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This is mostly my internal headcanon as DM, culled from various sources including the 3.5 adventures The Veinstone Pyramid and Entombed With the Pharaohs, and the 2e playtest adventure Doomsday Dawn which is the culmination of the Countdown Clock metaplot. Much of this doesn't actually change the threat posed by Hakotep, but I'm hoping it will make the stakes feel greater on a larger scale.
By 4714, the influence of the Dominion of the Black on the reign of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension is legend, but a true one. Using their resources, the Numerian wizard Ramlock uses his connections to the Dark Tapestry to connect them to the Elder Gods while he works to find a way to reach the distant planet Aucturn so that he can solve what he calls the White Axiom, the last pieces of information to finish The Final Theorem, a dissertation on the Dominion of the Black. When Aucturn next returned, one of the Four Pharaohs was afflicted with an incurable wasting disease that, due to a magical pact meant to protect them all from backstabbing, afflicts all of them and eventually kills them. Ramlock, meanwhile, concluded that the White Axiom is a wild goose chase and instead believes that by travelling to Aucturn he can “ascend” to become more than human, and uses the alignment between Aucturn and the Sun with Golarion between to create a portal, disappearing. Without the Four Pharaohs or Ramlock, Aucturn’s direct influence on Golarion ends for a time until the drow ghost Maefra is contacted by Nyarlathotep, who recruits her to act his emissary on Golarion to affect the overthrow of the Pharaohs, the assassination of the Satrap, and the fall of the Sultana before the Forthbringer Dynasty’s restoration. Even she doesn’t know why, but Nyarlathotep has an interest in destabilising Osirion. But what Ramlock set in motion was a growing threat, building up like a capacitor until, in 4718, it will allow Aucturn to transpose onto Golarion, destroying the planet and freeing the Elder God gestating inside Aucturn. This is an ongoing story thread to be unravelled in other adventures - the Four Pharaohs in The Pactstone Pyramic and Entombed With the Pharaohs, and Ramlock in Doomsday Dawn.
What none know is that the Four Pharaohs were not the first attempt by the Dark Tapestry to gain a foothold on Golarion, and that their first prophet was not Ramlock but instead Neferuset, who was filled with the dark secrets of Nyarlathotep and gifted a copy of Secrets of the Dreaming Dark to work with. She seduced Prince Hakotep hoping to use her husband’s power to spread the influence of the Dark Tapestry, and is the one behind his reign’s dark perversions - undead, aberrations, and fiends of all kinds - that she promised would serve him against his enemies. But her real plan was to use the stolen Shory technology to create the first Doomsday Clocks, and if she had time to build a proper capacitor to create the portal herself. What Neferuset wasn’t told was that granting Hakotep the power of the Dark Tapestry also tied him to Aucturn’s influence, and when it appeared again his lifeforce began to drain, in the same way that the Four Pharaohs of Ascension later would, and he died. Genuinely in love with her husband, Neferuset took her life before she could even start on the plan, leaving only the first Doomsday Clock standing in the Slave Trenches of Hakotep waiting for Ramlock to pick up the slack, enigmatic to anyone who encountered it. Even Ramlock and the Four Pharaohs never suspected her role in events.
When Aucturn appeared last in 4662, the influence of Nyarlathotep's will stirred the undead spirit of Hakotep. Unable to animate his corpse, it instead sent visions to the Tephan Neferekhu, a distant descendant of Neferuset whose ancestors have maintained an oracular gift since that dynasty even if they have forgotten their origins, who was sent visions of a flying pyramid, a golden mask, and a powerful Pharaoh. Unable to parse what the visions mean, or what to do about them, Neferekhu was left frustrated, made worse by the apparent failing of her family’s prophetic abilities when her son failed to manifest any, and then with the decadent hedonism of her grandson Nebta-Khufre, who founded a cult of charisma around himself by seducing other bored and disaffected Tephan noble children while promising “immortality” - actually embracing undeath. Eventually remembering his grandmother’s visions, he used their influence and wealth to study it, including research in the Great Library of Tephu and contacting the sceaduinar Sekuer, and when Neferekhu died he raised her as an unwilling undead slave to his will to find out more. Just as he found clues that suggested the mask lay in Wati, his cult was discovered and the Pharasmin Voices of the Spire were sent in to break up his necromantic cult, and while many of its members were able to hide behind their family’s power and status to claim domination, Nebta-Khufre and his hardliner followers were exiled to die in the desert. Instead, Nebta-Khufre led them to Wati where he and the survivors used the Lottery to slip in, looking for the mask until they found it. A few days later he unlocked its power, triggering the Ka Pulse but also shattering his soul, leaving him a slave to the mask’s will.
