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Daywalkers

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Started 1 year ago by JohnA1nut
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Tadeusz
Member

Third post.
What about rivers and creeks? Some bass boat fisherman who has a trolling motor powered by electricity with a solar array, and fishes for um, fish, and builds a fire in his metal bass boat in the midst of the river while the plants foam at him angrily from the river bank.

He's not tough, or fast. He knows the river. He's patient and thoughtful. He always has a plan to get out, and tries to avoid getting into fights he knows he would lose. He moves slow, and tries to arrange things so there's zero danger to himself.

He was able to rescue his family and move them to one of those tiny islands in the midst of a big river (during storms, they climb the trees to escape the rising waters, and pray for no lightning strikes.) He does not visit them that often because he does not want to draw attention to them.

He would be able to float all the way through the city as long as a zombie did not jump from a bridge down on him. He would be an excellent transport and spy.

Wed Feb 3 2010 7:07 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

He's not tough, or fast. He knows the river. He's patient and thoughtful. He always has a plan to get out, and tries to avoid getting into fights he knows he would lose.

His armament consists of 1 or a limited supply of scavenged LAW rockets. He hates guns, and would rather not even have the rockets. They're used more for intimidation (Would you argue with a guy who was pointing a bazooka at you?) He carries them because he recognizes the need to, but he hopes all he ever needs to do with them is intimidate people. I see this guy as kind of passive, just trying to get by through fishing, scavenging, and the occasional transporter mission. His defense against zombies is the boat, which is armored and practically impossible to board without help, and melee weapons for any that actually do get on board. The rockets are meant for other humans. Just because they're human doesn't make them friendly.

It just seemed to fit that. I'm trying to get into his head.

(Doing Therapy)

Wed Feb 3 2010 9:04 am #
Tadeusz
Member

I'm thinking of a big, fat or stout morelike as he has some muscles guy. Heading toward retirement age. Good vision.

He was tanned already, but since then he's gotten weathered.

I thought that the water might block xombies.

In his head. PATIENCE.

He's willing to wait for a whole day through the blazing sun, just sitting there for the precalculated right moment when he is sure its going to be safe to move through an area. And if it turns out not to be safe, he has a couple plans to deal with that already made, and he can come up with a few more.

He knows that in a straight up fight, he loses, so he makes sure he doesn't get in one.

The chief way he's likely to get hurt is 1)an accident like a fish biting him, and this slowing him down. 2)He sees someone along the riverbank running from zombies, and they are female or a child. He hates it, and curses himself, but he goes to rescue them if he thinks he has a decent chance.

Wed Feb 3 2010 6:31 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

You ask this guy to do you a favor. He turns away, sits down, and stares at the edge of his boat for ten fifteen minutes. You try to interrupt him. He waves you off, and goes back to staring.

Inside his head, he's calculating what the plan is. What the odds are. What could happen. How to deal with it. If its possible. ETC.

He turns back to you and says in his softspoken way...

"Yeah. let's do it."

or.

"Sorry, pal."

He is not likely to change his mind. He might explain a bit why not if you press him, but he won't go into all the details.

Wed Feb 3 2010 6:38 pm #
JohnA1nut
Member

Eric, even though this was my world idea, my ideas aren't written in stone. If you think your ideas are better than mine, I'll listen to anything. I think you were going after the more traditional "Salty sea captain". I see this guy as somebody who got pushed around most of his life, to the point that he would rather be alone. Hence, becoming a fishing boat captain. Tries to avoid not only conflict, but most people in general. I could almost imagine a divergent version of myself who turned into exactly this guy.

OK, well, we've got more than enough NPCs, which is not to say we can't think of more, but let's see what else we can come up with.

Wed Feb 3 2010 8:40 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

More like the guy who is an insurance salesman or some sort of middle management, but he has a bumper sticker on his car 'a bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office'.

OK. Moving on. We got NPC's and a possible loose network. We got the zombies in concept.
What do we need?

