VIII – Climacophobia: The Fear of Falling Down Stairs

“This is essentially a companion phobia to the fear of height, although here another element probably enters in more strongly. The climacophobiac sees himself tumbling from the staircase into a cavernous darkness, a phantasy identified by the Freudians as an unconscious longing for self-immolation manifesting itself in a desire to return to the mother’s womb. Moreover, the rhythmic act of climbing is a sex symbol. The punishment theory may here again be applied in the climacophobiac’s fear of punishment (falling) for the transgressions symbolized by the act of climbing. As in all phobias, the victim suffers from the conflicting elements of his imaginings – the desire for suicide and release warring against his fear of those conditions favourable to self-destruction.

"It is possible, nevertheless, to read a different explanation into many cases of climacophobia. As climbing means success, so, conversely does falling signify failure, and the social obligations burdening us all make us too morbidly conscious of the disgrace of failure. Here, in addition to the fear of falling, there may exist a superimposed fear of the climb itself, so closely akin to acrophobia.”

John Vassos

New York City

May 25^th, 1931

Deep Waters - Uneasy Alliance

‘Th’ Old Ones were; th’ Old Ones are; th’ Old Ones’re gonna come agin...!’

We were all packed into the Temple of the Esoteric Order of Dagon while Abner went into his routine. After his invocation, the robed figures standing around echoed him murmurously and made various holy hand signals. Sitting beside me, Barney Marsh followed suit and I reflexively copied his movements. I craned my neck to look across the aisle and saw Ned and Winston and a few of the other guys sitting hunched forward rebelliously, looking as if they had better places to be (and that of course would be a correct assumption). They all looked jittery and on edge; Winston kept rubbing hard at his nose and Ned’s face was covered with white powder, as if he’d been interrupted while putting his clown face on. I shook my head and turned back to tune into what Abner was saying.

‘Word’s come in from th’ ether,’ he said staring around at the gathering, ‘that our borders’ve bin violated. Drowners are comin’, an’ that’s bad news fer the community.’

A movement caught my attention and I saw Winston raise his hand and half stand up.

‘Sorry, Grampaw,’ he said, ‘what’s a Drowner, please?’

Abner thumped the floor with his cane and it echoed hollowly. ‘Dang, Winston! Din’t you pay attention in Temple school? You asleep that whole time?’

‘Maybe I just missed that class...’ Winston muttered lamely and sank back down in his seat.

‘Miss your own dang head if’n it weren’t nailed on!’ Abner rattled the floorboards once more. He turned to scan the congregation.

‘Fer the benefit o’ my iggerant grandson – and anyone else who oughtta have bin payin’ attention – Drowners is vermin; parasites what prey on the Great Old Ones. They go sniffin’ out our communities and settle in, unbodied an’ corrupt; eatin’ up our prayers an’ a-feastin’ on our thoughts, so’s we don’t hear the dreams o’ the Lord o’ th’ Abyss ‘n’ he cain’t hear ours.’

There was a hushed murmur through the room and some more frantic ritual gestures. I figured that Winston had already taken one for the team, so I raised my hand.

‘Excuse me please, Mr. Gilman, sir: but what does a Drowner look like? And how do we deal with it?’

‘Lan’ sakes, boy!’ Abner shook his head irritably, his boot-blacked head shining in the torchlight, ‘din’t I just tell you they’s “unbodied”? You cain’t see ‘em; you cain’t touch ‘em. But they’s there, sure ‘nough. Sometimes they bring their own worshippers with ‘em – witches and such like, hungry for power – them we kin deal with, but Drowner’s like weeds: you gotta pull ‘em up by the root, or they jist keep a-comin’ back.’

He stood up and leaned heavily on his cane.

‘We got wards around the town that keep us hid from Drowners, so’s they cain’t see or hear us. First thing we needs to do is check ‘em and make sure they’s still where they’s s’posed to be – if’n they’s a hole in that net, then that’s our first piece o’ business, to git that mended.

‘Else ways, mebbe someone went out past the wards and caught their attention, some way. Then, they mighta jist follered that idjit home, straight past the wards and on inta Town. If’n that’s how it went down, I sure wouldn’t wanna be that idjit once we find ‘im.’

Little bits of information were plinking and plopping into the bourbon-soaked pool of my brain. I took great care not to look over in Winston’s direction.

