Page 94 - Hunter the Vigil - Mortal Remains

Picture an intricate cobweb attached to a branch. To some, the
web is an attractive thing, glistening in the fresh light of a new day,
full of sparkling dew. Others can’t help but scrutinize it more close-
ly in awe; they recognize the machine of death the web’s beauty
conceals. They spot the spider’s trapped insects and wonder where
this predator is now, waiting for the kill.
Is the web this predator’s legacy, even though the arachnid might
have already moved on? Will poking the strands lure the spider from
its lair, or provoke no reaction? If it wasn’t for the web itself, you
might even wonder if the spider had ever been there at all.
So it is with mummies. They are ancient creatures, far be-
yond the comprehension of most mortals and creatures of darkness.
Only the longest-lived supernatural beings grasp what they truly are.
Mummies were born into mortal lives millennia ago, in a long-for-
gotten age of Egypt. All those centuries past, these former mortals
made oaths and passed trials that granted them the ability to persist
beyond death. However, that power came at a price, for it also gave
the mummies the ability to serve their forgotten masters down
through the ages, by returning from the comfort of death into the
challenging, living world for a short time.
Everlasting life comes at a terrible cost. Time has slowly hol-
lowed the mummies out. Their sense of self, their independence, and
even their memories are gone. They are trapped in a cycle of death and
rebirth that they no longer understand — if they ever did — one they
no longer recall the genesis of. Indeed, most of the mummies are so
far gone, they’re not even aware of what they lost.
Mummies, despite their vast age, are creatures of the moment.
While they lay foundations for the future and plan for their inevita-
ble passage through the cycle of death and reawakening, the majority
of their active time is focused on more pressing concerns. Because of
this, mummies are beings of incredible focus who obsess over why they
have returned to the living world. The more they adhere to their goal,
the more lucid and effective they are. If they deviate from the plan —
or an unseen force derails them from achieving their goals — they
become animalistic and deadly.
These everlasting creatures tolerate no interference in their plans.
None. Obstacles — like hunters who unwittingly stand in their way — are
utterly destroyed either by supernatural or mortal means. Though the aver-
age hunter may believe otherwise, mummies are not like other beings who
hide in the shadows orchestrating intricate plots. Mummies are spectacular
— and immensely perilous — supernatural actors in the world; they take
what they want, and disappear from the stage until it’s time to rise again.
There will come a time when all of
Dissection us are dead. All of us. There will
come a time when there are no
human beings remaining to remember
Of all the monsters that lurk just beyond a hunter’s sight in the that anyone ever existed or that
World of Darkness, mummies are the hardest to corner, identify, our species ever did anything.
and deal with. They’re so rarely sighted that evidence of their com- There will be no one left to
ings and goings is extremely rare — even among the oldest con- remember Aristotle or Cleopa-
spiracies. Hunters who encounter mummies rarely understand the tra, let alone you. Everything
nature of what they face at first. Unfortunately, many hunters don’t that we did and built and wrote
live long enough to share knowledge with their cell or compact if and thought and discovered will
they’ve accidentally interfered with a mummy’s plans. be forgotten and all of this will
When it comes to mummies, most hunters don’t accurately have been for naught.
identify a mummy on their first — or even third — encounter. What’s — John Green,
more, many hunters can put an effective end to a mummy’s plans “The Fault in Our Stars”