Stats and skills for zombies. Stats and skills for NPC's. Names of stuff in the area (like the city we're next too, and the forest...is it a state park or a royal preserve or a hunting preserve for now dead rich guys or just undeveloped wilderness?)

What odd little bits of This Is Not Precisely Earth do we need? (like stop signs are pink and yield signs are blue...) Do we have three wheeled electric cars? Evidently solar arrays work a bit better here than elsewhere.

You may want to look for my article 'Ten Faces of America' which has ten different divergents on America. All fairly nice places, and basically America, but with enough differences to be interesting. Choose one of them as the backdrop for the zombie war if you like.

Wed Feb 3 2010 10:19 pm #
JTM
Member

Why not start by upping the world temperature and making the sun a blue dwarf? It'd help explain where the daywalkers are getting enough energy from and be an easily noticed sign of difference.

Wed Feb 3 2010 10:55 pm #
johnosevens
Member

JTM - Except that if the daywalkers are based on plants (and I'm picturing them akin to something more like Morning Glories than orchids, in fact) then a regular old yellow sun works just fine, without having to explain to the Verser how freakishly different everything looks under the light of a sun that glows in a different wavelength than ours.

I like the idea of ramping up the solar and electric power and turning down everything else (less internal combustion, less nuclear, etc). Put a big emphasis on biotech, too, maybe the odd Bod device floating around. It feels to me like this is a world that went a bit overboard on the whole 'renewable energy' thing and instead of finding the happy medium (paving over a section of desert in solar panels) created themselves a monster (biological recycling isn't supposed to work like this!). One problem I have with this is that it removes the classic 'almost out of fuel' problem - one would have to be using a very inefficient vehicle, or a damaged one, or just in a place that gets almost no sunlight in order to have that problem.

Overall the Tech level should be more or less busted. People might remember how the things they use on a daily basis - electric cars, explosive-driven weapons - work, but overall not so much. Nobody really remembers how the Internet was supposed to work, or city-wide electrical grids, or GPS. You might even have a low-but-slowly-rising Mag bias, as people turn back to nature and thus back toward spirituality and magic, but that's just me, the resident heathen getting his marks in, your mileage may vary.

Thu Feb 4 2010 2:01 am #
JTM
Member

Eh, it's pretty easy to run low on power in a solar vehicle. Just use a higher wattage than the amount that filters through the atmosphere for an extended period. Admittedly, that only works when running away from something or otherwise on a timer. However, the energy density of solar power is lower than you might expect, and at least currently solar panels are extremely low efficiency, so it wouldn't be as hard as you'd think. If you want "low fuel" without a tight timer, it can just be very overcast for a few days in a row.

The thing with just using them being plants as an explanation for where they get their energy is that there is a reason plants don't move, and animals don't photosynthesize. It might be easier to just have the planet orbit a bit closer to the sun, though, since that'd be easier to describe and imagine.

Thu Feb 4 2010 2:59 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

I read that solar cells aren't nearly as good as people think. Supposedly it takes more energy to build one than the solar cell would generate in 100 years. That's with our technology though. Not just solar though. A solar backup. Gasoline hasn't gone completely out of fashion, it's just a little more difficult to come by these days.

Thu Feb 4 2010 3:06 am #
JTM
Member

I kind of doubt that exact figure, unless it is counting in energy expended in the natural processes that create the raw materials, and of course it isn't mentioning the benefits of slowly getting power in exactly the needed locations instead of having to store the power used in the creation and distribute it. It may also be making questionable assumptions on where the solar cell would be located. However, I have heard the efficiency of solar cells currently is pretty low, and there's only so much solar energy per square foot in the first place.

Thu Feb 4 2010 3:15 am #
johnosevens
Member

Whereas I read that if you covered an area about the size of Spain in solar panels (a nicely uninhabited chunk of the Sahara Desert, for instance) in solar panels, they would provide all the power the world would ever need, even at today's admittedly halfassed efficiency ratings, but again your mileage may vary.

Meanwhile, plant zombies, anyone? Maybe they eat people to make up for the nutrients they don't get from the roots they don't have?