‘You two,’ Abner’s stick pointed starkly out across the throng in my direction and I tuned in quickly, ‘you two kin go out an’ check the western ward – that should be simple enough fer you to do. And you...’ Abner pointed in another direction and issued more assignments.

I looked sideways at Barney Marsh and found him looking likewise at me. We had never gotten along too well. I mean, it’s not that we were enemies, it’s just we were into different stuff: I was into heavy metal; he was more of a punk fan. We’d both been in the school football team, but Barney had left when he decided to quit school. Like me, Barney was big and strong; unlike me, Barney was feeling the Change a lot earlier than anyone else I’d met. I mean, he was green for Gods’ sake! He stood up, creaking in his leather pants and jacket over his black Ramones t-shirt.

‘You wanna get this done?’ he said, jerking a thumb towards the exit.

‘Uh sure,’ I answered, ‘just waitin’ for you.’

He snorted and lurched towards the door; I stood up and drifted in his wake.

Outside, the moon silvered down over the Temple and we could hear the distant throb of the disco from the Gilman House.

‘Where’s that piece o’ shit car you drive parked?’ Barney asked.

I stopped to light a cigarette. I used the time that took to consider whether I should be annoyed or not: there was serious stuff going down and the murky pool of my mind was still bubbling away.

I clapped my Zippo shut. ‘Over there,’ I said. ‘Wipe your boots before you get in.’

Abner had handed out the assignments, but Stan Eliot had given us all the particulars. Or goal was one of the old railway tunnels along the abandoned rail line that had once taken trains to Rowley. The line had been torn up shortly after the Innsmouth citizens had been allowed to return to the town and all of the tunnels (three in total) had been sealed with heavy wooden doors and chains. Our mission was to examine the furthest one of these, in which a sacred totem had been hidden – one of the links in the net that warded the town and kept us hidden from the Drowners.

I slid behind the wheel and twisted the key in the ignition. A burst of jangling, discordant music burst forth from the tape player. I stabbed the eject button. Squinting at the tape I looked over at Barney who regarded me with a questioning gaze.

‘The Sex Pistols?’ I said. I tossed the cassette into his lap and grabbed another from a number scattered behind the windshield. I quickly inserted it and turned up the volume.

‘Barney,’ I said, ‘when you get your own piece o’ shit car then you can decide what music gets played inside it.’

I gunned the engine and we slid off into the darkness, with “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” bellowing from the speakers...

To Be Continued...

Rip It & Run: All Things Mummified...

What with all the mummy hoo-hah going on at the moment, I thought I’d take a look at the concept and see what possibilities it has for generating roleplaying action. After all, if Tom Cruise and Universal can make so complete a hash of it, it behoves we gamers to see if we can salvage the wreckage.

First things first – why are these stories appropriate for Call of Cthulhu game generation? Straight off, there are canon stories which focus particularly upon Ancient Egypt so the bedrock is there to build upon. Secondly, the Ancient Egyptian civilisation is just that – ancient – and most Mythos material involves the eruption from a distant past of some menace which not only threatens the planet, but which throws understood knowledge of Reality into a tailspin. Thirdly, fascination for the ancient culture among the “present-day” types kicked off in Europe in the early 1800s and then erupted in England after the discovery of Tutankhamen in the 1920s, so at least two of the canon gaming periods – Gaslight and Classic – are directly covered. Therefore, with the blessing of the Lovecraft Circle, we can proceed.

Literary Sources:

Of course, the roots of “Mummy Literature” well pre-date HPL and his friends. Concepts concerning the Ancient Egyptians and their magical activities were hitting print well before, in fact pretty much straight after Napoleon shot the nose off the Sphinx to prove his dominance over the Kingdom of the Nile. Here, therefore, are the chief, non-Mythos, literary sources.

ANONYMOUS (LOUDON-WEBB, Jane), The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, Henry Colburn Publishers Ltd., London, 1827

Directly inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, this is the story of Cheops, resurrected in the future by electrical energy. It dwells somewhat ponderously upon the social and technological changes of the future, seen through the bizarre “everyman” character of the revived Pharaoh. Throughout the story, Cheops fervently disbelieves in the power of technology to revive the dead and declares that he is reborn only through the will of the gods.

There’s not much to pillage in this offering, but as the first ever ‘mummy novel’, it deserves its place at the head of the list. For enterprising Keepers, the central conceit – that of a human being resurrected after thousands of years – might be an interesting way of establishing a campaign, or of injecting a villain/ally into one.

