THE LIVING DEAD (version 1)

By Mark Kinney (alberich@iglou.com)

"The dead outnumber the living one hundred thousand to one."

-- Ad copy, "Day of the Dead"

Author's notes

This article is based on George Romero's Living Dead series ("Night of the Living Dead," "Dawn of the Dead," and "Day of the Dead") and ignores the "Return of the Living Dead" movies. The original piece was based on several months old memory of a viewing of all three movies consecutively. Having recently seen the movies again, I can make corrections. In the process I will present an overview of Romero's universe (pieced together to make the timing work out, considering the sequels came at nearly 10 year intervals), and give some ideas as to how it might fit into the World of Darkness. This should be considered addenda to the Living Dead article I poster to vampire-l oh-so-long ago; eventually I may do a re-worked version of the whole deal, taking all five games into account, but not yet.

The Romeroverse

In the early seventies, the Venus Explorer probe was returning to earth. Along with it's scientific information, however, it also brought some strange kind of radiation.

Around the same time, reports began coming from the eastern part of North America of a spate of mass murder, with people going from house to house, killing as they went. Later reports indicated that the killers were partially eating their victims. Finally, the truth came out after a series of government meetings -- the radiation from the Venus probe was animating the unburied dead. A series of rescue stations were set up, and the governments, which had previously encouraged people to stay in their homes, told the people to go to these rescue stations. The National Guard was mobilized in the affected states, and groups of hunters led by these and law enforcement officers began hunting down the ghouls.

The undead's numbers were rapidly growing, however, and soon several rescue stations were overrun. Changes happened so quickly that the media couldn't keep up, sending unwitting people into the undead's clutches and swelling their numbers. Finally, as government control began breaking down and the phenomenon was felt elsewhere, some of these hunting groups turned into roving looters, taking advantage of the situation, and any lone travelers they came across. Others took whatever vehicles they could and fled to whatever seemed safe from the undead; defensible buildings in the middle of nowhere, whatever islands they could get to, and so forth. Fuel became a rare commodity as people fled from the affected areas.

The only exceptions were the military bases that had survived the initial attacks. These bases often looked for survivors, and most were already hosting scientific teams that were looking into the problem soon after it began. As time went on, however, the very few survivors that were found dwindled to none, and several years after the dead began to rise, the living, holed into whatever secure bases they could find, were outnumbered by the undead nearly 100,000 to one.

The World of Darkness

The above events were the obvious events to those not in the know about the World of Darkness. Here is some possible backstory I've pieced together for this background.

The Giovanni clan struck a deal with a group of Spectres; the wraiths would begin skinriding some unburied corpses, and the confusion causes by this in both realms would give the Giovanni the chance to establish themselves in power. Giovanni sources in NASA gave them early warning of the radiation the probe carried back with it, and the decision soon came back from Venice: it was time. The killings started mass confusion in the real world, and that triggered a huge Maelstrom in the Shadowlands.

The Euthanatos were among the first to realize what was going on, and start efforts against it. They took advantage of the Venus probe to establish coincidence, and got announcements out. The Camarilla princes were able to figure out something supernatural was going on, and were already working municipal entities under their control against the threat. The Sabbat went to ground, waiting to see what happened.

The Technocracy used the incident to eliminate the Void Engineers. The New World Order and Syndicate decided that the Engineers had veered away from their purposes after the recent moon landinds, and with the aid of the relatively new Virtual Adepts, unwittingly eliminated all possibility of averting disaster as all means of turning the probe away were lost in the resulting infighting.

Soon, however, the Giovanni found the situation falling out of even their control, as the Spectres continued massing. The Euthanatos tried to mobilize the Traditions against the undead, eventually succeeding in getting the Dreamspeakers, Verbena and Celestial Chorus on their side. The others, especially the Sons of Ether and the Hermetics, wanted to study them, looking for a more comprehensive solution. Meanwhile, waves of ghouls began running into the Garou and other lycanthropes. They cut swaths through each other, but the dead could renew themselves faster than the werefolk, and the changers were decimated -- even the Black Spiral Dancers found they were safe only in their hives, and even then they had to deal with their own dead.

