Introduction

Welcome to Dark Eras 2. Much like Dark Eras and the Dark Eras Companion, this book explores chapters of history through the Chronicles of Darkness. Each chapter presents two or more game lines set against a backdrop of historical intrigue and events. The materials presented in the chapters are compatible with Chronicles of Darkness Second Edition rules. Following a description of the eras, a list of historically appropriate Skills has been included for use in your chronicles. What’s in This Book? Dark Eras 2 consists of 13 eras, at least one for each Chronicles of Darkness game line. The eras are presented here in chronological order, beginning with the oldest: We are not • Promethean: The Created/Beast: The Primordial/Werewolf: The makersWe areof history. not Forsaken — Hunger in the Black Land (1806 BCE): Sobekneferu was We are made by history. the last pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom, ascending to power during a makers of history. time of transition. Her father built a pyramid and a mysterious labyrinth — Martin Luther King, Jr. at Hawara, near Shedet (modern-day Faiyum), but she completed the We are made by labyrinth and may be the only one left alive who knows its secrets. The h i s to ry. Greeks will later call Shedet “Crocodilopolis,” for the crocodile god Sobek and his children reign supreme there. The Forsaken fight a war Martin Luther over territory and pride with their reptilian cousins, while Prometheans deal with the disparity between the Nepri — worshipped as kings and King, Jr. gods — and the others, evading mortuary alchemists and mummified animal Pandorans. Meanwhile, the Begotten seek allies to deal with the rise of senseless violence among Heroes and the waking Insatiable of the Nile.

• Changeling: The Lost/Promethean: The Created — The Seven Wonders (286–226 BCE): As the locations of the most significant manmade struc- tures in the world are revealed, adventurers from Greece and beyond seek them out to bask in their glory. It is tragic, however, that some wonders must be kept secret. The Gentry do not respond well to their Hedge being disturbed, and the seven wonders are coated in thorns for the unwary. There is no telling what they will do when they encounter the Created, who have heard of these wondrous places immune to war, the ravages of time, and Disquiet. Though the Created seek to protect the wonders like a mother would a child, the Gentry have their own reasons for safeguarding them.

• Hunter: The Vigil/Changeling: The Lost/Vampire: The Requiem — Arthur’s Britannia (400–500 CE): You’ve heard the stories of King Arthur Sampleand Mordred, Merlin and Morgana. Inspired byfile medieval romance, the Arthurian myth lives on. Get behind the myth, find the source of these tales, and adventure in Great Britain during the legendary King Arthur’s

10 introduction rule. For, in the Chronicles of Darkness, nothing is • Mummy: The Curse/Hunter: The Vigil — Rise of what it seems. The shadows we explore will expose the Last Imperials (1644–1661 CE): The last Imperial darker secrets that follow King Arthur and his Dynasty, the Qing, was established by Nurhaci fol- Knights of the Round Table wherever they roam. lowing the takeover of Beijing. Masters of northern China, the powerful Great Qing successfully usurped • Beast: The Primordial/Vampire: The Requiem weakened Ming rulers, but their rule was marked by — One Thousand and One Nightmares (832 CE): their treatment of the Han Chinese. Despite this, the The Islamic Golden Age during the reign of Caliph Shunzhi Emperor, assisted by his co-regents Dorgon al-Ma’mun is a time of great advances in science and Jirgalang, began to preserve centuries of Chinese and culture, but it’s also a time for getting into the arts and literature while searching for mummies ru- mystic as the House of Wisdom brings the One mored to be active in the area. Caught between the Thousand and One Nights tales into the light, expos- present and the distant past, mummies clash with ing records of true supernatural events and sparking rival Arisen, sweeping Han Chinese hunters into unprecedented human curiosity about the unknown. their wake who must face many threats to uphold The Begotten reach out to help their vampire kin the Vigil. (and others) cope with the mortal situation that’s swiftly turning the tide against the night’s horrors; • Mummy: The Curse/Geist: The Sin-Eaters — the Islamic covenants must decide how to redefine The Scandinavian Witch Trials (1608–1698 CE): the Masquerade in a changing world. During this Scandinavian countries quickly adopted the witch time, the powerful Al-Khayzuran, mother to the trials from Germany after the Reformation, and were Caliph, ensures the tales’ power over human imagi- even more cautious about magic and witches, as they nation through her mysterious connection with the knew they lived closer to hell than most other coun- Primordial Dream and the ancient queen Chehrazad. tries. Magic was no longer seen as a tool to alter fates or change the course of lives, and it was no longer • Hunter: The Vigil/Demon: The Descent — Empire directly linked to communication with gods. Those of Gold and Dust (1337–1347 CE): Founded by King wielding magic were no longer respected and sacred, Sundiata, the vast Mali Empire was formed after but were hunted and condemned by society, friends, several smaller kingdoms were consolidated and and family, as witchcraft became directly linked with lasted from 1230 to 1600 CE. At its height, the the workings of hell. A constant paranoia dominates empire stretched from the Atlantic coastline, past the Nordic countries. No one knows when it might Timbuktu, to the edges of the Sahara Desert. Ruled be their turn to burn for heresy. Sin-Eaters struggle as a monarchy, the Empire of Mali was multilingual to balance their will to live against their need for and multiethnic, with Islam being the dominant revenge, while the Arisen awake to a dangerous world religion. This period is a time of turmoil. Following and must decide what role they play. the death of the legendary Musa Keita I in 1337, the empire suffered from a series of short-term, faulty • Mage: The Awakening/Geist: The Sin-Eaters — reigns beginning with his son’s four-year rule. With The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (1716 –1717 CE): Like the empire’s security and prosperity at stake, the the Great Below and the many mysterious places creatures of the Chronicles of Darkness are on the mages roam, the ocean’s depths are seen only in move. glimpses, filled with wondrous and terrifying things that never see the light of day — but willworkers • Deviant: The Renegades/Mage: The Awakening/ and the Bound have the means and the will to stare Demon: The Descent — Light of the Sun (1630–1640 into these abysses. Although there’s nothing kind CE): Galileo. Kepler. Newton. On the heels of the about cutthroat pirates, the promise of equality and Italian Renaissance, reason and belief clash at every honor among thieves appeals to those downtrodden turn. Scientific discoveries proving heliocentrism are by the system, whether that’s the British Empire, subverted and deemed heretical. Scientists, mages, the Diamond, or the Kerberoi. Mage society teeters and astronomers are arrested by the Inquisition, and on the brink of civil war as the Silver Ladder allies their books are banned. In response, intellectuals with the Seers of the Throne to stamp out Nassau’s on the brink of discovery turn to alchemy and the Nameless Order, while the Bound sail with their magical arts, and create deviants to defend their brotherhoods to stop marauding Reapers and plumb laboratories and universities. Not all in this age the haunted seas. agree violence is the option, however, and worry the SampleChurch’s power is too strong to fight. What’s more, • Vampire: The Requiem/Demon: file The Descent/ no one expected the deviants to have a mind and Mummy: The Curse — The Reign of Terror will of their own. (1793–1794 CE): Enlightenment philosophies and revolution shake the long-standing institutions of

11 Whats In This Book monarchy and hierarchy in France to their core. Brackett, Ray Bradbury, and Jack Vance. Though Immortal Kindred hidden within the House of these stories are works of fiction, it is often said that Bourbon scheme to hold onto the power and privilege all tales have kernels of truth. In the Chronicles of they crave, while the beginnings of the Carthian Darkness, experience the Golden Age of Science Movement scheme to kick in some fangs and make Fiction as you never have before, through the eyes the elders bleed alongside disenfranchised mortals of its creatures. yearning for liberty. The Arisen question whether they, too, should rise up against their Judges, drawn to Paris by the mysterious Empire of the Dead in the catacombs below the city. The God-Machine Skills has its own plans for the catacomb’s Lifeweb, and The following summarizes pre-modern Skills presented while mummies work with vampires and demons to in Dark Eras. unearth its secrets, the Unchained Agendas splin- ter into factions over whether the revolution is the Archery Machine’s way of cleansing France, or an opportunity to openly defy it and finally find Hell on Earth. The Firearms Skill didn’t exist before 1500 and didn’t completely eclipse the Archery Skill in ranged combat • Changeling: The Lost/Mage: The Awakening — until the mid-1800s, when cheap and reliable hand-carried Mysterious Frontiers (1874 CE): Five years ago, the guns became available. Characters born in the transition First Transcontinental Railroad was completed, period may have training in both Skills, or just one. Crude, revolutionizing travel and trade across the United early firearms use the Athletics Skill to fire rather than States. But the law still has a hell of a time reach- Archery. Common Archery specialties include: European ing its long arm out here, and many are left to fend Bow, Japanese Bow, Longbow, Pellet Bow, Poor Visibility, for themselves. The American West sees the rise of Short Bow, Trick Shot, and Wind and Weather. changeling folk heroes: defiant marshals and their Archery works identically to Firearms except for dra- deputies who win victories against Fae forces, badass matic failures: restringing a bow takes one turn just like Lost strangers wandering from town to town evading clearing a gun jam, but damage to the bow itself renders recapture wherever they go, and wily Hedge pioneers. the weapon useless until it’s repaired. Storytellers might Many mages succumb to wanderlust and ride west rule that an Archery dramatic failure results in hitting the for new opportunities in the wild blue yonder. The wrong target instead, or running out of arrows if the game Lex Magica and Diamond traditions don’t hold tracks ammunition narratively. much sway out here, and ain’t nobody gonna tell an Awakened what to do out under the open sky with Mysteries hidden under every rock, like gold for the prospecting. Sailing and Navigation Skills