HAGGARD, H.Rider, She, Longmans Green & Co., London, 1886

One of Haggard’s best-known and more lurid works, She involves the machinations of an entity named Ayesha, “She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed”, a goddess made flesh, ruling the lost kingdom of Kôr in the heart of Africa. By virtue of a pillar of “living flame” she has been made immortal and awaits the reincarnation of her lover, Kallikrates, in order that they may rule over the world together. Of course, the object of her affection is re-born as a diabolically-handsome and physically perfect Englishman, Leo Vincey, who, along with his physically-capable but terribly ugly guardian, Horace Holly, travels to Africa in response to clues discovered on an ancient pottery sherd. Much of the tale involves the natives over whom She rules and the miscommunications and misadventures that surround the interactions of the tribes with the strange white men.

This book is an artefact of British colonialism and evokes all of the negative ideas that such roots generate, along with Victorian notions of idealised love. That being said, it is the source and wellspring of the “love never dies” themes that have informed Mummy literature ever since. This is a romance in every sense of the word. At the heart of the tale is the notion of power, and the uses to which it is put: Ayesha wields great authority, not only over her tribespeople, but in the form of Ancient Spells and psychic talents, as well as the fact that no man can look upon her without falling to their knees in love and awe. That she uses these talents selfishly to get her boyfriend back (whom she killed in a tantrum 2,000 years ago) says a lot about her maturity and capability for altruism. A Mythos spin on this construct could see someone like Nitocris in the place of Ayesha, bent upon unleashing the savagery of the Old Ones...

MARSH, Richard, The Beetle, Arthur Skeffington Publishers Ltd., London, 1897

In this story, the youthful misadventures of a British parliamentary representative, Paul Lessingham, come back to bite him savagely on the backside. An evil creature of nebulous form arrives in London with schemes of vengeance and starts to terrorise the populace. It transpires that while holidaying in Egypt, Lessingham was kidnapped by an Isis cult (some things never change) and forced to become the plaything of its savage leader. After watching many kidnapped white women desecrated and burned alive in an horrific furnace, he makes a break for freedom, stabbing the high-priestess en route. Cut forward some years and the eponymous creature arrives in London and kidnaps Lessingham’s girlfriend as part of a revenge plot.

Here we see the romantic sub-plot, introduced by Haggard, dragged into prominence again. In this version however, it’s a little more straightforward: the “kidnap the girlfriend” trope is one which transcends all genres, from Westerns to Sci-Fi. The mystery at the core of this tale is the Beetle itself: what are its powers? What can it do? How can it be protected against? How do we kill it? In taking this tale into roleplaying territory, the Keeper needs to pin these issues down firmly, no matter how strange and inexplicable they may look to the players.

BOOTHBY, Guy, Pharos the Egyptian, Ward Lock & Co. Ltd., London, 1899

An escape for Boothby from his Dr. Nikola novels which follows a young man, Cyril Forester, who encounters a beautiful young violinist named Valerie and her aged guardian. Bewitched by her beauty and vaguely concerned about the morality of her protector, Cyril follows them across the Continent, slowly learning the deep secrets which they hide... All of the tropes are here: violated tombs; ancient curses; bandaged mummies; endangered and mesmerised damsels. It’s said that this novel was by far the greatest influence on Universal’s 1932 film.

Here we see the arrival of the über-mummy, empowered by strange magicks, able to pass as a living person, and intent upon the destruction of those who disturbed its ancient rest. Unlike the Beetle, the abilities of this creature are more clearly defined and its purpose openly stated. This is no bandaged shambler and we’ll talk more about such beasties below...

STOKER, Bram, The Jewel of Seven Stars, William Heinemann & Co., London, 1903

In this novel, the spirit of Egyptian Princess Tera emerges within the body of her distant ancestor, an English woman named Margaret Trelawney. With the help of her archaeologist father and his associates (some of whom are romantically linked to Margaret), they struggle to remove the baneful Egyptian influence and prevent Princess Tera trying to reclaim her old kingdom.

There isn’t a concrete bandage-wrapped form dominating this tale; rather, the spirit of the Ancient Princess – randomly grabbing control of Margaret’s corpus – is the threat. This equates nicely in a roleplaying situation as a straight POW vs. POW contest in the afflicted character, with the encroaching intelligence anchored to some arcane artefact which needs to be destroyed. The exact plans and schemes of the evil personality are what drives the narrative forward.