Thu Feb 4 2010 3:36 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Which just leads to the conclusion that the technology has probably improved a lot. Nothing unbelievable there.

I like that idea Osevens. I was trying to figure out why they would attack people in the first place. That's where I got the idea that they would turn into trees. If one was wandering out in the woods for a while, he would eventually grow roots or something. Thoughts?

(Doing Therapy)

Thu Feb 4 2010 3:52 am #
johnosevens
Member

Maybe that's what happens if they don't eat for too long. They start turning vaguely wooden and slow down as their bodies prepare to put down roots, and then they find a place to anchor for a while, soaking up nutrients until they're well-fed enough to dig up and shamble off again. Or maybe that's the end of their life cycle - once they become trees they're trees for good, just using their vines to strangle/infect others?

Thu Feb 4 2010 4:34 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Or maybe that's the end of their life cycle - once they become trees they're trees for good, just using their vines to strangle/infect others?

That's more what I was thinking. Some people actually find the trees quite pleasant. If you can keep the prehensile vines trimmed back, they're actually not so bad to look at.

(Doing Therapy)

Thu Feb 4 2010 4:41 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

I keep remembering, "On most planets the animals eat the plants; on planets where the Krynoid is established, it's the other way around."

So it's an interesting idea with several ways to approach it.

--M. J. Young

Thu Feb 4 2010 8:20 am #
johnosevens
Member

In Soviet Russia, vegetables eat you?

Fri Feb 5 2010 4:44 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Ya know, I just had a thought. Short of the world being destroyed in a nuclear war trying to kill the zombies, this story cannot possibly have an unhappy ending. If the humans win, the humans win. Life goes back to normal. If the zombies win, when there are no more humans to chase, they go plant themselves. We would have a Garden of Eden, albeit one with prehensile vines that try to snatch and grab you. The story cannot have an unhappy ending. I like that.

(Doing Therapy)

Fri Feb 5 2010 5:07 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Two

Weapons to use against zombies.

Would weed killer or salt work against them? Salt kills plants, they say to put it on Poison Ivy plants in the yard to kill them.

Disconnect the head? Destroy the brain? These are plant zombies, after all. Are things normally lethal to plants lethal to them as well? Perhaps some of the zombies are discovered to be suffering from Dutch Elm disease or something. Wouldn't that be a hoot?

Since they're plant-based, they have regenerative capabilities. In sunlight anyway. How does that work? Can they regrow limbs, and if so, how long does it take them to do it?

There would be some that I would expect, like prime time good shape, best of the best zombies would have skin as hard as tree bark, giving them a defensive value. Or perhaps that's at the end of their life cycle, right before they go plant themselves.

Maybe like to kill them in the daytime, you have to disconnect the head, and take it far away from the body rather quickly. Otherwise, the vines grow out of the neck, and reattach itself. It had to be done really quickly, within minutes at most. And of course, all of the limbs do that. But only in the day time. Of course, if his leg is still within range when the sun comes up, it will reattach then.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Here's a thought. NPC zombies. No, I'm not kidding. One big badboy of a zombie that you want to put your verser up against.

(Doing Therapy)

Fri Feb 5 2010 5:16 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

If the zombies win, when there are no more humans to chase, they go plant themselves. We would have a Garden of Eden, albeit one with prehensile vines that try to snatch and grab you. The story cannot have an unhappy ending.
I don't think that the humans would consider that a "not unhappy" ending.

I mean, sure, if the knight wins the countryside is saved from the harassment of the dragon; if the knight loses, the dragon gets a tasty meal. It's a happy ending either way, depending on who you are.

Multiverser allows that the death of the player character is not the end of his life and thus not an unhappy ending; that does not mean that there are no unhappy events along the way. Adric can die on the temporally unstable ship before the Doctor can rescue him, even if the Doctor saves the universe in the end anyway. It's not all happiness and light. We need the dragons and the demons and the dungeons so that the heroes can have a meaningful victory, but a meaningful victory is only possible if there is a chance of meaningful failure.

