Editing Darklord (section)

==Ankhtepot==
Darklord of Har'Akir, partially based on Imhotep from the 1932 film ''The Mummy'' by Universal Pictures. He is the archetypal Mummy-based Darklord in the setting, but he is not the only "Ancient Dead" (i.e., a preserved corpse animated into undeath) who happens to be a Darklord. 

Ankhtepot in life was a hubristic ruler of a land also named Har'Akir, patterned after Ancient Egypt and sharing the same pantheon of gods. As the head priest of the sun god Ra, the chief god of his land, Ankhtepot was [[Nagash|obsessed with death and became consumed with the desire to live forever]]. Despite sparing no expense (nor quite a few lives, for that matter) his efforts were in vain, and in his rage he razed several temples, stormed into the greatest one and cursed the gods for withholding his heart's desire. For this blasphemy, Ra contacted Ankhtepot directly and said that Ankhtepot would indeed live after death, though he might wish otherwise. Anhktepot was confused about this, but later discovered that he had received a dire curse (making him one of the few outlander Darklords to have received the majority of his curse ''before'' being taken into Ravenloft); anyone he touched was dead by nightfall, and those he killed in this fashion rose from their tombs to serve him absolutely as undead mummies, because apparently Ra considers having mindless servants a punishment. Taking this in stride despite killing many of his relatives, he used his new undead servants to tighten his grip over Har'Akir, but his fellow priests rebelled, killed Ankhtepot in his sleep, and mummified him, little knowing he was still conscious and going insane inside his sarcophagus during his month-long funeral. After being entombed in a remote area with one small village named Mudar, the mists of Ravenloft claimed Ankhtepot, his tomb, and the nearby village, leaving no trace of them in Ankhtepot's home plane. 

As Darklord, Ankhtepot spends most of his time in a deathless dream of better days in his tomb, but he can be roused from this state in a few ways, such as if his tomb is disturbed, or if the people of Mudar are anxious or otherwise distressed. His hubris and pride followed him into undeath, and similarly his greatest torment is his desire to be human again, as the god-king of a great empire he once was, while in reality he "rules" over a barren patch of desert with naught but a small mud-hut village. To frustrate him further, the Dark Powers granted Ankhtepot the ability to regain his human form and mortality by draining a human of moisture and life force in a dread sunrise ceremony, but this reversion to mortality lasts only from dawn to nightfall, and during those few daylight hours "under Ra's gaze" he loses all his supernatural powers, once again becoming a normal human with no appreciable abilities until nightfall, whereupon the transformation is undone. Knowing that he would face an eternity of solitude were he to sacrifice everyone in his domain to fleetingly experience mortality again, Ankhtepot generally prefers to wait and dream until he might rule a larger population, a time he seems unaware will never come. 

With respect to his crunch, Ankhtepot can be an unholy terror in his Greater Mummy form. He retains much of the high-level spellcasting ability he had in life, his touch-delivered Mummy Rot is both more virulent and harder to cure than almost any other Ravenloft Mummy's, and those who become infected and are mummified alive become Greater Mummies under his total control. Other aces up his sleeve (or rather, his bandages) are the fact that he commands virtually every mummy in his domain, so if sufficiently provoked he can summon up an entire shambling army of mummies to do his bidding, and the fact that a certain item on his person allows him to heal lost hitpoints very quickly, even if reduced below zero, unless that item is removed from him or his downed "corpse." Ankhtepot can, however, easily be killed during his bouts of mortality (even though doing so might attract the attention of the Dark Powers since he poses no real threat during these times), but if he is killed while an ordinary human he can reanimate if he is mummified and entombed again. As a result of a possible oversight by the writers, no mention is made of how Ankhtepot might be able to return to unlife should he be defeated in his Greater Mummy form nor how he might be permanently destroyed, though he can simply reform in his tomb in the case of the former and the latter might simply require that both his tomb and his physical body be completely destroyed, resulting in the village of Mudar returning to its home plane and Ankhtepot's desert joining an adjacent domain.

Given the relative lack of sex appeal for mummies compared to the far more famous vampires and werewolves (unless you're a fan of the [[Tomb Kings]] or [[Mummy: The Curse]]), Ankhtepot and his domain more or less dropped off the face of Ravenloft canon after the AD&D version, and even in AD&D he was fairly passive. Even so, he did affect Ravenloft and D&D at large in one way by creating the first Greater Mummies (AKA "Children of Ankhtepot") to ever exist in a D&D system, though they have since significantly changed from their original incarnation. Ankhtepot has also been known to send his Mummy and Greater Mummy servants outside of his domain to track and kill grave robbers who defile his tomb and other unfortunates who incur his wrath.

Ankhtepot and his domain first appeared in the ''RR1: Darklords'' supplement, and were later featured in the ''RA3: Touch of Death'' adventure.
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ankhtepot RR1.jpg|We have no idea who the female mummy is; Ankhtepot was not buried with his wife.
ankhtepot Domains of Dread.png
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===5e===
Despite not having shown up since AD&D, he was re-introduced to the setting in 5e, albeit with some significant retcons.

In an ancient country the inhabitants called the Land of Reeds and Lotuses, Ankhtepot served three generations of pharaohs as high priest. When the second pharaoh died, her unworthy son ascended to the throne. The new pharaoh quickly became unpopular among the people and priests, and Ankhtepot came to believe that the gods wanted himself to take the pharaoh's place. On the day of the pharaoh's coronation, Ankhtepot rallied his loyal priests and murdered their liege. Unfortunately he had misjudged both the people's loyalty and the gods' wills. The people rose up and killed him and his fellow priests, and when he died the gods forsook him and barred him from the afterlife. The gods returned him to the world, but stripped away a piece of his soul called the ka -- the vital spark that inspires all living beings. 

He awoke immobilized and trapped in his sarcophagus, during which he felt the pain of every cut and every organ removed as if he were alive. One day, after untold years of this suffering, he heard a voice asking if he still felt he was worthy to rule. Still arrogant after all he had been through, he answered with certainty, and thus emerged from his crypt into the domain of Har’Akir. In this new land, Ankhtepot found a pious people devoted to the same gods he once served, and immediately set to wiping that religion out and replacing their gods with false idols of his own invention. Using blasphemous rites, Ankhtepot resurrected the priests once buried alongside him as powerful mummies, replacing their heads with those of beasts holy to his new faith. These Children of Ankhtepot served him as they did in life, and together the dead conquered the souls of Har’Akir.

Since then he has seen much, and known many things, but now he seeks one thing only: to be reconnected with his lost Ka, which he believes will allow him to finally die. Where and what his Ka is now is left up to the DM to decide, as is what happens when he is reunited with it. All of the suggested results are pretty grim, ranging from him being reborn as a living tyrant far more decadent and sadistic than he was as an undead, discovering that he cannot be returned to mortality and deciding to wipe out all life in his domain out of spite, to being reborn and dying soon after only for a war of succession to immediately begin with all the Children of Ankhtepot declaring themselves Ankhtepot II.
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03-015.pharaohANKHTEPOT.png
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