HAGGARD, H.Rider, Ayesha – The Return of She, Ward Lock Ltd, London, 1903

The first sequel to She changes location from Africa to Tibet. It sees Leo and Holly trekking through the Himalayas to a remote lamasery seeking word of Ayesha’s survival. Leo is convinced that She is not dead (perhaps because her final words to him in the previous book were “I’ll be back” - duh!). Wintering in the lamasery, its Abbot warns them about continued involvement with Ayesha, fearing that contact with her will only strengthen their links to the Wheel of Karma rather than liberating them. The rest of the book is a power struggle between Atene, the wife of the Khan of a remote kingdom, and the reincarnated Ayesha who commands subservience of the Khanate from her temple high in a volcanic mountain shaped like an ankh. Both of them fall in love with Leo and battle to control him. Both women prove morally stunted and Leo finally dies from Ayesha’s kiss; she orders the death of a priest to go before her into the Land of the Dead to prepare for her arrival.

There’s not a lot to borrow from this instalment that we haven’t seen before (and certainly no more to be gained from the next two sequels, Wisdom’s Daughter and Allan and She). Of major interest is the switching from Ancient Egyptian notions of reincarnation to Tibetan ones, demonstrating that the concept is translatable across many platforms. Ankh-shaped mountains are pretty cool, too!

“ROHMER, Sax” (WARD, Arthur Henry "Sarstedt"), The Green Eyes of Bast (1920); Bat Wing (1921); Brood of the Witch Queen (1924); She Who Sleeps (1928); The Bat Flies Low (1935); Salute to Bazarada (1939); Seven Sins (1943), McBride Ltd.; Doubleday Ltd.; London

Sax Rohmer’s wholesale pillaging of other cultures was not restricted to China and its immediate environs; when he wasn’t inflicting the Devil Doctor, Fu Manchu, upon the world, he would take wild flights of fancy into other territories. The titles listed above comprise many of his Egypto-maniacal fare and puddle about with mummies, ancient curses, reincarnated lovers and all the usual suspects. Rohmer was obviously riding the wave of interest created by the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922, so there was an eager market for his pulp. In fact, the Egyptian influence even affected his ongoing Fu Manchu series with the introduction of Kâramanèh, a female Egyptian agent who later abandons the Devil Doctor and marries Dr. Petrie.

Along with Rohmer many other writers churned out pulpy novels following similar themes; however, Rohmer sets the tone and after these there’s really no more to be said. By this time, mummies had made the jump to the silver screen and that would become their more familiar home. There’s really only one more print version that we need to look at:

RICE, Anne, The Mummy – Ramses the Damned, Ballantine Books, New York NY, 1989.

Rice moved away from her vampire novels with this release – after all, Lestat and crew had pretty much gotten as far as they were going to get and topping the excessive gore-fest that was The Queen of the Damned was probably even too much for Rice herself to contemplate. This work begins in the 20s after the opening of a mysterious Egyptian tomb which houses an anachronistic mummy: all the labels say that it’s Ramses the Great, but the tomb dates from a dynasty that is too late for that Pharaoh to have been alive. Mysteriously, the mummy awakens and emerges as a handsome and erudite man of noble bearing. It transpires that he has an elixir of immortality that transforms the imbiber into an eternal being, dependent only upon the Sun’s rays for survival. Thereafter, it’s all intrigue among the archaeologists and their family, with one of the daughters falling for the revived Egyptian King. There was a sequel wherein Ramses tries to find Cleopatra’s mummy and revive both her and their once-tempestuous love affair but... well you get the idea.

Of interest here are both the immortality elixir and the mummy creatures which it creates. Described cynically as “anti-Vampires”, they wither and fade if deprived of sunlight, not dying but becoming torpid. They are super-strong, have heightened senses, are difficult to stop and full of an overwhelming lust for life. Sound familiar? Still, in the context of Call of Cthulhu and the later movies, it’s definitely a workable concept.

Screen Adaptations...

