First off, a disclaimer - This "historical background" is based upon some actual history, a great deal of speculation, and a healthy dose of fantasy. The exact years of King Tut's reign are uncertain, as I found several conflicting sources, giving different years. King Tutankhamen was indeed the son of Akenaton, and he was succeeded by Aye and then General Horemheb, and there is speculation that there may have been foul play involved in his death. Aye's tomb was indeed found in 1822, and King Tut's tomb in 1922, but the "Mask of Anubis", "Staff of Osiris", and the whole business about a "true" tomb (not to mention all the sorcery, alchemy, walkin' dead, etc.) is an invention for the sake of the adventure.

Several millennia ago, King Tutankhamen reigned in Egypt as its pharaoh from 1334 to 1325 BC. He was only nine years old when he ascended to the throne. His advisor and high priest, Aye, was actually a sorcerer, with grand ambitions regarding the future of Egypt, but also a man who held in contempt Tutankhamen's father, Akenaton - and Tutankhamen himself by extension and blood relation.

Akenaton was the notorious pharaoh who had attempted to restructure Egypt's polytheistic faith, introducing the worship of a single god, represented by the sun disc, or Aton. Akenaton (born "Akenamen") had renamed himself in honor of this sun deity, but his ambitions were none too popular with the priests and sorcerers who profited from the worship of their various patron deities. Akenaton died under "mysterious circumstances" well before Tutankhamen (originally named "Tutankhaton") was old enough to truly take his place.

With Aye acting as caretaker of the new god-king, he had unprecedented freedoms, and he opened up long-sealed vaults to delve into forbidden texts and to toy with artifacts of dark power. So long as Tutankhamen remained his "puppet king", the relationship was stable. However, as Tutankhamen grew to headstrong young manhood, he was no longer so cooperative and permissive, and was suspicious of Aye's ambitions.

Aye, unwilling to be patient any longer, mortally wounded the young god-king with a blow to the back of the head. When Tutankhamen failed to die immediately, Aye personally attended to him during the king's supposed "illness", refusing to let any others close by, except for his most trusted slaves. Tutankhamen died a slow and lingering death at the tender mercies of Aye.

Aye went so far as to have himself depicted in the murals of King Tutankhamen's tomb as wearing not only the leopard skin of a priest, but the crown and regalia of a pharaoh, making his ambitions quite obvious. Tutankhamen's young wife, Ankhes-en-pa-amum, fearful of being wed to a "commoner" such as Aye (so that he might gain legitimacy for his ascension to the throne), sent a plea to a Hittite king (whose name has been lost to history) to send one of his sons to be her husband. The king obliged, but this young Hittite prince was murdered on his way through Egypt.

While there are no records documenting the actual marriage of Aye to Ankhes-en-pa-amum, he did ascend to become the next pharaoh, and Tutankhamen's widow disappeared into obscurity - another victim of Aye's ambitions.

(As a historical side-note, Tutankhamen was buried in the tomb that was originally built for Aye, because the tomb under construction for Tutankhamen was not yet completed. Nobody had expected him to die so young, after all. As an odd turnabout, the tomb that was originally meant for Tutankhamen, when it was finally completed before Aye's own death, would be used purportedly to bury Aye.)

Aye's reign was ironically short-lived, and he was already in his seventies at the time of his ascension to becoming pharaoh of the land. Aye, however, had other plans. He had possession of the Mask of Anubis, a cursed artifact which would turn a man into an avatar of Anubis himself. Furthermore, Aye had possession of a sceptre that would give him power over creatures of the darkness - such as this "Avatar".

He put the mask on one of his slaves. The mask, seemingly fashioned from the desiccated hide and bones of a jackal, came to life, as the bony spires drove themselves into the slave's neck and face, and blood spilled down his chest and back. When the transformation was complete, the slave was quite dead, his body possessed by the manitou that had inhabited the mask, and his heart replaced by the withered organ that had been concealed within. This avatar of Anubis would have been free to establish himself anew as a god among mortals - in essence, a very powerful Harrowed - but Aye had the sceptre, which granted him control over this foul creature.

Aye compelled Anubis to grant him immortality. Due to the power of the sceptre, the creature had no choice but to fulfil this duty to its completion. Aye did not survive the process of having his brain taken out through his nose, his organs put into sealed jars, his body cavity filled with unguents, and his hide dried out to a leathery texture ... but he came back as an undead Abomination, with the seat of his essence in the heart rather than the brain. (Egyptian Walkin' Dead are different that way.)