• Geist: The Sin-Eaters/Werewolf: The Forsaken/ The Skills a character needs to operate a sailing ves- sel will depend on the size of the ship. Smaller ships Promethean: The Created — The Great War that can be operated by one or two characters will (1914–1918 CE): The Great War displayed humanity’s require less Skills than a full-sized naval vessel. Some potential to commit to wholesale, ceaseless slaughter suggestions follow for appropriate Skills based on the of their own species. In such an era, the Scar tears character’s role on a mid- to large-sized ship but may asunder, and the Beshilu rejoice in the mire of the be adjusted for smaller boats and canoes. Western Front. Meanwhile, soldiers who, by every right known to mortals should be dead, stand back Professional Training Asset Skill up to rejoin the battle — or fight back against the Boatswain Crafts, Intimidation Reapers stalking battlefields throughout Europe. Now, both werewolves and Sin-Eaters will struggle Cannoneer Crafts, Firearms to coexist, do their duty, and avoid getting caught Carpenter Academics, Crafts up in one of history’s deadliest wars. Cook Crafts, Persuasion • Deviant: The Renegades/Werewolf: The Forsaken Deckhand Athletics, Streetwise — Fear and the Golden Promise of Tomorrow (1938 – Navigator/Pilot Science, Survival 1946 CE): On the heels of pulp fiction, the first SampleGolden Age of Science Fiction allowed the science- Surgeon Empathy,file Medicine fiction genre to blossom in the public eye. Science Striker Survival, Weaponry fiction represents possibilities and in a wartime era, readers can’t get enough of Isaac Asimov, Leigh 12 introduction Ride characters use Crafts or Science to interact with cruder computer-like technology. They use the Enigmas Skill to The Drive Skill didn’t exist before the late 1700s and manipulate information, navigate complex systems, solve didn’t become commonplace until the mid-1900s when cars puzzles, and create or decipher codes. It shouldn’t replace became more than luxuries for the wealthy. Transportation interactive problem solving and roleplaying but should help by animals uses Ride, whether the character rides them di- offer specific answers and new options. Common Enigmas rectly or drives them via coach or chariot. During the transi- specialties include: Bureaucracies, Codes, Conspiracies, tion period, aristocratic characters might learn both Skills. Research, and Social Networks. Characters can also use Ride to perform basic veterinary On a dramatic failure, the Storyteller gives a dramati- first aid on common mount animals and build relationships cally appropriate misinterpretation of the information or with them. Common Ride specialties include: Jumping, solution. With failure, the character knows she failed and Particular Breeds, Riding in Combat, Tricks, Tailing, and can try again with a −1 penalty. On a success, the character Unfamiliar Horses. A mount animal has a Handling score successfully decodes or obscures the information. With like a vehicle, which starts at the animal’s Wits rating and exceptional success, the character gains more answers than increases or decreases based on treatment and training. she was looking for or hides information exceptionally well. Ride works with Social Attributes except in cases where Decoding Ciphers is an Intelligence + Enigmas extended Wits is more appropriate, such as a roll to tail someone while action requiring between five and 20 successes, with each mounted. Dramatically failing on a mount usually involves roll representing one hour of work. Encoding Information injury to the mount or uncooperative behavior, like throw- is a Wits + Enigmas + equipment instant action that takes ing its rider or refusing to move. between a few minutes and a few hours depending on the complexity. Mastering Complex Systems is a Wits + Enigmas Enigmas extended action requiring 10+ successes, with each The Computer Skill didn’t exist until the 1980s, with roll representing three hours of interaction or observation. the invention of the home computer. Before that point,

Sample file

13 Skills Sample file Nebt settles on her haunches, surveying the glistening slime with a squint. The nauseating muck coats the dark silt of the field in a fetid smear; rotting stalks of dead barley bend and crumple into the morass. It fills the irrigation ditches with night-black ichor. The priestess tilts her head as a darker shadow emerges from the mud brick of the farmer’s home, footsteps squelching. “It smells like blood,” Nebt calls out. “But sour. Rotten.” The figure draws closer till she can spy the holy envoy’s withered skin, see the stitched incisions in Khenemsu’s flesh. The rotting ichor almost drowns out his scent of salt and resin. “I think,” he replies drily, “it does not take the blessed wits of Wepwawet to know that.” The Weret-Wesir wrinkles his nose in evident disgust. Nebt snorts, and gestures at the prints in the sucking mo- rass. “Nor to see that the scribes came this way,” she says, straightening up again. Khenemsu frowns. “Could they not be the farmer’s?” The priestess shakes her head. “So, he is not in his home? And no. These are not barefoot. See, they are the shape of papyrus sandals, and they are too many.” The two pick their way through the filth in companionable silence for a while, drawing closer to the river’s edge. “Nightmares,” Nebt says eventually. “The farm- ers here speak of nightmares of the ichor. The farmer must have fled to safety already.” “Nightmares?” Khenemsu’s face remains fixed in a frown. “One of the weda rewet, then?” Nebt shrugs. “Perhaps.” She catches another scent mingling