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View Full Version : cosmic horror disguised as zombie horror.



Shinizak
2011-06-15, 05:02 PM
I'm thinking about running a game in which the word has begun to end due to a cosmic horror that's literally punching it's way into our universe. however it won't be apparent that that's going on, instead the players will think that there is a zombie out break until more and more strange things begin to occur. I want a huge focus on the zombies until later. How do you think I should start a game like this and do you have any adventure ideas for a zombie horror game?

tl;dr want to run a cosmic horror story disguised as a zombie horror, what should I do with it?

comicshorse
2011-06-15, 06:05 PM
you might want to correct the title first, that gives the idea of a whole different type of game

lyko555
2011-06-15, 09:15 PM
I actually did a campaign based off this the zombies were made by a Special zombie maker type zombie. They were controlled by a secret society of mages that were trying to amass a huge plane wide army of undead in order to combat the cosmic horror. the characters started out as lvl 0 peasants stuck in a small town at the onset of the zombie apoc.

Talakeal
2011-06-15, 09:42 PM
I once started a game where the zombie outbreak was a precursor to an alien invasion. The aliens, who were physically superior to humans, had little to fear from zombies, but didn't want to face humans that could actually bring to bear technology that could hurt them.
I had a cool campaign planned out around it in a similar style to what you are describing.

Of course, after the first session my players said "hell no we aren't here to play Resident Evil!" and quit the game at the first sign of zombies. I never understand why, but that is their reaction to zombies no matter what genre or system we are playing, even if they are just a random encounter in D&D.

Kuma Kode
2011-06-16, 12:34 AM
Shadow Theory (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147142) combines elements of cosmic horror and zombie horror, and you can tweak it to make it how you'd like it. The zombies are different enough from typical zombie movies and games to avoid too many jokes and references.

Check it out, you might be able to use something from it.

It's for d20 Modern, by the way.

Amiel
2011-06-16, 12:39 AM
Initiate a template that replaces the heads of zombies with wriggling polypoid masses and fetid tendrils.

Jude_H
2011-06-16, 12:41 AM
I once started a game where the zombie outbreak was a precursor to an alien invasion. The aliens, who were physically superior to humans, had little to fear from zombies, but didn't want to face humans that could actually bring to bear technology that could hurt them.
Why do I get the feeling the aliens went through approximately 8 plans before settling on that one?

Amiel
2011-06-16, 12:46 AM
You may like the following, Shinizak.

You Are Survivor
The world has been irrevocably scarred by the aftermath of a great war. A plague, seemingly supernatural in origin, has been unleashed as an ill conceived scheme to unification. Powered by the sacrificed lives of a thousand epic mages, this sanguineous whirlwind has devastated the Illumined City, once a centre of thought, knowledge and balance (equity of power, equity of money, equality of gender, equality of race et al).

This infection, believed by many to be none other than the perfidious work of a deity of disease and mayhem (or is it?) is overwhelming in its ease of spread and devastating in its symptoms.

All touched by it erupt in ponderous explosions of blood, showering all within its radius with tainted, vile disease; causing many more to be infected, to be touched by its bloody hand.

These are the lucky ones; for others, they survive the initial onslaught only to "awaken" as seemingly mindless, brutally savage inhumans; super zombies. These massacre what little surviving residents remain and gouge themselves upon living and dead alike; propagating, multiplying. In doing so, destroying countless powerful magic items.

In little time, Illuminous becomes a wasteland of mortar and wood, a sad silent plea to what once was. Its very buildings, once heralded as innovative ahead of its time are decayed and crumbling. Its very streets are strewn with debris and the castoff seeds of ruined plants.

You have somehow managed to survive; be it from a lost magic item, your own immunity, or some other reason, you are perhaps the only godforsaken survivor.

You need to eke out a living, or whatever remains as a semblance of one. Yet you must always be mindful of the time of day; with the setting sun comes the threat of attack and multitudinous hordes. Even though you cannot be infected, you can still die.

What will you do? You are a mid-level D&D character, unoptimised with generic items.

