Ameth

This is a low fantasy setting inspired by Egypt that features the coexistnce of living and undead in the thin strips of fertile lands amid the great desert of Ameth.

Countries of Men

Citizens

The humans are the main inhabitants of Ameth. They have build their cities on the shores of the two big rivers crossing the desert. All the hard work in the fields is delegated to the mindless undead slaves allowing for a high life standard and lot of free time for the citizens. This lead to a very liberal set of mind among the population. Men and women have the same rights, both can go around with exposed chests etc. The human countries are ruled by pharaohs. Currently there are 4 countries with a pharoah each. Yet all of them share the same religion, the faith of the 7 gods.

The Faith of the 7 Gods

The Faith is the one holding the whole Ameth together. Despite the name is it relies very little on faith. When you can see the undead walking among you every day you don't realy "question" the teachings of the Faith. This is a centralized organization, with mortal priests at the bottom, undead liches in th emiddle, and a powerful undead leader at the top. The leader of the Faith is changed every 10 years and he wears the golden mask representing the god of the decade he is ruling. Few common citizens know how the next leader is chosen, some tells that those are actualy the orignal 7 gods that created Ameth.

The Faith controls the whole population quite simply: if you pray hard enough, follow church rules and give a lots of gold in donations, after the death you can return as un immortal, able to enjoy the life again for all eternity. A lot of mysticism surrounds the Return, the soul being judged by the gods and only the worthy are allowed back, while the unworthy returns corrupted or don't return at all. In reality the eventual Return and its form is deiceded by the Faith undead burocrats. The main factor for the decision is if you would want to hang with this guy for the rest of eternity, a secodnary factor the loyalty to the faith and number of donations.

The leader and the powerful liches in the ranks of the Faith need human life force to sustain themselves and to use it in powerful magical rituals. While the easiest way to collect it is to consume living human flesh a more subtle method is practiced in Ameth. Living citizens must go to Faith works for a year each 5 years. It is usually building a new pyramid. The formal excuse is that this work is too complicated to be given to undead workers. On the work magical devices steal life force and put it in batteries (you don’t want to know how those batteries are made). Workers get tired incredibly fast but most of the time accept it with gratitude as it elevates their chances of being resurrected after death and the pay is very good. Stealing life force with moderation rarely kills people.

The priests are very lax in their rules. It's mostly about don't do to others what you don't want to be done to yourself. They close an eye on wars between different pharaohs. It is fine if you slaughter the whole family of the rival ruler, but if you massacre his whole city the Faith leader gets angry. “Hell! You killed a lots of my cattle!” This usually ends in a massive army of undead soldiers sent to kill the offending pharaon. This led to rulers using small highly trained and specialized forces instead of large armies. Ancient egyptian Spec.Ops!

And yes, the Faith being mostly composed by liches have access to a large undead armies ready to do their bidding. Usaully killing rebellions and foreign invaders.

Undead

The Faith promises undeath as a reward for a good life. There is only one mechanism of resurrection and all Faith priests. 7 gods and freelancer necromancers use it.

The souls doesn't exist. A person wanting to be resurrected are given a magical golden object, usually a an ankh, by the Faith. This object must be always be with you. When the object feels you dying he makes a destructive copy of your mind. Later the body is prepared for the Return. A ritual is performed and the mind is recopied into the undead brain. And another undead is created. All mind movements are destructive, you can CTRL-X CTRL-V but not CTRL-C CTRL-V. It is very hard to build an ankh to make a good brain copy. Low grade ankhs copy only the deeply rooted brain patterns. Walking, doing menial works eating etc. Resulting in a mindless zombie at the end process. Mummifying the body for the Return is not strictly necessary but a normal corpse undead will start to rot and turn unusable in a short time.

The quality of the ankh determines what type of undead is created:

• Mindless undead. Lowest grade ankh. Only the deep rooted brain patterns are recorded. Usually end up being filed workers
• Slightly less mindless undead. Medium grade ankh. They retain muscle memory and some instincts they had in life. Usually used as soldiers.
• Intelligent undead. High grade ankh. They retain the same personality they had in life. What most people aspires to be.
• Liches. this ritual must be performed while the subject is alive. Retains the personality and adds magic powers.

