Mummy

Mummies are preserved dead from arid lands, usually wrapped in rotting linen, 5 to 7 feet tall and unnaturally strong. Disturbed, they wake into a hateful unlife.

A blow from a mummy's arm deals 1-12 damage and infects the target with mummy rot, which kills in 1-6 months and permanently drains 2 points of Charisma each month. Only cure disease cures it. Cure wounds spells fail on a sufferer, who heals at one-tenth the usual pace; regenerate restores lost hit points but does not slow the disease. A creature slain by a mummy rots on the spot and cannot be raised unless cure disease and raise dead are both cast within six rounds.

Simply seeing a mummy forces a save vs. spell to avoid being paralyzed with fear for 1-4 rounds. Every six creatures present give +1 to this save, and humans get +2 more.

Only magical weapons hurt a mummy, and they deal half damage, rounded down. Sleep, charm, hold, cold, poison and paralysis have no effect. Fire, even mundane, works well: a torch deals 1-3, burning oil 1-8 the first round and 2-16 the second, and magical fire +1 per die. Holy water deals 2-8 per direct hit. A resurrection spell turns a mummy into a normal human, a 7th-level fighter with memories of its past life, unless it is older than the priest's maximum resurrection age, in which case nothing happens. Wish also restores it to human form; remove curse does not.

Embalming was reserved for the rich and important, and most such corpses are just corpses. Occasionally dark magic, or a greed so strong that the dead refuse to let go of their riches, holds the spirit in place, and it draws on the Positive Material plane to become undead. Most lie inert until someone takes their treasure, then kill without pity. A mummy lies deep in a crypt or pyramid among mostly mundane grave goods: models, treasures, dead pets, food for the afterlife, and sometimes slaves or kin killed to serve a cruel master. They exist on both the Prime and Positive Material planes.

The body is soaked for weeks in preservative, typically carbonate of soda, then coated with resins and spices; organs such as heart, liver and brain are usually removed into sealed jars, and gems may be bound into the wrappings if the mummy's treasure includes them. Mummies have no place in nature and no natural enemies. Their dust is an ingredient in magic items of rot and disease.