with the sickening stench. Blood, but fresh. Ahead, the scribes. They have come apart, the permanency of their flesh unwoven and disentangled. Each of the five men must have crawled through the muck; there, their skin, as if flayed from their bodies, then the tatters of muscle, the uncoiling ropes of their innards. At last, each has come to rest as a blood-slick tumble of bones, settled by a larger heap in the glistening silt. Nebt’s gut lurches in an uncomfortable sensation at the scent of blood — not disgust, but hunger. “What does your god make of this?” she mutters. Khenemsu opens his mouth to restart the tired, old argument that hangs between them, but falters. Something in the dark silt shivers and squirms. They both stare at the heaped mud where the flensed scribes’ remains cluster. It shakes, rises, sloughs muck to become a distinct shape that violates the eye with its atrocity. The thing that lurches forth snaps with a crocodile’s maw, claws its way free with the powerful limbs of a lion, but all are rotten and decayed, a patchwork of cadaverous flesh soaked in the black blood of Iteru. The eyes, though, burn with harsh blue light. Its jaws swing open, threads of glistening ooze hanging be- tweenSample its jagged teeth, and it hacks and spits forth a gurgling file cackle underlain with the screams of tormented souls. “Desecration,” gasps Khenemsu. “Chaos.” Nebt snarls, her jaws lengthening, flesh remaking itself as rage floods through her spirit. “Then let us bring order!” she roars, and the killing form’s fury takes her. Hunger in the HungerBlack Land in the Black1806 BCELand Iteru is Kemet’s eternal heart, granter of the Black Land’s fertile soil. It is an artery 1806of life-giving BCEwater nourishing successive civilizations that rise upon its banks. The river’s rushing cycles underpin the very ma’at of the realm — the harmony between gods, humans, and land. Beyond Iteru, the Red Land is only dust and dry wind, a bleak desolation haunted by the howl of lost gods. The river is everything. And now, it dies. Bled by a pharaoh’s hubris, the once-turgid waters ebb away. Iteru’s recession reveals the river’s sickness through drought and, in places, a festering, oozing ichor that smears its black silt — the tainted blood of a dead god. Ghastly chi- I am he who meras of bone and withered flesh lurch from the mire, driven by terrible hunger. protecteth you Discord festers in human hearts. The sacred becomes the profane. for millions of Proud Sobekneferu sits upon the afflicted kingdom’s throne, last of the 12th years. Whether Dynasty of Kemet. Her reign is troubled, founded not on stone but on clay, for ye be denizens of she surged to power on a tide of unrest and division. Ripples of chaos linger I am he who protecteth in a court rife with suspicion and conspiracy. The pharaoh seeks solace and heaven,you for millionsor of theof tranquility in reverence of Sobek, and gifts that god’s cult with great wealth; earth,years. Whether or of ye the be and in completing her father’s legacy, the Labyrinth of Hawara, she hungers denizensSouth, of heaven,or of or for recognition of her own authority and greatness. She struggles to restore the theof the North, earth, or or of ofthe balance of ma’at to Kemet before discord and disaster consume the land. South, or of the North, Myth and magic interweave with the lives of the common folk who labor theor of East, the East, or or of of through the burning days and cool nights of this beleaguered land. Ravenous thethe West, West, the fear the of Beasts seek a new purpose before the dead god’s hunger devours them in turn; mefear is in of your me bodies. is in Matet rise upon the mortuary slab, some as souls returned from A’aru to serve as Iyour am he bodies. whose being I am divine envoys; and wolf-priests howl to Wepwawet with the rising of the moon. has been wrought in All turn their attention now to the basin of Atef-Pehu, where lies Crocodile’s hehis whose eye. I shall being not hasdie divine carcass. beenagain. wrought My moment in hisis ineye. your I shallbodies, not but die my forms are in my place Theme: Twisted Reflections again. My moment The cosmic harmony of ma’at comes undone. Chaos floods the Middle ofis habitation. in your bodies, I am “He who cannot be known.” Kingdom. The land becomes a twisted mirror of itself. Gibbering, dead aber- but my forms are rations crawl from Iteru, their patchwork carcasses a blasphemous mockery of — Thein my Book place of the of Dead the gods’ divine aspects. Cultists of Sobek profane themselves through can- nibalistic communion, warped monsters pretending at holy mandate. Walking habitation. I am nightmares grow more desperate as humanity’s connection to the Primordial “ He who cannot Dream weakens, threatening backlash against Begotten excesses. Iteru itself be known. ” hosts a horrifying Insatiable, its waters transforming from giver of life to vessel for a terrible hunger. The Book of The Black Land’s sickness manifests in strife both human and divine. Officials the Dead simmer with resentment; rivalries fracture the state’s bureaucracy. Alchemists and demiurges blaspheme against ma’at, reaching beyond their station through power they should not possess. The withered, rotting god Crocodile turns in its Sampleslumber, a divinity older than the laws of death. Deathfile Wolf battles with her malevolent sheut, a ghostly echo driven by hatred of the creator who abandoned it. Mortals and divinities alike share the blame for transgressions that leave Kemet teetering on the brink of oblivion.

