The Marya

The Marya
The Marya - the Young Warriors - is a revolutionary group founded by the boy-king Tutankhamun to stop the dark forces led by his father, Pharaoh Akhenaten.

Akhenaten cruelly abused his subjects in mad pursuit of his terrible god. His son, the prince, wanted to put an unquestionable end to his father's oppression. When Nefertiti made a last attempt to turn her husband to the good, she was brutally murdered. In the wake of this tragedy, the young prince called out to those who served Egypt, rather than the tyrant his father had become.

Philosophers, magicians, priests of Amun, warriors and charioteers heeded his call. They were disciplined, numerous and strongly motivated to rid the land of Akhenaten's scourge. They saw their people in bondage, their country in a desperate state and their true deities threatened by a parasite-god, a usurper. A promise was made to the future generations of Egypt. With their might and, if necessary, their dying breaths, they would free their country.

Under Tutankhamun's leadership - a boy who counselled resistance and armed conflict with wisdom far beyond his years - the Marya slowly forced Akhenaten's followers to retreat to the valley where their demented king now lived. Now, with so much sand already stained crimson with the blood of fallen soldiers, the stage was set for final battle.

The resolve of the Marya soldiers outweighed the blinding insanity of the Atenists. Most were dead, their deformed bodies already rotting in the baking desert sun or sealed up in vaults, mausoleums or crypts, condemned to eternal, utter darkness. Akhenaten, by now distorted into an undead atrocity, was himself shut into the pyramid he had built.

When the fighting stopped, sand, stone and rubble were caved in on the valley, an enormous task. Magic wards were placed in an effort to spare the region from the corruption within and disorient those who would dare search for its original inhabitants.

Their mission impossible completed, the Marya had but one task left. The power of Akhenaten and his buried god could not be suppressed for eternity unless someone stood watch and upheld the wards.

After much deliberation, the fiercest of the Marya, former Vizier and high priest Ptahmose decided that such a task couldn't be given, it had to be taken. He and his family swore their lives to the undying protection of the valley. Here, they have remained sentinels for over three thousand years, guarding the valley's dark secrets.

The Marya have also survived the degradation of time. Knowledge and training have been passed down through generations, waiting for a day when they will once more be called upon to protect Egypt - and the world - from the insanity of the mad king Akhenaten.

That time has finally come, and as the Valley of the Sun God has been unearthed, so has the soldier spirit of the modern Marya - willing and able to give their lives in service of the promise of their ancestors.