As central control broke down, the Sabbat and Anarchs came out of the woodwork, seizing control of many cities from the Camarilla, however short lived this control would be. At this point, the trods to the Dreaming all closed; the Changelings were on their own, and the Glamour of this world was decreasing rapidly.

By the time of the events of "Day of the Dead," most of the Kindred are in torpor due to lack of blood sources, although some have taken to drinking from animals, and the Camarilla, Sabbat, and Black Hand have all effectively ceased to exist. The Ravnos that remain have taken to travelling with Rom survivors full-time, protecting them from the undead and discreetly taking blood when they can. The Setites also maintain a herd of sorts. The remaining lycanthropes are scattered in small groups, but are outnumbered worse than the humans are. The Technocracy has mostly fallen; the only remaining Conventions of note are the Virtual Adepts, Iteration X, and the Progenitors, who are now working with the Order of Hermes on a solution. The Akashic Brotherhood eventually joined the Euthanatos and Verbena in fighting the undead, largely unsuccessfully. The only groups mostly intact out of all the supernaturals are the Nosferatu and the Sluagh; except for this group, the Changelings are largely extinct.

Systems

• Living Dead cannot be killed except by fire or any injury to the brain, although severe damage to the body can still hamper mobility. Hitting the brain should be treated as staking through the heart for combat purposes, in which case the Living Dead deanimates (i.e. dies).
• The bites of Living Dead cause aggravated wounds. In addition, unless the affected area is amputated within three turns, an infection spreads to the rest of the body, causing death in a number of days equal to the victim's Stamina. Vampires, but not ghouls, are immune to this. Infection victims detect as Wyrm-tainted.
• The blood of the Living Dead is poison to Kindred. Each point drank gives no benefit to the Vampire whatsoever, but takes up blood pool space and also causes a wound level per point (which is apparent after drinking one point), recurring every hour the tainted blood remains in the system. This can cause the Final Death in Vampires. Kindred with Fortitude can resist this damage with Stamina+Fortitude at difficulty 8, although I honestly don't know why they would, as empty except for this blood is still empty. Depending on method of death, a Living Dead will contain 3 to 10 blood points.
• Living Dead have a rudimentary memory of their former life. Thus, they retain Abilities despite Intelligence loss.
• Living Dead fear fire as do Vampires, but don't care about the sun.
• Living Dead just reek of the Wyrm.

Creation

To create a Living Dead character, generate a normal living character. After a set of stats are generated, follow these guidelines for a standard Living Dead:
1. Increase Strength by 2, even above the limit of 5.
2. Reduce Dexterity to 2, unless already lower.
3. Increase Stamina by 1, even above the limit of 5.
4. Reduce all Social Attributes to 0.
5. Reduce Intelligence to 1.
6. Reduce Wits to 2 unless already lower.
7. Reduce all Abilities by 1. All Skills, as well as any Abilities reduced to 1, are lost.
8. Eliminate all backgrounds.
9. Raise Self-Control to 5.
10. Eliminate all Humanity.

Domestication

In "Day of the Dead," a scientist trains one of the Living Dead in such a way that it actually gained some degree of its being back, even coming to like the scientific team to the point that it goes for revenge after the military team in their compound tries to kill the scientists. Use these rules to reflect this:
1. Raise Charisma and Manipulation to 1, and restore Skills at rating minus 1.
2. Raise Intelligence to 2.
3. Reduce Self-Control to original level.
4. Begin regaining Humanity, to a maximum of 5.

The Unknown

As to Player Characters, one could extrapolate the possibility that the Living Dead could come close to their former ability. After all, Bubba (the one from "Day of the Dead") came close to speaking on occasion.

One thing I didn't think of was a Living Dead Garou. If you want to use these rules in a Werewolf campaign, I recommend using Garou Living Dead as NPCs. Strongly.