A Year and A Day: Mau
Changeling: the Dreaming
Homebrew Rules
Character Creation Guide Download: Mau.pdf
Quoth the Mau:
“You there, mortal person. You dare surmise that Thoth had the head of a stork? He also had the head of a baboon you dolt! He must also have had the head of a great Khem cat as well! Do you know why? For I am here, and I am Thoth, and you shall pay for your indiscretion!”
Kith Excerpt:
Once upon a time, the Cats decided that they were Gods. Everyone knows this story. The Thrice-Damned Followers of Sutekh know it. The Wolf-Headed Striders in Silence know it. The Immortal Amenti in the Empire of the Sphinx know it well. There is one family of Akuko – (or one Tribe of Cait-Sith if one asks the Celtic Cousins) that know of this God-hood more than any other. The Mau. From time immemorial the Mau set themselves up as erstwhile deities, exemplifying the attributes of the Netjer- the Heliopolitan Gods of ancient Egypt- and overseeing their self-made worlds. Or at least, that is what the Mau espouse. The truth of the matter is that Egypt, like many cities of the Dreaming Kingdoms in the Land of Ancient Stories- might not boast the same power that it once held. The Empire of the Sphinx, once a fabled metropolis of learning and magic, has been debilitated by the onward passage of time – And the Mau with it. The Truth of the Mau is the same truth of Egypt. Time changes all things.
A Mau today is a cat, a flea-plagued, refuse eating, scarred bastard of a stray. They live in Cairo alley-ways, and in the sewers of Luxor. Life is not kind to them. Life is not kind to anyone. Yet a very small number of these cats remember, remember that once, life wasn’t only fair, but a great gift from the Sun. The cats who remember wrap themselves in the raiment of memory. They garb themselves in the trappings of immortality and ascend to a Godhood that they recreate from ancestral memory.
Every Mau renames themself after a particular Egyptian Deity. More than a simple priest of that Netjer, they instead become the living embodiment of that God or Goddess. Of course, some research has to be done on the part of the would-be Deity, but so much the better for those mortal retinue swayed into the service of a breathing God. The Mau wheels and deals and sets up shop as precious masters of underground temples. As new Mau wake up to their God-hood they migrate to these temples, where great clowders of Cat-Headed immortals bask in adulation. Prodigals from all walks of life come to venerate these modern incarnations. The Thrice-Damned Followers of Sutekh, the Wolf-Headed Striders in Silence, the Immortal Amenti – all see and all fear the glory. At least so far as the Mau explain it.
Flavor
“You are the Great Cat, the avenger of the gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; you are indeed the Great Cat.” – Inscription in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt
