This should be set in a spooky setting. Dickens or Sherlock Holmes London with pea soup fogs, or aboard an abandoned space station. There needs to be hidden areas, and poor light, and an unclear layout of passages and dim light.
There is a Fog present in this world. This Fog is activated by fear. Those things that you are most afraid of start to become real, start to wander across the edge of your line of sight. Unfortunately getting angry at the images as they slowly gather solidity, and then become real enough to kill you is only going to make the process stronger and quicker. Paying attention to them also encourages the process although not as much. Analysis of them tends to increase their solidity as well.
Only ignoring them, or facing them fearlessly, or the kind of Difficult willpower check needed to stare boldly into your darkest fears will be sufficient to begin to banish them. One other thing can banish them, faith can, a faith that destroys worry.
In this world, the mental abilities have a -20 on success.
Why is it that with things like this, it's always your worst fear? You couldn't be looking into the fog and see your deepest fantasy come to life?
Wouldn't be a good plot element of itself. If you want to have a character see something like that, you need something else to happen too to keep the story moving.
That depends on the fantasy. It could be the lure that gets you to follow into the mouth of the monster.
Because its EVIL, John. :) Its largely irrational, self-destructive fear.
Brock, I see your point. Have a murder mystery thats relatively simple going on at teh same time. Or perhaps you're trying to get the spacestation turned back on as you slowly run out of oxygen.
Okay, I understand more. Yeah, you could do a 'your deepest desires mirage' which probably leads you to walk into an elevator shaft or into the mouth of the dragon.
Second Post
This is one of those boobytrap worlds where doing the seemingly logical thing will mess you up right quickly. Tell a player 'you see a dark figure dodge off to your right', and the typical player is going to strain very hard to see it....thus making it more real.
You have worlds where doing the obvious thing gets you in deep trouble. In Starsong Systems, because of their paranoia about nuclear bomb bullets with guided missile flights with several thousand rpm firing rate which would tear up their civilization and probably lead to someone using even larger weapons to stop the first....they ban any ranged weapon including a .22 under the most severe penalties.
In another world by a lake with blue people 'hi' is evidently a deadly threat.
In a pair of contingency worlds, doing plan A will get you killed in world b, but not in world a where not doing plan A will get you killed...this is The Farmland.
Actually, I agree with A1Nut - Desire can be every bit as dangerous as fear. What you fear can be used to hurt you or herd you. What you desire can be used to Lure you, or even to drug you into a witless stupor. You don't have to be dead to be eliminated as a threat, and desire isn't necessarily dangerous only as a lure - it can be a threat in and of itself. Just look at the Mirror of Erised from Harry Potter - you become so addicted to the visions it gives you that eventually you while away your entire life just gazing vacantly into it.
I read an article recently on Cracked.com that said basically Star Trek's holodecks would be the last thing mankind ever invented for exactly that reason: it can fulfill your every human desire, giving you no logical reason to ever leave. Just plug yourself in and be whatever you want for the rest of your life.
You don't even have to be injured or harmed at all to be eliminated as a threat. If you're so preoccupied with indulging your fantasies, you're not going to be much use to anyone at all.
I read that article about the Holodecks Osevens. Barclay's holo-addiction would be the drug of choice.
Precisely!
Eric, your idea brings to mind two things.
The second is probably more relevant. Make it nineteenth century London with Jack the Ripper on the loose. That puts the verser in an interesting conundrum, as the police might be interested in who he is when they find him in the neighborhood of one of the murders.
The first is The Land Where Dreams Come True, in The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. When the Dawn Treader crew rescues the man and he begs them to turn back because it is the land where dreams come true, they are at first excited by the thought of what they had found. Then he shouts at them, not their wishes, not their hopes, but their dreams, the things that happen uncontrolled in their heads at night.
Other than the always brave and noble Reepicheep the mouse, all the men immediately make every effort to flee the area.
--M. J. Young
Then he shouts at them, not their wishes, not their hopes, but their dreams, the things that happen uncontrolled in their heads at night.
Not uncontrolled. You can actually teach yourself to control your dreams. I had to teach myself this to end a recurring nightmare I had as a child. I put a protector into my dream. Someone stronger to fight for me. After I learned to do that, I never had the nightmare again.
