don't think they're cured by restoration easily) or destroying potions (To Saaaaand!!). As a death lord he's going to drop a few save-or-dies. As a pyramid dude you need to decide if the pyramid comes into play (including but not limited to rising up like a Go'auld ship or fighting a running battle to the top where he can re-enter the heavens and cause the apocalypse). As an evil guy he can offer dark bargains. And as a resurrected god he can be impossible to kill unless some weird situations is met like making the heart of the Oracle beat again, bringing him out to the noon-day sun (but he has weather control), or reminding him of the love he died for by putting his heart (which he had ripped out) back into his chest.
Anyway, good luck.
Probably won't help you, but I created an Egyptian and specifically inspired by Anubis" city map I called Anubia. If you look at the August 18th posted map on my G+ community (about 16 posts down page). Note the sphinx statue south of the pyramid and temple district, near the center of the map. That isn't a sphinx rather its a sitting statue of Anubis in his quadrupedal form as found in Anubis statues of the First Dynasty period. And agree with everyone else that Anubis is LN or LE, and not likely to go on a rampage while possessing a human, so the OP's premise is unlikely at most tables.
On reflection, there's another point to ponder...
Dragon Magazine, back in the end-days of 2nd edition, had an article about dead gods and their giant corpses floating in the Astral Plane. Anubis, whose religion was dead at the time (no published campaign settings had Egyptian gods), was their guardian, sitting on his throne and with weird powers and rules over the divine corpses and their final rest. It was all a vague allusion to a campaign they were ramping up that would involve resurrecting a dead god of evil but it was interesting.
In the mad way my imagination wanders, I contemplate a plot where Anubis is like this, having not exactly died, but changed in nature from a normal god with normal worshippers to something else. But this oracle, acting on the urges of evil or the machinations of the Lich Queen of the Githyanki to find a new god-corpse to suck on, is about to drag him back to the mortal realm as an undead and corrupted remnant of himself. This will, it is hoped by evil powers, distract the guardian of dead divinity and allow them to exploit the sacred corpses.
This means "killing" the resurrected Anubis is insufficient, he needs to be "cleansed," "purified," or "awakened" in some fashion.
I don't know, just some idle thoughts...
Perhaps as a nasty surprise, his Khopesh turn out to be immaterial (touch AC) and deal negative energy damage?
If he's going to be making attacks, Greater Channel Smite and Variant Channeling can be used to 'charge up' his weapons with Channel energy, then unleash nasty effects with every strike. The Pain variant channel could really put pesky adventurers in their place...
I'm undecided as if he comes back to seek god hood, but isn't particularly evil, or if he's brought back and seeks revenge on the world for forgetting about him and moving on. I guess I'll just decide in the moment. If my players are feeling accepting he will be vengeful, as to have the fight still happen.
boring7 wrote: On reflection, there's another point to ponder...
Dragon Magazine, back in the end-days of 2nd edition, had an article about dead gods and their giant corpses floating in the Astral Plane. Anubis, whose religion was dead at the time (no published campaign settings had Egyptian gods), was their guardian, sitting on his throne and with weird powers and rules over the divine corpses and their final rest. It was all a vague allusion to a campaign they were ramping up that would involve resurrecting a dead god of evil but it was interesting.
In the mad way my imagination wanders, I contemplate a plot where Anubis is like this, having not exactly died, but changed in nature from a normal god with normal worshippers to something else. But this oracle, acting on the urges of evil or the machinations of the Lich Queen of the Githyanki to find a new god-corpse to suck on, is about to drag him back to the mortal realm as an undead and corrupted remnant of himself. This will, it is hoped by evil powers, distract the guardian of dead divinity and allow them to exploit the sacred corpses.
This means "killing" the resurrected Anubis is insufficient, he needs to be "cleansed," "purified," or "awakened" in some fashion.
I don't know, just some idle thoughts...
Actually 2e Planescape had a book which detailed a number of the Egyptian Gods and it was pretty good. It is called Hallowed Ground. Some of the other 2e Planescape books referenced the Egyptian gods now and then, and other real world religions and their gods were very important to that setting.
"It was all a vague allusion to a campaign they were ramping up that would involve resurrecting a dead god of evil but it was interesting. "
This was published as a 2e module called Dead Gods. I believe Anubis actually was featured rather prominently in it (Orcus was a very important deity in that module, but other deities were featured as well), but it has been a while since I've really looked at that book.
"In the mad way my imagination wanders, I contemplate a plot where Anubis is like this, having not exactly died, but changed in nature from a normal god with normal worshippers to something else."
This actually happened in 2e canon. He transcended ordinary godhood so, while he did still have worshipers, he no longer needed them as other deities did. I believe he also became quite a bit more powerful as a result as well. His worshipers continued to receive spells and such, but it was the Kemetic pantheon as a whole which granted his worshipers such boons (since such things were no longer Anubis' concern).
Anubis is very lawful neutral, his main concern being looking after that graveyard of dead gods in the astral plane that you mentioned. After all, death isn't the same thing for gods as it is for mortals, and should any of them awaken... it is of great consequence.
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