Mummy Pharaoh

While mummy guardians are undead crafted from the corpses of sacrificed—usually unwilling victims—and retain only fragments of their memories, a mummy pharaoh is the result of a deliberate embrace of undeath by a sadistic and cruel ruler. The transformation from life to undeath beneath the scorching desert sand is only somewhat less awful, but as the transition is an intentional bid to escape death by a powerful personality who fully embraces the blasphemous repercussions of the choice, the mummy pharaoh retains its memories and personality intact.

While many cultures practice mummification for benign reasons, undead mummies are created through grueling rituals, typically to provide eternally vigilant guardians. Much more rarely, a body mummified without those special rites can rise again due to its hatred of the living.