You need to find food, and must search through every residence and building to find any item that may be beneficial to you. Occasionally, you will find that you need to venture into darkened tenements or blackened warehouses to uncover useful objects.

The creatures are only harmed by direct sunlight; no artificial light sources can harm them, even magically created ones.

You have your own dwelling and must quickly return to it every sunset, though the distance covered in your search and wanderings may be considerable; you cannot remain outside very long at all.

There may be an animal companion accompanying you, but inevitably it will become infected and you may need to put it down. Are you able to do this? Or will you simply abandon it? Or something other?

The seemingly mindless super zombies occasionally build traps to ensnare prey. You happen to be tricked into one of them, cracking your head and going unconscious. You awaken to find it is near night, and you are still hanging suspended upon a simple rope. What will you do? How will you evade and flee the horde to shelter once again in your sanctum?

Will you try to trap the super zombies in a bid to find a cure and thus restore society? Or will you remain a bastion of depression and loneliness?

How will you deal with your depression or the crushing despair? There is no one to converse with, no gods to commune.

The_Admiral
2011-06-16, 01:59 AM
You may like the following, Shinizak.

You Are Survivor
The world has been irrevocably scarred by the aftermath of a great war. A plague, seemingly supernatural in origin, has been unleashed as an ill conceived scheme to unification. Powered by the sacrificed lives of a thousand epic mages, this sanguineous whirlwind has devastated the Illumined City, once a centre of thought, knowledge and balance (equity of power, equity of money, equality of gender, equality of race et al).

This infection, believed by many to be none other than the perfidious work of a deity of disease and mayhem (or is it?) is overwhelming in its ease of spread and devastating in its symptoms.

All touched by it erupt in ponderous explosions of blood, showering all within its radius with tainted, vile disease; causing many more to be infected, to be touched by its bloody hand.

These are the lucky ones; for others, they survive the initial onslaught only to "awaken" as seemingly mindless, brutally savage inhumans; super zombies. These massacre what little surviving residents remain and gouge themselves upon living and dead alike; propagating, multiplying. In doing so, destroying countless powerful magic items.

In little time, Illuminous becomes a wasteland of mortar and wood, a sad silent plea to what once was. Its very buildings, once heralded as innovative ahead of its time are decayed and crumbling. Its very streets are strewn with debris and the castoff seeds of ruined plants.

You have somehow managed to survive; be it from a lost magic item, your own immunity, or some other reason, you are perhaps the only godforsaken survivor.

You need to eke out a living, or whatever remains as a semblance of one. Yet you must always be mindful of the time of day; with the setting sun comes the threat of attack and multitudinous hordes. Even though you cannot be infected, you can still die.

What will you do? You are a mid-level D&D character, unoptimised with generic items.

You need to find food, and must search through every residence and building to find any item that may be beneficial to you. Occasionally, you will find that you need to venture into darkened tenements or blackened warehouses to uncover useful objects.

The creatures are only harmed by direct sunlight; no artificial light sources can harm them, even magically created ones.

You have your own dwelling and must quickly return to it every sunset, though the distance covered in your search and wanderings may be considerable; you cannot remain outside very long at all.

There may be an animal companion accompanying you, but inevitably it will become infected and you may need to put it down. Are you able to do this? Or will you simply abandon it? Or something other?

The seemingly mindless super zombies occasionally build traps to ensnare prey. You happen to be tricked into one of them, cracking your head and going unconscious. You awaken to find it is near night, and you are still hanging suspended upon a simple rope. What will you do? How will you evade and flee the horde to shelter once again in your sanctum?

Will you try to trap the super zombies in a bid to find a cure and thus restore society? Or will you remain a bastion of depression and loneliness?

How will you deal with your depression or the crushing despair? There is no one to converse with, no gods to commune.

This is from I am Legend

Amiel
2011-06-16, 02:17 AM
Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Inspired by I Am Legend, no more.

CodeRed
2011-06-16, 03:36 AM
Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Inspired by I Am Legend, no more.