16 Hunger in the Black Land What Has Come Before A Note on Language It is now. Sobekneferu sits upon the throne, named for Although the ancient Egyptian gods and other the beauty of Sobek and bearing divinity’s mantle. She aspects of that civilization are well-known in the serves as sacred intermediary between humanity and gods, modern day, we often call them by names the she is benign mistress of all who dwell upon sacred Iteru, Greeks or others later gave them. In this era, we and she is head of a vast, bureaucratic hierarchy of state. use their original names: She is all these, yet Kemet slides into the mire of chaos. • Anubis: Anpu Gods stalk the land. The dead rest uneasily. Things that • Egypt: Kemet were never alive rise from the muck. How has it come to this? • Horus: Heru The answers are scattered throughout time’s ripples, • Isis: Aset hidden in history’s shadows, and buried in deep eons. • Nile: Iteru (literally “river”) • Osiris: Wesir Dead Gods (thus, Osirans are Weret-Wesir) Here — a moment too ancient for human eyes to wit- • Ra: Re ness. Iteru is eternal and, even in this dismal recess of time, has already torn a deep gouge through living stone. It may • Thoth: Djehuty thread a different tracery of veins over the land as ages pass, The word “Promethean” is also Greek; in the marking new courses with its constant scouring, but it is Middle Kingdom, most people referring to the always the same river. Something insatiable stirs in the silt, Created don’t use one umbrella term, simply call- born of the cycles of ebb and flow that define Iteru. ing them by their individual Lineage names, such Here — a death, of sorts. Something massive slouches as Weret-Wesir or Temi-Nebu. When the Created and oozes into a great basin that will one day be called themselves use such a term — aware the Weret- Atef-Pehu, its innumerable thrashing limbs rending the Wesir and other Lineages are all empowered by the Divine Fire, despite what the former claim crater deeper. This is a god of hunger, colossal in size and — they call themselves the Matet, a word that meaning, a pillar of the world now broken and cast down. can mean “likeness” or “copy.” It also refers to The jaws of an even greater predator have torn open the the boat in which the sun god Re ascends during story of its flesh — the work of ancient Pangaea’s boundary the first part of the day, in which context the word god. Crocodile writhes in earth its blood and immanence means “getting stronger.” The Created liken it to their Great Work. Other Kemetic terms are called out in the text as they’re introduced. Truth and Fiction Given the passage of time and the scarcity of historical sources, the actual events of this era are unclear. Amenemhat IV was probably an adopted successor, and significant unrest does seem to have plagued his reign before Sobekneferu’s Mood: accession. The events surrounding the death of Sobekneferu’s sister, Ptahneferu, are even more Foreboding and Arrogance opaque. Iteru’s surging and receding waters seem The 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom has seen to have played a significant part in the Middle incredible progress. Rivalries mend before the pharaohs’ Kingdom’s end, much as they did in the end of its authority, great monuments to the gods rise up, and soldiers predecessor. The Labyrinth of Hawara remains sweep away enemies. The people prosper. Now, though, a one of the enduring mysteries of the era, both in sense of endings hangs over the realm. The folk of Kemet purpose and appearance. fear losing all they have. Everyone, from pharaoh to farmer, This era hews to true history where it can — mon- obsesses over the question of life after death, of holding onto sters notwithstanding — and makes some best their accomplishments for the eternity of the hereafter, and guesses to fill the gaps based on available sources huntSample for any edge they can find — placating gods, employ- and the spirit of the time and place.file ing sorcery, and cheating mortality’s shackles, regardless of consequences.

17 What Has Come Before churn to mud, seeking respite from Wolf’s endless pursuit, deception, coil through human society and are reflected and slowly meets its end. But its hunger never dies. in Iteru. The river recedes; drought dries the land with its Here — a death, of sorts. A wolf, young but coming into thirst, and crops crumple in the withering heat. Something her power, given freedom to pursue her strange hunt. Driven stirs in the silt; the eternal Insatiable rises from mud and to question, never satisfied, she is called Kig-Ur — Seeking slime to replenish its vitality. It stalks and consumes Beasts Wolf. She comes to a boundary unlike any other she has fattened on the misery and fears of Kemet’s people. crossed. She crawls inside — a passage, a cave, a doorway Kemet cracks apart like dried mud as the Old Kingdom into somewhere else — and perishes. Alarmed, she snatches topples. The century that follows is a fallen age, where back her Ka as it tries to escape and withdraws to the living weak pharaohs vie for the right to rule. The Old Kingdom’s world, but she leaves something behind. Her shadow wails, glories, its treasures and monuments, are defaced, tarnished, unheard and lost to the cold, empty tunnels. Lost souls have and broken not in barbaric ignorance but through brutal a way of coming back to haunt the living. clashes of new politics and ideals, a struggle of beliefs about the place of the pharaoh and their claim to rule. Iteru, sated, returns to its turgid splendor, but chaos remains abroad. The The Old Kingdom Ninth Dynasty’s founder, Meryibre Khety, throws himself Here — 900 years before now, from the crumbling ruins into the jaws of a crocodile. of an ancient scorpion empire of blood and death rises a truly human endeavor, suckled on Iteru’s teat. The works of the Shan’iatu are lost to dust and desert. The survivors cling The Middle Kingdom to the eternal river and to half-remembered truths from The wheel turns; the people