The Eighth GM Inspiration: Mythology (Specifically Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend)

 

The Eighth GM Inspiration: Mythology (Specifically Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend)

Best bet to find: Ebay

It should go without saying that fantasy role playing owes its etymology and origins to mythology and folklore, and while the modern edition of D&D has moved away from these roots somewhat, it's all still there, hidden under the surface, no matter how hard corporate sanitization tries to scrub it.

One of my favorite resources for mythology and folklore is Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend. Originally published in 1949 and intermittently kept in print ever since, this remains one of the best resources on the subject you can find, with thousands of entries from around the globe on all sorts of interesting lore. Open any random page to this book and you will find useful ideas, inspiration or concepts useful for gaming, or just for your own edification. The copy I have was given to me as a gift for my 13th birthday in 1984 by my mother, and as ragged and worn as it is today it is still my most valued general resource on the subject. One of my first acts with this book was to start looking up random names from my AD&D 1E tomes and find out which monsters and characters had their etymology buried in mythology. This was how I discovered Orcus's origins in Roman myth, that Ed Greenwood really seemed to have a thing for Finnish mythology, and that some things I assumed had a solid origin in myth such as the lich did not, in fact, have such origins (and owed their existence to pulp era writings from Howard and Lovecraft).

Some random examples of how ideas can spring from this book:

Page 734: the start of a lengthy discussion of the topic of mnemonic devices and the mytho-historical importance of this method of memorization and information collection. Also, the mmoatia, a Gold Coast type of little people, perhaps like fairies; and Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, of Aztec mythology.

Page 259: Cranes, and their relevance in myth. The cranes of Ibycus, which drew out his murderer; the start of the topic of creation myths. This is making me think about the use of cranes as symbols in magic or omens. 

Page 763: Need some ideas for where to find museums in a modern day or Call of Cthulhu game? This page has that.

Etc. etc.

One of the cool things about this book is, if you are not overly familiar with the deep legacy of myth, folklore and legend behind the foundations of fantasy fiction and gaming, you might find this book well worth a look, it will expose you to a much more interesting and superstitious world that once existed as a matter of fact for our ancestors.

The Seventh GM Inspiration: Six of the most useful Randomized Encounter Table Books

The Seventh GM Inspiration: Random Encounter Resources

I thought a bit about how to discuss this, because I have an opinion that sometimes a book or site full of randomized tables can end up being paralyzing to GM inspiration and design, and other times it can be a valuable tool to breaking GM writer's block. Often, whether a chart is useful in the design of a scenario or during actual play can be crucial to its overall value. To that end, I thought I'd group these together and point out a series of randomized table resources I have found to be the most useful. I will note their utility for random generation on the fly (at the game table) and second their utility for background design and inspiration between sessions.

First off...I already addressed this book specifically earlier in the Inspiration series for December, but I will point again to Runequest Cities as an invaluable resource for random encounters and city design. It is equally useful for generating encounters during play and also sculpting out material between sessions. I will not count this one in the following list, but if I had to, I'd rank it #1 of 7. It's only downside: long out of print.

#6. D20 Toolbox 

This harkens back to the 3.0 D20 era of gaming, but the D20 Toolbox (once published by Alderac, now apparently available online through World's Largest RPGs on drivethrurpg.com) was an excellent quick idea generation resource and full of at-the-table encounter generation tables. It had equal utility in both situations and before I retired my copy I got a lot of use out of it in my 3.0 and 3.5 D&D days.

#5. Ultimate Toolbox

After D&D 3.5 came out Alderac released a successor to the D20 Toolbox that I also quite liked, and it contained useful entries for rolling up deep character backtrounds and NPCs, expanding on all ways on what its predecessor did. I found the book, which was written to be roughly system agnostic even though it was still mainly a D20/3.5 styled product, to be mostly useful in setting up scenarios and characters, and less useful for on-the-fly encounters, but it was a great book.

#4. The Book of Random Tables: Ancient World

This is a more recent acquisition, and a fun resource mainly for background development but you can readily roll for things like quick names, ingredients, items found in a market or a room and such on the fly. It's utility is restricted to archaic era gaming, which is to say, games set in a Romanesque or pre Roman era or something approximating such (so for my settings I used it in The River Kingdoms of Anansis and Oman'Hakat), so its utility is rather specific, but its well worth it within that subgenre.