Like the novels, there are a literal plethora of versions to choose from; also like the novels, they are pretty awful, and few break any new ground or add anything to the accepted body of material. Most interpretations of the Egyptian undead tend to be humorous and not really inspirational for someone trying to tell a Mythos version of the genre. Here’s a selection that might be of use:

FREUND, Karl (Dir.), “The Mummy”, Universal Pictures, 1932

The first and, to my mind, the best. Archaeologists break open a tomb in Egypt and fall victim to the curse of the one buried within: Imhotep’s mummy reanimates and shuffles off into the darkness, driving mad the one set to watch over him in the process. Rather than having a mummy that springs about and leaps all over the place, the director focuses upon the incredible fact that something so ancient is moving at all. Boris Karloff’s work here is riveting to watch: when he first begins to move it’s almost imperceptible, as if he is, indeed, throwing off the rigor of the ages. Later shots of his desiccated face as he uses his hypnotic powers reinforce this aged perspective while contrasting his luminous eyes. This mummy is baleful and determined, obsessed with claiming the woman he believes to be his beloved reincarnated.

Things to take away from this source are the madness-inducing shock of seeing something dead struggle to life. The famous awakening scene in this film has sometimes been referred-to as silly nowadays, but persevere with it: how would you react to a mummified person returning to life? Decades of revivifying corpses have perhaps inured us to the shock of such an event, but this is the first time it was tried and it deserves credit for what it achieves.

FISHER, Terence (Dir.), “The Mummy”, Hammer Films, 1959

Suddenly, it’s colour, and the director who went on to make some of the worst Bond films ever. Given the possibilities of throwing large amounts of red paint around the place, Fisher delved deep into his copy of Wallis Budge’s The Mummy and tried to depict all of the gruesome details of mummification. In this version the mummified Kharis (dodging copyright issues from Universal) returns to life after his tomb is invaded and goes on a rampage to destroy the defilers. As well, there’s a girl who resembles his lost love – the one he committed heresy to be with – and he tries to shuffle off into the night with her.

Apart from the grand guignol of mummification, what this film brings to the table is an idea that mummies are super-strong due to the bituminous resins which bond to their desiccated flesh; of course, such stuff being flammable, it also signals the doom of the creature.

SOMMERS, Stephen (Dir.), “The Mummy”, Universal Films/Alphaville Films, 1999

The perfect storm. Before this, Stephen Sommers was known only for directing cheesey action/comedies of a fairly low-grade sort. Universal was looking around for someone to re-boot the franchise before they lost the rights to the Universal Monsters, and so they decided to take a gamble with this guy. Add action-capable actors with comedy and drama chops, and some inspired notions about what mummies are all about, and the rest was gold.

The story runs the usual gamut of curses, Egyptian ruins and secret cabals sworn to keep the Evil One entombed and adds a heady mix of action and good humour to leaven the horror. For Mythos fans there’s the intriguing Book of the Dead (which brings things to life) and the resurrected über-mummy with its cultish followers set upon dominating the planet (and getting the girl).

SOMMERS, Stephen (Dir.), “The Mummy Returns”, Universal Films/Alphaville Films/Imhotep Films, 2001

Round two of this unexpected success was a little bloated but still well worth the price of admission. The sequel grabs a handful of things from earlier sources – most notably Stoker’s Jewel of the Seven Stars – and adds a dose of Haggard to the mix. Things get a little silly in places, what with mummified pygmies and Brendan Fraser outrunning the Sun, but it’s all good-natured enough to not impinge too much on credibility. Mythos fans can rejoice in the Book of the Living (which makes unliving things dead) and the way the film engineers the Scorpion King backstory to build its action upon.

COHEN, Rob (Dir.), “The Mummy – Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”, Universal Films/Relativity Media/Alphaville Films/Beijing Happy Pictures, 2008

A burned-out Sommers relinquished directorial control of the franchise at this point and Rob Cohen took the opportunity to re-locate the action to China. With Rachel Weisz deciding not to reprise her leading-lady role, the fate of the film hung in the balance for some time. For the most part, the film does what it sets out to do, despite unleashing dragons and Fu creatures and dubious Yetis, and the charisma of the cast helps keep things on track.

Personally, I have a soft spot for this flick, mainly because it’s set in China. There are some debatable moments but I can let them slide. The main thing to take from this if you’re looking for inspiration, is that mummies are a worldwide phenomenon and you can tweak the concept in any direction you like. Peru, anyone?

KURTZMAN, Alex (Dir.), “The Mummy”, Universal Pictures/Dark Universe/Perfect World Pictures, 2017,

I’ve already posted a review of this so I won’t waste too much (more) space on it. Copyright maintenance has forced Universal to revive the Universal Monsters franchise once more and so they’ve decided to duplicate Marvel’s superhero success and create an integrated “Dark Universe” of monsters. Not doing a good job so far.

