Zombies in Star Wars

[CRMcNeill]

For some reason, that just doesn't sound like zombies to me. I could see a highly advanced droid race having added horror factor by harvesting body parts in the manner you describe...
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Esoomian]

[CRMcNeill]

Interesting.

In Twin Stars of Kira, the adventure "The Iskaloni Factor" features evil aliens who use cybernetic implants to enslave alien races...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Whill]

No offense to anyone here, but I'm not into zombies. I never really have been into zombie movies, even as a teenaged nerd. That being said, yes I have done zombies in a Star Wars campaign I ran back in 1989. I had seen The Serpent and the Rainbow in 1988 and many other horror movies in the late 80s, and I was undoubtedly also under the influence of the Cthulhu campaign I was a player in at the time.

But instead of being pseudoscientific with a basis on the sci-fi end, I went totally space opera/fantasy. The zombies were created and powered by the Dark Side of the Force. 16 years later when I saw Revenge of the Sith, I actually thought of my SW zombies when Palpatine said, "The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural." Animating dead bodies definitely qualifies as un-natural!

A crazy old gypsy-like Force-sensitive woman strong in Dark Side acquired a Kyberish crystal that amplified her powers. Her son was the leader of a pirate fleet who was also the illegitimate son of Emperor Palpatine. (He had no Force abilities except that he generated a Force-immunity bubble around himself not unlike what those lizards did in the Zahn books a couple years later). In the previous campaign the Pirate Prince had been influenced by the PCs to become a Rebel privateer, but after his mother had grown in power she made him disillusioned with the Alliance and informed him who his father was, eventually getting him to leave the service of the Alliance and form their own rebel organization whose ultimate intent was to dispose Palpatine and take over the Empire. They were also a rival rebel group who competed with the Alliance for new recruits, resources and other victories, but of course they used despicable methods to achieve their ends.

Then the zombies started showing up. I resurrected not only previously defeated antagonists, but eventually even deceased friends and team members of the PCs. It surprisingly made for some intriguing drama, for what teenagers could muster anyway. The crystal was eventually destroyed eliminating the zombie problem. It was fairly fun at the time but I have never had any desire to ever do zombies in Star Wars again, and I haven't.

Star Trek's Borg may be zombie-like but I'm pretty sure the organic aspect of the Borg is still technically alive. The Iskaloni in Twin Stars of Kira were obviously a rip-off of the Borg.

I was inspired by the original concept for the Borg being an insect species and created a race of insect-cyborgs for my Star Wars game. They are a fringe group of the 4-armed insect species that Verpine are also an offshoot of in my game, and these cyborgs only attempt to "assimilate" non-cyborg members their own species and Verpine ("correcting" Verpine by adding two additional arms). And they don't assimilate new members into their collective hive against their will - They take advantage of both species' fascination with technology and entice them to come to the decision to "improve" themselves by becoming cyborgs on their own, operating more like a cult or a gang.
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[DougRed4]

For not being a zombie fan, those are some darn cool ideas, Whill!
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Lane Arroway]

I just ran a zombie game recently. A team of Rebels is sent to bring back a ship sent on a rescue mission to an alien world thought to be in Imperial control. When they find the ship they are told an alien signal is jamming communications preventing any rescue attempts. More ominous is the Imperial frigate left to drift in orbit.

Saving you guys the drama, simply put, the ship was full of zombies and the rebels had to save a squad of marines that were sent over to investigate. They appeared slowly at first for tension and suprise. Then the mobs appeared. By the time the rebels saved the marines it was obvious the ship was lost. After their escape the frigate was destroyed.

As that was happening, a squad of fighters was searching the planet for signs of life. The planet, most of it anyway, was covered by cities. However, the alien culture that thrived here was long dead. One pilot, suprisingly, made contact with a group of rebel survivors. Unfortunatly, her ship was only able to carry one passenger so she took the wounded man back to the rebel assault frigate. See where this is going?

Long story short, the zombie menace didn't spread past sickbay, thankfully. However, it's worth noting that because of the misguided actions of a lightsaber wielding player and a lot of "1's" on the wild die the situation was worse than it could have been. Medical scanners were destroyed, damaged machines spat smoke obscuring vision. Honestly, I couldn't have planned it better myself.