#3. Tales of the Valiant Game Master's Guide

This is a copious tome full of good GM advice but the back of it contains some of the most useful monster encounter tables I have found in a GM Guide. Excellent resource for on-the-fly encounter generation, and could also be used to randomly plan out encounters. Specific to 5E style games, but within that scope it beats out all of the encounter tables I've ever seen WotC generate for regular 5E.

#2. Mork Borg 

The entirety of Mork Borg is more or less a system designed to encourage out-of-the-box, on-the-fly gaming with a high degree of randomization, so the system deserves special mention. In particular, the core rules, plus supplements Cult Feretory and Cult Heretic encompass a trifecta of dark and macabre end-times gaming goodness in a world that resembles a flaming heavy metal record chucked on an 80's record burning bonfire. Of special note is the random dungeon generator in the back of Mork Borg, which so far is how I have done all my Mork Borg one shots. The system is geared for and works best in my opinion on the fly; if you take too much time to design a scenario in Mork Borg you are likely to overthink it, which often happens in some of the copious volume of third party resources out there that sometimes hit the mark and other times completely miss the point of this system.

#1.  GM Gems

Published by Goodman Games, I believe this book has now been reinvented in a larger format for Dungeon Crawl Classics, but I have long used the original one which was allegedly system neutral but was clearly meant to be for D20 D&D/Pathfinder 3rd edition style sytems. This has long been my #2 go-to resource for quick idea and encounter generation in a pinch, and the book includes some pretty elaborate encounter tables for things such as inns and taverns, weird people you might meet and all sorts of oddities not often covered by other random table books. It's only failure is that over time there could be diminishing returns as you gradually use up all the neat stuff in this book from over-use. Equally useful for on-the-fly encounter generation and idea building between sessions, and when I go to a game I have GM Gems sandwiched in with my copy of Runequest Cities and "Random Ancient Tables" for quick use.

This column is a bit of a bonus before the holidays: I could easily have made GM Inspiration columns for each of the six resources I list above. But thematically I felt a discussion of these books as a collective works well together. Besides! I have some other more specific books I want to talk about for Inspirations 8 through 12 coming up.

The Sixth GM Inspiration: 0one Games

 

The Sixth GM Inspiration: 0one Games

This is yet another inspiration I use a lot, but in talking about it it ends up being a free plug for a great product. Specifically, I have been leaning on the incredibly wealth of interesting old school styled maps from Mario Barbati's 0one Games on Drivethrurpg.com (link above), over the many many years I've been gaming. These maps are, similar to Dyson's, filled with stylistic old school sentiment, but that doesn't make them any less useful to a modern gamer. In fact while Dyson's maps are great for short scenarios or 2-3 night sessions, if you want some serious dungeon delving and don't want to do your own cartography then 0one Games can provide some serious weight to your needs. 

All of the maps they produce are either in a white-on-blue or white-on-black format that is a familiar look to gamers from the 80's, and TSR modules in particular. Most include areas to take notes, and maybe some brief titles to engender the imagination, but just as many are more like well-executed maps with nothing more than evocative or suggestive title to go by. The net result is that you can take the Palace of the Vampire Queen, the Megacity Underdungeons, Mysterious Island, Pirate's Galleon or pretty much any of their hundreds of available maps and make them your own. Although they are all available for purchase and therefore are not a free resource, you can get some pretty decent maps for as low as $2 and the larger packages are often quite worth it. I have purchased a lot of 0one's maps over the years and gotten mileage out of them through three editions of D&D and two editions of Pathfinder now. 

It's a bit old (dating back to 2016) but the Blue Book is a free download showcasing a lot of the maps here, so it may help you decide if a few purchases are worth your time. Check it out!

It does look like 0one Games is still going strong, too. New products are out that I realize I haven't seen before, including Rooms with Flavor which I will now be checking out. Anyway, definitely take a look....for the lazy or time-strapped GM 0one Games is a valuable resource.

The Fifth GM Inspiration: Borrowing from Films

The Fifth GM Inspiration: Borrowing from Films

The idea of watching a movie and taking inspiration from it is nothing new, but a while back I took it one step further when I realized some films provide really solid, timeless plots that can translate well into the sort of "buddy adventure" scenarios that most RPGs tend to cater to. An important part of this borrowing process isn't just finding a movie with a plot that can easily translate into a scenario or campaign, though; part of the fun is the other part: genre translation. 

