Mummy

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"What's the matter man? For heaven's sake, what is it?"
"He went for a little walk sir! You should have seen his face!"

– The Mummy, 1932

A mummy is a person (or an animal) who has been subjected to mummification, a form of preserving the body for prolonged periods of time. On /tg/ specifically, it refers to a unique form of undead created from such preserved bodies.

The most iconic kind of mummy in popular culture is the Egyptian mummy, a ritually prepared corpse who has select organs ceremonially removed before the body is dried out with natron (a kind of natural salt) and then intricately wrapped up in layers of bandages before being buried inside of an elaborate tomb. This was usually done for spiritual reasons, as it was believed that preservation of the dead would help ferry them to the afterlife easier.

Whilst there are several other forms of natural mummification, involving peat bogs, salt-pans, deep deserts and high, dry snowfields, these have not had so much of an impact on /tg/ media, mostly because they lack the grandeur and spectacle of the Egyptian mummy - "natural" mummies are often treated as little more than a gimmicky variety of zombie. Meanwhile, the Incan mummy, with its elaborate mud plaster and wind-drying-based ceremonial burial, is simply far less known.

Typically, mummies are portrayed as sapient, free-willed undead, often with potent magical abilities. They usually fear fire (mostly because they're almost always bandage-wrapped Egyptian Mummies, otherwise because mummification dries out the body to leathery kindling), but are often quite hard to kill.

D&D

In Dungeons & Dragons, the mummy is traditionally portrayed as (but not mechanically forced to be) the "Undead Cleric", in contrast to the "Undead Wizard" of the Lich. This is a tradition that Pathfinder has continued. Dragon Magazine #300 contains an Ecology of the Mummy article which provides tweaks for mud, peat and ice mummies. Beyond the traits expected of intelligent undead, the primary distinguishing ability of a mummy is causing Mummy Rot, a magical curse that's also a disease. In the Ravenloft setting, they're referred to as the "Ancient Dead", and are spoken of at length in Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead.

Warhammer

In Warhammer, mummies were part of the original generic "undead" army. They were ultimately spun off to form their own faction in the Tomb Kings. Their closest 40k equivalent would be the Necrons.

World of Darkness

The World of Darkness has two game lines based on playing mummies; Mummy: The Resurrection and Mummy: The Curse, for oWoD and CofD respectively. Both feature you being an ancient, unkillable, fuck-off powerful undead being, though the exact manner of your existence varies.

In Resurrection, you are one of the Amenti, a servant of Osiris given power by the Spell of Life. Your goal is to maintain cosmic balance and shit and to fight the servants of Apophis. In Curse, you are an Arisen, someone from the ancient empire of Irem that bound yourself to the Judges, eldritch death-gods of the duat. You exist to be their puppets, falling asleep for centuries on end and waking up to do their bidding. One of them sounds a lot less grimdark, doesn't it?

Monstergirls

Just like the zombie and the vampire, the mummy as a sexy monstrous woman has appeared here and there. Female mummies seeking to regain their lives as beautiful human women have actually been portrayed in completely serious monster movies.

In the Monster Girl Encyclopedia, the mummy is a variant zombie afflicted with overly sensitive skin; they bandage themselves to protect themselves from being rendered too horny to do anything from just the day-to-day sensations of moving around.