--M. J. Young

Fri Feb 5 2010 11:50 pm #
johnosevens
Member

I agree with MJ on this one. It goes along with my whole theory of there has to be dualities in pretty much everything, but I know he disagrees with me on that and will be annoyed that I'm agreeing with him because of that, so I'll leave it at that.

As for NPC zombies, I like that idea. Maybe they don't have 'names' per se that they identify themselves by, but maybe the survivors designate certain ones. "There's this willowy one, used to be a girl of about twelve... We call her Siren now. If you hear a sound like songbirds after a couple of minutes of silence, run like Hell," or "Yeah, we've salted Fat Pauly a couple o' times. No idea why he keeps growing back. I think he's just too big to pickle." That sort of thing.

I don't like the idea of them being able to regrow severed limbs. Reattach, yes. Regenerate, no. If they could generate a leg, and then an arm, and then a torso, why do they bother reanimating the dead at all? Why not just generate bodies and go a-shambling all upon their own?

And yes, I think they only turn wooden when they're about to put down roots. Otherwise they are fleshy, perhaps a bit stiff with a touch of springy, rather like cutting bamboo.

Sat Feb 6 2010 5:44 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Whether or not the human population of that world would think it's a happy ending is beside the point. A planet populated entirely by huge trees? Tell me that's not a happy ending to a story!!!!!! (Said with a laugh)

I don't like the idea of them being able to regrow severed limbs. Reattach, yes. Regenerate, no.

I'm with you 100% there.

And yes, I think they only turn wooden when they're about to put down roots.

Yeah, I think you're right. I was thinking that if you had a really tough zombie to begin with, AND gave him wooden skin armor, that would make a very formidable adversary for your verser. I think this makes much more sense though, now that I think about it.

Wait a minute. Why does it have to be one or the other? I'll go with 90% about to put down roots, 10% means it's an exceptionally tough zombie. Or something. We can work out the specifics later. They would be far more rare, I'll agree with that, but I would want some really tough zombies with wooden skin.

Wooden skin would mean that either it was about to die, or it used to be somebody of extremely good physical shape. Like 9 out of 10 it's dying and less harmful, but once in a while, it was that 1 in 1,000 person who was at the top of his game in life. It's already 10 times stronger than you are, now it's also got a quarter inch thick skin as hard as fresh Spruce wood. Tell me that's not a badass opponent for your verser to face. It's still as flexible as skin would be, and it still takes damage the same way skin does (it wouldn't split like wood when hit with an axe) but it's as hard as a good hard wood. As thick as skin (quarter of an inch, if I'm not mistaken) but hard.

There would have to be an easy way to identify them from a distance. Maybe it has a bark-like appearance. Think about it for a second. You see a bark zombie, think it's a feeble old woman zombie that you can easily avoid. Turns out it used to be a bodybuilder, has 3@2 strength and skin you can't easily pierce with a knife. That could be a very interesting encounter, ya know?

As for NPC zombies, I like that idea.

I like your suggestions. Why don't you "flesh those out" some more? I was thinking about just one. An adversary for your verser. But you're right. The indigs would name certain zombies that they saw a lot. I thought people would think that was stupid. It's nice to see it got some support.

(Doing Therapy)

Sat Feb 6 2010 6:18 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Two

MJ, just to be clear up front, I'm not trying to step on your toes, and I'm not going to do it no matter what you say. I'm just curious about something.

Suppose I was to name an NPC Lauren Hastings but it had nothing whatsoever to do with your character? She was an 18th century slave girl that grew up in Mississippi, for instance. Is the name "Lauren Hastings" copyrighted, or is would it have to be clearly a variant on your character?

(Doing Therapy)

Sat Feb 6 2010 7:01 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Three

Their lifespan is a normal human lifespan. "Dying" is turning into a tree.

