While perhaps not quite up there at the same level as Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Wolf-Man, the Mummy is certainly among the truly classic monsters. Inspired, of course, by the ancient Pharaohs of Egypt, where complex and extensive embalming techniques were developed to preserve the bodies of the dead based on the belief that the survival of an intact body was necessary to live on in the afterlife, Mummies took on a more sinister association thanks in large part to the 1932 Boris Karloff movie The Mummy, and its popular 1999 remake starring Brendan Fraser (the latter of which I saw in theaters when I was 13).
I'll take a moment to acknowledge that these stories are very much steeped in a colonialist mindset, with the "otherness" of a foreign culture being part of the horror in a way that's not particularly evolved. That said, Mummies are also a remnant of a culture that was overwritten by numerous migrations and conquests. Even the descendants of the Ancient Egyptians who still live in the Nile delta have had tons of other cultural influences, like the Helenistic conquest by Alexander the Great or the spread of Islam and Arabic culture. It's not like modern Egyptians still mummify their dead, and many probably feel a similar "otherness" that foreigners do toward these ancient religious practices and traditions. (Though as someone who has never even been to Egypt, I'll end my speculations here.)
The point, though, is that I think Mummies represent something ancient - I don't think you're going to ever use these as generic undead, the result of necromantic practices performed on the recently deceased.
Actually, I guess I wouldn't rule that out. As readers might have noticed, I've become something of a nerd about Esoteric Alchemy (it's for a book!) and the very word "Alchemy" means something akin to "the practice from Kemi, which was an alternate name for Egypt meaning something like the land of black dirt - the black dirt being so dark because of its moist richness thanks to the Nile's flooding. Thus, I think an occult society might revive the process of mummification as one of the ways they're trying to recreate some ancient magical power of the past.
Still, as presented, there are a few things that Mummies seem to imply:
Their Rotting Fist curses imply that they have been decaying for a very long time. Their vulnerability to fire damage also implies that they're super-dry - which works both for their typical desert environment as well as the fact that a mummy is preserved in large part by draining all the moisture out of them.
Another interesting element is that the Mummy Lord uses Wisdom as their spellcasting ability, and they're typically depicted as more priest-like than mage-like. Again, if we look to the occult associations both with Egypt and particularly this horror-tinged monster, the distance between Cleric and Wizard kind of shrinks.
If you wanted to depict a villainous mummy prior to their undeath, a Priest stat block might make sense, and I could even imagine a player Cleric going on a path toward Mummydom - or perhaps trying to redeem their religious order after it has been taken over by such creatures.
There's a lot of evil-coding to Mummies, particularly with their use of rot. But I think there's room here to have Mummies act more as ancient guardians of sacred places. In my homebrew setting, there's an ancient religion that vanished mysteriously from the world's practices, but among their traditions was mummification of important clerics to, as I just said, guard sacred places. These could be good-aligned guardians who nevertheless will slay any who intrude upon such sacred locales.
I imagine an ancient temple out in the desert with a big warning that says something along the lines of "By the Will of the Gods, None Shall Enter this Sacred Place. The Wicked and the Greedy Shall Be Punished by the Dread Wrath of the Heavens." After all, even good-aligned celestials sometimes have necrotic powers, and perhaps Mummies were imbued with their powers by a benign force.
Indeed, the association of plague with Egypt is mostly from the Bible, in which God brings quite horrific catastrophes down on the people of Egypt because of the Pharoah's refusal to let the Hebrews leave.
Still, more likely our Mummy is an evil creature, as reflected in the stat block's default alignment. They might have been the priest of an evil deity, or punished with undeath for betraying a good deity they served.
Now, we can look at the basic Mummy later on, but I wanted to focus on the Mummy Lord here.
One of the biggest issues I had with the 2014 Mummy Lord is that it had only 97 hit points, and on top of that, it had vulnerability to fire damage. Thus, on a failed save against an average-damage Fireball, it would take 56 damage - over half its total HP. While not as high-CR as a Lich (which didn't actually have all that much more HP than this,) it suffers the same threat of being destroyed in a single round in someone gets into melee with it.
The new Mummy Lord still has that Fire vulnerability, but its HP is higher - now at 187, near though not quite twice its old amount. I still think that this could be a little low (especially with the vulnerability,) but you should be able to get at least a turn with it first, and quite possibly two.
Like the Lich, the Mummy Lord has a means to survive falling against the party the first time. While their heart is intact, they'll regenerate somewhere in their lair in 24 hours. The heart does have statistics - an AC of 17 and 10 HP, but immunity to all but fire damage. It shouldn't be that hard to destroy the heart, but the Mummy Lord can keep it hidden (and the DM can require the party to really search for it).
Now, the Mummy Lord has a simple multiattack, doing either their Rotting Fist or Channel Negative Energy - a standard melee and ranged attack - followed by Dreadful Glare, which is a single-target ability with a saving throw.
Simple enough, use Rotting Fist if there's a melee target, and Channel Negative Energy if there isn't. Both have +9 to hit, and each does an average of 25 damage. The Rotting Fist, though, also inflicts a curse (with no saving throw - if it hits, it curses) that is quite nasty: the target can't regain hit points, and can't benefit from a long rest, and their HP maximum decreases by an average of 10 every 24 hours. And if it reduces a target to 0 hp, they immediately turn to dust, dead.
The ranged attack just does a bunch of necrotic damage with no other effects.
