Eygptian Sorcerer spells?

[nexus]

Does anyone have some good ideas for spells for an archmage with a strong Ancient Egyption theme? Cultural accuracy isn't as important as flavor in this case.

[Steve Long]

If you have access to the short, but ultra-cool, "1963" series of Silver Age manques from (of all companies) Image, check out the one titled "Horus, Lord Of Light." It'll give you plenty of ideas, I 'spect.

[Dominique]

Have you tried reading over the Old Testament of the Bible? It gives several examples of what the Egyptians were stated of being able to do.

[Lucius]

Have you tried reading over the Old Testament of the Bible? It gives several examples of what the Egyptians were stated of being able to do.

Yes, I remember reading about how an Egyptian king was on a pleasure barge when one of the slavegirls poling it about lost an ornament over the side. The court magician lifted one huge block of water onto another, leaving the bottom uncovered, and the bauble was retreived. And this tale was reportedly from an Egyptian source OLDER than the Old Testament by many centuries.

When you consider that Moses was educated as an Egyptian noble, possibly everything he did in the way of exhibiting paranormal abilities could be regarded as Egyptian magick.

If you're looking for flavor, have scarabs and ankhs show up as symbols a lot.

Can you tell us more about what you have in mind? Good guy, bad guy, in-between guy, priest of one or more deities, lone mage or leader with followers or teammate?

Lucius Alexander

Following the palindromedary's lead. Sometimes.

[CBikle]

If you have access to the short, but ultra-cool, "1963" series of Silver Age manques from (of all companies) Image, check out the one titled "Horus, Lord Of Light." It'll give you plenty of ideas, I 'spect.

[Edsel]

The last time I used an ancient Egyptian mummy as a bad guy he had the following sorts of spells/powers. Note a lot of this was influenced by the, out of print, game CHILL that was done by Pacesetter and later Mayfair games. Also my mummy was in a heroic level game so you'd probably want to power it up a bit from this.

Animate Dead: real handy for all the bones of those servants who were also entombed. Or for any ancient (skeletal) dead.

Fog: The ability to raise up a ground fog makes for really good spooky settings. The fog can also muffle shuffling sounds and obscure what is out there. I wonder if the Nile valley has much fog, I never really thought about it.

Temperature Control: Best done with a change environment. When the air turns chill it is another really appropriate setting. Summoning up the heat of the desert can also have useful benefits when the characters are all wearing stuffy body armor.

Nightmares: A form of telepathy or mental illusion that is used to induce nightmares in your enemies. Especially if you can give them nightmares about places you don't want them to go. You can also give them nightmares that may distract them once they realize that they are in the area they saw in their dreams.

Fear: This can be done as a limited form of mind control against the target(s) or perhaps an Aid to the mummy's own PRE for instilling fear in their victims. If you really want to be mean use a mental-based entangle to represent paralyzing fear.

Change Self: If the mummy is to have any hope of hiding in normal society, even briefly, then he'd better be able to make himself appear as a normal person. Perhaps a mass mental illusion or, more likely, shape shift.

Anti-Technology: An ability to disrupt electrical equipment or perhaps any advanced technology. This can be bought as a form of suppress or dispel. It might be pretty expensive but if it is an NPC what does that matter. The mummy appears and suddenly your flashlights no longer work, the radio goes dead, maybe even the bullets won't fire. Once the mummy is gone these things start working again. Creepy. Your only method of fighting the mummy may be the old ways (fire and melee weapons).

Darkness: The ability to cause the darkness of night inside rooms and enclosed areas. The SFX was that the lightbulbs and even torchlight dimmed to the point of being almost useless. It was darkness vs. the sight group with the limit that it could only create darkness equal to a moonless night. It didn't work outdoors since mummies were creatures of tombs (indoor monsters).

Appear Dead: This is natural for a mummy, after all they are dead. Of course if they arn't bought as an automation you'll need some power to make them appear throughtly dead. This is most useful when the mummy is in the museum and the investigators are looking for some sign of life. The mummy is a master of playing opposum.