It came in after a meteor shower. They were harmless seeds on a meteor. Zobmbifying acceptable lifeforms is the tree's method of transporting it's seeds to other locations. In it's natural environment, finding acceptable lifeforms to snatch and zombify happened so rarely that it never spread very far. The acceptable lifeform usually died within hours of being infected. If it happened to encounter another acceptable lifeform in that time, it would infect it. It might even be a symbiotic relationship of sorts. Thus, the tree was not widely known about. In it's natural environment, it was more or less harmless. Unfortunately, it landed here. A population of close to seven billion acceptable lifeforms, who didn't die within hours, for its reproductive cycle. These new lifeform's resistance to the "You need to go plant yourself" instinct, and the sheer number and population density of the acceptable lifeforms (humans) made it spread out of control like wildfire. It's really not a bad tree, it's just misunderstood. There might even be small pockets of protesters against the slaughter of these innocent creatures. However, that's not at all important to me, and unless someone else wants to write up the details, I'm not planning to include it. Just a suggestion for someone else to follow. I think that's a good back story. Any other thoughts?

(Doing Therapy)

Sat Feb 6 2010 7:33 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Four

Their blood is thicker, syrupy and darker in color. More like plant sap. The skin has a greenish tinge to it. The zombies aren't zombies. Not "undead" per se, more like victims of a horrible disease. They don't rot and decay like the Dawn of the Dead zombies. They catch fire slightly more easily than a human would, due to the plant-like body structure. The infected attack and infect others not to feed themselves, but to spread the trees around. Walking out into a field and turning into a tree is the equivalent of dying of old age for the zombie. The human body morphs into something else, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. People of extremely advanced age (like say 90 and up) are much, much more susceptible to the "Go plant yourself" instinct, and usually do so within a month of being infected.

What happens to the trees when the sun goes down? Perhaps they have similar patterns? Is it safer to approach one at night or in the daytime? Since this is set in sub-rural country, these trees would be encountered once in a while. How far can they reach? How fast do they move when they do? How long does it take them to infect a host?

I would want the trees to be harmless, and perhaps even desired in some fashion, if the prehensile vines are trimmed. Perhaps the tree sap has some unusual properties? I'd want this to be kind of a blessing wrapped in a curse kind of thing. The trees being the blessing, and the zombies the curse. If all the infected zombies are killed, they have acres and acres of really great trees with sap which makes medicine or something really special and unique. If the zombies can be killed, and the trees can be trimmed back and/or avoided completely, this will actually be a great benefit to mankind.

Here's a strange as all hell thought. What would happen if a human tried to mate with one of these things? (Hey, there are some strange folks out there) What would the offspring be like? Would the human get infected? Your player might ask....

(Doing Therapy)

Sat Feb 6 2010 10:07 am #
johnosevens
Member

1: Alright, I'll flesh those out when I have more time. I like the barklike appearance and thick skin. Maybe amp up their Density and give them a Bod-based Damage Reduction?

2: I wouldn't go that route, if only because you're writing primarily for a Multiverser-familiar audience. People would assume your Lauren Hastings was the Lauren Hastings whether she was or not, and it would cause confusion. As a writer you don't want to mislead your audience unless it's for a very good reason (for instance, your narrator is himself insane or lying). Just putting something in that is a deceptive coincidence is a literary mistake.

3: 'It came from space' is kinda played out, and doesn't really tie in with what's going on right now culturally. Sci-fi writers typically comment on the world around them. Making it a result of nuclear or biological engineering, or a creature accidently drawn in from a parallel dimension is closer to today's current scientific concerns (just look at the silly things people thought the Large Hadron Collider was going to do).

4: I would say it's safer to approach the trees at night, when they're less energetic. They don't rot and decay - I would say they don't die of old age at all. Think of how long trees can live. Aren't there trees in the Redwood Forest that count their age in millenia? I picture the 'go plant yourself' instinct as a starvation thing, not an age thing (again, your mileage may vary). As for how fast they move, I would say probably pretty fast - just look at how quickly a Venus flytrap snaps shut - but not very often. If they miss it takes them a while to reset. Actual infection probably takes days or weeks. Plants do nothing quickly. Maybe make the sap grant people who imbibe it (either pure or fermented - zombie-tree beer?) some of the plantwalkers' regenerative abilities, or something like that. As for what would happen to your necrodendrophiliac (yes there's a word for having sex with a zombie tree) that's entirely up to you - since the infection takes a while to spread I would say probably nothing except the social stigma, except that you leave yourself vulnerable while you're at it and (if you want it to be riskier) might pick up a seed which would need to be surgically removed in order to prevent infection.