My favorite example comes from a campaign I ran in my early Starfinder 1st Edition days some years ago, when I was trying to figure out what to do with that edition (the new 2nd Edition is much, much easier to figure out, btw). I wanted to explore the implied and explicit elements of the universe as given, but was having a hard time conceiving of what that would look like. While watching films for a movie night I put on Conan the Barbarian (the original Schwarzenegger version) and realized that, nestled within this simple reimagining of Howard's barbarian was a classic group of adventurers (Conan, Valeria, Mako and Subotai) exploring a series of dungeons (The Temple of Set, the Even Bigger Temple of Set, and the Old Ruins along the coast where the last stand takes place), against a nefarious opponent (Thulsa Doom and his cronies Rexor and "the other guy") with a medley of side quests mixed in (finding the sword in the ancient king's tomb, the witch, King Osric, etc.). 

The thing is, if you borrow from this for a typical fantasy game not only will it feel oddly familiar, but the players likely have some familiarity with the source material (at least, if they are Gen X or millennials; Gen Z might be genuinely surprised by a borrowed plot from this film). But take the film and reskin it as a high octane scifi space fantasy adventure, and you may have something special going on. For example:

The Wicked City of Shaddizar becomes a remote outpost on a desert world;

The Temple of Set could still be a temple to Set in Starfinder, or maybe its Apophis now or any other serpent god; and maybe its ancient abandoned ruins left behind by a lost starfaring race of serpentfolk and the cult has moved in recently;

The Even Bigger Temple of Set is now a giant, ominous space station with the ability to move through Drift space, floating from world to world calling the pilgrims of Apophis (or Set, or Apis, etc.) to bring forth tribute. Sneaking in to this temple could require stealing pilgrims' identities, and the bowels of the great station revel the debaucherous parties of the elite priesthood and the high priest himself, who has funded an armada of reavers to cross the galaxy in search of artifacts sacred to his god;

The group could find that they are commissioned by the Governor of this space sector to find his daughter, who unbeknownst to him has genetic ties to the ancient serpent folk aliens, and seeks her heritage. Or maybe she's just swept up by the priest king's amazing hypnotic skills. Either way, they have to find a way to infiltrate the station-monument to the serpent god, rescue her against her will, and make a daring escape. This could lead to a holdout in more lost ruins of the ancients, where there are technological traps still waiting to be used against those who would infiltrate the ruins, or against their enemies if they can be as clever as Conan and his pals were in the film.

So, good stuff! And now it may not look so obvious to anyone that you've taken the story beats of Conan the Barbarian and turned it into Starfinder: The Cult of Apophis campaign plot.

Some more examples I have used or plan to use:

The Transporter, but as a thematic riff on a D&D campaign with horse, dragons or other means of travel as the core form of transport;

Hellraiser, but its in Mork Borg, and the dungeon is the house, and the cenobytes....are probably just a version of themselves in Mork Borg, I suppose! Extra credit if you take the core plot of Hellraiser and figure out how to put it into a really strange RPG genre like, say, Cypher System Rust & Redemption or Numenera; or maybe Hellraiser, but the plot is taking place in the archaic era of GURPS Egypt or GURPS Rome; or stick it in Call of Cthulhu and make it all mythos-appropriate.

Black Hawk Down but its Eberron during the great war and the skyship has crashed in enemy territory.

It's Pulp Fiction, but written through the lens of In Nomine or Nephilim ( to drag out two fantastic and currently very extinct games); I actually got to be a player in an In Nomine campaign which was riffed off of Pulp Fiction, in fact, and it was serious fun. The contents of the suitcase took on special meaning in that campaign.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe but its on a backwater world in the Traveller universe. The players are trying to uncover the plot, but don't realize the government has been suppressing their secret alliance with Droyne visitors who have been selling technology to the backwater world.

Starman, but the players are now the alien visitors trapped on a remote world in the Imperium of Traveller with no easy way off.

Weapons, but the entire weird plot is taking place in some remote township in Dragonbane, or the entire plot is happening on a colony world in Mothership and involves mind control not through voodoo but nanotech.

The Mansion of Madness (see my review in October) from 1971, but set in the fantasy system of your choice, and the mad doctor behind the "miracle treatment" for the mentally afflicted is really some sort of aberration. This was the plot of my lastest Pathfinder story arc, in fact. I practically ran it beat for beat like the movie until the players, who had far less patience and decorum than the movie's main character, finally lost it and decided to start smashing things.

Streets of Fire, but its Cyberpunk Red (or Cypher System Neon Noir, or Mothership) and otherwise played straight. Actually, for a weirder match imagine Streets of Fire, but the endless city is somewhere in Call of Cthulhu or the Kult universe, or maybe its Savage Worlds Supers or Cypher System Supers, and the larger than life heroes of the film are recast as actual vigilantes and idealistic metahumans. Wilhem Dafoe's villain takes on new meaning in this context. 