Teleport: My mummy had the ability to teleport back to his tomb at will. He could only do this when he was out of sight of the characters. The mummy goes around the corner but when the players round the corner, he's gone.
Another power he had was the ability to follow his enemies. He did this by placing a floating location on a person (perhaps some item they have picked up believing it to be a clue). Again this could not teleport the mummy to right in front of the character. Instead he would teleport in just out of sight and then walk into view. You are camped out around the fire and suddenly the mummy emerges from your tent!

Other possible tricks include the ability to cause individuals to forget certain things (Steal memories). Perhaps a type of mind control that is taxing and thus only really useful if an individual can be cornered alone. A form of curse that could be bought as a fully invisible EB, the SFX would be the character tripping badly, having things fall on them, or other things that seem like really bad luck.

[CrosshairCollie]

Just look at a spoiler list for Yu-Gi-Oh cards, they'll do fine.













I was just kidding, put down the gun!

[Lord Liaden]

Another one of those "if you have access..." suggestions, in this case Mythic Egypt from ICE. It included a couple of "spell colleges," the Church of Set and the Church of Bast, with a number of fairly flavorful spells.

[David Johnston]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ema/index.htm

The important thing to remember about Egyptian magic is that it is all about "hekau", the words of power. Essentially Egyptians believed that the gods could be compelled to perform services for you if you could _exactly_ pronounce or write their names and the words which gave them instructions.
The curses on tombs are written there as much to actually invoke the fiends
as they are to try to frighten off tomb robbers.

We see a reflection of this in Doctor Strange where he would, for example, summon the Flames of the Faltine, the Faltine being supernatural beings who when correctly invoked must lend some of their power to the invoking magician, regardless of whether they approve of him or what he's doing,
although it can be dangerous for Strange to repeatedly call upon a hostile being's powers. It is because of this Egyptian belief that the hebrews forbade any (except a priest) to "take the name of the Lord in vain". Attempts to coerce their god by speaking his true name were regarded as blasphemous. (Note that in Egyptian mythology, the gods actually grow afraid of the human power to coerce them with hekau and respond by sending Sekhmet, a Kali-like manifestion of Bast to wipe out all of humanity but think better of it before she quite finishes the job.)

Thus a comic book version of an Egyptian spell might be something like "May the light of Horus strike thee" at which point a brilliant light would dazzle the target, or "may the spear of Horus strike thee" and a light special effect RKA
attacks the victim. The best approach for inspiration is to look at a mythology website for names and portfolios and then come up with the kind of powers you give to that god if you were making it as a character, and invoke those powers with that god's name.

Defense, magics however, typically would be placed upon an amulet, with the
hekau actually engraved into stone, ideally semiprecious workable stone like lapis lazuli or carnelian. This gives the character ongoing protection against unexpected threats even if the character in question has the ability to cast the protection spell himself. And of course amulets were placed on mummies
within their wrappings not merely to protect them and their soul, but also to complete the process of bringing them back from the dead.

Just as you can call upon a god's power by speaking his name, you can also call upon gods (and in fact pretty much any living or dead creature) by making an image of them. That's the justification for the magically invoked card spirits in the Yugi-Oh cartoon. The theory is that those spirits really exist in a spiritual realm and the people playing the game, (if they have the requisite spiritual power) are actually invoking Whosisface when they play his card. It is for this reason that the hebrews also forbade the making of "graven images" to represent their deity. However a three dimensional image would be expected to have more power.

So in a comic book version of Egyptian magic, you might expect to see a fair bit of people animating statues to fight on their behalf, or taking out little figurines made out of wax or stone to make them grow and fight. The Golem is an example of such a form of Egyptian magic passed down through Jewish forklore.

[DEFCON Clown]

Scarab Swarm: An Darkness to Sight and Hearing accompanied by a 1 pip RKA, continuous (can be stopped with fire or imersion into water), NND (Fully Covered), Does BODY.

Desert Sands: A large Suppress vs. Running and Leaping

Mumification: A powerful Entangle, cannot create barriers, vulnerable to Fire linked with a 3d6 EB, NND (No need to breath).

Summon Sphinx: Summons a real Sphinx at least a 400pt creature.

The Gaze of Ra: A hugely powerful indirect RKA AOE Radius which comes from the sun