Dumping this here, because General wasn't the right place for it.
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Authored by TomeBinder
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The Dead are risisng. The government has fallen, society has broken down and the military is nowhere to be seen.TL;DR Summary:
- Zombie-apocalyptic based RP.
- I tell the story, your characters respond to the situations I force them into.
- Set in the ruins of Washington, D.C four weeks after the dead began to rise.
- Law and order has broken down, people are attacking each other, the military's response has so far been ineffective.
- Large swathes of the city are smouldering ruins, the roads are choked, and the living dead number in the hundred thousands.
- The living dead are classic shamblers, and can only be killed by destroying the brain.
- No one knows why they're rising.
The Dead Walk!
"March 22nd, 2015.
It began as a few bizarre news reports. For weeks the media skirted around the truth of what was happening in Africa, refusing to give it front page coverage, refusing to educate the people of the world's impending doom. It wasn't wholly their fault, however. The internet more than made up for in what the newspapers and news channels lacked, and so we must take some of the blame for our wilful ignorance.
Aids. Bird flu. Swine flu. Herpes. Polio. Tuberculosis. Every day, it was always something else that was going to kill us all. Every day, we were bombarded with doomsday predictions by semi-educated officials, attention seeking charity organisations and fear mongers. Every day, these predictions were always wildly overrated.
So when the news started to report a "disturbance" in Somalia, concerning the apparent revival of the recently deceased, no one gave a damn. Just another media fad. Let them waste the air space with their nonsense, what do they think we are? Stupid?
When cases sprung up in South America, Europe and Asia, we started to listen, didn't we? Too late by then though, way too late. They were already here. How, we don't know, and more importantly is why? - but the answer is the same. This thing came out of nowhere. It baffled scientists, and energised the religious. The dead were rising, and they were attacking people.
Four weeks since the first reported risen dead in the state of Georgia, and our country lies in ruins. Millions are dead, millions more have become "shamblers" - the pet name we tend to give to the walking dead. Our military made a few sporadic appearances, deploying tanks and air force bombers against entire cities. They either failed, or realised they fucked up - and bugged out to somewhere safe, to you know, rethink matters. Think I heard a rumour about the president holing up in Florida? Either way, it's been a while since I saw our boys in green rolling through anywhere.
I've no food, no water, no hope. They pound at the door continually, and sometimes, I can hear the hinges giving way - but they never do. Instead I sit here, a nervous wreck, waiting for the end. They know I'm in here, and they wont stop until they get me.
I wont become one of them.
To whoever finds this, I hope you have better luck than me. When we left Vienna, there was thirty of us. I'm all that's left.
Goodbye."
The group stands around the decayed corpse of a fat male. They can't tell his age, because his head is missing at the base of the neck. A rigged double-barrelled shotgun lays nearby, attached to a chair. The flies are having a feast, and already, their slimy offspring are crawling across the floor in search of new food.
It has been a week since you all agreed to leave the madness at Dulles, and make your way to the supposed Safe Zone at Easton. Though the journey would have taken a mere two hours in a life you now barely remember, with the shamblers on the prowl at every turn, it has taken seven days to make it this far - Washington-Lee Highschool, Arlington.
The bus you'd driven here, covered in barbed wire, and reinforced with steel plates, met its end on the road outside. There were just too many damned cars all over the place, too many shamblers - too many other survivors. It's a warzone out there; humanity's last against the dead's many, and it's a one sided battle.
The radio had said Washington was intact! That bastard, if you ever meet him, is gonna get skinned alive. He said the military were here, moving in from Easton. No. No, it's your fault. You should have known the nation's capital would be no different from anywhere else.
From inside the school's gymnasium, you feel safe. Aside from the gruesome remains before you, there are no signs of the chaos you are so used to seeing. No flung chairs and tables, no broken glass or spent shell casings. Just an empty quietness.
A murmur from a nearby sport's cupboard reminds you that this is just an illusion.
Who You Play As:
You are a group of survivors, who have driven in from Dulles International Airport.... or rather, who have fled from Dulles International Airport. That place was a bloodbath, and not because of the shamblers, but because of other people. Madness has struck the minds of so many survivors; the gun is the new king of the world, although perhaps it always was. You were lucky to escape.
But the bus, modified by those you stole it from to resist the havoc of today's roads, can go no further. Everything is grid-locked. You'd of turned her around, gone back, but someone took a shot at your group. It missed, but it served as a reminder that you are not alone out here. Not wanting to get hit by whoever it was that took offense to your presence, you all ran into the nearby high school. The blood covered sign outside had denoted it an "Evacuation Point".
But there's no one here. Just you, and a few charred corpses on the green.
Your plan was to go to Easton. The Emergency Channels have been broadcasting the existence of a safe zone there for weeks - although they may just be stuck on loop, and you may just be heading into a new Hell. Still, what chance do you have? Stay and die, or run and survive. That's it. That's all you have.
Don't spend too long deciding though, because judging by that murmur from the sports cupboard, the school isn't as safe as it looked.
Who I Play As:
I am the Dungeon Master, the Game Master, the Reacting World, the Story Teller. I am God. And you? You are all my sadistic play things. Hatch your plans to escape, fight to your last just so that you can live to see tomorrow - I will laugh at you all the while.
