Zombie's: Round 2

[vikingmonkey]

A while back I started a thread (can be found here: http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3355&highlight=zombie) that I never finished up on. I'd like to take the time to finish things up now. I tried doing zombies as my first Monster Burn and it ended up being a bit of a disaster. I took a lot of the advice from that thread along with some new stuff and came up with, what I think, is a bit more solid concept, it still does need work, however.

Concept: An Undead creature, caused by a virus which infects its human host, killing it, then raising it from the dead to devour the flesh of the living.

Stats: Pe B3(B5), Wi B1, Ag B2, Sp B3, Po B4, Fo B4

Attributes: Ref B2, Ste B8, He B3, MW B10, Hes 9, Res B0, Cir B0

PTGS: Su B3, Li B5, Mi B7, Se B8, Tr B9, Mo B10

Skills: Brawling B4, Scavenging B3, Intimidation B3, Man-Wise B2

Traits: Undead*; Tough As Nails; Infectious*; Takin' It to the Head*; Sense Flesh*; Dreadful

*Undead - Zombie's are not affected by disease, poison, or fatigue. They are also immune to all forms of mental persuasion or domination.

*Infectious - On a Mark hit or better, the zombie spreads its virus to its victim. The victim must make an Ob 6 Health check to resist becoming a zombie.

*Takin' It to the Head - Zombies may only be killed by a Mark hit or better that is aimed at the head

*Sense Flesh - +2 to Per when searching for food, also, Per acts as Observation

Beliefs: There's always a way in

Instincts: Always Help other zombies when Positioning or Locking; Always search for food

As you can see, I'm having trouble with Beliefs. Zombie's are tools, at best, so how do I work in goals into their concept. I have a sneaky suspicion I'll have to go back to the drawing board and adjust their concept. I was thinking of going along the lines of the standard Necromancer raising zombie's to do his bidding - cliche, but at least the zombies would be better suited for Beliefs. Whatever the Necromancer wanted them to do, whatever function he raised them to perform, would be their Beliefs.

The other thing I'm having trouble with, is how difficult to make the Health test to avoid becoming a zombie. In pretty much all literature, movies, etc., when you're bitten or scratched, it's pretty much a given that you'll become a zombie. I didn't want to make it a given, but I wanted it to be pretty damn tough, I figured Ob 6 was best - suggestions?

Overall, I want them to be fairly easy to kill but tough to incapacitate, hence Tough As Nails and Undead traits.

[stormsweeper]

1st belief: Find brains, eat brains.

[luke]

I think that you need a little more flesh on the bones of Takin It to the Head and Undead. What do wound penalties mean to zombies? Do zombies bleed? Can zombies recover?

[Rivers]

I'd imagine that it might be good to include something regarding their generally stoic nature. I mean, do Zombies actually make Steel tests? Are they immune to surprise/shock/wonder, or just highly resistant? Maybe they're better at this in crowds?

[vikingmonkey]

1st belief: Find brains, eat brains.

I have an issue with the whole brain-eating thing that got touched upon in my previous post. Here's my beef: I'm stating that Zombies, stat-wise, aren't that very different from human beings, right? At least physically. Now imagine trying to break into a persons skull. It'd be like breaking into a coconut with your bare hands. Why go though all that trouble when there's so many other soft fleshy parts to feast on? I realize the complete irony of me having problems with this in the same breathe as speaking about the walking dead, so I'm going to sit on this one for a bit and see if I can let go of my reservations.


I think that you need a little more flesh on the bones of Takin It to the Head and Undead. What do wound penalties mean to zombies? Do zombies bleed? Can zombies recover?


I'd imagine that it might be good to include something regarding their generally stoic nature. I mean, do Zombies actually make Steel tests? Are they immune to surprise/shock/wonder, or just highly resistant? Maybe they're better at this in crowds?

Good points. How's about this:

Takin' It to the Head: Zombies may only be killed by a Mark hit or better that is aimed at the head. In addition any wound suffered by the zombie neither bleeds, gets worse, or heals. Zombie's suffer no wound penalties from Superficial or Light wounds. They suffer normal penalties from Midi Wounds and higher. Due to their Undead nature, Zombies may not redirect an opponents attack to a different part of their body.

Undead: Zombie's are not affected by disease, poison, or fatigue and are never forced to make Health tests. They are also immune to all forms of mental persuasion or domination. Zombies do not need to make Steel tests for Pain or Fear. They still must make Steel tests for Surprise, however. Zombies are not affected by Wonderment.

I'm not getting too bad-ass here am I? That was what I was afraid of from the beginning.

[pseudoidiot]

Takin' It to the Head: Zombies may only be killed by a Mark hit or better that is aimed at the head. In addition any wound suffered by the zombie neither bleeds, gets worse, or heals. Zombie's suffer no wound penalties from Superficial or Light wounds. They suffer normal penalties from Midi Wounds and higher. Due to their Undead nature, Zombies may not redirect an opponents attack to a different part of their body.