crawl back toward order lost Irem. Broken images and gleaming relics give rise to a and ma’at. The haty-a of the city of Waset found the 11th pantheon of animal-headed deities. Girded with violence, Dynasty and make war on their rivals. Menuhotep II is pha- human ambitions unify upper and lower Iteru into a single raoh when Kemet is finally unified once more. He inherits a whole. Kemet, the Black Land, is truly born. realm scarred from memories of discord and violence. Even This kingdom, later the Old Kingdom, witnesses monu- commoners bear weapons, and dissident voices threaten the mental acts. Pharaoh Djeser raises up the first great pyramid, authority of this new power that will one day be called the kicking off the funerary obsessions that thread throughout Middle Kingdom. Kemetic society as a dominating drive. The grinding wheel The new pharaohs learn from the mistakes of the Old of time sees pyramids, temples, and palaces burst from the Kingdom’s hungry, grasping government. The luxuries of black soil, the handiwork of a people united in vision. death are no longer withheld for the elite, but thrown open All is not well in this great flourishing. Pharaohs and to all. Menuhotep’s faithful soldiers, whose deaths in battle elites jealously guard the mysteries of death and afterlife, won him his kingdom, are entombed with honor and ritual. denying them to the common people. Tomb monuments Some are interred with too much care and intent on the and mortuary palaces are for the rulers, not the ruled. part of their mortuary priests. Several Nepri — called Weret- The pharaohs are not an intermediary between gods and Wesir in this era — rise from the tombs, a cadre of warrior- humans, but gods themselves, growing distant from their Created made with the Middle Kingdom’s emergence and subjects. Into that void step the haty-a, chief bureaucrats whose Pilgrimages are intimately tied to its progression. of the administrative sepats that divide Kemet. The haty-a Here — the Middle Kingdom blossoms into a golden age. hungrily gather titles and privileges, and the distant pha- Now all may entreat the gods, and temples flourish. The raohs’ central authority crumbles. people raise up new monuments. The pharaohs’ pyramids Here — the first Sothic Turn since Irem’s grim demise. are not as grand, and many lessons of architecture must Ancient dead rise in a brief return of the lost city’s legacy, be relearned. Still, the civil works of the new order build throwing Kemet into civil war. In the aftermath, the dead a sturdy, efficient foundation of infrastructure to harvest god in Atef-Pehu shivers in sympathy. Oracles dream of Iteru’s bounty. Prosperity returns. Where old borders hungry mouths and crocodile fangs, and flay their own limbs crumble under invasion or rebellion, the pharaohs’ soldiers with their teeth. The profane revelation slithers through the march forth to restore Kemet’s glory. This is a time of vigor morbid faith of Kemet, becoming a prayer carved into the and culture. pyramid of Unas, a cannibal hymn exalting the pharaoh Here — the 12th Dynasty wrests power from the 11th as the devourer of gods. through civil war, the last gasp of overly mighty haty-a. The dead god returns to silence. Over decades, the He who will be Amenemhat I is first vizier to the 11th prayer’s ravenous grip on mortal minds fades. Dynasty’s last pharaoh, rallying other haty-a to his cause Here — the Old Kingdom ends, in discord and hunger, when he challenges the throne. He in turn dies to assassins’ Sampleblades, the final spite of a dynastyfile undone. The tumult is four centuries before now. The haty-a have grown over- mighty, with too many rights and too much authority to constrained. Amenemhat spent years in co-regency with pay heed to the wider state. Apep, the serpent of chaos, his son Senusret before his murder, tying the bonds of and Isfet, Ma’at’s counterpart who embodies injustice and succession tighter — a clever scheme future generations 18 Hunger in the Black Land repeat. Senusret restores order and tightens his control. His father’s ghost whispers to aid him, and his scribes record Amenemhat’s deathly wisdom. Those scribes also set some of Amenemhat’s final words Crocodile — those Senusret is willing to share —upon papyrus and Crocodile is a dead Pangaean, a primordial entity tablet. Literacy flourishes. The written word is no longer the from a time when such gods roamed the Border province of aggrandizing pharaohs and worshipping gods. It Marches that split the spirit realm from the world underpins the empire Senusret rules through administrative of humans. After Wolf’s death howl brought an documentation — a form of lifeblood as vital as Iteru’s wa- end to Pangaea, Crocodile’s divine carcass slowly transformed into something entirely of the Flesh, ters. Officials write one another to ask for resources, seek aid but the god’s cold, reptilian hunger still echoes and advice, and complain about rivals or ill fortune. Some within its corpse and taints the land around it. For even create stories without sacred or official import — just more information on Pangaeans, see Dark Eras, tales to amuse, entertain, or inform. p. 58. Here — Kemet’s new heart is the capital Itjtawy, on the edge of Atef-Pehu’s great basin. Somewhere out there, beneath the arid land, Crocodile lies dead and dreaming. Its presence scratches at sensitive minds, sowing seeds of hunger and violence. This new encroachment of human barren lifelessness and, in places, Iteru’s black blood stains souls upon its tainted ground stirs the ancient cannibal the earth with sickening rot. Rebels gather in the margins; hymn, scratched into stone with bloody fingers and chewed Canaanite settlers agitate. Isfet returns, and Apep’s chaos into bone with ravenous teeth. writhes through Kemet once more. Here — the Dynasty’s warrior kings are a revered mem- Here — revolution throws Amenemhat IV from his ory. Peace holds sway for generations, barring ventures to throne. Supporters of the old dynasty raise