When creating ankhs for the mindless undead necromancers take care in making sure the brain patterns responsible for the obedience get recorded. When creating an undead slave or soldier the can be coded to listen orders only from a wearer of a specifically keyed small magic device. Those control jewels are often sold and traded. For this reason generals of undead armies are often seen wearing tons of golden jewelry in the middle of battle.

Each mind recording and transfer slightly corrupts the mind and have a chance render it totally unusable. For this reason while it possible to change bodies after death no one is willing to do it on themselves.

AS you have guessed a mind recorded in an ankh is can not be necessarily transfered to the body it originated from. You can't put a high grade mind into a different body because the patterns of the dead brain are very similar to the original patterns and they create interference making the resulting undead utterly insane. You can do it with lower grade minds. Procure some fresh corpses, a terabyte of minds and create your own undead slaves.

Another way to prevent this problem is to transfer the mind into a non-human head. Since the brain need a lot less work to do (No more breathing regulating hormones levels and other body functions) the mind can be transfered into a smaller head, usually an animal. One of uses of this possibility is to sew an animal head to a human body and transfer the mind into the animal head. Most of the time the result is yet again an insane unworkable mind but some combinations result in a stable creatures. Another stable combination is putting the original head on top of an animal body. Crazier necromancer combine several bodies via grafting to create enormous abominations. In all this experiments you need to implant a high grade mind because a low grade knows only the how to move a human body and will be unable to learn the use of the new body.

The Faith condones and outlaws similar experiments, for they result in great loss of human resources and are quite horrifying from the public perspective. But often the Faith turns a blind eye on this experiments as the 7 gods enjoy seeing new creatures build asif it was a form of art and sometimes this experiments wield stable and usable results.

One of such stable combinations officially permitted by the Faith as something blesses by gods are the Anubians. They are made with the head of a golden wolf attached to the big, 2 meters tall, pitch black body of a nubian savage. Minor other improvements are added as paws in place of the feet, the integration of the wolf nervous system etc. The mind of a great warrior is placed in such a construct.

The life after the death

After Returning the sentient dead must not visit his family for 1001 nights. This rule exists because human psychology is quite fragile and people cope better with such a dramatic change of events if they are given time to forget.

The Returned live in cities of the dead. Protected by high walls and forbidden to living. This is mainly because the number of necromancers is much higher among the dead. And people begging to have a relative resurrected are quite annoying.

Dead Water

The dead posses one great weakness. They no longer regenerate and heal their wounds. If you break your leg you have the rest of eternity to live with a broken leg.

The only way to help this is the dead water. When put on dead tissues it triggers a regeneration. This is the only way for undead to heal their wounds. Also thanks to it bodies grafting required to make anubians are possible.

The secret of the dead water production is known only to the high priests and thanks to the monopoly of this resource the Faith is able to control the undead citizens.

7 Gods

The leaders of the Faith that change every 7 years are actualy the original 7 gods. Ancient arch-liches they build this civilization from scartch eons ago as a continous supply of life energy and materials for themeslves.

The Faith doesn't rule Ameth with an iron fist.

The pyramids are giant magical circles powered by the collected life force. Some are used by the 7 gods to communicate Elder entities beyond the stars, some to protect cities form giant worms roaming the deserts. Some to change landscapes. Often powerful rituals require more then life force. Sometimes in one night the populace of a whole village or city is abducted to be killed in a giant sacrifice. Another dead city is born and no one knows what happened

The reason that the 7 gods haven't killed each other for power over the nation is because they consider ruling Ameth a side-job. Like a bunch of roommates starting a farm and each day it is turn of one or another to tend to the chickens.

Other Dwellers

Siams

Sandniggers elves called Siams. Persian merchants. They travel on caravans between cities and the outside realms. They have furry elf ears with a brush at the end, glowing blue eyes and sharp fangs. Lot of legends circulate about them, like that they gain magical power with the phases of the blue moon, they can control cats, suck your life energy, control your mind and sometimes drink your blood. For this reason Siams wear turbans that completely cover the head and a veil or bone sunglasses to cover the eyes. They successfully introduced this fashion among merchants and nomad tribes making it incredibly difficult to spot a real Siam. Also all those legend about Siams are real. Have I mentioned the life force batteries? Well making them require not quite killing a Siam. For this reason Siams tend to be wary of the church. Also they have a special bond with cats so nomads and merchants caravans are often accompanied by a feline swarm.