Meanwhile, the Ib was finally able to influence someone when the Nethysian cleric Serethet discovered it a few weeks before Nebta-Khufre’s exile, forced to devour it and becoming the Sky Pharaoh, possessed by his memories but without his full power. The Sky Pharaoh knows that she must find the Flying Pyramid of Hakotep so that she can restore the Ib to him, not knowing it would return to him anyway if she died, but cannot remember where it lies or how to bring it back because Hakotep died before they were set adrift, and didn’t live to see the completion of the Slave Trenches, and intends to interrogate its architect for answers. Even as Nebta-Khufre was recruiting in Tephu, she was recruiting in Sothis and led her followers south to lead an expedition into the desert to first find Chisisek’s tomb and then interrogate it in the Sightless Sphinx, one of the few remaining sites Hakotep knew that still exists. Unfortunately, the battle with the Maftet cultists of Areshkigal has distracted her while the adventurers catch up.
Hakotep awakens when his Ib is freed from Serethet’s dead body, but as an undead Mummy Lord unable to leave his pyramid. The nightmare scenario is him reclaiming his mask, because then he will truly resurrect as a living god-king with Mythic Power, able to finally leave his pyramid to rule Osirion. But Nyarlathotep’s true intent is the revival of Neferuset, his queen, to prepare the way for Aucturn’s arrival in 4718. Hakotep may live or die, but that is irrelevant. If he has Neferuset, then she can ensure that Ramlock's portal activates and Aucturn devours Golarion. At the very least it will feel the nascent Elder God, and at worst it will free the Rough Beast and kickstart the end of all things. He has been patient, but the moment is coming and it must be prepared for. With Neferuset in their way, the heroes destined in Doomsday Dawn to stop Ramlock would find their efforts blocked at every turn by a hostile Pharaoh with undead legions. In an ideal Mummy's Mask, where the heroes win, that terrible future is averted.
???? - Pre-Osiriani Garundi tribes tell legends of the Great Old One Tychilarius, who fell to the desert sands and was imprisoned by the ancient clans. Its whereabouts, or how to free it, remain unknown but are of distinct interest to the Night Heralds.
-3290 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Golarion. Ancient Osirion founds the city of Ekbet, but the city is fated to fall into ruin and disrepair.
-1666 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Golarion. The 12 year old Neferuset, daughter of a pair of Sothan priests of Set, disappears and is found comatose and clinging to a copy of Secrets of the Dreaming Dark, eventually waking and speaking a strange tongue. When she relearns how to speak, she tells of visions of great beings from beyond Golarion. Her parents proclaim her a prophet of Set, but it is the Elder Gods of the Dark Tapestry from whom she draws her power. (The exact year Neferuset had her encounter is unstated, but would be convenient if it coincided with the return of Aucturn.)
-1660 - the Shory and Ancient Osirion enter a long state of conflict that escalates under the reign of Hakotep, husband of Neferuset, who seizes Shory technology to try to wage war on the flying city of Kho.
-1610 - Hakotep contracts a long wasting illness, and dies before he can put his plans to attack the Shory into motion. Neferuset dies broken-hearted, her copy of Secrets of the Dreaming Dark cut up, burned and scattered across the sands. Hakotep is succeeded by Djederet II, who immediately buries everything related to Hakotep, including the Slave Trenches of Hakotep where a Countdown Clock was erected, and obliterates all memory of him from the historical record.