(Doing Therapy)
More than one.
Here's one for you. Whilst in the fog, you cannot be injured. You would feel the pain of being punched in the stomach full force, but the best doctor in the world wouldn't be able to tell that you had been hit. Not even a bruise. You would feel the pain of breaking your arm, but it wouldn't be broken, and if you could stand the pain, would have full use and mobility. It was just a dumb idea I was kicking around for a world.
(Doing Therapy)
More than a few and less than too many
On second thought, if you were captured, you could be tortured without mercy forever and wouldn't die. That might not be so great. Of course though, Eric will probably love this idea.....
(Doing Therapy)
No. Not really. On a couple different levels. Speaking as a GM, you don't want to totally overwhelm your characters. You want to give them a not too hard way to escape. This boobytrap world is about as mean as I'd want to get.
It was an idea I was kicking around in my head. The Alternate Dimension Realm. The laws of physics are different from person to person. For example, unless you're either a bodybuilder or a dwarf, I would guess that you and I have comparable physical strength. In this dimension, I could tear something like it was paper, but to you it would be stronger than steel. Something which I could pick up easily would weigh 20,000 pounds to you, even though we have the same physical strength. Like I said, it was just a weird idea I had. Maybe the verser is the one with the strange physics. To save the day, he has to tear through the crepe paper wall which no one else can penetrate, and throw away the bag of feathers which no one else can lift. Just another dumb idea.
(Doing Therapy)
Not a dumb idea at all. Remember John, you came up with Music Wars which is one of the better world ideas around.
I want to finish that Daywalker Zombie world too. I just can't get motivated to do it. If we had all of the collaboration that we had on Music Wars, I would be quite a bit more inclined towards it.
(Doing Therapy)
Possibly I could help you with it a bit.
I still have issues with figuring out how to do zombies in Multiverser. Hell, I'm still having issues doing zombies in GURPS. I could toss in some ideas, but the mechanics are beyond me.
Assign them attributes and skills? Where are you having difficulty?
Well, the thread was labeled "Daywalkers" if anyone wants to dig it back up. I went on one of my psychotic rants, and fleshed out a world in pretty good detail. (Four years prior to that, I would have been screaming obscenities for hours on end.) I want to see it completed. I have some ideas, but I just wanted to get some collaboration. Contribute any ideas you want, just like we did with Music Wars. That was a lot of fun, ya know?
(Doing Therapy)
I guess my question would be, what are the particular details that make your zombies "zombies"? That's the starting point. Is "zombie" a communicable condition? Do you become a zombie if bitten by one? That would then require figuring out whether the transmission was tech, bod, or mag (probably not psi, although I would not say that was impossible). You would put together a skill set that gave the zombie the abilities it has, and go from there.
There are zombies in Vorgo. They are a very particular type of magic zombie, and the condition is not communicable, but in the course of play it is possible that a human killed by a zombie could be animated by the magic that animated the other zombies, so it might look like that.
--M. J. Young
Well:
They ignore the effects of injury and pain, and will continue until bodily annihilated, or until their head is destroyed.
The condition is communicable, and in modern zombie horror is almost always Bod, as it is a virus or some other form of infection, spread by bite, scratch, or contact with their blood.
They don't really have skills per se, but as Multiverser uses the term, I guess they would have:
Moan - They summon the horde by moaning. Is this Bod, or some 0@0 Psi Language variant?
Claw - Primitive and unskilled, but bugger all strong.
Tirelessness - They never experience fatigue, thirst, or actual hunger, and cannot starve, drown, or suffocate.
Injury Tolerance - A shotgun to the torso won't even slow them down, but a pickaxe to the face is more or less an autokill.
And that's pretty much it. Most zombies are no more perceptive than the humans they used to be, certainly slower and less agile, much less dense especially as they begin to decay, but they simply don't take measurable harm from anything other than fire or acid (which destroy body parts), amputation, and headshots.
Which raises another question I've been wanting to ask: How does Multiverser handle things like, for instance, air elementals, or sand golems, or the T-1000, which theoretically have nothing in Density, but are in fact horrendously difficult to harm specifically because they are so diffuse?