How long do you think your character will last? How long before they succumb to the dead, or the barrel of a gun?
Let's find out. I like stories with a sad ending, after all.
Will this be the last thing your character sees?How This Works
- The flow of play is pretty simple. I, the GM, will set things in motion, and keep them in motion by controlling the world the characters find themselves in.
Brief Example:
GM POST: The group find themselves trapped. The undead have blocked the corridor in front, and more come from behind.
Player 1 Post: Gary looks around hopelessly for an exit, but sees none. He shoulders his rifle, and tells the others that they need to blast their way out.
Player 2 Post: Jill agrees, and she cocks her shotgun.
Player 3 Post: Bob spots a small vent, about 2 feet in diameter. It's located to the group's right, set against the wall's skirting. He asks for the others to cover him.
GM POST: The zombies are now on the group. Gary and Jill open fire, dropping the dead left and right, but their barrage only holds back the tide for a short while.
Player 3 Post: Bob pops off the vent cover, calls to the group, and then crawls through.
GM POST: Bob crawls into a zombie's legs. He looks up, to see the awful smile of rotten teeth and red fleshy strips staring back at him. A scuffle ensues, but Bob manages to push away his attacker.
Player 1 Post: Gary ducks by the vent, angles his rifle upwards, and shoots the zombie in the face, saving Bob.
... And so on.
Obviously these example posts would be fully fledged, two paragraph or more posts. I'm just giving an example of how things will go.
As you can see, I have a certain degree of control over your characters. Once I get the jist of what they're up to, I will make them react on your behalf to anything I make happen.
- I will have the power to fast forward time. So, let's say the characters escape a predicament, I might post something like: "7 hours later..." then set another scene. This will propel the story, and destroy any chance of lapsing.
- Abandoned characters will get chewed.
- Players have full control within the confines of the setting. This includes the killing of zombies, the breaking of objects, the opening of doors and everything else. I'm merely the invisible being that spawns misfortune on them.
- I have the power to kill or injure characters. Scary, huh?
Rules
- What I say happens, happens. No arguments.
- Be mature, and respect each other.
- No OOC arguments or I'll cannibalise your eyes.
- Have fun.
- Post length: 1 paragraph minimum.
- Writing quality: Must be clear.
A Few Loose Ends
The Military: The U.S army has made some attempts to fight this thing, but they've been bloodied badly at every turn. If you've read that book, what's it called? They made an awful film about it. OH, yeah, World War Z! Then think Yonkers.
They're falling back to consolidate, but that's all. There's no jets in the sky, no tanks rolling through.
The National Guard: Deployed enmasse, they were hopelessly unprepared for the challenge. Desertions swept their ranks as the situation turned against the living, and those who remained at their stations formed pockets of resistance across the country.
What was left, has been absorbed into the United State's military machine as it prepares to launch a coordinated response.
Law and Order: Broken down. The police are dead, or have abandoned their posts - you can't blame them, the situation is beyond them. Now, they act as group leaders, doing what they can to help those they swore to protect - or they're using their access to firearms to do the opposite. Either way, it's Hell out there, and calling 911 isn't going to help anyone.
Dulles International Airport: It was swamped, as you would expect, by the desperate masses. Altercations insued, when the National Guard and Police wouldn't let anyone into the terminal - or on a plane for that matter. Naturally, someone got hurt, someone else fired a gun in response, and then a thousand rounds of ammunition pummelled into the crowds.
The brave, or the stupid, overrun the police and National Guard barricades. Many thousands died, and by the end of it, the airport was in total chaos. People were killing each other for little reason. Shamblers were making their way, drawn by all the noise - and the smell of so many thousand unwashed bodies.
Your guys left there, knowing that the Airport was doomed one way or the other.
The Last Seven Days: Seven days to cover so little ground. Why? Imagine driving a bus down a road chock-a-blocked with abandoned vehicles. Imagine the tireless dead, chasing your sluggish pace. Nights were spent in silent terror, days were spent making sorties to clear road blockages. It's been touch and go all the while, but you couldn't keep it up. The steel plates and the barbed wire kept you safe, but that hulk can't go further into the city - and the A-hole with the gun isn't helping matters.
Infection, and Reanimation: Zombie bodily fluids, including salivia, blood and mucus, that gets into a survivor's bloodstream carries a 95% infection rate. That's right, it's not 100%, and some people are immune. Who is immune? I decide that.
Once infected, depending on the amount of zombie goo that's got into your system, it can take 30 minutes to several hours before turning. For example, a man with his neck ripped open would turn quickly. A man with a slight scratch on his arm would turn in 4-8 hours.
Symptoms are flu-like, but carry the tell-tale sign of blackened veins on the victim's limbs.
Character Death: It probably will happen. It'll pain me to do so, but Fred has been alive for fifty posts now, and he's getting cocky. Fred is going to have to die.
He should have checked that car before he opened the door... poor Fred.
Now what?
Go make Fred v 2.0, and rejoin.
However, that's not to say your character is definitely going to die. I will look at thinks objectively, mercifully and reasonably. If your character, in my view, screws up - then I'm going to take it one way or the other.
New Joiners: The RP is always open. Post a sheet, and once I've approved it, I will work your character into the mix.
OOC IS UP!
Link
The Washington-Lee Gymnasium