-1554 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Osirion. Around the same time, Hakotep’s successor Djederet II dies having mostly successfully erased his predecessor’s legacy but without heir, leaving Osirion in a period of crisis until the rise of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension.
-1442 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Osirion.
-1431 - after a long wasting illness that affects all of them, the Four Pharaohs of Ascension die and are interred in their pyramids near Tumen.
1526 - Mafaere, the ghost head of House Dolour in Zirnakaynin, in assassinated by a rival house. She rises as a ghost and slaughters this rival House in rage, except for the handmaiden Failim who escapes to the surface and is found by Vourinoi desert elves who take her in. After receiving a vision from the Faceless Sphinx, an avatar of Nyarlathotep, she dedicates herself to the task of gaining control of the surface city of Sothis and dedicating it to her master, seeding a network of spies and hidden agents throughout the other Drow houses and in the surface society.
1532 - Qadira weakens Osirion with a series of staged slave revolts before invading, toppling the last Pharaoh, Menedes XXVI, and installing a ruling Satrap.
2253 - the Cult of the Dawnflower assassinate the reigning Satrap of Osirion and declare Osirion an independent satrapy of Kelesh.
2254 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Golarion. The Cult of the Dawnflower murders numerous officials in Absalom before local Sarenites end their killing spree.
2590 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Golarion.
2599 - The Cult of Lamashtu unleash the Plague of Madness on Wati, turning its citizens mad and driving them to slaughter each other leaving thousands dead in its wake.
3985 - Count Aldus Canter encounters the cult of the fallen angel Tabris in the Osiriani desert, and founds the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye.
3990 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Golarion.
4606 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Golarion. As the god Aroden disappears, failing to manifest his prophesied return, storms lash the coastlines of the Inner Sea killing the Caliph of Osirion and ending with the Sultana of Osirian fleeing to Qadira. Khemet I assumes the throne, restoring Pharaonic rule and beginning the Third Era.
4662 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Golarion. Stirring in undead slumber, Hakotep’s spirit sends visions to the Tephan oracle Neferekhu-Khufre, who influences her grandson. When she dies, Nebta-Khufre founds a cult to worship him as the figure in her grandmother’s visions, the Forgotten Pharaohs, and when his cult is broken up and his disciples exiled he vows to find and claim the golden mask his grandmother saw. Unknown to either, Nebta-Khufre’s twin sister, Sedjawet, is not abandoned as her visions told her to command but instead given for adoption to by her father to a pair of visiting Abadaran merchants from Tephu. (The exact year Neferekhu started having her visions is unstated, but given her age it would be very convenient to coincide with Aucturn's return.)
4718 - Aucturn appears in the skies of Golarion, coinciding with the final countdown of the Final Theorem which predicts the planet will finally bring the arrival of the Dominion of the Black or that Golarion will be devoured by an Elder God.
The one irksome detail of the whole narrative is the timing by which Serethet and Nebta-Khufre find Hakotep’s heart and mask respectively. These two macguffins have lain undisturbed for several thousand years only to suddenly be discovered by two completely unrelated people at completely different locations at practically the same time? Hope I’m not remembering that part wrong, but it’s the sort of cosmic coincidence that sadly reveals the AP as the poorly strung together separate adventures that they really are.
Easy enough to fix, though. Just establish a connection between Serethet and Nebby.
It hadn't occurred to me, but yeah, tying Serethet and Nebta together really would fix it. I don't know about making her a member of his cult, but I like the idea that they were both working from the same sources, maybe working together intially until Nebta started drinking his own Kool-Aid and she took off to find the Ib while he decided to find the Mask. Serethet is still meant to be a tragically sympathetic figure, someone who got in over her head, with the possibility of redemption, and making her a willing cultist before she found the Ib doesn't quite match that. Returning as the Forgotten Pharaoh, she picks up the pieces of Nebta's cult as the foundation of her own. You're right, having Nebta's cult is a needless red herring and I was honestly worried about my players going down that rabbit hole and taking off for Sothis when they found out about the Ib, but tying them together gives the chance to head that off.