The Desert region is a land in the Monster Girl Encyclopedia world filled with sand and ruins. Once home to a great human kingdom, the desert is now a scorching wasteland inhabited mostly by treasure hunters and Egyptian-style monsters, including sphinxes and pharaohs.
In ancient times, before even the age of the former Mamono Lord, the realm was one of the greatest human kingdoms, and its leaders were blessed by a sun god to guide mankind. However, the desert's golden age eventually ended and the pre-monster girls monsters overran the kingdom, while the rulers "were forced into slumber" [1]. With the monster's presence came mamono mana and, once the current Mamono Lord rose to power, mana corruption, transforming the slumbering human rulers into pharaoh monster girls.
Although the pharaohs fought against the monsters in their original lives, their attitude to monster girls (and vice-versa) is much more co-operative in undeath. Anubis and mummies take it upon themselves to guard the pyramid-tombs while their queens sleep. If the pharaoh does wake up, they set about returning their lands to their former glory as bright green mamono realms, with verdant oases and human-monster towns. Not all monsters are as welcoming to the return of the rulers of old: Apophis prefer to make their own kingdoms or conquer the kingdoms of the pharaohs, while khepris may serve either a pharaoh or apophis, or even an incubus king. The desert today is therefore a patchwork of different states: khepri-incubus kingdoms, green pharaoh countries, dark mamono realms under expansionist apophis queens, and sandy ruins picked over by human thieves and adventurers.
Book Information
- Refer to: MGE-2; The Lost Kingdoms of the Desert, and Early Settings Info
Desert Region; Early settings info
It exists within the human world. A ruined land where desert stretches on and on. Many monsters that live there are subordinates focused around a monster called “pharaoh” including “anubis” “sphinx” and “mummy.” It is dotted with the ruins of a kingdom that was destroyed in the era of the former mamono lord. Many adventurers and thieves visit the land seeking the many treasures that rest there. But there are a lot of monsters who go after the adventurers, and it's a dangerous land where most of them end up disappearing and being taken away. One would think that it would be an extremely harsh environment to survive in, but every place has been outfitted by the monsters. Every place is dotted with many caves to stave off the heat and for bringing back men, and ruins. Plus, there are many monster villages centered around oases.
The Lost Kingdoms of the Desert, MGE-2
Out in the seemingly endless desert, numerous ruins can be found. Though some have been reduced to piles of rubble buried in the sand, others house rulers from long ago, pharaohs. The ruins give a glimpse into a number of states and unique societies which appear to have once existed but are now long past - though many of their residents have risen as undead. Perhaps because so much time has passed since the heyday of their civilizations, the undead are unable to furnish clear and reliable recollections of their once-kingdoms. Even with such shaky information, however, we are still able to trace the roots of desert monsters. The following is a summary of the discoveries revealed through interviews with residents of the former kingdoms, as well as from inscriptions found on ancient stone tablets.
The Distant Kingdoms of the Desert
It is speculated that the kingdoms were at their peak long before the reign of the Former Mamono Lord - before monsters even existed - and may have fallen shortly after the emergence of monsters. Murals appear to depict ancient cities and their surroundings, all blessed with lakes and forests, suggesting that the desert regions of today were not always so. As the murals often include figures worshiping a round figure resembling the sun, it would seem that a unique faith once existed that revered a sun god that shone upon and protected the people. This faith was the social backbone of these kingdoms. Their rulers, the pharaohs, were believed to be the children of the sun god, demigods beyond question. The pharaohs' direct subordinates, who managed the various countries, were all priestly worshipers of this god. The subjects were a pious flock devoted to both the god and the pharaoh.
Of the artifacts unearthed from the ruins, some of the architecture and ornaments - even items used on a daily basis - have been found to contain large amounts of gold, the glimmer of which symbolized the sun. Pharaohs who have risen in modern times are observed wearing crowns that glisten with magical light that suggests the sun, as well as gold jewelry in the shape of a snake - the messenger of the sun god.
