Astra Byzantium Apotheosis

It has been ten thousand years since the light of Old Terra was extinguished by the ravening hordes of the Machine Gods. The subsequent flight from darkness into the unknown reaches of the universe scattered humanity far and wide, bringing the children of Earth into contact with a multitude of previously unknown species. With the aid and knowledge of these new allies, humanity led a great crusade against the Machine Gods, finally casting them down from their iron thrones and paving the way into a brighter future—a future in which humanity would sit upon a throne over the whole galaxy.

The empire of Astra Byzantium—better known to its people as the New Terran Empire—controls countless systems across an almost unthinkably large region of space. For millennia, it has been guided by faith and science in equal measure, embodied in the personage of its emperoxes, living avatars of the One True God, and the soldier-saints produced by humanity’s cathedral-factories.

Though once allied with numerous alien races, the imperial ambitions of humanity have long since soured those relationships, driving away all but the most dedicated and fervent. Today, the allies of man stand at but three: the elves, immortal blood-drinkers; the dwarves, militant forge-masters; and the cynocephaloi, hound-headed beasts of war.

The vastness of space is filled with life, some of which languishes under the heavy hand of the empire, unwilling servants of the Adamant Throne. These “vassal races” are accorded many rights by the empire, but are not full citizens and have little say in their own governance. This inequality sometimes boils over into resentment, which in turn gives way to rebellion—and rebellion is not tolerated by the emperox or their servants.

Yet the sprawling New Terran Empire, though home to countless trillions, is not the only power in the galaxy. Though theoretically subject peoples of the empire, the elves and dwarves have their own massive polities whose goals are sometimes at odds with those of the Adamant Throne. On the fringes of the empire, the forces of the Stellar Caliphate gobble up neglected systems, converting them to their own faith—one that rejects the emperox’s claims of divinity.

Alien forces build their own civilizations outside the watchful eye of the empire, looking with greed at the green and pleasant worlds hoarded by humankind. Space-dwelling nomads and pirates haunt the lost systems, turning them from lonely shortcuts on the hyperspace ways into lethal ambush points.

And in the deep blackness of the void, the last remnants of the Machine Gods still sleep, occasionally half-waking to disgorge hordes of lethal drones onto their old foes in an eternal war of extermination.

***

That's the basic pitch for a Savage Worlds space-fantasy setting I'm calling Astra Byzantium Apotheosis. The basic premise is "What if Warhammer 40K, but less with less fascism?" Obviously, the setting has a lot more influence from Byzantine culture than the Western Roman Empire, and the "present day" of the setting is entirely intended to be a snapshot of the reign of Justinian... IN SPACE!!!

I might put up some more info about the setting over the coming weeks. In the meantime, I'm still working on Barrow County, Children of the Dark, and other projects, including a revamp of Exalted: Blood and Fire!

Barrow County: Haints and Whatnot

Ghosts (better known to country folk as “haints”) are very real in Barrow County. They dwell in abandoned houses, on lonely back roads, and in the forests where they died. Most ghosts are bound to a single place that was important to them in life, or else caught in a loop of the behavior they were performing in the last moments leading up to their deaths.

While most ghosts are scary but harmless most of the time, some become dangerous around specific times of year, like the Ghost Bride of Rester Falls, who kills anyone foolish enough to visit the falls on the anniversary of her death. Others are inimical to human life all the time, like the Gravel Crusher, whose presence killed almost a dozen men and women before the gravel plant was shut down and abandoned.

There are literally dozens of ghosts in Barrow County—enough that people simply accept them as a fact of life and do their best to avoid them whenever possible. Still, there are always people foolish or skeptical enough to not believe the stories, leading to at least a few deaths by ghost attack every year. Such deaths are generally reported as accidents or suicides by the sheriff’s department, but everyone knows the truth.

Statistics: Ghosts use the statistics presented in the Savage Worlds Horror Companion (page 131-132). All ghosts in Barrow County have the Salt Variant Weakness, and most have the Bane and Resolution weaknesses as well.

A ghost can be put to rest by burying its remains in consecrated ground and covering them in salt, but this only lasts until the salt washes away completely (which generally takes five to ten years). Some ghosts can be destroyed by dousing their remains in salt and then burning them, but powerful ghosts can survive this primitive form of exorcism. A ghost destroyed in combat (no mean feat already) will reform in 1d4 weeks unless its remains are destroyed afterwards or its Resolution condition is met in the meantime.

Dennis Strup, the Gravel Crusher (Wild Card)

Durst Quarry and its attached gravel plant were once a major employer in Barrow County. The Durst family’s fortunes began to decline when an accident claimed the life of one of the plant’s workers, a man named Dennis Strup, who fell into the crusher and came out the other side as a thick paste. Rumor said that he was pushed in during an altercation, but there was never any evidence to prove it. After a day of mourning and a thorough rinse for the crusher, the plant reopened and business went back to normal.

A month after Dennis died, another man was killed when the gravel crusher’s scoop fell on him. The month after that, three people died when a full load of gravel fell out of the hopper as they were passing by, smothering them before they could be dug out. This continued for months, until the mounting death toll finally convinced the Durst family to close down the gravel plant. The whole family moved away not long after, abandoning their remaining businesses to avoid lawsuits. (In fact, the Dursts never left Barrow County—see “Grim Inheritance” in the Hearts in Barrow Plot Point Adventure for more details.)

While the nearby flooded quarry is a popular hangout for Barrow’s teens, the gravel plant itself is shunned. Anyone who enters the gravel plant pit is likely to draw the attention of the ghost of Dennis Strup, who is spiritually anchored to the gravel crushing machine that took his life. The ghost can’t leave the pit, but he craves to inflict the death he suffered on anyone who enters.

