In D&D, they are mid-powered undead, falling into what I've termed the "wilful corporeal" category, given that they retain sentience and intelligence alongside their physical body. Under that scheme, they would fall somewhere between a wight and vampire in terms of power, but they are quite different from both. The look of a mummy does not, of course, change notably between editions; they are bandage-wrapped mummified corpses, sometimes dressed in funereal finery, but more usually not. Like most D&D undead (except vampires) depictions of females are rare, although not quite to the extent that is true of, say, ghouls or wights.
1E
The original 1E mummy is very slow-moving, so that, since its high armour class surely can't be due to the bandages, it must reflect a lack of blood and vital organs making them difficult to injure at all. In fact, they're remarkably resistant to most forms of damage, even from magical weapons. They are skilled fighters and deliver more damage with their fists than most humans can manage with even a large sword - likely reflecting a very high strength. On the other hand, they aren't very intelligent, being closer to the subhuman ghouls than to, say, wights.
They are typically only found in their tombs, which makes sense, but are typically found in groups of around five or so, suggesting that the culture responsible tended to bury a number of people together. (A lord and his servants or family, perhaps). Their "lawful evil" alignment also suggests a degree of organisation, which makes sense given that the sort of societies we think of as creating mummies tend to be hierarchical. Presumably, despite their rabid hatred of all living things, that continues on into what passes for their afterlife.
There is no indication of how one becomes an undead mummy, other than that they are somehow animated by their evil. Unlike wights and other undead, however, they are powered with "positive energy" rather than negative, suggesting a significantly different process.
2E doesn't add much more, beyond introducing a more powerful, magic-wielding version of the mummy, which becomes the "mummy lord" in 3E. It is clear, however, that, at least in the default Forgotten Realms setting, the only culture known to create mummies is one similar to Ancient Egypt and that the process they use is essentially the Egyptian one. It's specifically stated that it is not known why some mummified bodies become evil undead and others do not.
3E
In this edition, however, it is known - we're told that mummies are given their unlife by evil deities. They often carry unholy symbols as part of their rotting finery, and so presumably served these deities in life rather than being random victims of them post mortem. Their primary purpose seems to be to protect against tomb robbers, which actually doesn't sound all that evil... at least, if it weren't for their single-minded ferocity. They can speak (in Common, so their culture doesn't predate that language) but usually don't bother. Doubtless, it's difficult to do so effectively when your vocal cords are mummified.
The more detailed stats in this edition confirm that mummies are superhumanly strong and really quite stupid (they're marginally stronger than an ogre and no more intelligent). They're even tougher physically than they were before, but, while they're not as quick as a regular human, they aren't quite as slow and shambling as they were previously and they aren't especially clumsy. They're specifically stated to have darkvision, which, given that they live in underground catacombs and can't carry flaming torches, is probably just as well.
The Liber Mortis adds that, while mummies do have to be deliberately created by someone, that can be by a necromancer or evil priest, rather than the direct action of a deity. It also adds that there's no requirement for mummies to be evil, although they usually are - likely because of some selectivity by their creators. Indeed, mummies in 4E have no alignment, simply being slow-witted guardians that protect against tomb robbers.
5E
Here, the mummy is the result of a specific necromantic ritual. Since they retain whatever languages they spoke in life, it's clear that the original soul is animating the corpse. They aren't quite as strong as they were before, being equivalent to an orc rather than an ogre. They are clumsy as well as slow, which could be down either to imperfect control of mummified muscles and tendons or, again, the product of some sort of mental confusion. They also lose some of their resistance to damage, being no better armoured than you'd expect for a living human in particularly thick bandages, and having roughly the same hit points as in 3E (normally, 5E creatures have more, so this is a decrease, relatively speaking).
It's also clear (as indicated in the Liber Mortis, but not specifically in the 3E Monster Manual) that mummies are now powered by 'negative energy', in the same way as for other undead.
Mummification is essentially what happens to a dead body when it is unable to decay. This can happen naturally in particularly dry or cold environments, as happened, for example, with Ötzi the Ice Man, or by pickling in certain kinds of bog, as happened with Lindow Man. Clearly these natural mummies aren't the sort of thing we're talking about in D&D, since the latter are found in tombs and more or less universally wrapped in funerary bandages.