And so forth! There are innumerable examples, and to be honest the stranger the mix between choice of film and choice of game, the more interesting the translation can get.

The Fourth GM Inspiration: Dyson Logos

 

The Fourth GM Inspiration: Dyson Logos

Dyson's Dodecahedron

Dyson's Delves

If I am going to use the 12 Days of Inspiration to highlight all of my favorite GM resources, I would be completely remiss if I did not bring up Dyson Logos's blog and books. I have gotten more mileage out of Dyson's postings on his site and used almost all the content of his Dyson's Delves books on Lulu in my campaigns over the last dozen or so years. Seriously! His cartography is incredible, providing evocative maps that don't always come with a keyed scenario, but contain enough conceptual imagery and "spatial evidence" of adventure to readily spark the imagination. His Delves books include many maps but also many keyed locations which I have adapted into scenarios in my own campaigns on numerous occasions. In fact my current Pathfinder 2E campaign is on map three of three of Dyson's maps I adapted to manage the first 6 or so levels of the campaign plot. Hell, while writing this I noticed he has hardcover editions of his Delves books which I decided I must have and ordered them (my old paperbacks are really falling apart).

There are a lot of maps you can find and develop online into your own games, but Dyson's maps are far and away the best in terms of being universally applicable to any fantasy RPG while still evoking a fantastic old school feel. I am sure most of you who still enjoy the print bloggosphere for RPGs already know who Dyson is, but on the off chance you haven't, and you enjoy customizing generic maps into your own scenarios, then you definitely should check out his blog and books at the links above.

The Third GM Inspiration: Runequest Cities

 

The Third GM Inspiration: Runequest Cities

Long out of print but still available at used game stores or on Ebay (recent search here) for probably more than I would pay for it, Runequest Cities is one of the oldest resources in my game collection that I persistently find invaluable at the game table. There may also be PDF versions of it somewhere online. 

Originally published in 1979 by Midkemia Press, Cities was part of a series of resources for OD&D/AD&D providing some excellent altenrative resources to other third party publishers of the day (especially Judges Guild, which managed to produce both great stuff and also invented the concept of shovelware for print games before it existed as a concept for video games). At some point the series, which includes other more directed books named Carse and  Tulan of the Isles, Chaosium acquired ownership and published an edition of the books. Eventually when Avalon Hill took over as publisher for Runequest III they released the book as Runequest Cities in a fourth edition. This is the copy I have held on to since its release, and have used in countless fantasy campaigns.

While there have been many good City campaign resources over the years, the reason I like this particular book the most is that it manages to pack an incredible volume of interesting randomized detail into a tight 64 page package. It also did a lot of stuff that is "back in vogue" today but was honestly invented, if not by this book, then certainly by the first generation/era of RPGs. Among these inventions are some excellent rules on generating realistic towns and cities procedurally, along with a lovely section on character catch-up; downtime rules, effectively, for seeing what is going on the PCs when they have been out of action for a while, or had some decent time off between adventures. Today games often pack in some rules on this (see Pathfinder's downtime rules or D&D 5E's section on the same in their expansion books as an example), but here is, in my opinion, a much nicer set of interesting rules for doing exactly that.

Runequest Cities is also excellent for campaigns looking for a baseline sense of mythohistorical verismilitude. It provides a fine picture of a city setting that could easily have nestled somewhere in antiquity with ease, and the tables fit settings with such baseline assumptions easily (ergo the reason it was adapted as a Runequest resource). If you play Mythras, GURPS, Savage Worlds or even, say, Pathfinder of D&D with some baseline assumptions set in a more Romanesque era rather than a renaissance or steampunk era then this book will prove incredibly handy for generating interesting encounters on the street and building realistic settlements.

The downside of Runequest Cities is it is out of print. You can find copies for a pretty penny on Ebay, but if you are interested in the closest modern equivalent resource I think the next best book like this I have found it Kobold Press's Campaign Builder series, especially Cities & Towns.  

The Second GM Inspiration: GURPS Places of Mystery

 

The Second GM Inspiration: GURPS Places of Mystery

In its many years GURPS, especially 2nd edition and 3rd edition, generated a copious wealth of useful sourcebooks that were almost universally appreciated by those looking for a bit of history or realism in their games, whether they were actually used for GURPS or not. One of the best of these books, one which has remained in my collection for decades now and gets brought out for periodic use and inspiration, is GURPS Places of Mystery.