Tactics: Dennis prefers to let his gravel crusher do the talking. When he senses the living in his home, he brings the machinery to life and does his best to distract intruders while focusing his attacks on one of them at a time. His favorite tactic is to use telekinesis to push someone onto a conveyor belt that will dump them into the gravel crusher’s maw and hold them there until they fall in. Typically, it takes 1d4+1 rounds for someone on a conveyor belt to reach the crusher, but knowing what’s in store for them provokes a Fear Check. A victim of this attack gets a Spirit roll opposed by Dennis’ telekinetic Strength (d10) at the start of each of their turns to break free, but if they’re still on the belt when the timer runs out, they’re toast.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d10, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Athletics d8, Common Knowledge d6, Fighting d6, Intimidation d12, Notice d10, Stealth d10, Taunt d10
Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 5
Edges: Arcane Resistance (Imp)
Gear: Thrown rocks (Str+d6)
Special Abilities:
•    Bane: An active union membership card acts as a ward (HC 48) to Dennis.
•    Ethereal: May pass through objects; cannot be harmed by nonmagical attacks; may become invisible (–6 penalty to hit) as a limited free action.
•    Fear (–2): Ghosts cause Fear checks at –2 when they let themselves be seen.
•    Fearless: Immune to Fear and Intimidation.
•    Machine Control: Dennis can bring the machinery of the gravel plant to life at will, turning the gravel pit into Difficult Ground as conveyor belts move, gravel rains from above, and various other dangerous devices grind away. Dennis can make an Athletics Test as a limited free action against any character in the gravel plant while the machines are active.
•    Resolution: Dennis was pushed into the gravel crushing machine due to his union sympathies. He can be laid to rest by bringing his killer to justice, or by a true-blue union member intentionally sticking his hand into the gravel crusher in solidarity (which naturally costs the poor soul their hand). Destroying the gravel crushing machine only dispels the ghost’s influence until Dennis can repair it, taking 1d6 months.
•    Salt: Like all ghosts native to Barrow County, the Gravel Crusher can be hurt or driven off by salt. He can’t be killed by it, but it drives him off for 10 minutes per Wound he would have suffered, and he cannot cross a line of salt. The Gravel Crusher has no corpse to destroy, so he is not vulnerable to being defeated by this method.
•    Telekinesis: Dennis can move objects and push people around with the force of his spirit. He can use the telekinesis power as a limited action as though it had a Strength of d10.

Author's Note: A fun fact about me is that I literally grew up two miles down the road from a gravel plant. The place scared the shit out of me as a kid. For anyone who doesn't know what a gravel factory looks like, it's basically like this:

 

The entire area around the crushing machine, including the piles of gravel and the tanks, are called "the pit."

Barrow County: The Undead Scourge

Let’s just say it right out in the open: Salvador Kingsley is a vampire. Maybe not a Hollywood vampire, or a Dracula, but he’s an immortal undead monster who drinks blood and makes more of his own kind by feeding on humans. That’s close enough for government work.

In his pact with the Elder One, Salvador became patient zero for a monstrous infection. Those he drains to death with his feeding rise again as the undead. Their victims rise again as well. In theory, this exponential growth should shortly cover the world in a plague of the undead from which there is no escape. In practice, there are some serious limits to the way Salvador’s spawn can increase their numbers—the primary one being Salvador himself.

Salvador’s use of the black blood of the earth to increase his powers and bind himself to the land of Barrow County means that he only needs to feed on human blood about once a week. He rarely drains his victims dry, preferring to drink deeply enough to cause fatigue but not serious or permanent damage. This isn’t out of kindness on his part; he’s smart enough to know that reckless feeding would rapidly deplete his supply of victims. Since he can’t set foot out of Barrow County, he can’t afford that. Salvador also doesn’t permit his “children” to feed recklessly, though most of them will happily drain someone if they think they can get away with it.

Salvador draining a mortal dry can result in one of two outcomes: nearly mindless creatures of pure hunger he calls “zombies,” or much more intelligent and better-preserved minions he calls “leeches.” What he gets is mostly a matter of time and care. Sucking a person dry in one sitting results in a zombie, unless he takes special care to destroy the body afterwards. Making a leech takes weeks of careful feeding on a mortal, culminating in a final draining and feeding the poor wretch his own foul blood in return.

Leeches are hollow caricatures of the people they were in life, their complexities and contradictions filed down to the sharp edges of hunger and their worst personality traits. These bloodsuckers are ruthless sociopaths who view ordinary humans as cattle and one another as competition. If they weren’t all so terrified of Salvador, they’d be fighting each other for dominance almost constantly. As it stands, Salvador keeps the numbers of leeches low just to avoid having to deal with their nightly bickering, backbiting, and pettiness.

Beyond the time and care needed to create a leech, Salvador has one more major limitation: he can only turn natives of Barrow County. His tie to the land is so strong that he can’t pass on the full power of his curse to anyone who wasn’t born on land corrupted by it. It took him decades to find out about this limitation, and it constantly frustrates him, since it prevents him from turning useful outsiders into his minions, forcing him to rely on the less-educated natives as fodder or bringing outsiders into his service through more mundane means.

Leeches can’t make more of their own kind, no matter how much they’d like to. Anyone they drain, whether they take a long time or do it all at once, rises again as a zombie. The zombies they make are loyal to Salvador as well, not to them. This means that when a leech wants to drain a mortal dry during feeding, they must destroy the body completely to prevent it from rising again and tattling on them if Salvador gets curious about where it came from.

Zombies are pathetic wretches, consumed by their hunger and with only faint traces of their former personalities left in their rotting corpses. They look monstrous, with tattered flesh hanging from yellowed bones, sharpened teeth, and eyes that glow red when they catch sight of prey. They’re smart enough to use simple tools, but they’re incapable of long-term planning or restraint. If they see a mortal, they’re likely to attack unless they’re currently under orders to the contrary—and they can’t keep more than one or two orders in mind at a time.

Zombies are entirely able to subsist on animal blood, but they prefer human blood. Their victims generally get torn limb from limb as the zombie tries to get every drop out, so most zombie attacks don’t leave enough of a body behind to rise again. Animals can’t become zombies—at least not most of the time, see the Zombie Bear Savage Tale—so it’s easy to feed zombies if Salvador cares enough to bother.

Leeches require at least a pint of human blood every night to avoid starvation. They can “bank up” by draining someone dry once a week instead, but Salvador doesn’t generally permit it more than a couple of times a year. Salvador’s family mainly survive by feeding on the prisoners kept in the dungeons beneath Raven’s Lodge, rotating through the poor wretches and keeping them just on the edge of death.

Neither zombies nor leeches can die from hunger, but starvation can do awful things to them. A zombie that goes long enough without feeding shrivels up into a mummified corpse and falls into a stupor, probably burned up the next time the sun rises unless they were lucky enough to collapse indoors or down a deep hole. They revive instantly if something warm and full of blood comes near. A similar fate befalls leeches who go hungry, but they remain fully aware and in pain the whole time. The ones who return from this torpor are usually quite mad.

Salvador can command any zombie that can hear him speak, and they will follow his orders slavishly, even unto their own destruction. They fear nothing but fire, sunlight, and symbols of faith. Because of decades of vampire activity in the County, there are literally hundreds of the foul fiends wandering around in the wilderness, looking for a meal. Fortunately, running water confuses their senses, and they can’t be active during the day. This means that every little creek and runnel in the County is effectively a wall to zombies, and Barrow itself (which is surrounded on three sides by rivers and the last by a mountain) basically a fortress against them.

