Updated: 21 July 2001


Appendice 5: Akhu (Senef Hekau)

                    Set needed to find better Rituals than Hedge Magic to understand the way Mummies were created. He tried then to find mortal Mages who understood Ra-Hekau. He found a yound princess with poor health but with great potential. Meryt-Neith was chosen, and Embraced, with the mission of finding Senef Hekau (Blood Magic), to bring to the Childer of Set Magic powerful enough to protect the Two-Lands from its enemies.

She will succeed, even if she won't have time enough to finish the creation of the Rite of Rebirth. Senef Hekau will disappear when Meryt-Neith and her Bloodline, the Hekau-Nebet, will be destroyed in the Setite Purge. While Set knows the Senef Hekau, he will never teach all its paths to the newly created Followers of Set.

A complete description of Senef Hekau is given under the name of Akhu: Senef Hekau, used by the Knights of Meryt-Neith and the Veilleurs. Note that the Hekau Path of Veille isn't available.

                    Almost every modern mage somehow relate the origin of her magic to hermetic magic. Dark Ages alchimists, Roman mages, Greek Sorceresses. Even ancient mages somehow took their sources from the Land of Mystery: Egypt.

Developped in a land where mortal, mummy and vampire mages more or less lived and researched from the same paradigm, Hekau was developped by each caste of sorcerers by using their own possibilities. But all recognized the power of giant, geometric physical structures, like Obelisks, Pyramids and Pyramidions to power their sorceries to heights never dreamed by others. Using structures whose dimensions were never reproduced, these sorcerers were able to greatly enhance the power of their usual paths.

Thus was cast and used magic that was never reproduced thousand years after...

Senef Hekau (also known as Akhu) is a Path Discipline with no primary or secondady Path. A Sorcerer learns Akhu, which enable her to learn Akhu Paths and Rituals. Countermagic is known as a Discipline.

Senef Hekau is divided into two moral path: Maat Paths are accepted, but Apep ones are considered a violation of Maat to use. In truth, there is no technical difference between the two but some accepted or forbidden Paths, and how far their praticionner will go to create more or less moral focuses:

Without any of these focuses, Akhu is powerless. Akhu needs physical focuses, like Obelisks, pyramids, Staves of Power, etc.) to enable the magician to harvest its magic. Other, more gruesome focuses can be used: Indeed, Apep followers draws the energy not from great, magical reservoirs, but from the Land of Osiris itself, through a gruesome ritual. Interestingly enough, the rituals to ''enchant'' these two type of focuses are very similar, reducing even more the technical difference betwwen the two moral paths.

Necromancy is included in Akhu as any other Paths.

Known Akhu Paths

Paths of Senef Hekau
Akhu Name	20th Century Name	Discipline	Reference
Maat Paths (commonly known paths)
Temple's Warding	Path of Warding	Thaumaturgy	Dark Ages Companion (p95)
Ptah's Control	Movement of the Mind	Thaumaturgy	Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition (p181)
Ptah's Creation	Path of Conjuring	Thaumaturgy	Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition (p181)
Heka's Alchemy	Path of Alchemy	Thaumaturgy	Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy (p68)
Tomb's Warding	The Hearth Path	Thaumaturgy	Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy (p73)
Horus' Judgement	Path of Curses	Thaumaturgy	Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy (p78)
Heka's Transmutation	Path of Transmutation	Thaumaturgy	Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy (p80)
Heka's Elemental Mastery	Elemental Mastery	Thaumaturgy	Guide to the Camarilla (p99)
Thot's Protection	Thaumaturgical Countermagic	Thaumaturgical Countermagic	Guide to the Camarilla (p108)
Anger of Set	Weather Control	Thaumaturgy	Guide to the Camarilla (p108)
Valor of Set	The Path of Mars	Thaumaturgy	Guide to the Sabbat (p116)
Nepthys' Death Sorcery	The Sepulchre Path	Necromancy	Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition (p161)
Ka Awakening	The Bone Path	Necromancy	Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition (p163)
Realms of Osiris	The Ash Path	Necromancy	Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition (p164)
Contact the Gods	Spirit Manipulation	Thaumaturgy	Guide to the Camarilla (p106)
Apep Paths (forbidden paths)
The Snake Inside	The Snake Inside	Setite Sorcery	Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy (p116)
Path of the Dry Nile	Path of the Dry Nile	Setite Sorcery	Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy (p116)
Path of Corruption	Path of Corruption	Thaumaturgy	Guide to the Camarilla (p102)
The Immanence of Set	The Immanence of Set	Setite Sorcery	Libellus Sanguinis III (p105)

Go to Childer of Set's Index