Places of Mystery contains twelve sections focusing on historical, archaeological and sometimes mythical locales in our world, providing enough detail on their mythological and historical relevance, along with maps, to funnel your modern day or historical adventurers and investigators through hundreds of hours of interesting gaming. Just a sample of topics and locales in this book include:

The Bermuda Triangle

Stonehange

Ley Lines

Temples of Thebes

Lamaseries

Mohenjo Daro

Nubia

King Solomon's Mines

Knossos

Camelot

The Kremlin

Ayer's Rock

Anasazi Towns

And etc etc.....this is just a sampling of one or two locations from each chapter!

For modern games like Call of Cthulhu, Savage Worlds or Cypher System this is an invaluable book. 95% of it is system-neutral as well, and what few rules are here for GURPS are remarkably easy to interpret into other game systems with little to no difficulty.

For fantasy games you can easily take these locations and reinterpret them within the light of your preferred fantasy setting. Adopting many of these locations may let you fill out and even explore some ideas in your fantasy campaign that you might not otherwise have considered before, now with a veneer of quasi-historical authenticity.

Anyway, check it out! PDF here and Amazon Print Edition here. 

The First GM Inspiration: Good Music - Showcasing Castle Rat

 

The First GM Inspiration: Good Music - Featuring Castle Rat

Any good GM will find that you want to have a decent environment in which to sit down and work out a good scenario or two, or develop a decent campaign. Sure you probably want some decent desk space, a laptop or notebooks, graph paper, rules handy in whatever medium you prefer (PDF, print, whatever)....but when you've got all that down, and some quiet time to focus, music may also prove truly inspirational. Music, if you can bring it to the game table, can also be very mood setting if done right. 

To that end, I want to draw your attention to Castle Rat, a dark downtempo heavy metal music band founded by singer Riley Pinkerton, which has two albums out now that provide incredible backdrops to fantasy gaming, and sword & sorcery in particular. If you want to get right to seeing if this music works for you, check them out here on Bandcamp, featuring their two albums, Into The Realm and Bestiary. I have no particular favorite here, both are equally amazing productions. 

If you only listen to the music of Castle Rat then you are missing their amazing videos. The Castle Rat Youtube channel is worth putting on in the background while crafting as a GM; the retro aesthetic of their videos feels like an imaginative "re-envisioning" of what I think many D&Ders might have held in their minds as teens and kids back in the 70's and 80's when listening to music for gaming, as opposed to the reality, which was mostly mired in the presentations of low budget films in that period. The videos are great though, worth a watch to see the Rat Queen battle the Rat Reaperess and many other lovely scenarios played out in metal ballad form.

Dagger Dragger remains my favorite:

Anyway, check them out! 

The December 2025 Goal Post: 12 Things to Inspire GMs

 So for my writing challenge this month I am going to post 12 things which will inspire GMs. These things can include novels, graphic novels, movies, objects or....well....anything I look at and think, "This motivates/inspires/gives me some ideas for a cool RPG session down the road."

I already sort of did this with the Twelve Weird Things last month, with #2 being a plot idea inspired by the graphic novel Invasive, in which a supremely ordinary and non-supernatural cult of people obsessed with dealing surgery out upon themselves and others in the name of achieving immortality (or something; the plot gets complicated and weird at the very end) could be a great inspiration for a mundane creepy horror campaign. I'll riff off of this premise with some other inspirational material I have in mind....starting.....NOW! Well, later this week. Keep an eye out!

The Twelfth (and Final) Weird Thing: The Amarna Campaign

 The Twelfth Weird Thing: The Ancient Amarna Campaign

 Presented as it stands, a campaign idea I had for a GURPS Egypt campaign I have never quite managed to foster to reality....

Set ancient Egypt around 1350-1340 BC. It’s going to involve a particularly weird and unpleasant period in Egyptian history during the reign of Akhenaten and the dynamic relationship between Egypt, Amurru, Syria, Hattusa, Punt and Nubia during that period. There’s some really interesting and weird stuff that happened around this time, with lots of holes in the record but enough to know what happened if not always why. This will be a “mostly historical” account but with a horror-themed take on the Egyptian pantheon and a dose of necromancy mixed in. The PCs will be delegates of one of the key “allies” of the time, probably Amurru, though one of them will be a Hittite spy as well. This gives them local prominence for the Mediterranean without being overly familiar with Egyptian customs…they will have to navigate the rivalries and particulars of Egyptian noble life during a turbulent period while representing the self-interest if their own noble ruler, King Aziru, whom they have come to find and possibly liberate from his semi-imprisonment by Akhenaten.