 

Vampire Powers

Zombies basically don’t have any “powers” of note, other than being undying, incredibly strong, damn hard to kill, and ugly as sin. Leeches are somewhat better off in this regard.

Every leech can blend in with the herd since they still look mostly human. When they feed, their fangs grow in, their claws extend, and their eyes start to glow, but until that happens, they just seem a bit paler and more intense than the average person.

Vampires can’t be killed by most attacks. Getting shot or stabbed still hurts like the dickens, which can slow them down for a few seconds, but it won’t put them down for the count. The only things that can do them permanent damage are fire, decapitation, or being pierced through the heart with a silver bullet or wooden stake—and sunlight, for zombies.

Even staking a leech doesn’t kill it outright—unless it’s subsequently decapitated or burned to ash, removing the stake lets the vampire reanimate a few moments later. (Salvador punishes unruly leeches by staking them and burying them in the caves under his manor for a few years or decades, until he decides they’ve learned their lesson.)

A leech is vastly stronger and tougher than a normal mortal, easily able to snap a grown man’s neck with their bare hands or flip a car in a fit of anger. They can extend lethal claws at will, and they have fangs that can bite through a tree branch. They’re supernaturally fast and agile, as quick as a jungle cat—and just as silent on the hunt. They can see in the dark, and they can track by smell.

Popular legend speaks of vampires being able to control minds, but leeches don’t have such abilities. They do possess a bizarre kind of charisma—an intensity that draws weak-willed souls to them and lets them dominate mortal predators with ease. Trained guard dogs slink away from leeches with their tails between their legs, while coyotes and wolves will obey them like faithful hounds.

Oh, and they can fly. Not very fast—about the equivalent of a slow walk, and no more than twenty or thirty feet off the ground—but they can definitely hover menacingly outside a second story window at night.

Salvador has a few unique powers of his own as well, which are discussed in his entry.

 

Vampire Weaknesses

It’s well known that vampires and sunlight don’t get along. For leeches, the sun is a painful inconvenience that can be blocked out with dark sunglasses, wide-brimmed hats, and heavy coats. For zombies, it’s outright deadly, with even a few seconds of direct exposure turning one into a tiki torch. Even Salvador prefers to walk at night and wears heavy shades on the few occasions he’s forced to be out and about by day.

Zombies get easily confused by natural running water, even if it’s only a few inches deep. They can also be turned back by prominently displayed religious symbols, regardless of the symbol’s origin. Most folk in Barrow County are Christians, but zombies are also repelled by the traditional dreamcatchers on Dusk Hills homes and the Star of David worn by its few Jewish residents. Leeches are only repulsed by active displays of strong faith, not simply inert objects, but they can’t set foot on consecrated ground.

Zombies have problems with mirrors—they have reflections, but seeing their own reflection tends to provoke intense confusion or insane rage. Leeches also have reflections, but those reflections don’t always behave right. Their reflections sometimes move on their own, or act out their inner thoughts, so leeches avoid mirrors in public whenever possible. A leech’s shadow is similarly unruly, though it’s harder to tell since they don’t often go about in bright light.

Fresh chicory, garlic, or wildflowers are repulsive to vampires of all kinds. Zombies won’t willingly go near them or enter a house where they’re hung at the entrances, while leeches struggle to contain their nausea at the smell. Preserved or cooked garlic don’t have a similar effect (Anna Karloff is particularly fond of Italian food).

Speaking of food, zombies can’t eat it. They have no interest in it—only in the hot blood and warm flesh of the living, devoured fresh. Leeches can eat and even seem to enjoy doing so, but they derive no nutrition from the act. A leech that eats three square meals a day still wastes away and starves if they don’t drink blood nightly.

Leeches have one additional weakness not possessed by zombies: they can’t enter a home uninvited. A “home” for this purpose is any permanent dwelling inhabited by living people, who must have slept a night in that dwelling sometime in the last season. A paid-off double-wide trailer counts as a home. Public businesses aren’t homes, but if the owner lives in a unit above their store, their apartment counts. “Invitations” have to be explicit to work. Holding the door open and standing aside doesn’t count but telling a leech “Why don’t you come in here and say that?” totally does.

Regions of Barrow County

Barrow County takes up around 900 square miles, being around 30 miles across and roughly circular. It is ringed on all sides by the Appalachian Mountains, with several small peaks within the bounds of the County itself. There are four incorporated townships in the County—Barrow, Hobb’s Corners, Dusk Hills, and Crescent—as well as over a dozen unincorporated hamlets and villages with less than a hundred people in each of them. Barrow County’s official population is around 20,000, but there hasn’t been a real census in decades.

Barrow County can be roughly divided into five areas—the regions around the four major townships, plus the uninhabited northern and eastern Low Woods. The basic character of these regions can be thought of as follows:

Barrow: Southeastern portion of the county. The county seat. Home of the sheriff’s department, the county clerk, and not much else. Lots of dying businesses and abandoned houses. The mayor is the popular Nicholas Calendar, but it’s well known that the Kingsley family basically runs Barrow.

Hobb’s Corners: Central part of the county. The most populous town in the county, with roughly half of Barrow County’s population living there. Slightly better off than Barrow, but still dying. Used to be a major coal town, now surviving on the bounty from the fishery and hydroelectric dam. Home to the Hobb family, town founders and vocal opponents of the Kingsleys.

Dusk Hills Reservation: Southwestern corner of the county. Home to the Dusk Hills band of Native Americans. The town of Dusk Hills is largely in ruins after a series of battles with a supremacist militia a generation ago. The major local industry is the casino, a caricature of Native American life owned and operated by Salvador Kingsley, forcing the locals to choose between starving or participating in their own oppression.

Crescent: The northwest part of the county. By far the wealthiest town in Barrow County, thanks to the Raven River Winery and the continuing prosperity of the local lumber mills. The Crescovich family owns the Crescent Mountain Lumber Company and has an uneasy relationship with both the Hobbs and the Kingsleys.

Low Woods: The eastern and northern portion of the county. Home only to a few lonely homesteads. Most of the Low Woods is part of a national nature preserve, making both logging and hunting illegal—though most people in Barrow wind up doing at least some of the latter, depending on the time of year. The northernmost part of the region is home to the Amber Caves National Park, a long-closed tourist attraction.

Barrow County: The Devil Salvador

 Did I mention this is straight up an Appalachian take on Curse of Strahd and Ravenloft? Because it's going to become very obvious with this post.

