The Tomb of the Sun King

The great river drops by the day, palms wither, and the harvest scatters to dust. In the villages they whisper of an old curse, and the whispers are true: deep beneath the dunes a tomb has been broken open by greedy grave robbers, and what lay inside no longer sleeps.

The Zonnekoning once swore to protect his people. In death he protects them still, but in a twisted way: he draws all life toward himself to keep his dying kingdom standing by artifice. His wrapped servants keep watch in the dark, patient as the centuries, and the last living grave robber wanders somewhere in the passages, half dried out and mad.

You descend past the broken seal stone, dodge sand traps and shattered curse-glyphs, and read on the walls the life story of a king who became a monster out of love. You must find the four canopic jars that anchor his soul, each one guarded and each one bound to a choice the Zonnekoning once made.

The twist: destroying the tomb kills the mummy lord but does not break the curse, because the thirst lives in his heart, not his body. The climax turns on both persuasion and sealing: make the Zonnekoning see that he is the very one drying out his people, and bring him to rest, or fight him back into his sarcophagus and reseal it, while the sand above already begins to pour in.