So me and my friends love Zombies. Love The Walking Dead, love Zombicide, everything zombie.

We also, as a matter of course, do a 'zombie' mission in every system we play. It's usually a break from setting, one use character, survival of the fittest thing.

When it was suggested last week though that it's time we did a Shadowrun zombie mission I got thinking. Maybe, for the first time, zombies could be explainable in-setting? With that in mind I set about creating the following:

Zombie
(Homo sapiens zomoviridae)
Metahumans afflicted by a species of HMHVV III-Z become
Zombies. Common traits to all those afflicted with this virus
are the development of filmy cataracts over the eyes, a pallid
complexion made up of dead flesh and rotting skin, a slow
shuffling gait and animalistic instincts. Zombies are exclusively
carnivorous and cannibalistic.

Metatype Zombie
BOD N+2
AGI N-1
REA N-2
STR N+3
CHA N-5
INT N-3
LOG N-3
WIL N

Powers: Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell), Natural Weapon (Bite: DV Str/2+1P, AP 0, –1 Reach), Hard to Kill*
*Zombies never fall unconscious, and do not die from overflow. They accumulate wound penalties for every 3 damage past the end of their damage track. Only called shots to the head that take the Zombie into overflow, or area attacks that engulf the head (fire, explosives) can kill a zombie.

Weaknesses: Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), and Reduced Senses (Visual; –3 dice modifier to all tests involving purely physical sight).


HMHVV III-Z (Ghilani Zomoviridae)
Vector: Contact
Speed: 1 day (10)
Penetration: –6
Power: 8
Nature: Retroviral
Effect: Pain, nausea, Essence loss, transformation
HMHVV III-Z is responsible for the creation of zombies, and
is usually spread by unprotected contact with those creatures or
their bodily fluids, typically through bites. Unlike the cases of other
retroviruses in this genus, the subject is usually awake and aware
during the metamorphosis. Every time the character fails the Disease
Resistance Test, he loses 0.1 points of Essence. If his Essence falls to
0 or below, he dies.
The character should keep track of how many points of
Essence he loses every time he is infected with HMHVV III.
After losing 1.0 points of Essence in this fashion, the disease
halts (if still ongoing). The character loses all Resonance and
technomancer abilities and gains the Infected (Zombie) Quality
and a Magic attribute of 1 (or retains his own Magic attribute, if
higher). Revitalization gene therapy cannot recover Essence lost
to HMHVV III-Z infection.

Critter:

Zombie
BOD 5
AGI 2
REA 2
STR 6
CHA 1
INT 1
LOG 1
WIL 3

Movement 2/5
Skills Assensing 1, Perception 1, Unarmed Combat 3

Powers: Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell), Natural Weapon (Bite: DV Str/2+1P, AP 0, –1 Reach),Hard to Kill*

Weaknesses: Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), and Reduced Senses (Visual; –3 dice modifier to all tests involving purely physical sight).

Notes: Stats are for average human metatype zombie. Other metatypes will vary according to the template. Zombies who retain a logic of above 1 after modification may act with simple intelligence, using tools and simple devices.



Any thoughts or comments appreciated

Thanks

Josh

So . . normal Ghoulapocalypse not good enough for you anymore?

Ghouls just aren't 'cool' man....

So . . Shedim aren't good enough for you then?

Haha.

I think really a Ghoulpocalypse is quite a bit scarier than the Zombies statted out above. The point is they're classic zombie, slow and useless but relentless and somehow very troublesome. I can't fathom a Shedimpocalypse

I may increase the power of the virus so it spreads faster.

Shedim are basically the Voodoo Kind of Zombie.
Slow, rotten looking, dead, motivated by evil spirits.
No Problems with Sunlight.
Kill so more evil Spirits can have Bodies again, not for sustenance.

Ghouls are the 28 days later Zombies.
Fast, kinda normal looking aside from being a bit on the flabby pale side.
Dead eyes, grey skin, long teeth and claws, no hair at all . .
Don't like sunlight, kill for sustenance.

And technically, the Ghoul-Virus should spread fragging fast.
It might be a 1 Month incubation time or so, but it's close to impossible to resist.

I think the Beefiest Beeftroll in all of Beeftown has something like a 50% chance to fail.

Yeah, only immediate high level medicare and magitech treatment right at the beginning has a chance to help.
And then you need to repeat that untill it's all over.

Well I've just started watching The Walking Dead series 2 so I'll no doubt revisit this soon

Instead of the Romero infecting zombies think back to the earlier zombies-animated dead people, slaves to evil wizards.
there was an old b/w movie "white zombie" set in the tropics where a local 'doctor' uses a formula to turn bodies into zombies and if a living person drinks it, they are caught too. He sets his sights on a local beauty and...

... gets eaten by chinchillas?

There already are Zombies in Shadowrun.

We just call them Wageslaves.

Just go with a ghoulpocalypse. Someone actually carries through on the Shadowrun thought experiment terrorism, and gets a bunch of ghouls, liquifies them and crop-dusts them downtown.

I ran a game years ago where a corporation was working on a cure for VITAS, and researching HMHVV to determine what aspects of the retrovirus granted immunity, so that they could engineer a vaccine. Lead researcher got infected, went a little crazy and falsified records to push the vaccine into testing early.

He then released an aerosolized version of VITAS into the subways during rush hour exposing tens of thousands, and secondary infection would spread from there.

His company offered a vaccine to the public, leading to riots because there wasn't enough for everyone who had been exposed. Meanwhile the runners were trying to get all the vaccine destroyed to avoid what they thought was an impending ghoulpocalypse.

there was a CMP written a couple of summers ago when a group of shedim are using a small cove as a base. Basically they found some hanta virus infected bodies and are feeding them into wood chippers to slowly infect the town. Every night they rise and grind the bodies so the wind blowing of the sea spread the virus over the town.