***

All of Barrow County revolves around the person of Salvador Kingsley in one way or another. Though he holds no office and rarely involves himself in the daily lives of the people of the area, no one can escape his influence. He originally came to Barrow County from Texas, the eldest scion of an oil family looking for new deposits to exploit. When his father died, he took his portion of the inheritance and went his own way, turning Barrow County into his own private fiefdom of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Salvador built a home in Barrow County, but he kept the locals at arm’s length. He thought of himself as better than the unwashed, uneducated, impoverished hillbillies who made up most of his workforce. He had spent his life building wealth for his family, never taking any time for a family of his own, so now he found himself vastly wealthy but also completely alone, save for his adopted brother and constant companion, Rand.

Looking to build a legacy and desperate for familiar company, Salvador invited his mother and his younger siblings, Sergio and Santiago, to come live with him. Santiago was busy with his own branch of the family business, but Sergio had always worshiped his older brother and jumped at the opportunity. Their mother passed away shortly after making the move, so Salvador was left with only Sergio for company.

The youngest Kingsley was twenty years Salvador’s junior, and his enthusiasm and joy brought new life to Salvador’s home. At the same time, Salvador found himself under intense pressure to live up to Sergio’s opinion of him as a man of learning, culture, and courage. Salvador was also put off by Sergio’s intense piety; Salvador himself had never seen religious faith as anything but a useful tool for networking. Salvador thought he would eventually be able to level the young man out with time and patience, but then Sergio met a girl.

Her name was Tanya, she was native to Barrow, and she was an orphaned high-school dropout who worked for the local diner and spent her spare time volunteering for the church. Salvador was instantly suspicious of the girl’s intentions, sure that she was a gold digger trying to entrap his naïve little brother, but every subtle hint or offer he made to her was either ignored or rebuffed. He considered himself an excellent judge of character, and he couldn’t find any motive in the girl besides genuine affection for Sergio.

The more time he spent trying to “unmask” Tanya, the more he became obsessed with her. She became the symbol of everything he had given up for his family, and he grew to resent Sergio more with every passing day for the young man’s spirit, his happiness, and most of all his youth. Salvador saw himself as an old man who had wasted his whole life in the pursuit of wealth that he would never get to enjoy, leaving the world with no legacy of his own. He wanted what Sergio had—and he began to contrive that he would take it for himself.

Salvador began to funnel his wealth into looking for a way to become young again, certain that Tanya would turn her eyes to him if only he was youthful and handsome. His enquiries brought him to the attention of a local cunning-woman named Miss Eva. She offered to put him on the path to eternal youth and immortality in exchange for his eternal favor for herself and her kin. He agreed without hesitation, and Miss Eva told him about a special cave deep in the Amber Caverns and the ritual he needed to wake up the thing that slept there.

Only Salvador can say for sure what happened in the Amber Caverns, but he was gone for long enough that people began to wonder if he was dead. When he finally returned, Sergio and Tanya rejoiced that he would be able to attend their wedding. Tanya even asked that Salvador be the one to give her away, since she didn’t have a father of her own for the honor. Salvador agreed, but secretly decided that the upcoming marriage would be for himself, not for his brother.

On the day of the marriage, storm clouds rolled in over Barrow County, and they’ve never completely cleared since then. No one who went up to Raven’s Lodge that day ever came back out again, except for Salvador himself and his brother Rand. When people talk about it at all, they say that Salvador made a deal with Old Scratch to sacrifice Sergio’s life for immortality. Some people in Barrow say that they saw a girl throw herself from the mountain that night, and they assume it was Tanya, who killed herself rather than marry her fiancé’s murderer.

Since then, Barrow County has been cut off from the outside world. Salvador Kingsley runs the area like his own private kingdom, paying people in scrip and buying up all the real money for himself. Supplies only come into Barrow County when Kingsley permits them, and manufactured goods are both rare and expensive. Kingsley himself is rarely seen outside of his crumbling manor, though his brother Rand maintains a more active presence in the county.

Regardless of the truth of his nature, Salvador Kingsley is a monster. He intentionally keeps Barrow County cut off from the outside world, running it like his a feudal domain. The law serves his needs rather than those of justice. He is capricious, cruel, and easily bored. If he has any virtue at all, it’s his old-school sense of honor—but that honor comes with a heaping helping of easily offended pride. Coming to Kingsley’s attention is one of the worst things that can happen to a person in Barrow County, so the locals avoid it whenever possible.

Unfortunately for them, outsiders are so rare—so interesting—that they won’t be able to help drawing his attention sooner or later. May God have mercy on them.

Barrow County, Appalachia

Nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, somewhere at the junction between West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, lies Barrow County. It is on no map of any of those three states, and its inhabitants variously claim to be citizens of any of them, or none of them at all. It hardly matters—Barrow County hasn’t had a representative of the federal government visit since the early ‘80s, nor any state-level involvement since well before that. Revenuers haven’t visited Barrow County since the heyday of Prohibition, when they learned well that government taxmen didn’t tend to come back alive.

Salvador Kingsley does not hold any official office in Barrow County, unlike his brother Rand, who has been sheriff for decades. Salvador—“Big Sal” when he’s not around, “Mister Kingsley” when people think he’s listening—is just a humble local businessman and landowner. That’s what he’d tell you, anyway. In truth, he owns a stake in just about everything worth anything in the county, from the now-defunct Amber Caves tourist attraction to the hardly-thriving storefronts on Main Street of Barrow township. His philanthropy keeps Ravencrest General Hospital open—and his unofficial “taxes” keep the whole county in poverty.

Kingsley lives in an opulent if somewhat rundown mansion up on Corbeau Peak, at the highest point overlooking Barrow township. His home—the grandiosely named “Raven’s Lodge”—looms over the town like a tombstone marking a grave. He keeps a small staff to attend his needs, many of whom choose to eventually move into the permanent servant’s quarters on the lodge’s grounds rather than commute up the peak every day for work. And if many of them are never seen by their families again during daylight hours, then what of it? They are kept busy by their employer from sunup to sundown, and the daylight hours are short in the hollers anyway.

Outsiders are rare in Barrow County. No interstate runs through it. It has no airports, no major waterways, and only one dilapidated bus stop with no regularly scheduled stops. Anyone from “outside” who shows up in Barrow is lost, one way or another. No one in the county owns a cell phone or has the internet—many of them have never even heard of the internet. Technology lags behind in Barrow County; the local video stores deal in video cassettes, and the local music stores in vinyl or audio cassettes.