The remaining murals mainly depict bucolic scenes such as the sun god blessing the people with bountiful harvests and people greeting a figure (the pharaoh or the sun god) with joyful feasts - as well as the development of the kingdoms. There are no records of major wars between human kingdoms in this era; it appears that the kingdoms were peaceful before monsters. Other than the snake, which would appear now and then as the messenger of the god, almost all figures shown seem - unsurprisingly - to be human. What is strange is that, in records relating to the founding of nations and murals that depict important scenes such as the coronation of pharaohs, there appear figures with the bodies of humans but the heads of dogs or cats - like anubises (MGEI, p.156) or sphinxes (MGEI, p.154). However, the murals seem to have been created since before the emergence of monsters. Whether these figures represent imagined servants of the god or human priests with animal masks remains a mystery.
The Fateful Battle With the Dark Serpent
Tablets recording the downfall of the kingdoms describe people battling monsters with the help of the sun god and the pharaohs. The dark serpent - the apophis (p.52) - is depicted uniting the monsters and standing behind them, opposite the sun god who stands behind the humans. Accounts of this apophis are not at all like present observations of apophes as sensual and bewitching ladies. Instead, this apophis is said to have been an enormous dark serpent capable of twining around buildings - a symbol of the land of the dead and pitch black nights, portrayed devouring the sun.
Pharaoh after pharaoh fell to the venom of the apophis, a venom so powerful that it is thought to be the source of the strange, dark discoloration that can be seen on the walls of the ruins even today. Thus the kingdoms fell. Still, the remaining pharaohs dreamed of one day restoring glory to their kingdoms. With this in mind, they gathered a number of chosen retainers and commanded them to protect the ruins as the pharaohs and their people descended into a long sleep, hoping they would - in the meantime - acquire the power of the god. The apophis' assaults on the ruins were relentless, however, and returned many pharaohs to dust before they could ever awaken.
The Resurgent Kingdoms of the Monsters
In this age, those who guard the ruins (as well as the apophis who attack them) have become beautiful women. The long-sleeping pharaohs and their mummified subjects have also risen as bewitching monsters.
Pharaohs wake and return to their posts when their monstrous guards carry in human men and mate with them until the surrounding ruins are replete with monster mana. The pharaoh wakes, suffused with the power of the sun god and a potent concentration of monster mana. Green trees rise and the realm begins to look as it once did-only now, its residents are monsters. A grand kingdom spills into the desert once again, where human and monster alike gather to live. It becomes a hub of the desert, a greater state than before. Residents that still lie mummified without waking as monstrous mummies now open their eyes as monsters. Though they are living witnesses of the glory of yore, they cannot recall the past in any more detail than the pharaohs.
Meanwhile, the apophis have become bewitching women ornamented in silver, a lunar symbol, marking their contrast with the pharaohs. Apophis continue to target the sleeping pharaohs' ruins, their poison no longer deadly, instead rendering monsters into a state like that of a tamed animal. Pharaohs woken by an apophis rise not as rulers but as pets. Meanwhile, the apophis rules in their stead, making it a moonlit realm of everlasting night.
All of the monstrous subjects therein adopt silver ornaments, lending them a dancer-like appearance. From lamaia to the pharaohs and their servants, all come to exude an attractive, whorish aura. In the dark night, the town glitters with the unholy magical light of the monsters' ornaments. They draw men by the hand, the neighborhood glinting with the sparkling allure of those silver adornments, lending it all the salacious atmosphere of a bordello; every corner echoes with moans. It is a monstrous paradise, a contrast of the pharaoh's kingdom, thrumming as it does with monsters and men embracing pleasure.
Monsters called khepris have appeared in large groups to rebuild uninhabited kingdoms whose pharaohs perished during the reign of the previous Mamono Lord. Though it may seem that they arrived out of nowhere, interviews with khepris show them to be familiar with the ruins and surrounding lands- as if they had lived there all along. Khepris remember the kingdoms of the distant past, though their recall is worse than the pharaohs'. One theory holds that the pharaohs' passing scattered their mana and divine power throughout the ruins so that it fused with the souls of their long-ago subjects, fallen in the midst of remorse - thus producing khepris.
The resulting monsters have golden shells filled with an enchanting sun-like light; it is as if the khepris inherited the power of the sun god that was once ensconced in their pharaohs. It is then speculated the khepris perceive themselves not as rulers, but as subjects, soldiers: the people of a resurgent kingdom, searching for a new leader to realize their dreams of national reconstruction.
Mamono
