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Recovered: The Mummy (1999) as Dungeon

I rewatched The Mummy (1999) about a week ago. Although it may not be intended, it has some elements of a good dungeon in it. Here I have outlined what I can recall, at least without having to do any further research, and with some interjections.

“†” denotes elements drawn from The Mummy Returns (2001), which was not a great movie.

A theatrical poster for The Mummy: a great face of sand in the sky over the great pyramids of Egypt. Tagline: “The will rise. The heavens will part. The Power will be unleashed. May 7.”Image © Universal Pictures, probably.

Getting There

  • Map to dungeon inside Puzzle Box. (meh)
  • Condemned man also knows the way. (cool)
  • Path illuminated by a mirage at sunrise. (meh)

There

  • Front door unlocked by Puzzle Box. (cool)
  • Stone tablet that says:
    • the Book of Life is below the statue of Anubis.
    • the Book of Death is below the status of Thoth.
  • The Book of Life is below the statue of Thoth. (nice)
  • The Cursed Box is below the statue of Anubis.
  • Imhotep is trapped and inanimate in a sarcophagus.
  • Dormant mummies entombed behind figures on the walls.
  • Jewels set in the walls are actually flesh-eating scarabs.
  • The river of death flows through the lowest level.
  • A Sacrificial Altar next to the river of death.
  • A treasure room containing lots of stuff and also the Rod of Osiris. Except for the trouble of hauling it, it is unprotected.
  • A big crocodile-headed self-destruct lever closes off all exits and sinks the dungeon into the sand.
  • Location in the desert makes hauling loot inconvenient.

Items

Puzzle Box

  • contains the map.
  • opens the front door.
  • opens the Book of Death. (meh)

Cursed Box

  • curse is written on it, roughly:
    1. If you open the box
    2. And Imhotep wakes up & is free
    3. He will kill you and maybe take your organs
    4. And cause bad things like plagues.
  • contains Book of Death and Canopic Jars.

Book of Life

  • made of gold.
  • incantation 1: control mummies (not Imhotep).
  • incantation 2: make Imhotep mortal.

Book of Death

  • locked, key is Puzzle Box. (lame)
  • incantation 1: raise Imhotep.
  • incantation 2: reincarnate Imhotep’s lover.

Canopic Jars

  • gold.
  • contain organs of Imhotep’s lover.

Rod of Osiris†

  • a golden scepter.
  • becomes a spear.
  • the only weapon capable of killing Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in his final form.

Black and white illustration of a pile of pale, bundled bodies in a room with one woman in a black cloak. Caption: “Interior of a mummy pit, or sepulchral chamber, at Themes; with a Fellúh woman searching for papyri and ornaments.”Illus. John Gardner Wilkinson, public domain, via British Library collection on Flickr.

Imhotep

Imhotep’s Goals

  1. Kill all who opened the cursed box. Take organs as needed.
  2. Reincarnate his lover. Requires:
    • a woman sacrifice.
    • the Book of Death.
    • the Sacrificial Altar.
    • the Canopic Jars.
  3. Bad things?
  4. Hates and fears cats. Will flee in their presence.

Imhotep’s Abilities

  • Assimilate organs
  • Cause plagues (blood, frogs, gnats, beasts, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, death of firstborn)
  • Summon meteors
  • Turn into sand
  • Command undead
  • Wall of Sand with his face on it. He looks really dumb while doing it. (Also works with water.†)
  • Speak Ancient Egyptian and Hebrew (after taking a tongue).
  • Rally a mob of locals.
  • Immortality, more or less.

A black and white illustration of a group of uniformed men seated at a long table. In the foreground, a mummy in its sarcophagus and some other assorted urns and such. The caption is in German.Illus. Carl Oppel, public domain, via British Library collection on Flickr.

Factions

  • Americans—basically a rival adventuring party.
  • Magi—honor bound to keep Imhotep dead. Apparently Muslim?
  • Locals—probably want to be left alone, but also apparently love Imhotep.

Summary

There are really only two ways to mess this up: self-destruct the dungeon or awaken Imhotep. Awakening Imhotep requires (1) opening his sarcophagus, and (2) reading from the book of death. This means that if it were run straight, paranoid players might not even interact with most of the stuff outlined in the movie, and instead they’d just haul off as much treasure as possible. This need not be disappointing: the mummy is bound to hunt those who opened the Cursed Box, a likely occurrence when looting. So if some scholar somewhere reads from the Book of Death (having been sold), and some archaeologist later opens up the sarcophagus (having been made aware of its location), then the mummy will start hunting the players. Alternatively, the mummy will just start messing stuff up on a regional scale via plagues. To force interactivity while the party is in the dungeon, just have the Americans make poor decisions while the party is there.

This post was first shared on March 25, 2019.

Tags
Desert Adventures Movies RPG Recovered
Date
November 17, 2023
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