Yeah that was a nasty one. It was released recently in Sprawl Wilds.

I haven't read this, but just in reading what you wrote, this sounds very Cthulhuish to me. Maybe because of the sea winds, but nonetheless.. creepy.

Wasn't there a thread a long while back where someone wanted to put a bunch of ghouls into a wood-chipper, throw the results in some cropduster drones, then fly said drones through a population centers?

Yes, yes there was.

I already suggested it.

The combined influenza and modified rabies virus in Under a Graveyard Sky is an interesting approach. They are still alive, but functionally it's the same.

The problem with classic "Walker" zombies in Shadowrun is this: combat slows to a crawl.

When your enemy of choice is only a threat in massive numbers, that means combat turns become massive slogfests. Get ready to roll those dice over and over and over...

~Umi

This is why flamethrowers are good. They have special rules that let them hit lots of targets at once, can be used for suppression fire, and are very effective at cutting through most supernatural resistances.

Then you have flaming zombies. That doesn't help you.

~Umi

You're obviously not using enough fire.

Flamethrowers have a 25 meter or so max range, and classic zombies don't have to breath and are not affected by pain. So yeah, you end up being gang tackled by a bunch of zombies covered in burning napalm. This is probably not the outcome you were hoping for....

1 flamethrower, no (Also, the bigger flamethrower has about twice as much range). 4 guys with flamethrowers? That should do the job. Trip trenches and chainlink fences are good if you have the chance to set stuff up, otherwise a couple of SUVs to stand on the roof of helps. Zombies don't climb that well.

Also, Incendiary and white phosphorus grenades are fun.

Fire is good against zombies as it kills the virus. They may not feel pain, but cooking the brain destroys it fairly effectively.

Part of the problem I think is making zombies truly scary. When the original zombie movies came out they were scary. The world now, I feel, would cope with a traditional 'slow walker' zombie outbreak. The Shadowrun world would cope even easier. The brightest minds don't even live on the surface, and there are private armies and fortified buildings all over. But I also love slow walkers because they're classic. So I need something to make it truly horrifying. In The Walking Dead This makes it really scary and hard to control. I want something on a similar level to that, but not the same. I think making the virus a true 'contact' virus would be too harsh on the players and would completely rule out melee. I think I'm gonna edit the virus to make it even more virulent. I know it's already nearly impossible to resist, but what if it was truly impossible to resist, and fast acting.

I'm thinking of something like this:

HMHVV III-Z (Ghilani Zomoviridae)
Vector: Contact
Speed: 1 hour (infinite)
Penetration: –6
Power: 6
Nature: Retroviral
Effect: Pain, nausea, Essence loss, transformation
HMHVV III-Z is responsible for the creation of zombies, and
is usually spread by unprotected contact with those creatures or
their bodily fluids, typically through bites. Unlike the cases of other
retroviruses in this genus, the subject is usually awake and aware
during the metamorphosis. Every time the character fails the Disease
Resistance Test, he loses 0.1 points of Essence. If his Essence falls to
0 or below, he dies.
The character should keep track of how many points of
Essence he loses every time he is infected with HMHVV III.
After losing 1.0 points of Essence in this fashion, the disease
halts (if still ongoing). The character loses all Resonance and
technomancer abilities and gains the Infected (Zombie) Quality
and a Magic attribute of 1 (or retains his own Magic attribute, if
higher). Revitalization gene therapy cannot recover Essence lost
to HMHVV III-Z infection.

Just say it's an airborne virus with X% of the population immune. There's also an injection-vector variant that can bypass this immunity. Not all zombies carry it, but YOU CAN'T TELL WHICH ONES CARRY IT!

So, the interesting question next. How do you think the Shadowrun world would react to a zombie outbreak? Here were my thoughts

As with most pandemics, initially no-one fully grasps the size of the problem. As soon as it becomes apparent, depending on how widespread it is (lets assume worldwide) Corporate facilities would go into lockdown. For many people this wouldn't even change their lives if they live in corporate housing and work in corporate facilities. It would isolate any non self-sustaining units/businesses and it'd really suck to be SINless. Until a cure was found corp facilities wouldn't allow anyone to enter, and would probably shoot SINless on site just to be sure. Skipping ahead a few months into the outbreak some corp facilities would have fallen. One small escape in a lab or person who'd been exposed before lockdown spreading exponentially into abandonment. Others would attract a large number of zombies (due to population) and unless they had really secure walls instead of fences they'd succumb to the press. Those facilities that are untouched would now be truly secure, and probably overcrowded due to the number of other corporate citizens they'd had to take in. Corps would have to make moves to clear and secure sites for agriculture and farming. People who'd managed to survive on the outside (like the PCs in this case ) would have to stay low and quiet, secure an abandoned facility, or stay on the move and hope.

This assumes it was wasn't a developed virus. Use influenza as the vector, disseminate via major airports and things get a lot more exciting as there is a multi-day delay during which the carriers are contagious but show no signs of issues. Plus a blood born vector.

Considering Shadowrun is a world with significantly nastier things than zombies, they'd probably just shoot the zombies and move on with their lives.

SR had vitas.
all of the outbreaks put together killed 20% of the earths metahuman population.
that's pretty close to what you are imagining.

I think the corporate lock downs would pretty much solve it. We have to assume there is a contagion protocall after VITAS and armed security teams blasting the zombies do the rest. I mean that pretty much is what happened to Chicago, think Zombie instead of 'bug' and it's the same deal.

What is your time you can transmit the disease before symptoms show up?

Actually that is one of the 7 accepted calling in late to work calls allowed.

'May be a little late getting in, yeah total Zombie breakout just down the road. Corpsicles everywhere. Have Mary move my 1 o'clock back to 3. '