Sobekneferu seize mineral riches glimmering amid the Red Land’s deso- up in his place, and she becomes the first woman to truly lation. The pharaohs now are administrators and builders, bear the pharaoh’s mantle. the helmsmen of Kemet’s prosperous barge. Iteru lies at the It is now. Sobekneferu is pharaoh. Iteru flows at the heart of their incredible wealth, but not without reminders kingdom’s heart, eternal yet dying, and Kemet dies with it. of its primal nature. In the reign of Amenemhat III, father of Sobekneferu, it surges and floods in destructive excess, far beyond the ability of humanity to contain. Surveying the devastation, the pharaoh embarks upon Where We Are an audacious plan. Sweating droves of laborers carve a Sobekneferu’s kingdom stretches from where the great massive canal that bleeds water from Iteru into the basin. Iteru delta empties into the sea along the length of the river, The basin’s heart, once feared as a wild and cursed place, until her authority peters out before the lands of Kush far transforms from moldering swamp to the burgeoning lake upstream. Iteru vomits a yearly deluge of silt and water into called Moeris; the lands around it become a fertile engine of the valley, a seasonal rejuvenation that renders the land agriculture. When Iteru’s waters rise high again, the excess incredibly fertile — but beyond the floods’ embrace, the land pours into Atef-Pehu. The settlements bloat and sprawl, fed is arid and desolate. The kingdom’s heart is the Black Land, by this fresh prosperity. Iteru’s life-giving, life-taking waters representing harmonious order, while the deserts rasping soak into the earth where Crocodile’s dead hunger seethes. its flanks are the Red Land, where discord dwells. Despite Amenemhat III’s long reign accomplishes even greater the Red Land’s inhospitable bleakness, it is not nearly so deeds. He bestows the priesthood of Sobek with great empty as it first appears. temples in Shedet, the city that now stands proudly at the For the people of the valley, the natural and supernatural edge of gleaming Lake Moeris. He raises up pyramids for intertwine with no meaningful distinction between them. himself and his family. At Hawara, he begins the arduous The cosmic laws of the world and the gods weave through process of building a labyrinthine necropolis. reality. Monsters lurking amid dry dunes and oozing silt are Here — Amenemhat III has no son to serve as successor. as real in the people’s minds as the crocodiles and hippos He grows woefully old and his judgment stumbles. He raises of Iteru; divine authority is as manifest as that of human up a man of the haty-a to be his successor, Amenemhat government. Living in accord with ma’at’s sacred tenets is IV. Seeds of unrest sprout into dissidence, then open defi- the best way to maintain order, and to prepare for death ance. Many nobles and officials want a true pharaoh of and existence thereafter. the Sampledynasty’s blood upon the throne, not a rival nomarch Now, though, the divine cycle is off-kilter.file Fear squirms raised up to usurp the divine mantle. Their fears seem in the hearts of those who look to an uncertain future justified; the land convulses. Under Amenemhat IV, Iteru and wonder how the inhabitants of the Duat will judge recedes. The sun’s harsh gaze scours fields into parched, them when the time comes to attest to their actions in this chaotic era. 19 Where We Are accordance with the river’s tides. In akhet, its waters rise to Sobekneferu cover the land, and the bustle of agriculture comes to rest. Proud Sobekneferu, pharaoh of the upper and lower This is not a time of repose, though, for the pharaoh calls kingdoms of Kemet, has only a precarious grip on her her subjects to form veritable armies of laborers who raise up throne. Her adroitness in court and politics is a necessity, monuments and build infrastructure. In peret, Iteru recedes, honed by threats that loom all around. She faces powerful but leaves much of itself behind, bled out into the irrigation bureaucrats and officials; those who raised her up expect channels and reservoirs carved into the ground, feeding the to reap the rewards, while Amenemhat IV’s surviving sup- thirsty farmlands for another year. The earth, rejuvenated porters plot her downfall. with fertile silt, is primed for the farmers to gouge, plow, and She inherits a land tormented each year by Iteru’s reced- seed for the coming season. Shemu follows, crops rearing ing waters; prosperity threatens to slip between her fingers. from the fields for harvest. Once they reap this bounty, the Some see this disaster as the legacy of Amenemhat IV’s people turn their hands to preparing the channels, canals, false pretensions to the throne’s divinity, but others wonder and ponds once more before akhet’s deluge returns. whether the holy power of the pharaohs is no longer as Iteru is a gleaming ribbon of commerce, communication, sacrosanct as it once was. and transport — the backbone of the kingdom. Kemet is It does not help that she is a woman, the first to hold scarred by dusty roads but, under the hot sun, a boat of the pharaoh’s title. Amenemhat III raised up a non-royal reeds or timber turns Iteru into a finer highway than any as his successor despite two daughters, each capable in her dirty track. With oar and sail, the river is the vital artery own right, owing to the tradition that men sit the throne. through which trade and administration flow. The pharaoh’s Traditions work in her favor, too, though: the sacred blood authority follows its course, soldiers ferried up and down the of dynasty matters, and cannot be set aside because of an river to protect the realm. inconvenient lack of male heirs. The tumult of Amenemhat Iteru gives, but it also takes. The floods sometimes reach IV’s reign is ample demonstration of the consequences. too far, causing ruin or death, or do not stretch far enough Sobekneferu regularly travels the Black Land during the and leave fields abandoned to the sun’s cruel gaze. Under