Ka

A ka looks like any bandage-wrapped mummy, but it is far greater: the preserved body of a noble, king or pharaoh that kept living in its tomb after death. It is not necessarily evil, and fights only when its offerings are threatened or a cleric controls it.

Its unnaturally strong blows deal extra damage and, instead of rot, inflict a curse of the game master's choosing that lasts until removed. Merely seeing it forces a save vs. spell, with no bonuses, or the viewer is frozen with fright for 1-6 rounds.

Only magical weapons hurt a ka, and they deal half damage; fire and holy water also do half. It is immune to poison, cold, electricity, paralysis, sleep, hold, charm and polymorph. Raise dead restores it to life as a normal human with the fighting ability of a 10th-level warrior, unless it saves vs. spell. Clerics turn it as a vampire.

Any word it writes works as a command spell; inscribing one takes a round, and targets need not see it. The ka can also lodge pieces of its spirit in 1-4 magical statues within its tomb, which fight as stone golems. Should its body be destroyed, its will endures in them, though a statue-bound ka loses its curse and glyph powers and becomes vulnerable to attacks its body ignored. It can never animate statues outside its own tomb. Spirit doors, carved or painted on stone, wood or walls at burial, let it step out of solid rock, strike, and slip back inside.

A ka keeps some goodwill toward the living, above all its own race and nation, and more so if the game master judges it shares a character's culture. Visitors who leave its treasures alone and bring further grave goods, from simple food to lavish riches, may placate it. A calmed ka might then answer yes-or-no questions, with greater offerings earning deeper knowledge.

Because the rich were usually buried alone, a ka is normally solitary, but a tomb crowded with many graves to foil robbers may house a related group of them.