There is a single gas station in Barrow township. The clerk, a wispy-bearded man named Seth, is on shift regardless of the time of day or night. The pumps have a sign noting that they are out of petrol and asking for their customers to be patient. The county has been on gas rationing since the ‘70s, with any imported diesel going right to the hospital for their lone ambulance or the school district for its only bus. Some enterprising locals have converted their old tractors and jalopies to run on ethanol, made from the local sickly strain of corn, which they moonshine in sheds hidden in the nearby woods. They always make sure to be back from the “shine sheds” before dark, though—the County isn’t safe after dark.

There are coyotes out in the woods, as well as bears. Some of the old timers claim that the government tried to reintroduce wolves back in the ‘60s, and many of them think that packs of the animals still roam the higher parts of the surrounding mountains. People also talk about darker things—hidebehinds, haints, and holler legends. No one laughs when someone claims to have seen the Mothman or mountain goblins—they just ask where to stay away from.

In spite of this, life continues on. Children are born and go to school at one of the three local elementary schools, before eventually consolidating into Barrow County Middle School and then Barrow County High School. Barrow County High’s basketball and football teams—the Fighting Ravens—are the pride of the town, despite not having made the state playoffs in living memory. Among the few outsiders locals ever see are visiting high school sports teams, playing against the Ravens on their home turf of Nesting Field, with special rancor reserved for the traditional rivals of the Ravens, the Raiders—whose lineup hasn’t seemed to change at all in a generation, and whose players always seem sallow-faced, hollow-eyed, and lifeless in their plays…

***

Welcome to Barrow County, a folk horror setting for Savage Worlds in the vein of East Texas University and Pinebox Middle School! I'll be posting more about the project over the coming weeks and months, so watch this space!

Ravenloft Reincarnated: The Amber Wastes Cluster Revised

I released the Amber Wastes Cluster for the original version of Ravenloft Reincarnated, so it was the first thing to get revised after the core rules. It's getting posted after Black Vault and Power of the Tarot because it's currently unformatted, in preparation for the Cluster Compendium, Volume I, which will include the Amber Wastes, the Frozen Reaches, the Shadowlands, and the Verdurous Lands. I won't be updating the master post until the Cluster Compendium is finished, so keep an eye out for that.

Cluster: The Amber Wastes (Revised)

Ravenloft Reincarnated: The Black Vault Revised

 Up today, the revised edition of The Black Vault for Ravenloft Reincarnated v3! This supplement is about magic items, artifacts, and cursed wonders!

THE BLACK VAULT

Ravenloft Reincarnated: Power of the Tarot Revised

 Today's update is for Ravenloft Reincarnated: Power of the Tarot for v3 of Ravenloft Reincarnated. I'll be posting up more revised and new material for the conversion over the coming weeks as well! Watch this space!

Power of the Tarot

Ravenloft Reincarnated v3

 This is the permanent page for my Savage Worlds fanwork, Ravenloft Reincarnated: The Savage World of Ravenloft. This page will be updated as new supplements are released (or old ones are revised), as well as those updates getting pages of their own. Cheers.

RAVENLOFT REINCARNATED: THE SAVAGE WORLD OF RAVENLOFT (v3)

 

Updated 9/8/2023

POWER OF THE TAROT

Updated 9/13/2023

THE BLACK VAULT 

Worlds of Fantasy: Chronicles of the Solar Empire

Did I never post about publishing a new product for Cortex Plus? Because that's totally a thing that happened. Have some text matter:

Chronicles of the Solar Empire brings players into a new world of fantasy for Cortex Plus Fantasy Heroic! This space opera setting blends fantasy and science-fiction to create a vivid world full of magitech, solar-powered ships, and mystical transhumans.

This is the first Worlds of Fantasy supplement for the Cortex Plus Fantasy Heroic system, and requires the use of the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide from Margaret Weis Productions.

Check it out, exclusively on DTRPG!

Heroes of Terra Player's Guide now available!

The Heroes of Terra Player's Guide (Rough Cut Edition) is now available on DriveThruRPG!

Welcome to Terra, a parallel world where magic lives and the dinosaurs never died out. Humans never evolved on Terra--instead, the world is dominated by floral life and saurians. Humans exist on Terra, however, drawn from the legendary world of Earth.

Heroes of Terra is a pulp-fantasy setting in the vein of classic sword-and-sorcery literature, with a world that pays homage to classic video games of the early 1980s. Think of it as "Conan the Barbarian," but the main character is a mustachioed Italian plumber instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Influences on the setting include Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Elric of Melniboné, Conan the Barbarian, John Carter of Mars, the Lankhmar novels, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Donkey Kong Country, and more, all thrown into a blender on high speed.

Jump higher, grow huge, and break open chests filled with gold coins and flowers that give you magic powers. Summon up your power, gather your wisdom, and find your courage. Terra needs heroes!

This player's guide is intended to serve as an introduction to the world of Heroes of Terra, an exciting new campaign setting for Savage Worlds. The art and layout in this guide are considered to be in "rough cut" format, a preview stage before the game goes to Kickstarter in winter 2015/2016. The final version of the Player's Guide will be made available for free to all customers who purchased the rough cut after it is finished.

And keep an eye out for the full setting book when it goes to Kickstarter, Heroes of Terra: The Mushroom War!

Heroes of Terra

A number of years ago, I got turned on to the idea of a pulp action-adventure setting based on the Mario Brothers games. This idea was so pervasive that I started running it at conventions with Savage Worlds, under the title "Warriors of the Mushroom Kingdom." In time, this turned into a setting idea called "Warriors of the Mandragora Kingdom," which in turn became "Heroes of Terra" as the idea grew beyond Mario Brothers and into a wide world of Nintendo-themed pulp weirdness.

At long last, I can share that work with the world. Here, for the first time ever, is the wide-scale release of Heroes of Terra, the first book about the strange parallel world that exists alongside Earth. This book focuses on the continent of Lemuria, where the Mandragora Kingdom is locked in war with the Dragon Empire. Coming next is a plot point campaign, titled "Our Princess is in Another Castle," in which a mixed group of Terrans and Earthers work to rescue the Peach Princess, heiress to the Mandrake Throne. Eventually, I plan on doing supplements for the continents of Mu and Hyborea, but right now I'm focusing on getting the plot point campaign ready.

I've been running games in this setting at conventions for nearly five years now, so it seems strange to be sharing the setting with the wider world. Still, I can only hope that you all enjoy it.