Dreadful Glare, then, is also scary - a target that the mummy can see within 60 feet makes a DC 17 Wisdom save, and if they fail, they take an average of 25 psychic damage and then are paralyzed until the end of the mummy's next turn.
Thus, the obvious thing to do would be to do a Dreadful Glare, and if the target gets paralyzed, smack them with a Rotting Fist. This will then auto-crit, dealing on average 26 bludgeoning and 21 necrotic damgage, which after the 25 psychic damage stands a good job of insta-killing someone.
This, then, I think is what makes this monster really scary.
Even after fighting them, you'll need to quickly remove the curses on anyone hit by the fist - and if the character in the party who can cast Remove Curse is one of the people hit, you had better hope that they have a spare spell slot to cure themselves first (or be a Warlock!)
Mummy Lords also have some spellcasting, with Dispel Magic at will and Insect Plague at 7th level once per day. The latter creates a Fireball-sized swarm of insects that deal 33 average damage to creatures inside it (or half on a successful Con save). This is probably a good opening move, taking advantage of their expertise in initiative (which only puts them to a +10 as their Dexterity has no bonus,) and can be partial area-denial.
Lastly, before we get into legendary actions, they have a defensive reaction called Whirlwind of Sand. If they get hit by an attack roll, they can add 2 to their AC against that attack, and then they teleport up to 60 feet, blinding any creature within 5 feet of their destination until the end of their next turn.
Naturally, this can help the Mummy Lord get away form powerful melee fighters, though it can also get them close to anyone who can deal fire damage, and get advantage on their Rotting Fist attack.
For legendary actions, two are once-per-round options - a 2nd level Command, and a use of Dreadful Glare. Their default legendary action is just a Rotting Fist or Channel Negative Energy. Still, consider this: even outside of their own turn, they could potentially paralyze a target with Dreadful Glare and then strike them with two or even three Rotting Fists while the target's paralyzed. That could be freaking nasty.
My suspicion is that a Mummy Lord fight goes quickly. They can churn through adventurers if their paralyze goes off and if their attacks hit, but they still don't have a ton of HP and that HP is effectively halved if a party has lots of access to fire damage. Fireball, Wall of Fire, Burning Hands - any fire spell that calls for Dex saves (which is most of them) is going to be very helpful here. Paladins, if they know they're going to face one of these, should bring Searing Smite, and a Warrior of Elements Monk will be quite well-suited to fighting one of these.
Now, at what level should you throw this at a party?
A Mummy Lord is worth 13,000 xp, or 15,000 in a lair. As with any monster that has the chance to come back, I think you can get at least two fights out of these guys, probably outside the lair first and inside the lair for the final showdown. So, let's consider that final fight.
With 5 players, the Mummy Lord (in a lair) takes up 3000 xp per player, which means that as a solo encounter, this would be a hard fight for 10th level players, and then a moderate fight for 11th level, and gets closer to easy at level 13 or 14. Like many monsters, we're looking at something that could make for a really good tier 2 final boss.
Obvious minion creatures would be Mummies, though you could use plenty of other undead like skeletons, zombies, and such. Getting out of the undead sphere, though, the priestly aspect could mean using fiends (and especially devils' fire immunity would be a nice counterpoint to the strategy of taking tons of fire magic) or other mystical creatures, like Spirit Nagas.
A Mummy Lord could also be an ancient ally of a blue dragon, so lesser blue dragons would make good potential allies as well. I could also see them employing various desert-appropriate elementals, (earth and air, most likely). Keeping on the pseudo-Egyptian theme, Sphinxes could also work - though likely something like a Sphinx of Secrets, to avoid stealing the spotlight.
I would still caution against using these against truly high-level parties, though - while the Whirlwind of Sand will certainly let them play keep-away against a determined martial melee character, their under-200 HP frame will not last long against a sustained, focused assault. If the party can afford to focus-fire them (preferably with fire,) the fight's going to end quickly.
Still, once again, the Mummy Lord's ability to paralyze and then Thanos-snap a party member potentially in a single round is something truly to dread. If you don't want to perma-kill party members, ensure that someone the party can find afterwards can help them with the curse and also cast True Resurrection.
One note is that a Mummy Lord might strongly consider making their lair in a flooded temple, just to cancel out that water vulnerability. They'll get disadvantage on their Rotting Fist attacks (I think) but they'll have an easier time surviving. That said, given their association with the desert, there probably aren't a lot of flooded temples to inhabit.
Now, just to step back, let's look at the basic Mummy.
Shockingly, the basic CR 3 Mummy actually gets more attacks than the Mummy Lord, allowing two Rotting Fists on top of their Dreadful Glare. But unlike the Mummy Lord, the Dreadful Glare doesn't do damage, and it only frightens a target, rather than paralyzing them.
The basic Mummy's Rotting Fist curse is also not quite as bad (though still nasty). It prevents the target from regaining hit points, and also from restoring their hit point maximum on a long rest, but you'll still get resources like spell slots. It can still Thanos-snap you if it reduces you to 0 HP, though.
Standard Mummies are slower, though, and with very low ACs, and they still have fire vulnerability. But at CR 3, you might face one or two of these during tier 1, before you get access to Remove Curse or Fireball, so this could be a very scary monster indeed at those levels - albeit one that you can likely keep at bay.
Again, though, any fire damage will help a lot on these guys - a Burning Hands, which does 3d6 fire damage, will likely do full damage given their -1 to Dexterity, and thus an average of 21 - which is still only a little over a third of their HP.
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