Edit: Could you just give them a high Density, saying that it is not how dense they are but how much their density (or lack thereof) assists them in resisting harm, such that an air elemental and an iron golem would both have a 3@ Density even though one is made of vapors and one made of iron?
These zombies were photosensitive. Denying them sunlight for extended periods would kill them. If they were put down, and spent any amount of time in the sun, they would regenerate. Perhaps I'll resurrect the thread and see what I can do with it.
I'd say that what really makes zombies zombies as opposed to liches, vampires, ghouls, or whatever, is their vast numbers, swarming behavior, and completely ignoring their losses. Mindlessness is generally also considered part, but I tend to not include that from my time playing the Urban Dead MMO.
Which raises another question I've been wanting to ask: How does Multiverser handle things like, for instance, air elementals, or sand golems, or the T-1000, which theoretically have nothing in Density, but are in fact horrendously difficult to harm specifically because they are so diffuse?
Edit: Could you just give them a high Density, saying that it is not how dense they are but how much their density (or lack thereof) assists them in resisting harm, such that an air elemental and an iron golem would both have a 3@ Density even though one is made of vapors and one made of iron?
If they're not dense, they're not Dense. There are plenty of other ways to statistically reduce the damage an entity takes from attacks besides raising an attribute that contribes 1/3 to target value and 1/4 to damage value. The one I'd favor in the case of the air elemental would be an array of B12@x Invulnerabilities.
The T-3000 is a different case. Being liquid-metallic, his density is probably quite high (say, 3@10, which isn't maximum for Density, by the way) - however, as you observe, the real reason he's so tough to hurt is the way his body separates and reforms. Hmm, that sounds familiar . . . reminds me of B6@10 Body Parting. ("The baseline skill is not fast enough to dodge missile weapons, but at -20 this may be done.") Of course, his metallic nature probably also justifies some B12@ resistances to damage of various kinds.
The point is that there are a variety of defenses that can more than compensate for a low density, and although all of my examples have been bod, appropriate defenses exist in any bias area needed.
Scott is right to point to the B12@ resistances and invulnerabilities; these would be present in most undead. If your undead are magical, then you would use M1@6 protections and resistances to achieve the same result, and there's no reason you can't stack these. (Mag protections against Mag are M1@9.)
Psionic zombies tend to be P4@6 telekinetic puppets, but you can do them better as a P14@6 Animate Ojbect enhanced by a P14@9 Instill Life Characteristics. Such animated creations become unliving life forms, and thus have bod skills.
Creating the magic versions is generally a M13@8 Animate Dead skill, which turns a body into a pseudo-life form. That particular version of the skill gives the creatures a base dangerous damage category on body-based attacks, but that's not a necessary factor, only a useful one, as it enables you to create powerful attacks without relying on martial arts or high strike values.
Tech zombies can be created in scores of ways, including mind/machine implants, genetically engineered mutagenic virii, and chemical control. Most of the cases of tech zombies are not undead in any traditional sense, but are living humans deprived of control over themselves and subjected to disease symptoms that cause visible decay. However, it is not impossible to devise a technology that animates a corpse, for which nanobots are probably the simplest approach. The Borg in their original incarnation are modeled as a kind of tech zombie, something like a cyborg but controlled and individually mindless. Later borg became more independent.
In bod terms, this would be a type of symbiont, probably a B14@6 Controlling Total Body Linking, in which the parasite/symbiont connects to the host and takes control of the body. It could be anything from a genetically engineered (Tech) mutagenic virus to a naturally-occurring alien life form. Since the symbiont is able to control motor function without tapping pain response, it gives the zombie effect. It is thus contagious, by whatever method the parasite uses to reproduce.
Communicability in a mag zombie is achieved either by giving the zombie the power of animation of undead or by making the zombie a material component in the spell as cast by its caster. That's a very elaborate spell, but if you put enough into it you can negate the need of the caster to be knowledgeable or involved in the spread of the effect. Modern zombies have no caster, and thus no master, because they are usually tech/bod based.