In that the movie references all sorts of material from past iterations of their monster movies, it’s no surprise that the pre-credit sequence is an extended plot exposition telling us all there is to know about the eponymous mummy (as happens in the Stephen Sommers movies). It’s this stuff that is the best the film has to offer, so I would suggest leaving the cinema once it’s done. There’s a great bit where Ahmenet summons Set to aid her in her vengeance and he appears as a crumbling mummified being, while all the (formerly dead) birds hanging from the rafters begin flapping frantically as they come back to life. It’s very evocative and spooky; as I said though, best to avoid the rest.

Mythos Concepts

This is a standard Call of Cthulhu Mummy:

The Bog-Standard Mummy

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	3D6x2	POW	1D6+12	Move	6
CON	3D6x1.5	DEX	2D6	HP	14-15
SIZ	2D6+6	APP	n/a	Magic Points	=POW
INT	3D6	EDU	n/a	SAN	0

Damage Bonus: +1d4

Weapon: Fist 70%, 1d+db; Grapple 25%, special

Armour: 2-point skin; Impaling weapons are useless unless severing a limb, head, etc.

Skills: Move Quietly 50%; Stalk 40%

SAN Loss: It costs 1/1d8 SAN to see a Mummy

From what we’ve seen above in the source material, there would appear to be a case for mummies of a greater capability than these shuffling minions. In the early Karloff and Christopher Lee mummy films, the above stats would work very well to depict the monsters: the mummies really do little more than shamble about and beat people up (especially in the Hammer flick). In a low-powered encounter along those lines, these figures work fairly well. However, if we want to enact a mummy scenario more along the lines of Stephen Sommers’ films, or if we’re riffing off Haggard or Anne Rice, then we need to design a bigger, better, mummy: the Über-Mummy.

From the source material, we know that the über-mummy is more dynamic, more powerful, and more attractive than the standard variety. That being said, it’s not true to the canon to have them jump right out of the sarcophagus looking like a Hollywood heartthrob: even Karloff’s mummy spent some time shambling about in bandages until he found a way to fit in. To this end, I’d suggest starting an über-mummy by using the above stats and then adding a few tweaks:

First, keep in mind that mummies, being undead, don’t regenerate Magic Points the way that living creatures do. Normal mummies have only the MPs that they start off with and, when they’re gone, that’s it. Cultists like to use mummies as MP batteries that double as watchdogs, making them slightly more useful than zombies. However, as far as our über-mummies are concerned, they have access to dark magical knowledge that allows them to get around this barrier: these guys are able to drain POW and MPs from their victims, killing them in the process. In order to do this the über-mummy must Grapple their victim and then Drain them the following round; the victim is allowed to compare their STR against the mummy’s on the Resistance Table, winning free if successful. If not, their POW and their Magic Points transfer over to the über-mummy at a rate of 5 points of each per round. Once the victim’s POW hits zero, they die. In return, the mummy gains 1 POW for every full 2 points of POW absorbed, and all MPs on a one point per one point basis. The POW points that don’t get added to the creature’s own POW get distributed evenly between the mummy’s STR, CON and DEX. Thus, over time, the über-mummy puts itself back together by feeding on those around it.

And what does it do with this abundance of POW and Magic Points? Firstly, with all of that POW, the mummy can attract followers, using its personal magnetism and promise of great power to build a cult-like organisation around it. This is extremely useful for protection and to enable the creature to acclimatise to its new surroundings and time period. As for the Magic Points, the Keeper should assign mystical powers to the über-mummy, 1D6-1 or so, that the monster can use at will, once per round. These should replicate the effects of standard spells with the following limitations: 1) no Call/Dismiss or Summon/Bind spells; 2) no spells which have physical components (Elder Sign, for example); 3) no Enchant spells; 4) no spells which are the province of specialised sects or faiths – Brothers of the Skin or Voodoo, for instance. The MP costs of these spells remain the same as the listed spell, however casting times are waived in favour of instantaneous effects. Obviously, the SAN costs are meaningless to a mummy.