Key Figures:

Akhenaten: the ruler of Egypt, high priest of a new being or philosophical concept he calls the Aten. He is married to Nefertiti and has six daughters. His mystical power is impressive and he is believe to be able to transform into a sphinx, as well as have potent heka (magic, specifically necromancy). His is at once revered and feared by his people in this time. He dwells in the recently constructed city of Akhetaten.

Aziru: ruler of Amurru, a Canaanite city. His conquering of the city of Zemar led to his exile and semi-imprisonment in Egypt after the betrayal of the King of Gubla (Byblos), Rid-Hadda, into the hands of Siduna.

Zimredda of Siduna, the king of Siduna who claimed victory in the capture and possible murder of deposed king Rid-Hadda.

The Habiru, an army of rebels and raiders joined in common cause on the borders of Syria and beyond to stand against the noble lesser kings who serve the Pharaoh.

Shardana: the mercenaries from the sea, prominent sea people who ravage the coast during this time with their ongoing attacks.

Ili-Rapih: ruler of Gubla once his brother Rid-Hadda is killed in Siduna.

Zemar (Sumur): trade city conquered by Aziru.

Gods:

Amurru: gods of Amurru include Hadad (Canaanite storm god) and Asherah (Ba’alat Gublu, fertility goddess)

Egypt: At this time Aten is the only recognized deity/concept, but there are still cults hidden away in worship to the many Egyptian deities which noble and commoner alike is loathe to neglect just becaue the Pharaoh has decreed it.

Languages:

Khemit (Egypt), Akkadian (most of northern Canaan and Syria), Hatti (Hittite), Cushite (Nubia), Puntish (Punt). Others: Alashiya

Locations:

Alashiya: ruled by King Kushmeshusha and his daughter princess Hatbi, an island kingdom which pays copious amounts of copper to Egypt as tribute, but is fiercely xenophobic in many other regards. The city is built along a mountain slope. Recently a plague descended upon the land, driven by the “Hand of Nergal.”

Plot Ideas:

Hand of Nergal:

Akkadian god of death, war and destruction, Nergal is the supposed cause of the plague which begins in the north and spreads from Alashiya to Egypt and throughout Canaan to Hatti. Those who are killed by the plague are known to rise again as the undead. In Egypt the cults of Anubis, Set and Isis suspect that the plague is beset upon humankind for their abandonment of the old gods and grow suspicious that it is the fault of Akhenaten himself.

Nergals’ touch to the north seems to lead to demonic possession of the corpses, and it is believed the Seven Gods or Demons called the Ilu Sebettu are the drivers behind this undead plague. Nergal and the Seven rule with their councilor Isum from Emeslam, a dark kingdom in the realm of the gods, each one personifying a weapon of death. Beside him resides Ereshkigal, his wife of the underworld.

All of Nergal’s plague comes from the ancient ruined city of Kutha, from which his dark servants ride forth to spread the plague.

A talisman of his first wife, Las, is believed to provide blindness to the undead, who cannot sense one so armed with such a talisman.

The Usurpation of Akhenaten:

Akhenaten’s rule is sound until his final year, following the great convocation of his servants throughout the kingdom and the principalities of Egypt. When this happens, the plague comes to Akhetaten and the Pharaoh’s daughters begin to die. As they revive into undead the quiescent Egyptians who remember the old gods can stand it no more and repent, seeking to bring down the Pharaoh in civil war. Ultimately Nefertiti will repent worship of Aten when her husband falls and take the mantle of rulership briefly before her son Tutankhamen rises to power. Only when Akhenaten is dead and Tutankhamen is sworn into the rule of Pharaoh does the plague leave Egypt.

Special Twists: it becomes clear that Akhenaten is sick and transformed by undeath or possession. His heka makes him more susceptible. The PCs are tasked with seeking out the ancient Temple of Set near the Necropolis of Naqada. There the PCs must find a way to put him down, beseeching the dark god with such a task.

Communing with Set (after a brutal trial to prove worthiness of some sort) reveals that the right eye of Akhenaten is his weakness, and once plucked from it’s socket must be returned to the temple as an offering in exchange for such knowledge. The eye is symbolic of Ra’s eye of the sun, and Set wants it. Once it is retrieved, they must travel eastward into the barren wastes and deliver it to an ancient Sphinx.