Snek

They are basically Yuan Ti. They live underground in the tunnels and lakes. Interbreeding with humans happens quite often. Not last because the keep humans as slaves. Male offsprings result in having 4 limbs, a tail and a scaly hide, basically lizardmen, while females end up being lamias/nagas (giant tale and human torso). Lamias often posses incredible beauty (typical of half breeds, have you seen half asian girls?). Sometimes a stranger being is born, like a medusa. Those often have strong magical powers. All half breeds are sterile (like is common in nature). The half breeds are shunned by both races. Lizardmen usually end up working as mercenaries, while lamias as sorcerers or whores.

Desert Dangers

• Shai-Hulud or Olgoi-khorkhoi

Giant death worms living in the sand. The only way to travel is to have a powerful mage to drive them away or a Siam that can make sure the caravan avoids one. Furthemore those Worms create electric discharges. This helps them hunt when they are small. When they are big and get angry you have a burrowing thunderstorm ravaging the desert. Water can be a deadly poison to them.

• Landwhales

Able to dwarf a Shai-Hulud these creatures the size of a mountain slowly swim in the sand. And by slowly I mean they move by several meters a year. Entire civilizations flourished on their back never realizing what it was. Sometimes you can have one of those emerging from the sand with on his back a city from 6000 years ago.

• Sphynx

They are basicaly Dragons. Majestic creatures of legends. Very few exist, fewer than Shai-Hulud, and their size vaires greatly probably due to age. They like to play with their food, and the few people that survived an encounter with one tell stories of sadistic beasts asking riddles. Siams worship them as gods.

Weapons & Armors

Vertebrae Whip

A whip made out of vertebrae. Can be used as a normal whip but in its pommel there is a skull of a small animal with an uploaded human mind. The whip is sentient and can move on its own changing trajectory in mid air and striking the opponent past his guard. At the end of the whip is placed a sharp blade. It takes time to learn it's use and fight in sync with the intelligence inside the whip.

Bone powerarmor

A sentient armor made out of bones. For the upper body a gorilla skeleton is used while for the lower one the ostrich legs are used. The bones are cut to be able to accommodate inside a human. A skull of a small animal with the driving intelligence is placed inside the armor. The armor is made of bones with lot of holes making it a bad protection against stabbing weapons. But in the hot climate of Ameth having a closed armor would lead to certain death much faster then the enemy spears. The main advantage of the bone armor is not the protection but the augmented strength it gives its master. The bone-armor do not include the helmet as it is not a moving part.

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Khopesh

The weapon of choice for Ameth infantry.

Sjambok

A heavy leather whip made from an adult hippopotamus (or rhinoceros) hide. It ends up being both flexible and durable. Used mostly by th epolice to inflict non lethal injuries and for honorable duels that would not result in death.

First draw

Ameth is a low fantasy Egypt setting. Mix of WH tomb kings, Conan books and Dune.

It features undead self proclaimed gods that runs the country from the shadows, serpent man, persian elves and cities of the dead. Ameth is the name of the desert. A big desert with two rivers around which towns are build. Humans are the principal race. They have high life standards and a liberal-modern mind. The field and hard work is delegated to the mindless undead slaves, allowing a rich life to most citizens. They are ruled by pharaohs. Currently there are 4 countries with a pharoah each. Yet all of them share the same centralized religion, the faith of the 7 gods. The church controls the whole population simply: if you pray hard enough, follow church rules and give a lots of gold in donation, after the death you return as un undead, able to enjoy the life again for all eternity.

A lot of mysticism surrounds the process, the soul being judged by the gods ecc. In reality in the burial chamber the priests decide if resurrect the dead or not.

there are 3 types of undead: Mindless ones: Used as field workers and church soldiers. Sentient ones: Normal mummies. That is what most people want to become. Liches: powerful church members are resurrected as liches gaining even more power.

The 7 gods are extremely powerful liches that wear golden masks each representing an animal: Cat, Jackal, Serpent, Falcon and 3 others to decide.

