As a fail-safe in case of rebellion, a mummified creature is subtly marked during the ritual process with a hieroglyph someplace inconspicuous on its body or wrappings that identifies the particular energy type to which it is vulnerable
The mummified creature template describes its targets as having been created as guardians, and having their vulnerability added as a failsafe... but a lot of the mummified creatures in Mummy's Mask it's part of their burial, and their undead nature came later, is secondary.
So a built in weakness so that their makers can take them down feels a bit weird. Or is there another justification for it that I've missed?
I'm tempted to change it so that it's more a matter of the bindings, magical use of hieroglyphs, and suchlike hold it together in a certain way that give it lots of benefits, but a weakness that's inherent to the particular 'style' or way that binding was done. (Which can be identified in exactly the same way as normal, as its a function of the sacred/magical hieroglyphs.)
Lastly... the first time the PCs see a mummified creature, it'll be the usual Knowledge roll and the variable weakness will be one of their questions. Will the perception and linguistics rolls take their own actions? (Probably I'd be nice and make them move), or are they 'reflexive'?
I'm quite tempted to make it a Move action, that way it takes place in the combat, if you've got one good spotter, one good linguistics they need to co-ordinate, and making it a move action doesn't mean someone's lost an entire round to do it, but makes it a non-zero cost to find out something useful.
Thoughts?