As some notes: I did all the writing, editing, and layout work myself. The art is scavenged and found from various places on the web, so if anyone can tell me who the original artists are so that I can get their permission or at least credit them, I would appreciate it. If anyone wants to contribute art for a v2 release, I can offer only my gratitude. Goodness knows, I'd like to include art for each of the races and monsters, at least.

Edit (08/10/2015): In the time since I originally published this little fan-made setting, it got so much positive response that I petitioned Pinnacle for the license to make it into an official one. They approved! Heroes of Terra is now an officially licensed Savage Worlds product, available on DriveThruRPG! Thanks to everyone who made this possible! And watch for the full version of the main setting book, Heroes of Terra: The Mushroom War, coming later this year to Kickstarter!

Blood and Diesel: The Diesel Engine

How much do you know about diesel engines? I didn't know much at all before the research for this bit. XD


BLOOD AND DIESEL: THE DIESEL ENGINE


The first successful diesel engine was operated in 1897 by Rudolf Diesel, a German born to an expatriate family living in Paris. The “City of Lights” sparked the young Diesel’s imagination and his abilities as an engineer made him lauded by the intelligentsia of the continent.

Perhaps the most notable fact about Rudolf Diesel other than his self-named invention is that he was a dedicated social reformer. Having spent his life surrounded by the results of the “steam revolution,” Diesel also saw the damage done to individuals, families, and nature itself by the coal-burning steam piston engine. Steam engines were loud, dirty, heavy, and dangerous; the combination of heat and pressure made them liable to explode, and the exposed pistons—necessary for maintenance—made them quite capable of ripping off fingers or even limbs. He also viewed the industrial revolution as the end of individual effort, a time in which the work of geniuses was going to be subsumed into the vast emptiness of mass production.

Rudolf Diesel envisioned a safer engine, working at a lower temperature with a better thermal efficiency and less need for either open flame or gouts of boiling water. The diesel engine creates its initial thermal reaction by compressing the fuel until ignition occurs. At the end of the great industrial revolution, efficiency was everything; while few people cared about Diesel’s politics, the fact that he had made an engine with significantly greater efficiency at far lower cost.

The only hitch was the fuel source. Diesel experimented with coal dust, whale oil, and vegetable oils as fuel, but he was convinced that a better source existed. By the time of the 1911 International Hygiene Exhibition in Dresden, he had found it in the form of distilled petroleum. The direct distillation, which he called simply “diesel fuel,” had a few issues, including turning into nonfunctional gel at temperatures below freezing, but the fair-runners were so impressed that dozens of nations were soon ordering diesel engines for their ships, airships, trains, and automobiles. Indeed, the diesel engine may well have made the widespread adoption of the automobile possible at all.

Rudolf did not live long enough to enjoy his success, unfortunately. Only two years after the “diesel revolution,” he was on a cruise in the Atlantic and disappeared from his ship. Ten days later, his body was recovered from the ocean, identifiable only from his personal effects. Though the death was ruled a suicide, more than a few suspected that the good professor might object to some of the uses that European powers were planning on for his wondrous device. Less than a year after Diesel’s mysterious death, the Central Powers rolled out their new war machine on the world—and at the heart of that war machine were diesel-powered tanks, diesel-powered zeppelins, and diesel-powered warstriders.

The horrors of the Great War were made significantly more far-reaching by the addition of the powerful diesel engine. When the war ended in 1918, few nations looked forward to the possibility of another one. Unfortunately, the shift to petroleum as the staple fuel diminished the worldwide reliance on coal and instead made resource-hungry nations seek out more sources of readily-available oil. The Middle Eastern nations have grown wealthy from the trade in “black gold,” though many have become little more than puppets for Western powers.

Whether for good or ill, the modern world could not exist without the Diesel Engine.

Blood and Diesel

Better late than never... =3


BLOOD AND DIESEL: INTRO

It is an age of vastness.

This is the age of the zeppelin, the ocean-liner, the continental railway, and the skyscraper. It is the age of multinational corporations, mass political movements, and wars that span the world. Man is dwarfed by his creations, and the once-solid things of daily life are subsumed into abstractions.

The year is 1939, but not the one that you know.

It has been over two decades since the devastating end of the Great War. An entire generation was lost to tanks, machine-guns, poison gas, warstriders, bombs, and flame-projectors. In Europe, in Asia, in Africa, the war raged. Only the Americas were left untouched by battle, though it still cost the young nation many tens of thousands of lives. Germany and its Central Powers were crushed beneath the weight of debt and remuneration, while a new era of peace and prosperity was supposed to dawn for the Allied Powers.

The expected peace came at a high price, and the prosperity it bought was limited at best. Weary from war and battle, nations turned their eyes inward and devoted their resources to self-improvement. These selfish impulses ultimately led to the Great Collapse of 1929, when the world’s economy—as delicately linked as its political alliances, but not as obviously—came crashing down. Millions are unemployed worldwide, whole nations are impoverished, and radical political elements are gaining greater traction among the disaffected populace.

Nature itself rebels against the wounded nation—in the American West, over-farming and high-industry radium growth techniques have stripped the soil from the ground and sent it flying into the atmosphere. Terrible radioactive dust storms sweep the Midwest, driving towns and communities before it to avoid the killing winds, the cancer-ridden dirt, and the monsters that rise up from the few survivors of the storms. Diesel trucks have become the lifeblood of the refugees, moving from camp to camp and town to town, looking for whatever work they can find.

Life in the big cities has become an urban hell, where the strong and the rich prey on the weak and the poor. The elite live in buildings that reach up to scrape the sky, while the poor live in overcrowded, crumbling tenements within a stone’s throw of brass-gilded zeppelin stations and moving-picture theaters. Gangs begin to fill the poverty-stricken neighborhoods, looking to find ways to survive cheek-and-jowl with real bad guys: bootleggers, white slavers, bank robbers, and the leg-breakers of organized crime.

For a decade, the world’s people have languished in poverty while their governments increasingly stockpile weapons for a great second world war that may never come. Though the German sabers have rattled menacingly since the ascension of the People’s Socialist Party in 1933, the “Nazis” have yet to expand beyond their borders—though those borders are now far more secure than any time in the last thirty years. Germany has made prosperity its watchword as it rebuilds its cities, invites in wealthy foreign tourists… and quietly “cleanses” the country of its “impure elements.”

This is a world where the zeppelin is the king of the air, the train rules the long, empty spaces between the American coasts, and the diesel engine rules the road. Atomic power has been harnessed but promises only mutually assured destruction. The promises of science have turned to ashes in the mouths of those that spoke them, and the price of freedom may wind up being too high for any nation to pay.