Inspiration exists. This, however, beyond the actual source of the disease, is just crib-noting scenes from the far inferior movie. The movie, in the theatrical cut, makes no damn sense. The short story it is based on however is quite good. Godforsaken survivor/survivors is a great way to start a campaign that is gritty and intends to have a high death count.

Amiel
2011-06-16, 03:51 AM
Then get rid of the animal companion; unless of course you happen to be nature-inclined character.

Also, if fashioning the mood of the campaign permits, have it so that the adventurers don't need to seek shelter at night and do not have individual dwellings.

NoldorForce
2011-06-16, 10:05 AM
Sounds like something Glaaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaaki) would do.

Talakeal
2011-06-16, 04:09 PM
Why do I get the feeling the aliens went through approximately 8 plans before settling on that one?

Never seen that movie, although from what I have seen I guess that is what it was about. If anything my inspiration was the arcade game Area 51.

joe
2011-06-16, 06:58 PM
I remember helping a friend set up a campaign that ran similar to this.

It took place in a future setting, where an asteroid crashed into a metropolis and anyone killed from the asteroid came up as zombies and attacked random people in the area.

The metropolis was divided into sectors and after the zombie outbreak, sector 3 was quarantined. The players were all either soldiers sent in to contain the outbreak or survivors stuck in the sector.

Eventually it was going to be revealed that the asteroid was actually a spaceship of aliens (similar to mind flayers) who were engaged in a cult worshiping some lovecraftian horror (they landed the ship there specifically to get into proximity to awaken said monster.)

Unfortunately the campaign never really took off after the first session, so we never got to see how it would play out.

Mastikator
2011-06-17, 05:20 AM
Not to be a nitpick, but if it's trying to push itself into our reality then it's not cosmic, it's transcendent, or extraplanar/extradimensional.

Sounds like some kind of evil god from an other dimension.

Maybe it's a god of death, and it can only manifest via zombies.

Toofey
2011-06-17, 07:38 AM
Why do I get the feeling the aliens went through approximately 8 plans before settling on that one?

And why does he keep covering his face like that?

Analytica
2011-06-17, 11:09 AM
A cosmic angle on a zombie story is interesting.

This book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handling_the_Undead) does something like it.

Consider, for instance, that the realms of death are broken or closed off. The goddess of death has died. The souls of those who die can go nowhere, so they remain in the rotting corpses. This drives them slowly insane, unless they eat the flesh of those who still live. Some of them remember, some speak, and so forth. Moreover, if destroyed, the parts soon reanimate separately, unless burned.

Everything that dies becomes undead, including animals, plants, microorganisms. Soon nothing can grow in the soil, all the undead things attack all the living things. Dead fields with weeds striking to draw blood. Dead forests with writhing branches on the trees. Dead seas with plancton oozes devouring flesh. Maybe fetuses dying in the womb, then beginning to gnaw from the inside?

Some survivors exist, gathered together by a charismatic mage. This person, however, turns out to have a horrible secret - they are dead, and retain their sentience and seeming vitality only by eating the living when no-one sees. It's all to be able to last a little longer, to perhaps turn the tide. Really.

Or perhaps that is what happens to the PCs? One of them, or all of them, but none knows that any of the others are hiding something like this either.

Can this be fixed? Burn all the world and kill everything? Freeze everything down? Make a new goddess of death, or ressurrect the old one?

EDIT: Also, the Elder Evils book is your friend. I think one of the campaign ideas does this.

randomhero00
2011-06-17, 11:51 AM
I actually played in a campaign just like this. Meteors hit the planet and suddenly undead showed up. For quite awhile we thought the meteors held a magical virus or something, and we were tricked into thinking it was a zombie apocalypse.

Turns out they were some kind of alien/cosmic horror breeding force, or whatever those things are from an alien universe. The zombies are normal at first, but eventually they hatch, and become much stronger. The meteors were actually giant eggs that controlled the hive mind which we had to destroy to "win" (in quotes because the world was pretty much dead by then).