Another useful ability exclusive to the über-mummy is the ability to shrug off damage on a one Hit Point per Magic Point basis. In the face of concerted opposition, this is an expensive way to burn through all of those Magic Points which they’ve absorbed but it can mean the difference between death and continuing undeath. If it chooses to take the damage rather than absorb it in this fashion, the mummy is perfectly capable of doing so.

And note, again, that the mummy must reload its MPs by devouring more hapless passers-by; no matter how much POW they have, they’re still undead and can’t regenerate these points.

There’s another power which these über-mummies have that isn’t often mentioned, although it is always implicit – telegnosis. This is the ability to know things from a great distance. In these instances, it should be limited to objects and situations with which the mummy is intimately connected – its tomb; an artefact which contains its soul; the reincarnated soul of its ancient lover. The Keeper should be wary about this ability and try to use it within consistent restraints, otherwise it becomes a license to know everything that the players are doing in order to thwart the mummy’s plans. It might be useful to allow the monster an Idea Roll each time it gets prompted to try and get a sense of what its enemies are up to rather than assume that it always knows what’s going on all the time. And remember that a sense of hubris guides most über-mummies: in their arrogance, they assume their opposition couldn’t effect a useful scheme against them, so why keep tabs?

Now the über-mummy is a more imposing threat and, arguably, something more resembling the mummies of our source material.

Now to bring the Mythos!

The following is a quick list of short stories and novels all of which are considered Mythos canon:

BELKNAP LONG, Frank, “A Visitor from Egypt”

BLOCH, Robert, “The Secret of Sebek”; “The Eyes of the Mummy”; “The Brood of Bubastis”; “Fane of the Black Pharaoh”

CARTER, Lin, Curse of the Black Pharaoh; “The Thing Under Memphis”

CULP, Robert C., “The Papyrus of Nephren-Ka”

LOVECRAFT, H.P., “Under the Pyramids”

LUMLEY, Brian, “The Mirror of Nitocris”

TIERNEY, Richard, “The Ring of Set”, “The Scroll of Thoth”, “The Soul of Khephri”, “The Treasure of Horemkhu”

This is just a quick snapshot; there are certain to be more than this lurking around.

Apart from stories that are based in Ancient Egypt or which have features redolent of mummies and ancient Egyptian curses, it’s worthwhile remembering that there are creatures, Mythos tomes and entities that have connexions to Ancient Egypt, for example: Nyarlathotep in his Black Pharaoh avatar and also those of Set, Thoth, the Faceless God and Nyarlathoptis; the Elder Gods Bast (Bubastis) and Isis; The Serpent People; The Great Old One Sebek; Children of the Sphinx; and Yog-Sothoth in its avatar of the Aten. The Dreamlands of Earth also has connexions to Ancient Egypt, especially when we consider the pshent-crowned guardians of the Caverns of Sleep, Nasht and Kaman-Thah.

Taken all-in-all, if mummies are your thing, then there is plenty of scope for working Mythos mayhem. Grab the bandages and get shambling!

Review: Dark Universe - "The Mummy"

KURTZMAN, Alex (Dir.), “The Mummy”, Universal Pictures/Perfect World/Sean Daniel Company/Secret Hideout, 2017.

At what point in putting together a movie, do you stand back and say, “wait guys – this is a bunch of crap.” Surely, as costume designer, or an art director, you get to look at the script and say, “hang on – this is all a bit shit. Why am I working so hard on this?” Obviously, the answer is “never”, because by the time the artistic people and the talent get to look at the project, five guys in a room somewhere after a fat lunch have already signed off on it. And everyone else just goes along for the ride. I’m betting there is an army of set dressers, art concept people, location scouts, wardrobe toilers, carpenters, sparkies, painters and scene lighters who will look back on this film and say “well, at least the pay cheque was good.”

So, is this a bad film? In that it has all the elements for a classic mummy tale, no it isn’t; it’s what the studio has attempted to graft on top of it that makes it a complete nonsense. Let me explain. Instead of just re-booting the classic “Mummy” film from 1932 (which is a solid gold classic), they have decided to re-imagine the entire series of Universal Monsters movies, making them an integrated whole within a “Dark Universe”. Therefore, “The Mummy” gets to be the springboard, setting up everything that happens next, rather than being its own thing. It’s Universal doing a Marvel Cinematic Universe, but with monsters instead of superheroes.

