Zombies are huge in popular culture these days. The genre of zombie movies has experienced a popular reemergence and the familiar brain eating bad guys appear more in video games, comic books, and table top RPGs than they ever have before. When planning a session for my Urban Arcana game I decided to use zombies for an important story encounter. The problem was that CR 1/2 and CR 1 zombies are largely a joke to a party of level 6 D20 Modern characters.
What do we want? BRAINS! when do we want it? BRAINS!
I didn’t want to find another monster entry and call it a zombie, nor was I particularly keen on the idea of scaling up and reworking the stats of the base zombies. The question then became “how do I incorporate zombies into the encounter without them getting steamrolled or being forced to include ludicrous numbers of zombies in each combat?” As I pondered this quandary I came to a realization about zombies and their mythos in modern pop culture.
Zombies can be fast or slow, they can eat flesh or brains or both, they tend to be undead but can also be infected with viruses. Indeed the explanations and forms of zombies seem to be limitless. However, very few people if anyone at all focus on the original form of zombies. In Voodoon folklore a zombie is created using a special powder rumored to be made from the toxin of a blowfish. This powder, once inhaled, puts the victim into a death-like trance from which they usually emerge with jerky movements, impaired speech, and a sickly appearance. It is the use of this agent and the legends of the zombies it created that spawned the zombiepocolypse folklore more common in the United States.
I decided to take this more traditional idea and run with it. Using the zombie powder enabled me to make the encounters much more difficult without ever having to adjust the CRs. How, do you ask? The zombies never cease to be living people when they are under the affects of zombie powder, therefore my party of government agents, police, and well intentioned citizens could hardly wade through the crowd with reckless abandon. While seeking the maestro controlling the zombies, they fought with the flats of their swords and the butts of their guns, strategically retreating and moving while being chased by supernaturally strong zombie powder factories.
While this may seem to be a very small adjustment which I have made, I wanted to share this with our readers to remind you to shop around, do some research, and you might just be surprised by what you dig up which can completely change the nature of certain monsters or at least offer a unique veneer or appearance to a tried and true bad guy.
-Gestalt Gamer (Dan)
I was justwanting to get the zombie picture as a tattoo…I am not running a shop, and the design will not be posted anywhere. Please email me soon in response. Thankyou!
[...] Black Magic Zombies from More Than Dice (morethandice.com) [...]
[...] [original photo] [...]
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Realy cool zombie artwork!
May I have permission to use this zombie art in a blog post? Email or comment back here, thanks!
I agree with the other comments, the picture is epic. It took me quite a while to find a decent zombie pic and i have to say that is by far the best
And i definantly see what your saying about the defintion of ‘zombie’ loosing its meaning over the years. It was originally defined as the dead coming back to life, like crawling out of their graves. And now its mostly because of a worldwide infection or something.
I am wishing to use this graphic for an engraving on a firearm. Could you please let me know if I may use it for engraving purposes. I appreciate your time. Sounds like you have found and created a fantastic piece of art
Thanks