The Ancient Dead

You command an army of long dead warriors, their souls forever bound in your service. These are undead servants, but unlike the standard vision of the undead, they have minds and souls and an reason and even love. Each undead servant has has their soul stored in special reliquary or canopic jar, containing the warrior's preserved heart as well. As long as this heart remains intact, the corpse will remain animated and the undead warrior shall serve. The canopic jars are protected from magical scrying of all kinds, including looking out from the spirit world.

Each undead servant is a mere withered husk, a mummy whose flesh is withered and desiccated or a mere skeleton. Despite this, each mummy has the strength and dexterity of a normal human. To destroy one you must sufficiently smash its bones and skeleton so that it is incapable of movement, though this is a hard task as their bones are 50% stronger than those of mortals. They are entirely immune to pain and can continue fighting with what ever portion of them remain. Each mummy can work or march tirelessly and will never show signs of age. Likewise, they need no food, water, or sleep nor are they injured by poison, disease, or environmental extremes. Each mummy has human-like intelligence and knowledge of their mortal lives as well as the ability to learn and reason.

If a mummy's body is destroyed, then the master need merely speak the true name of the destroyed mummy while touching the stored soul. This causes the mummy's bones and ancient armor and weapons to start reforming at the location of their phylactery - a process which takes about a month. If you touch the remains of a destroyed minion while touching the phylactery of that minion, you can restore it instantly.

The Ancient Dead are resurrected from a long dead civilization, their technology is more primitive than most others. Their weapons are made of bronze and the military and architectural technology is roughly equal to that of 1000 BC or before.

Instead of creating human mummies, horse mummies can be created. They are dedicated to their riders and to the tomb king. They are as resistant to harm as are human based mummies, though as large, strong, and swift as horses. Like normal mummies, their hearts and souls are stored within canopic jars.

As a Tomb King, you get the following servants :

30,000 mummies, described above.

5,000 human remnants. These are the ancestors of the people who built the ancient kingdom which has now been animated as mummies. This is an almost dead civilization, with only a few people who still speak the ancient language and follow the old religion. These are the only people who can be animated as mummies or become priests, so you had better protect them.

50 Priests. These are human priests who administer religious rituals for your remnant human subjects. The original ritual which bound the souls of mummies to their bodies centuries ago was preformed by such priests and only these priests are capable of creating new mummies.

To create a new mummy requires 5 priests participate in a month long ritual at a special temple of your religion. It must be preformed on a corpse of a loyal mortal follower of the tomb king - so it can only be preformed on those who in life are willing to serve the tomb king in death.

Priests themselves can only be recruited from the mortal remnant and it requires 25 years of training to become a priest, with at least one full time priestly teacher per 5 students at a time.

Priests also have the ability to heal mummies of injuries with a touch, they can touch a damaged mummy and chant for a minute to restore its injuries. It cannot restore a mummy whose soul has been banished to its phylactery.

When a priest dies, he can be reanimated as a lich priest. Lich priests cannot preform the ritual to create new mummies, though their devotion in life is rewarded after death with a variety of other powers. Any living foe within 20 feet of a lich priest is weakened and finds its strength and dexterity reduced by half. Lich priest's souls are so powerful that if destroyed, they may instantly reanimate their bodies to full "health" though they may only do this once per day. They may also cause rapid decay in any object they concentrate on within 100 feet, causing 10 cubic feet of organic material to decay per second of concentration or 1 cubic foot of stronger material (like stone or metal) per second - obviously, this power allows them to kill a living creature in an instant. Lich priests are resistant to magical effects, 50% of the time any magical attack directed at them fails, even when it doesn't fail it will only have half effect. Like mortal priests, they can heal injured mummies.

The tomb king has his own unit of elite guards, called the chosen. Each one has 50% greater strength than the human maximum and maximum human dexterity and fighting ability. They require the same amount of damage to destroy as any mummy, though their bones are twice as strong as those of mortals. Their blades are supernaturally sharp - able to cut through almost any substance. There are only ever 1000 of the chosen at one time, if one should die permanently then the tomb king can elevate one of his other mummies to one of the chosen.

As leader, you are a tomb king - not only a monarch but also a priest and god to your people. You have absolute command over your subjects, but your are essentially like them, a mummy whose life force is preserved in a special container. Unlike your servants, your body reforms automatically when it is destroyed, right next to your phylactery within one month of your body's destruction. If you desire, you can allow your body to instantly crumble to dust so that your body may reform a month later.

As tomb king, you'll have numerous powers, both physical and magical. You have all of the powers of one of the chosen and of a lich priest. You are highly resistant to injury, having bones 3 times as tough as those of the hardiest human. Your strength is 2 times the human maximum, your combat ability is the human peak as well. You may also cause rapid decay in any object you concentrate on within 100 feet, causing 100 cubic feet of organic material to decay per second of concentration or 10 cubic feet of stronger material (like stone or metal) per second - obviously, this power allows them to kill a living creature in an instant. Furthermore, the tomb king can speak the name of any of his mummy servants and destroy that servant where ever it is, even if it is miles away - the servant can then be resurrected with its phylactery.

Mummy armies have the technology of about 1000 BC. You begin play with 30,000 mummies, 50 priests, 50 lich priests, 1,000 chosen, and 5,000 mortal remnant.