This is the world of Blood and Diesel, an alternate-history dieselpunk game.

Edition War II

Meant to post about this yesterday, but was so worried about beginning-of-school stuff that I didn't get a chance.

D&D 5th Edition has been announced, and right on time from my predictions a few years back. When I was playtesting D&D 4th Edition a few years ago (no, really! look in your book! I'm in it!), my group told the designers that there were significant holes in the system, that the fluff and flavor didn't feel like D&D anymore, that it did too much to throw away the legacy of the game, and that once they started adding new mechanical options it was going to be tough to continue balancing the game--and tougher to make those options distinct. Now, we're getting word from the new design team that all of those concerns, which were basically ignored at the time, were all pretty much right on the money and are driving concerns behind the creation of the 5th Edition game. Oh, and of course that they're kind of getting murdered in market share by Pathfinder.

Monte Cook and Mike Mearls are both working on it, so it's bound to be awesome. The game might well turn out to be the best version of D&D ever. The problem is that it will also probably have all of the same problems with the economic end of things that 4th Edition has: Wizards going for a quick buck instead of the long haul. Making money now instead of building the fanbase and enjoying their loyalty is very much the Wizards of the Coast way of dealing with the game, and the biggest part of their profit motive is based around short-term hobby gamers instead of lifestyle gamers.

Paizo, on the other hand, has taken their magazine subscription model and turned it into a very strong way of doing business as a gaming company. While Wizards is talking about an "open playtest"--which was one of the big draws of Pathfinder--that alone won't nearly be enough. They're going to alienate their 4th Edition fanbase without necessarily regaining the trust of the people they abandoned when they moved away from 3.X Edition. Their quick-money, quick-turnover way of doing business doesn't win them any points for customer loyalty, and Paizo has very much cornered the market in "customer loyalty" right now, so I wonder how Edition War II is going to pan out.

Meanwhile, Savage Worlds continues to chug along merrily, wondering why everyone over in Otherplacia is fighting amongst themselves. ;-)

Scavengers in the Urban Wasteland

In the campaign setting I'm proposing, the collapse is only a short time in the past (or still ongoing, depending on when your personal campaign begins), so scavenging through ruins for food and other basic supplies is a viable survival strategy.

A character can choose to dedicate a day to scavenging and make a Survival roll. This roll can only be made in an urban area. On a success, the character draws a card to determine what useful goods he has discovered. The GM then draws a second card to see if the hero has suffered a random encounter; on a clubs card, a random encounter occurs.

Suit Scavenged Goods
Clubs Medicine
Diamonds Components
Hearts Food
Spades Weapons or ammo
Joker Cache (see below)

Card Quantity
2 1 unit or broken archaic weapon
3-6 2 units or damaged archaic weapon
7-10 3 units or intact archaic weapon
J 5 units or broken firearm
Q 5 units or damaged firearm
K 5 units or intact firearm
A 10 units or intact firearm with full ammo
Joker Cache

Caches: A cache is a veritable goldmine of useful objects, food, and ammo. Such hoards hold 2d6+10 units of one resource, plus 1d6 of another; for weapons, the hoard contains 1d6 intact firearms and 2d6+10 units of ammo. Unfortunately, such caches tend to be swarmed, guarded, or both. For the second card after a Joker, any card is a random encounter except for another Joker. A two-Joker draw is an unguarded cache. Time to celebrate! If the second card is clubs, then the GM either doubles the numbers in a random encounter or takes two different random encounters and adds them together.

In the wilderness, a character can still use the Survival skill to find food for himself and his companions (as per the Survival skill description), but he must still draw a card to determine if he suffers an encounter.

Building Weapons: A character can build a new archaic weapon out of mechanical components. For an archaic weapon, the number of components needed is equal to half the maximum damage of the weapon. (So, a sword that does d8 damage requires 4 mechanical components to build.) Building a new firearm takes a similar number of mechanical components, plus half as many chemical components. (So, a firearm dealing 2d6 damage requires 6 mechanical components and 3 chemical components.) Building a new weapon requires twice as many hours as the weapon’s damage die. (So, 4d6 hours of work for a 2d6 damage firearm.)

Building Explosives: An explosive requires half as many chemical components as its damage dice, plus 1 mechanical component per die. (So, a Molotov cocktail inflicting 1d6 damage requires 3 chemical components and 1 mechanical component, while a 3d6 damage grenade requires 9 chemical components and 3 mechanical components.)

Generators: A survivor enclave’s greatest prize is often its electrical generator. Keeping it active is a daily chore, though. For every 10 survivors in an enclave, a generator requires 1 chemical component per day to keep it running. Keeping the generator in good working order also requires 1 electronic component and 1 mechanical component per week of operation. The generator will not work at all without chemical components. Each week without electrical or mechanical components requires a Repair check at –1 for each missing component type, and a cumulative –1 for each week of jury-rigged operation. A failed check results in an inoperative generator; it can be repaired with tools, a workshop, and 2d6 hours of work, as well as 2d6 electrical components and 2d6 mechanical components.

Tools and Workshops: Repairing an object requires tools, while building a new one requires tools and a workshop. Improvised tools impose a –2 penalty on Repair checks, which is cumulative with a –2 penalty for an improvised workshop.


Weapon Breakage

A common problem in the zombie apocalypse genre is that a hero’s weapons suffer damage with use and need to be repaired or replaced. In this campaign setting, if a hero rolls snake eyes (a critical failure) on an attack roll with a weapon, it becomes damaged (in addition to any other consequences); rolling a 1 on the skill die (regardless of the Wild Die) makes a damaged weapon broken. A damaged weapon suffers –2 on attack rolls with the weapon, while a broken weapon cannot be used effectively until repaired or replaced.

Fixing a damaged weapon requires a Repair roll and 1d6 hours of work, in addition to the components needed (see above). A raise on the Repair roll halves the number of needed components (minimum 1). Fixing a broken weapon doubles amount of time needed for the job and increases the number of necessary components by 1. A survivor can choose to break down a broken weapon for parts rather than repairing it. A successful Repair roll turns a broken weapon into 1 component of the appropriate type.


More to come!

A Double Helping of BRAINS

Hey! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there in the blogosphere. Now that I'm back from my short vacation, here are some more rules and things to get you through the zombie apocalypse.


Consumables

Heroes in zombie apocalypse stories are largely motivated by the need to replenish their supplies and stay one step ahead of the walking dead. Because of this, heroes are required to keep careful track of food, medicine, repair parts, and ammunition; to keep the hassle to a minimum, all such consumables are broken into abstract units.

