Assuming you used mummies in your home Realms, where did you envision them coming from?
— AdamDravian (@AdamDravian) November 15, 2020
1)
I didn’t use mummies in the home Realms campaign, but you have stumbled on one of the Great Untold Secrets of the Realms (ta-dah!).
To whit: my Realmslore explanation for the mummy monster in the game runs thus: most mummies… 2)
…(on Earth) remained just that: mummified corpses, embalmed and prepared for the afterlife. A few were “possessed” by evil spirits (evil undead entities that had lost their bodies, sometimes because the bodies had fallen…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 15, 2020
3)
…apart, sometimes in the process of achieving lichdom, and sometimes because they are devils in search of a body) looking for a host body. And a few of these evil undead animated mummies found their ways through gates, from…4)
…Earth to Toril, and they are the “mummy” monsters of the game. They either hid from sentient societies in existing tombs they found and took over, or they sought power by entering hallowed temple or abbey or holy site tombs, …#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 15, 2020
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…and “rose” from venerated tombs there to influence high priests in secret, or even magically overcame high-ranking clergy and took over their bodies to become the “greater mummies” with clerical magic. Many were selfish and…6)
…paranoid, but a few sought out other mummies (often using living priests as agents/go-betweens) to work together to gain covert influence, by means of cults they founded within priesthoods, over increasing numbers of the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 15, 2020
7)
…living.
Meaning they formed an Eminence of Araunt-like shadowy evil power group who saw adventurers as dangerous potential foes who had to be duped, eliminated, or manipulated into (usually unwittingly, as that was safer for… 8)
…the mummies) serving them.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 15, 2020
Wow, a juicier response than I expected. I love the thought you put into explaining an element that you didn't even originally intend to be part of the Realms. Thanks again, Ed!
— AdamDravian (@AdamDravian) November 15, 2020
A pleasure.
The published Realms of course has to support everything in the game rules…so a great amount of fun can be had concocting explanations to link it all up.
Sages extraordinaire have been doing this for years, such as Eric Boyd & George Krashos, …2)
…Brian Cortijo for Cormyr, the James brothers, Bryon Wischstadt, Tom Costa, all of us who've wielded an official pen like Jeff Grubb and Steven Schend, and many, many more creators down the years.
And in the process, the lore has been made richer for us all!#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 15, 2020