One problem I think may come up is that if it takes a Mark wound to the head to kill them, but they still take wound penalties from Midi or worse, as soon as they take a Midi wound, or higher, they'll be incapacitated. I guess you could include something saying they don't become incapacitated when wound penalties would reduce a stat to 0. So they just keep going, no matter how ineffectual they become, until someone finally hits the sweet spot.

[vikingmonkey]

One problem I think may come up is that if it takes a Mark wound to the head to kill them, but they still take wound penalties from Midi or worse, as soon as they take a Midi wound, or higher, they'll be incapacitated. I guess you could include something saying they don't become incapacitated when wound penalties would reduce a stat to 0. So they just keep going, no matter how ineffectual they become, until someone finally hits the sweet spot.

Curse Math! You're right I hadn't thought about that.

[GreedyAlgorithm]

I'm not getting too bad-ass here am I? That was what I was afraid of from the beginning.
With Reflexes B2 I think they are not too scary... except of course that zombies come in hordes.

[Fuseboy]

You don't need long-term goals to have beliefs and instincts that guide their behavior. Beliefs like, "There's always a way in" or "they'll have to come out sometime." Instincts like, "Always stick with the others." "Always eat the ones that fall."

But I'm with you - change the concept if it makes them more interesting.

What if some shred of psyche still survives? It's not necessary, perhaps, for zombies to be immune to persuasion. They just don't listen, because the pain of their bondage dulls them to all but the strongest stimulus - the eating of flesh, and the searing commands of the master.

In that case, perhaps they could be slowed or swayed by soothing magics. (Ooh, and profane acts of placation.) Maybe they're just dying for a chance to eat the master, if only it didn't hurt so much to think about it.

[vikingmonkey]

"There's always a way in" or "they'll have to come out sometime."

But I'm with you - change the concept if it makes them more interesting.

What if some shred of psyche still survives? It's not necessary, perhaps, for zombies to be immune to persuasion. They just don't listen, because the pain of their bondage dulls them to all but the strongest stimulus - the eating of flesh, and the searing commands of the master.


I like the Belief, I'll take that, if you don't mind. As for the rest, I'm starting to think that that would be a better direction to go, but I'm going to finish the Zombie I have going as is, rather than take it back to the drawing board. I may, however, end up going back and writing a whole seperate "Necromancer" type Zombie. Good ideas, I like them.

Ok so after mulling the wound penalties over a bit, I confess, I'm not familiar enough with the rules nor creative enough to come up with anything. I have a much deeper respect for those that write up monsters a lot - I couldn't do it.

So here's what I need: Midi wounds are about the point at which, I think, wound penalties should start adding up. Midi wounds are beginning to be less about pain and more about actual tissue/bone damage. Maybe their undead nature mitigates Midi wounds somehow? So that they suffer no penalties up until Midi and then once a Midi wound is counted it acts like a Superficial? So the first Midi wound is +1 Ob, the second does nothing and the third is -1D? I don't know does that work at all? That feels about right for these guys, but I'd like some comments if possible.

[Fuseboy]

Not sure if this would be horribly broken, but what about simply ignoring wounds less than a Midi? If you're able to ignore pain and shock, the only thing that's going to slow you down is structural damage or serious blood loss.

I can't look up Tough as Nails here, but something that reduced their hesitation from injury to 2 or 3 would be cool. You could hack bits off them - they'd stagger from the physical impact, but then they'd just keep shuffling towards you.

[Mirdan]

One way I've tried to represent a zombie's resistance to damage is to simply give it a grey MW and a trait to ignore superficials. This makes for very tough zombies - a blow that would normally kill a human outright gives them a Light wound.

Or you could just give the zombies Dead to Pain (Monster Burner). That seems to be closer to what you want.

[vikingmonkey]

Not sure if this would be horribly broken, but what about simply ignoring wounds less than a Midi? If you're able to ignore pain and shock, the only thing that's going to slow you down is structural damage or serious blood loss.


As is stands right now, they do ignore wound penalties less than Midi. Like you said, only structural damage is going to slow them down.

Ok, how about on top of that, all wound penalties Midi and above are reduced by 2? I feel like I'm getting pretty close to what I want.

[Justin in Oz]

I have put the Zombie on the Wiki. I have put the traits on their own bit too.

I would put a link up, but don't know how.

[vikingmonkey]

hey Justin thanks for doing that. The only thing that stopped me from doing it was the fact that I was trying to come up with more Beliefs - but getting inside these things head just seemed to be too much for me.

I don't know how to do the links either - actually, I don't know a lot about the wiki stuff, so it's probably just as well that you did it rather than me.

Thanks again!

[Lebo77]

getting inside these things head just seemed to be too much for me.

Funny. Given half a chance, they would have no trouble getting into YOURS! :-)

"BRAAAAAAIIIINNNNNSSSSS!"

[vikingmonkey]

Ba Dum Zing!

Well put Lebo!