Aye drained the lives of several slaves to return himself to something resembling a living man once more, and then, fully rejuvenated - and even more prone to evil than before - he set about the business of building up for himself a position as a god, supported by an army of the undead: starting with the slaves that had been sacrificed to give him his good looks and unnatural youth.

King Tutankhamen's general, Horemheb, would have nothing of this, and, before Aye could reach the pinnacle of his power, he orchestrated an assault that cost countless lives, but resulted in the overpowering of Aye and the Avatar of Anubis.

Believing Aye to be a god in the flesh - an evil one, but a god nonetheless - and the same of Anubis, Horemheb feared the wrath of the gods and did not have them destroyed, but rather sought to send them back to the Land of the Dead - by sealing Aye and the Mask of Anubis (freed from the host body) within a tomb, protected by wards and devices so that mere tomb raiders would not inadvertently awake them. Still, he did not wish to burn his bridges, and made certain that, should the priests determine that this was the wrong method, and that amends must be made, the priests could enter the tomb again, and bring Aye and the Mask back out.

So it was that Aye was sealed in a sarcophagus, and the four containers holding his internal organs were placed in another chamber - in the Canopic Shrine -according to tradition. Only by placing the four containers in receptacles at each side of the sarcophagus could their contents be magically reconstituted by Aye once more, and the sarcophagus be opened. The Mask of Anubis was placed within another "sarcophagus" - a shrine of sorts, crested with a statue of a Jackal resting upon it.

The whole tomb was sealed, with traps to discourage any looters who might somehow find the location, and with murals on the walls telling the story of Aye, to give warning to any interlopers in future years. The tomb was buried and its location kept secret by drastic means (i.e., killing the workers who had built it), while Aye's tomb for himself (ironically, the tomb that originally was going to be reserved for King Tutankhamen, had he lived long enough to see its completion) would be used as a decoy.

Aye's false tomb was discovered in 1822 AD by archaeologists, and it had evidently been raided of any treasures many years before. Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered almost exactly a century later, in November of 1922, by famed archaeologist Howard Carter. Now, another discovery has been made, in the year 1936, as the true location of Aye's tomb has been discovered, the seals still mostly intact - though there is evidence that the tomb may have been discovered earlier.

The heroes have the location of the excavation, and the resources to get there before the Nazis. The Nazis have several soldiers, and they lack the finesse that the adventurers might employ. (i.e., if they can't solve the puzzles on the seals, they'll just use brute force to blow the seals open. The heroes don't have heavy firepower at their disposal, nor do they have expendable slaves they can send in to deal with the dangers of explosives in an ancient tomb.)

The overall objective of the group is to obtain the Mask of Anubis and keep it out of the hands of the Nazis. Depending upon their actions, things may get complicated.

"It is the year 1936. Hitler's Germany is gaining power, and his Nazi agents have been scouring the globe for ancient artifacts of mystical power, to serve his unholy ambitions. You have learned of yet another one of these artifacts he wishes to acquire - the Mask of Anubis, which is reputed to have been owned by the high priest Aye, granting its wearer power over life and death. In 1822, what was thought to be the Tomb of Aye had been discovered, already long ago looted by grave robbers, and it was presumed that the Mask was lost to history. Recently, however, there was word that the true Tomb of Aye had been found in the Valley of Kings, across the Nile from Luxor, Egypt ... but the excavation team was driven off by a freak sand storm.

Now, your small band of heroes has rushed to the site of the discovery of the tomb, in hopes of finding this Mask of Anubis - if it indeed exists - before the Nazis can get hold of it. Some of you may believe that it indeed holds unholy power, not meant for mortals - and especially not Hitler. Some of you may simply be anxious to see that a major archaeological find isn't plundered by the Nazis and stuck in some SS officer's private collection. Some of you might be here just for the promise of gold and jewels. Whatever the case, you've had a harrowing journey across the globe, only a step ahead of the Nazis the whole way, and now you reach the excavation site.

The door has been opened now, but by your best estimates, you only have a few hours - at most - before the Germans catch up with you ... and then there's no telling what will become of the Mask. If what is said of the Mask is true ... the fate of the world might depend upon what lies ahead, within this tomb!"

If you have any historians in the party, you may want to share with them some of the background information mentioned earlier. You may as well just announce it to the entire group, unless the player indicates for some reason that he would want to keep any such information secret from the others.