At the top of the church there are this 7 gods. Each rules for 10 years and is then replaced by the next one. Those are the same liches that molded Ameth to their desire millennia ago and use its people as cattle. They need human life force to sustain themselves and to use it in powerful magical rituals. To collect life force living citizens must go to church works for a year each 5 years. It is usually building a new pyramid. The formal excuse is that this work is too complicated to be given to undead workers. On the work magical devices steal life force and put it in batteries (you don’t want to know how those batteries are made). Workers feel very tired at work but most of the time accept it with gratitude as it elevates their chances of being resurrected after death and the pay is very good. Stealing life force with moderation rarely kills people.

Church is very lax in it rules. They allow wars between different pharaons. It is fine if you slaughter the whole family of the rival pharaon, but if you massacre his whole city the church gets angry. “Fuck! You killed a ton of our cattle!” This usually ends in a massive army of undead soldiers sent to kill the offending pharaon. This led to rulers using small highly trained and specialized forces instead of large armies. Ancient egyptian spetznaz!

After returning the sentient dead must not visit his family for 1001 nights. This rule is introduced cause human psychology is quite fragile and people cope better with such a dramatic change of events if they are given time to forget.

The dead live in cities of the dead. Protected by high walls and forbidden to living. This is mainly because the number of necromancers is much higher among the dead. And people begging to have a relative resurrected are quite annoying.

Dead often come to the cities of living people. The main rule about them is that they can not work in the same place for more than 10 years and can't stay in the same city for more than 50. This is to decrease the stagnation and make it difficult for undeads to take control away from the church. A special police made of living exist to hunt disobeying undeads. This policemen wear animal masks (Anubis, Horus etc.) because ending an eternal life is seen as very bad by society and they protect their real identities. THey are also made of living to make it more difficult for rebelling undead to find a common language with them.

The church use undead armies to scare the living and living police to scare the dead.

The pyramids are giant magical circles powered by the collected life force. Some are used by the 7 gods to communicate Elder entities beyond the stars, Some to protect cities form giant worms roaming the deserts. Some to change the course of rivers. Powerful rituals require more then life force. Sometimes in one night the populace of a whole village or city is abducted to be killed in a giant sacrifice. And another dead city is born and no one knows what happened

The reason that the 7 gods haven't killed each other for power over the nation is because they consider ruling Ameth a side-job. Like a bunch of roommates starting a farm and each day it is turn of one or another to tend to the chickens.

Serpent Men. They are basically Yuan Ti. They live underground in the tunnels and lakes. Interbreeding with humans happens quite often. Not last because the keep humans as slaves. Male offsprings result in having 4 limbs, a tail and a scaly hide, basically lizardmen, while females end up being lamias/nagas (giant tale and human torso). Lamias often posses incredible beauty (typical of half breeds, have you seen half asian girls?). Sometimes a stranger being is born, like a medusa. Those often have strong magical powers. All half breeds are sterile (like is common in nature). The half breeds are shunned by both races. Lizardmen usually end up working as mercenaries, while lamias as sorcerers or whores.

Sandniggerselves Called Siams. Persian merchants. They travel on caravans between cities and the outside realms. They have furry elf ears with a brush at the end, glowing blue eyes and sharp fangs. Lot of legends circulate about them, like that they gain magical power with the phases of the blue moon, they can control cats, suck your life energy, control your mind and sometimes drink your blood. For this reason Siams wear turbans that completely cover the head and a veil or bone sunglasses to cover the eyes. They successfully introduced this fashion among merchants and nomad tribes making it incredibly difficult to spot a real Siam. Also all those legend about Siams are real. Have I mentioned the life force batteries? Well making them require not quite killing a Siam. For this reason Siams tend to be wary of the church. Also they have a special bond with cats so nomads and merchants caravans are often accompanied by a feline swarm.

Stuff that lives in the desert.

Giant worms from Dune. The only way to travel is to have a powerful mage to drive them away or a Siam that can make sure the caravan avoids one. Furthemore those Worms create electric discharges. This helps them hunt when they are small. When they are big and get angry you have a burrowing thunderstorm ravaging the desert.

Even bigger Landwhales: This creatures the size of a mountain slowly swim in the sand. And by slowly I mean they move by several meters a year. Entire civilizations flourished on their back never realizing what it was. Sometimes you can have one of those emerging from the sand with on his back a city from 6000 years ago.