Sat Feb 6 2010 2:15 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

Persuasion N/A
Charisma 0@2 (they are severely handicapped)
Animal Magnetism 0@2
Strength 2@1 (average zombie...special zombies are rated as +1@10 to their previous strength.)
Stamina 2@1 (yeah, this needs to be expanded what with the sunlight and stuff. I'm just doing a rough chop here first.)
Resistance 1@8
Density 1@1
Flexibility 1@3
Agility 1@2
Hand/Eye 1@3
Intellect 0@4
Intuition 0@3
Ed Level 0@4
Willpower N/A
Target Value 0@8
Damage Value (since I put WP at N/A, I'm only going to divide by 3????) 1@7
RSV N/A
MSV 1@2

OK, Rules Meisters, whatdya' think?

Sun Feb 7 2010 5:29 pm #
JohnA1nut
Member

A standardized set of stats won't work for these. They are made out of all kinds of different people. An old woman who could barely move around now has the stats of a teenager. For her, that's superhuman strength. A former body builder would be 3@ in at least some bod skills. For him, that's superhuman strength. Well, for anybody actually, but you get the point. It would be based on the individual zombie. I wouldn't want a standard sets of stats for all of them.

When I was writing this up originally, I was thinking that an old woman would have the strength of a teenager and walk at a fast walking speed. At least at night. Imagine a Friday the 13th style "Chase through the woods" running from your grandmother. Tell me that wouldn't be funny.

Sun Feb 7 2010 8:16 pm #
Tadeusz
Member

Then you want a standard set of modifiers with a separate mod for darkness, I think.

Like so...

STR +@5 (Day); +@9 (Night).

You still want a standard zombie I think because your GM is going to want Normal Person so he doesn't have to do so much work.

Yeah, that could definitely be funny. I'm not much on horror movies tho', and I'm not sure I've seen all of any of the Friday 13th movies.

Sun Feb 7 2010 8:51 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator

Attributes of living beings are never not applicable. See the descriptions of Attributes in the Attributes chapter and the section on 0-level attributes in the chapter on Worlds for help with the odd cases. A lion might not be able to articulate an argument, but if he can make his intentions known he is very persuasive. The movements of a tree might be extremely limited, but it still has an agility score.

As far as "not standard", that of course means you've got a lot more work to do. But then, part of the point of standard "one each" character types is to give you something you can use quickly and easily.

For example, if you had a copy of Dark Honor Empire, you would note that the charts for the ancient ninja list stats for a Burglar/Spy, a Raider, and an Assassin. Nobody thinks that all ninjas have exactly one of these three stat sets, and the book includes extra columns for referees to drop in whatever specials they want to add. What the three "one each" sets do is thumbnail three types of characters who have particularly strengths and weaknesses that qualify them for particular types of missions. If you need to put together a crew of three or five or ten ninjas for a specific mission the player character is undertaking, you don't need to spend the time to create them--you can use them as is, or modify one or two specials to make them different.

You object to fixing stats for "one each little old lady zombie" because each one would be different; but how many little old lady zombies do you think your world has, and how important are the differences? Create a "one each little old lady zombie" stat set that is different from a "one each former special forces zombie" and a "one each middle aged businessman zombie" or "one each teenager zombie"--a collection of different types that provide the fundamentals for what you want to cover. Of course no two zombies are exactly alike. The same is true of palace guards, samurai, men-at-arms, wizards, orcs, horses, dogs, and any other creatures, but it's helpful to have standard stats on record so you can grab them in the cases where it doesn't matter and work from a base when it does.

--M. J. Young

Mon Feb 8 2010 12:51 am #

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