season of akhet to take stock of her kingdom, and to oversee Amenemhat IV’s reign, the latter became disturbingly the levies of common folk who labor over her monuments and common. Ravenous crocodiles and surly hippos wallow in great works. She sees and is seen, reaffirming her ties to the its waters and claim many lives each year. populace over which she reigns and their confidence in her. Now Iteru is a slit vein for the sickness bleeding out of The pharaoh has no husband or consort, and no chil- Atef-Pehu. The black blood staining the shores with ichor is dren to succeed her. As each year passes, worry gnaws more thankfully rare, but each akhet brings more of the reeking deeply at the hearts of those who fear for Kemet’s future, corruption. The river suppurates in places, a vile womb of and the ambitious gather like hungry vultures. ghastly horrors that crawl from its oozing banks. This chaos cannot be left unchecked. The Queen and the Crocodile Sobekneferu is named for the beauty of Sobek, a state- Righteous Order ment of divine allegiance, and she offers great favor to the Where once rigid hierarchies kept the pharaoh far from crocodile god’s cult. She gives glory to Sobek’s name through the people, Kemet’s social order now offers greater free- monuments and grand temples in the city of Shedet and dom. The pious see all of society as interconnected, bound pours resources into the great necropolis at Hawara. In the together by Iteru and the gods. Everyone has their place. great marble courts of the labyrinth, the crocodile-priests At the apex of the pyramid is the pharaoh, Sobekneferu appeal to her pride and the memories of her father and sister; herself. At the bottom labor the peasants who till the fields they claim the labyrinth’s mysteries will ensure eternal life and the artisans who turn the wheels of Kemet’s industry. in A’aru for her and all her family. Sobekneferu, wracked Between the extremes is a cascade of scribes, bureaucrats, by grief over her sister Ptahneferu’s death, is easily swayed. and priests of varied import and influence. Certain strata Yet the queen is no fool. She knows the priests manipu- are discernible; the haty-a administrate the sepat districts late her and pits their influence against that of the other in the uppermost echelons. powers in her court: the greedy haty-a, the sacred Weret- The grand bureaucracy is efficient and organized, but Wesir, and the ferocious wolf-priests of Wepwawet. Nor is many lines between castes and classes are blurred through she without her own resources: Loyal warriors, mortuary ambition, opportunity, and a level of social mobility. A priests, and alchemists gather in her shadow. priest may also possess a farm, the administration of which Sampleis more of a daily priority than templefile ceremonies. A scribe Iteru may, through good service or ambition, climb the ranks and achieve greater power. Some positions are hereditary, Whether peasant or pharaoh, all owe their lives to Iteru’s granting successors titles, lands, and even priestly privileges. bounteous waters. The year breaks into three seasons in

20 Hunger in the Black Land The supernatural is an accepted part of the social order. pharaoh herself should matters of corruption or injustice be Above the pharaoh are the gods, and Sobekneferu is herself grave enough. The worst punishments are reserved for those believed to possess divine power. Seers are afforded respect who desecrate the dead, threatening souls in the afterlife for their portentous dreams, even those Oracles whose vi- through the theft or destruction of funerary treasures. sions lead them to take up copper blades and guide soldiers Women have less of the influence and independence the to root out the terror ravenous Begotten spread. Weret- Old Kingdom afforded them. In this era, they work, serve as wesir are revered as divinely empowered intermediaries of priestesses, own property, and enjoy full legal rights, but a the gods. Alchemist-priests toil in mortuary complexes, clear division of power exists. Few women hold positions of hunting the secrets of deathly apotheosis and eternal life. true authority or governance. Even matters of the afterlife Twisted Claimed live in temple sanctums, worshipped as are segregated: People believe Wesir favors masculine prow- the physical manifestations of whatever gods’ hybrid glory ess and virility, so the funerary rites and spells for women they most resemble. serve to emphasize these qualities or recast them as men The pharaoh’s copper-clad fist is her army, its ranks for particular stages of the journey through the underworld. mustered from peasants and artisans under the command of ministers of war. They gird themselves with hide shields, Bounty of the Black Land copper axes and spearheads, and curved bows. The Black Land faces few military threats from without; the great Kemet’s incredible prosperity stems from the fecund warrior-pharaohs of the 12th Dynasty’s earlier years pacified silt Iteru’s channel births. Sheer fertility and sophisticated the valley and raised up fortifications to protect it from the irrigation ensure even the least people of the Black Land Red Land’s dangers. Still, Sobekneferu maintains a loyal, can live in plenty. professional core of career soldiers in the permanent gar- Grains are the primary crop, valued for making bread risons of border forts. Foreign mercenaries from the south and beer. The gritty bread grinds teeth but is crucial to and the east bolster her loyalists’ ranks, though this makes filling hungry stomachs. The beer is thick and yeasty, its some subjects uneasy. brewing often the province of women. The fields produce Samplemore than just grains, though — fruitfile and vegetables of all The pharaoh’s administration enforces her law. A com- plex system of courts oversees judgments and arbitrations; a kinds sprout from the fertile earth. People add sweetness to peasant’s complaint might be elevated all the way up to the their meals with dates and honey.

21 Where We Are