Level Four Nomenclature
Enslave
Type: Ritual
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Nomenclature
Difficulty: target’s Willpower
Sekhem: 3
With a chain made of words, the mummy turns a living victim into her abject servant for one day per success scored on the roll. The subject becomes a virtual slave, who is completely devoted to the scribe and artificially compelled to obey her. The subject even obeys suicidal commands or ones that run counter to her best interests and morals (although the subject may agonize over them for a time). As with other commanding spells, the mummy must order the subject verbally. Commands aside, the victim feels a strong desire to see to the magist’s welfare, and he may sometimes take actions on his own just to advance the mummy’s interests.
The subject returns to normal (with complete recollection of events) once the effect wears off. He does not know automatically that the compulsion was magical, though. He simply realizes that the mummy somehow held influence over him. The victim might believe that he was temporarily insane, possessed, drugged, simply infatuated or other wise influenced. Generally, a mistreated subject will likely turn on the mummy, regardless of his rationalizations for what happened.
A compulsion of this nature works only upon the living.
Fortify Flesh
Type: Ritual
Dice Pool: Stamina + Nomenclature
Difficulty: 8
Sekhem: 2
The caster speaks a quick incantation to give the subject’s flesh the consistency and hardness of stone. Her skin does not change visibly, but her skin is firm to the touch and resistant to cuts or strong blows. Her tissue remains resilient, although it provides a soak pool equal to the successes rolled for this Hekau. This defense works against all forms of attack, even those that inflict aggravated damage, and it lasts until sunrise or sunset, whichever comes first.
Note that the mummy cannot revoke this spell voluntarily. If the subject needs to cut or pierce her flesh for some magical or medical purpose, she must overcome the armor soak. This incantation functions only on a living physical body.
Naming the Body’s Destruction
Type: Spell
Dice Pool: Medicine + Nomenclature
Difficulty: Special
Sekhem: Special
Although individuals have unique true names, a generic ren describes each part of the body. Naming the Body’s Destruction allows the mummy to speak one of those ren, combined with a word of specification and a word of forgetting, to wither and erase a part of a body. The difficulty and Sekhem cost varies by the organ named:
• Trivial loss (difficulty 7, Sekhem 2): This loss causes a single level of aggravated damage, but it is not fatal unless the victim is already near death. Such an organ includes an ear, an eye, a hand, a kneecap or the like.
• Serious loss (difficulty 8, Sekhem 3): This loss causes three levels of aggravated damage, and it may prove fatal in a short time. The victim loses a lung, kidney, appendix, intestine or other major chunk of organ tissue. Each turn until the victim receives medical attention, the subject’s player must succeed on a Stamina roll ( difficulty 8 ). On a failure, the victim suffers a level of lethal damage due to the body’s inability to function without the organ’s presence. Even after medical assistance, the victim may have lost too serious an organ to survive unless a miracle (or powerful healing magic) occurs.
• Critical loss (difficulty 9, Sekhem 5): This loss inflicts seven levels of aggravated damage, and it almost certainly causes instant death as the victim loses his heart or his brain. If the subject survives the initial damage by some miracle, he must check for additional damage as with the serious loss.
The damage inflicted is considered aggravated, but it may be soaked with a Stamina roll (difficulty 9). This rule supersedes the normal soak rules. Since the spell vanishes an organ directly, the damage bypasses armor and mystical shields that aren’t designed specifically to stop spells. Furthermore, the loss leaves no wound. It’s as if the body part was never there. This effect can reduce the victim’s Appearance, and it may have more pronounced side effects. A victim without eyes is blinded, for instance, while losing a kneecap leaves the subject unable to stand.
Certain subjects might not be severely crippled by this spell. A vampire can probably function without a liver, and a jellyfish has no brain to speak of. In such cases, the wound is considered only serious or trivial, as adjudicated by the Storyteller. Also, note that this spell functions only on physical bodies, not on spirits.
Speaking All Names
Type: Ritual
Dice Pool: Linguistics + Nomenclature
Difficulty: 7
Sekhem: 1
Through a ritual incantation and the study of a specific language, the mummy familiarizes herself with the essence of names from that language. Because ren offer insight into the true nature of all things, at least a little essence of each true name lies in every word of every language. From these common points, the mummy can build a rudimentary understanding of other languages.
Speaking All Names is no panacea that allows immediate and total comprehension of a language, though. The mummy must have a sufficiently large sample upon which to work the ritual (generally about 50 words or more). The normal ritual casting time might take longer for complex, alien or dead language. Each success gives the mummy partial comprehension of the language. One success provides enough understanding of very basic words and phrases. Three successes gives enough to carry on a simple conversation and five successes gives passable fluency. Translations may be garbled and incomplete, but the mummy usually gets the gist of what’s being spoken or written.
Note that with this spell the mummy always comprehends the individual linguistic version of any ren that she already knows. That is, if the mummy knows the ren for lion, then she can always figure out the word for lion in another language with this spell.