To this end, this film is littered with references from all of the Universal Monster classics, past and present. In one scene, we see the petrified hand of the “Gill Man” from “Creature from the Black Lagoon”; there’s a human skull with long canines, foreshadowing “Dracula”; at one point our heroine defeats a troublesome goon by bashing him on the head with The Book of the Dead from Stephen Sommers’ Mummy flick; and our doomed hero is constantly pestered to just kill himself by his undead buddy, a la “An American Werewolf in London”. Even one of the skulls in Dr. Jekyll’s Frankensteinian laboratory looked significantly like it had once belonged to “The Phantom of the Opera”. Online geek channels will no doubt gloat about spotting these ‘easter eggs’ in the coming weeks, arguing over which scene really contained the Invisible Man, but, seriously? Why not just make a Mummy movie and be done with it?

There were some interesting things going on here. Ahmenet (Sofia Boutella), the eponymous mummy, was nicely realised, with all the strange tattoos and freaky eyes, but here the film borrowed far too heavily on Sommers’ previous trilogy. Weird faces in the sand, rampaging bugs, a bit with a London double-decker bus; even a whole pre-credit sequence outlining her backstory – there is a point where ‘homage’ gives way to ‘we just couldn’t think of anything new’. I did like the rats, though.

As far as the mummy story went, unimaginative as it is in this iteration, it seems that the best the producers could think of was to flip the genders on the main characters. Now there’s no longer a hubris-laden Imhotep tracking down his reincarnated lover across the ages; they’ve gone all H. Rider Haggard on us and given us a female mummy with a male Chosen One. They couldn’t have borrowed the storyline more if they’d named the mummy Ayesha. And of course, because the Chosen One is being played by Tom Cruise, all the female characters in the flick have to swoon over him and circle willingly in his orbit. Hollywood has decreed that female characters in films cannot possibly drive the action, and this film does nothing to mollify that attitude.

Cruise is definitely not a draw card for me. I dislike him intensely and therefore it takes something extra for me to go and see a film with him in it. It’s not just that he unceremoniously dumped ‘Our Nicole’ (something which Australians will never overlook) it’s just that he’s a certifiable loon, positively reeking with The Crazy. That being said though, I’ve never seen him turn in a bad performance. Whether he’s preparing to bomb Hitler, or railing about VietNam Vets’ rights from a wheelchair, or scaling a super-tall building in Abu Dhabi, he always brings his A-game, and it seriously shits me. Even in this movie, he brings the gusto, and I almost felt sorry for him, because the script let him down, not his acting chops. The character which he’s meant to portray is so loosely drawn, so badly imagined, that any actor with less skill than Cruise couldn’t have turned in this good a performance (and good it ain’t). It starts off as Brendan Fraser in “The Mummy”, turns into David Naughton from “An American Werewolf in London”, and then falls into a parody of himself playing the Vampire Lestat. Like the rest of the film, the character was obliterated in service to the over-arching need to establish the Dark Universe, and we’ll see him again in the “Dracula” re-boot, no doubt.

The material which this movie is actually about, is a secret organisation sworn to identify, oppose, neutralise, study and destroy Evil, wherever it manifests in the world. Known as the Prodigium, it is led, rather dubiously I have to say, by Dr. Henry Jekyll, as portrayed by Russell ‘Rusty’ Crowe. Why some guy who needs an anti-Evil shot every ten minutes and who has trouble keeping his medication within arm’s reach is in charge of such a group is anybody’s guess, but I figure that the producers were just trying to think of any way that they could claim the character as one of their own. With Rusty is The Girl (Annabelle Wallis) who, like Cruise’s character, is a tissue-thin agglomeration of motives, most of which are subordinate to Cruise winning the day. Since she survives the mummy encounter, I assume she will form some of the glue that binds the next movie in the Dark Universe series.

If you’re expecting a film with a monster as its main antagonist here, you will be very disappointed. The monster is almost completely incidental to everything else. This is a silly action flick in which Tom Cruise (‘cursed’ to be immune from harm and from death) gets beaten up repeatedly by the monster’s minions (which, if you’ve seen the Brendan Fraser films, offers nothing new in the realm of people vs. dried-up mummy fights). The funny bits aren't funny, the serious bits are implausible and the rest is just cheap "the cat jumps out of the shadows" moments. With Rusty the Plot Exposition Fairy stating the bleeding obvious all the way through, you will weigh the needs of your bladder during this outing more highly than the cost of your entry ticket.

My advice? Wait for the DVD. Rent it if possible. Two Tentacled Horrors.