Really up to you. It could be reduced to a B0@2 Signal Generation, or it could be considered a P0@0 language. It might depend on what else you want the creature to be able to do. Language generally suggests the ability to communicate concepts and information; signal generation is necessary for language, but on its own it communicates only basic survival messages: food, danger, territory. Birdsong is signal generation, as is the "dance" of bees, which is probably as elaborate as such signals can get. But summoning the horde is probably simple signal generation, assuming it's nothing more than that the others come if they hear it.Moan - They summon the horde by moaning. Is this Bod, or some 0@0 Psi Language variant?
Mentioned above in the mag section, but if you're going for tech/bod you want this to be a B7@3 Intensified Damage attack. (This also suggests that you can incorporate some martial arts base values in the protection of zombies. One justification for defensive sit-mods is that the defender absorbs the damage in less vital areas, which is something at which zombies could be particularly potent, not having many vital areas.) The transmission of the parasite would itself by a B7@7 special damage, and the defender would use a resistance roll against it.Claw - Primitive and unskilled, but bugger all strong.
Some of these are already mentioned as Bod 12@ resistances/invulnerabilities. Others might be high-level B10@ regeneration and self-healing skills or 11@ immunities.Tirelessness - They never experience fatigue, thirst, or actual hunger, and cannot starve, drown, or suffocate.
Your real problem is that you need to cover things like
but a pickaxe to the face is more or less an autokill.In play I would cover this by asserting that the really incredibly damaging fatal shots "happened" to connect with the head, but if anyone attempts to attack the head specifically they have to take a size penalty for a targeted shot (with a tiered possibility of reduced damage if it falls in the second category). You might consider whether successful aimed shots at the head get a damage category bonus or rider as part of the creature description, identifying a weak spot.
Which raises another question I've been wanting to ask: How does Multiverser handle things like, for instance, air elementals, or sand golems, or the T-1000, which theoretically have nothing in Density, but are in fact horrendously difficult to harm specifically because they are so diffuse?
Scott already addressed this quite effectively, and I would add only a few points.
The body parting is definitely part of the package, along with the invulnerabilities. (Remember that in Multiverser "invulnerability" means that the attack did not hurt you if you made the invulnerability skill roll successfully. Thus it is possible to harm these beings, but very difficult.) The air elemental and sand golem would also have magical protections, and the sand golem and T-1000 probably also have regenerative ability--if you can keep it from putting itself back together, it is still at full damage, and it takes time to restore itself to full functionality. I also agree that the density of a T-1000 is relatively high, and think that the sand golem is also of a relatively high density (not as high, but it is made of stone).
I hope this helps.
--M. J. Young
Hey wasn't there some world I designed with a bunch of necromancers who only had that ability?
World of Fog
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This world is described at the top. The verser arrives after meeting zombies, and he arrives in a spooky, rotating space station with variable gravity, and other enviromental hazzards. The crew is cryofrozen in a horrifying look. The few crew that are about are dead in nasty ways with lots of slashing.
The cause of this is that the psi was trying to refocuse the psi telescope on the exposed pylon tower which arises out of the middle of the spinning circle. He botched, and created the Fog when he was at the top of the tower using the Psi Scan Crystal.
Now, the PC is primed to 'see' zombies, and thus he will. One neat part is that zombies can climb up the tower without a spacesuit. The PC will be able to find the crystal by going toward his direction of greatest fear. This will make it so that even if he dissipates some zombies by clear headedness, it will get harder as he gets closer to the crystal.
And, once he gets to the crystal, he can wake the ordinary crew which has slept through some disaster, but the countermeasures in the crystal will kill him, which is what I want.
Jack the Ripper, Naive Necromancer
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Poor Jack, he's the doctor (I need to do some research here). He's got a plan to defeat death. All he needs to do is analyze the scientific forces that primitive and superstitious sorts had written about in various 'Demonraising' books, and recreate them with scientific arc zappers and such.
So far, he' shad some success. He's animated some corpses and created things the unenlightened might call zombies. He finds it hard to get bodies for his experiments as the cadaver guys who steal from teh cemeteries charge way too much. So he's set his zombies to finding dead bodies during the night hours. Little does he know that 'finding' a dead body for a zombie is easy. It just has to kill a human, and one that it faintly remembers it would have found attractive back when it was alive.
I could make this a steampunk world, but I think that gives the ending away. Or I could make it seem normal...and then spring the trap at the end. That sounds better.