Ammunition: While it is important for heroes to keep track of their ammo, the process of holding on to it is abstracted for a Dead Reign campaign. Ammunition is found in “units”; one unit of ammo is equal to 10 small bullets, 5 medium bullets, or 1 large bullet, decided by the survivor when he receives the ammo unit. The GM can instead give specific kinds of ammunition to heroes, but when found as units, the player characters get to choose.

Components: Weapons and gear break down all the time, but under normal conditions a character could just go to the store and buy parts or even a new gadget. In the harsh landscape of the zombie apocalypse, such objects are few and far between. Repair components are needed for every use of the Repair skill, such as fixing a damaged or broken weapon, building a new weapon out of spare parts, or cobbling together a useful item. Components are divided up into mechanical components, electronic components, and chemical components. See the scavenging rules for more about what a survivor can do with various kinds of components.

Food: Each character consumes 1 unit of food per day to operate as normal. A survivor can go on short rations, requiring only half a unit of food each day. A character on short rations must make a Vigor roll each day. Failure means the character gains a Fatigue level. Not eating at all forces a character to make a Vigor roll at –2 for every 12 hours without food after the first day (see the core book rules on Hunger). Survival rolls made to find food and water require a card draw (see below, under Scavenging).

Medicine: Each use of the Healing skill requires 1 unit of medicine. Not using any medicine units imposes a –2 penalty on the Healing roll. A character that is undergoing natural healing also uses 1 unit of medicine each week while recovering. Not being given any medicine during this time imposes a –2 penalty on the natural healing roll. Being given 2 units of medicine counts as +1 medical attention, while 3 units counts as +2 medical attention.


Now I know what you're thinking. Units? Consumables? How do I get some of those? Well, in the next installment I'll give you the skinny on scavenging through the ruins of the post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland. Stay tuned!

Zombies!!!

To continue with the previous post's theme, here are some zombie stats! The common zombie is a little changed from the core rulebook one, and some of the others are based on the stats I did for my adventure "Playground of the Damned." A few you might recognize from some popular four-player zombie video games of late. Are there any more that you would like to see come your way?



Zombie, Common
Sometimes called “shamblers” or “walkers,” these are the most typical undead fiends encountered by survivors. They hunger for the flesh of the living, but they aren’t particularly quick. The greatest advantage possessed by the living over these relentless monsters is their base stupidity—common zombies are less intelligent than animals and are easily distracted.

Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d4, Notice d4, Shooting d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 7

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Variant—Smart Zombie: Even zombies that have retained some basic cognition aren’t very bright—but they’re bright enough to open doors, go around barricades, and use simple tools. A few even seem to be able to understand simple words, though not to speak. A smart zombie has Smarts d4 and Shooting d4.


Zombie, Quick
No one knows why some zombies reanimate with greater speed and agility than others. Such creatures are far more lethal than their slow cousins, especially considering that it is virtually impossible to tell them apart before they start running. They also demonstrate some greater amount of cunning, roughly equal to that of a smart dog.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d4, Shooting d4
Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 7

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.

Variant—Fast Zombie: Some zombies aren’t just quick—they’re downright fast. These zombies have a running die of d10 and discard initiative cards of 5 or lower.


Zombie, Child
Children succumbed to the zombie plague in droves in its early days when it was airborne, though few children survive an attack intact enough to rise again. Those that do are a source of terrible despair to survivors.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d4, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 6

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Size –1: Child zombies are smaller than common zombies.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.


Zombie, Tough
Sometimes called “thugs” or “heavies” by survivors, these zombies have experienced a dramatic increase in muscle density from the zombie plague. They experience a sudden upswing in body mass and often literally rip their clothes from the size increase. Just as slow as common zombies, they seem to have a far more vicious demeanor. Survivors have reported behavior from these creatures that might be considered vindictive or even vengeful.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d10, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d6, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 6; Toughness: 9

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Powerful Blows: A tough zombie’s attacks are so strong that a survivor is likely to be knocked off his feet by them. After being Shaken or Wounded by a tough zombie’s slam attack, a survivor must attempt a Strength check or be knocked prone.
• Size +1: Tough zombies are somewhat larger than common zombies, roughly on the upper end of human normal.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.


Zombie, Belcher
These hideous monstrosities are so mutated and deformed that they barely look human anymore. Some are horribly bloated, while others have distended or entirely missing lower jaws. These adaptations serve to allow the zombie to project its stomach juices—a vile combination of decomposed tissue, strong acids, and flesh-eating bacteria—long distances at their prey. Survivors sometimes call these wretches “spitters” or “pukers.”

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d6, Shooting d6
Pace: 5; Parry: 5; Toughness: 8

Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Vomit: Belchers have a special ability to project a stream of vomit at their targets. This stinking, caustic fluid clings to human flesh and burns like acid. This acts as a Shooting attack with a range of 5/10/15. On a successful hit, the vomit deals 2d6 damage. After using this attack, a belcher makes a Vigor check at the beginning of its turn; until it succeeds, it cannot use this attack again. A creature that suffers any damage from a vomit attack grants zombies a +2 to Notice checks made against him until he spends an hour cleaning off.
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Variant—Mighty Belcher: Some belchers put out truly copious amounts of vomit. Instead of a single-target Shooting attack, such variant belchers emit a Cone Template of vomit. Creatures in the cone must attempt an Agility roll to avoid the damage.

Variant—Exploding Belcher: A few rare belchers are so swollen with the vomit they hold that they literally burst like a tick upon being killed. These belchers gain a +2 bonus to Vigor checks made to recover their vomit ability, as well as +1 Toughness and –1 Pace from their obesity. When an exploding belcher is killed, anyone adjacent to it suffers 2d6 damage; anyone further away than that but within a Medium Burst Template can attempt an Agility roll to avoid the damage.


Zombie, Fury (Wild Card)
Resembling gaunt men or women dressed in the rags of their former clothes, these viciously clawed zombies are another form of horrible mutation brought on by the zombie plague. Unlike common zombies, who emit a low moan when attacking prey, these zombies actually shriek loudly enough to be heard nearly a mile off. Their sudden attack often catches survivors completely off-guard—to their sorrow. The one advantage survivors have against furies is that they’re not very attentive; they often totally ignore the living unless someone walks right on top of them.

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d6, Strength d8, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d8, Stealth d6
Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 8

Special Abilities:
• Claws: Str+d4. Furies do not bite on a raise, so they do not risk transmitting zombie plague.
• Fear: When a fury attacks, those witnessing the brutality of the attack must make Fear checks.
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Frenzy: A fury can attack twice with its claws in one round.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.