In our world, deliberate mummification is most commonly associated, at least in the western mind, with Ancient Egypt. However, a number of other cultures carried it out to a greater or lesser extent, with the Aztecs being perhaps among the more prominent. As a result, the details of the process can vary, and the funeral shroud isn't necessarily in the form of the bandages we normally see in fantasy/horror illustrations. (Indeed, presumably, these aren't essential for a D&D mummy, and it could continue to function as something looking like a desiccated zombie if they were somehow removed).
The full-blown procedure, as carried out for the wealthiest Egyptians, and alluded to in the later editions of the Monster Manual, involves complete removal of the internal organs, except typically for the heart, and packing in natron (a naturally occurring mixture of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate) to kill putrifying bacteria and fungi. This also dries out the body, which probably explains why mummies are vulnerable to fire in a way that other undead are not. While it's not clear in the earlier editions, in the later ones this process is a prerequisite for creating an undead mummy, but further rituals or divine intervention are needed to complete the task. Either way, the physical end result is somewhere between a zombie and a skeleton; the energy that animates it takes the place of any bodily organs it might still require - including the brain.
The absence of a brain probably doesn't have much to do with their low intelligence, since undead don't really work that way. However, while the similarly unintelligent ghouls aren't necessarily inhabited by their original souls, 5E mummies specifically are (since they speak the same languages they did in life), and it's implied in at least 3E as well. Since it seems unlikely that necromancers would only ever mummify idiots, that soul must necessarily be damaged. Perhaps because they are too tormented by their state to think properly, or so consumed by their hatred (whether of life in general, or tomb robbers in particular) that rational thought becomes difficult. This could explain their lawful evil alignment, too, at least in those editions where it's required. Perhaps only a part of the soul is present, having lost their more positive impulses together with the missing intelligence. On the other hand, it could be that the culture from which they hailed was dedicated to a lawful evil philosophy and that the necromancers who create the undead mummies select the right sort of people for the job.
Mummies in D&D are stated to be uniquely terrifying, paralysing their opponents with fear. In 5E this is a magical attack, but in the earlier editions it seems that the mere sight of the mummy is sufficient to induce this terror. This perhaps fits with the horror trope but logically has to be a supernatural power of some kind, since there's no obvious reason why the sight of a mummy would be any more frightening than, say, a zombie.
Although the fear effect is the more useful power in combat, the real signature power of the D&D mummy is its rotting touch. The nature of this varies with the editions. In the first two editions, it causes an unspecified affliction that slowly disfigures the victim over a number of months but that has no other detrimental effect until they drop dead. On the other hand, while the disease itself appears natural (in that the usual methods for curing diseases work on it) it must be transmitted magically, since the victim only needs to touch the mummy to contract it, but is not themselves even slightly contagious to others.
In 3E, the causative agent is explicitly transmitted and protected by a curse, which has to be removed before other remedies can be applied. But, again, regular curative methods will work once the curse is banished, so it's likely a magically-boosted pathogen of some sort. By 5E, the shift is complete, and mummy rot is a purely magical curse that merely resembles a disease in its effects. It's also much rapidly deadly than most real-world diseases, striking someone down in a matter of days, where it took months in earlier editions.There's no real description of the symptoms, but the term 'mummy rot' and the fact that, up until 3E, it destroys the victim's charisma, suggests that it looks something like (but isn't literally) leprosy, producing disfiguring, non-healing sores across the skin. Actual leprosy is a bacterial disease that operates by causing localised necrosis, which makes perfect sense in view of the 'necrotic damage' of later editions that's associated with undead energy. Less so in 1E, of course, where mummies are powered by regular positive energy...
It's the mummy rot that's the obvious thing to focus on when translating the D&D mummy into other systems, and the variations between different editions prevent a definitive answer. The 5E sort is simple enough to reflect, repeatedly wounding the character until they die. Even then, how long it should take to prove fatal is a matter of taste, since it varies depending on the level and character class of the victim - which may not translate well. Earlier versions whittle away at the victim's appearance, and possibly systemic health, proving fatal in a few months, which is likely easier to simulate, even if the relevant stats are on a different scale.
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