If the rebels had any chance of saving any survivors they had to shut down the alien signal. A long, tense trek into the heart of the alien spaceport led the heroes to a massive power generator which they had to shutdown or destroy. Along the way they fought zombies, large brutish creatures and even Stormcommandos. One lucky lightsaber wielding player, who got himself separated from the others, managed to find the source of the zombies. A Dark Side spirit.

After the rebels set the generator to overload they made a daring escape out of the spaceport. Meanwhile, the "lucky" rebel fought an epic battle for control of his body. Unfortunately, the spirit won.
To be continued...
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"This job is 90% talking to people and 10% shooting at them."

[garhkal]

You can have a lot of fun with that pc (wit the dark side spirit in him)..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[DougRed4]

Your recap sounds like it was an epic adventure, Lane! Well done! 8) You gotta love what you can do as a GM when a "1" happens on the Wild Die!

BTW, welcome to the Rancor Pit!!!
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[garhkal]

As a q.. What mechanic did you use for whether that dark side spirit took over or not?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Lane Arroway]

Thanks for the replies. Actually, this was my second zombie scenario. My first was a resident evil hybrid game. Unfortunatly I have a small group to play with (2 players in this case) and so it could have gone better. Still, we all had fun. The minor jedi caused alot of damage and got 2 people killed. The whole affair was fun to play. My other player actually played 3 characters in this game: A pilot, a marine and a doctor.
We had fun with his doctor trying to figuring out this virus. A task made more difficult because the minor jedi destroyed his equipment.

As far as the spirit goes, it was pretty simple. When the minor jedi came into the room the spirit was inhabiting the dead body of an imperial scientist. What followed was the typical villian banter "Welcome to my parlor... blah, blah". But then the minor jedi acted too clever for his own good. He held his commlink on so that the conversation would be heard my his friends. A good idea in certain situations. But remember that alien signal jamming communications? Well, the minor jedi spend valuable time trying to get the villian to explain the evil plan when he should have been taking action. So the spirit threw him around the room, wracked his body with inflict pain and threw tables at him. After he was knocked out the spirit attemped the takeover.
Instead of simply using transfer life I decided to play the inner battle out. First, the spirit set a few challenges in front of him. He woke up naked on a cold table in an Imperial styled morgue. As you might expect a human zombie crawled out of one of the slabs. Eventually, he killed the zombie using the table. It was a tense fight for him.
The next part I needed help from the other player. You see, this game was played using my players second line characters. So I decided to use the other player's frontline character Jedi Knight Aleema and her padawan Darren.
Next, after finding some clothes, he ran into a Darren who healed his wound and led him to the next area. Then zombies swarmed the area and as the minor jedi stepped through the door it sealed after him cutting him off from Darren. He tried desperately to open it, but failed. The test was to see if he would purposely abandon her or use her as bait. In this case he passed.
Next he came upon 2 stormcommandos standing over Aleema's body. After he used the force he found out she was still alive he aimed his rifle at the closest commando's head and fired. He killed the other before he could fire back. This test he failed. The commandos saved Aleema from some zombies and were checking on her. These were tests of character. the spirit wanted to find cracks to exploit.
Finally, the spirit confronted him as a mirror of himself. Fyi, for some reason my player wanted his character to look like a younger Willem Dafoe so imagine his face as the green goblin. Anyway, they fought with lightsabers. I didn't really roll any attacks for the spirit and let the scene play out. The minor jedi needed heroic rolls to hit the mirror image and after a long struggle he destroyed it. Then the spirit began to envelop him. His only chance was to best it with wills. Unfortunately, he didn't improve many skills including willpower. His only chance was to call on the dark side, use a force point and concentrate on willpower.
He didn't do that.

So now I can have fun coming up with a game with a spirit riding his body.
_________________
"This job is 90% talking to people and 10% shooting at them."

[DougRed4]

Wow! I really like how you played out the challenges, rather than just having a few rolls decide things! 8)
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Lane Arroway]

Finally got to play the follow up adventure with the sith/darkside spirit. Because the assault frigate and the second line characters are important to future stories(like, I already stated the frigate was back from its mission before I actually ran the zombie game), I really needed to finish this off. I hadn't actually anticipated the minor jedi to be defeated, afterall. I wanted him to shine, to be a hero and defeat a great evil like other jedi. Well, I'm thinking my player wasn't ready to play a serious character like a jedi. All he really wanted to do was implove his lightsaber and learn cool powers. Live and learn I guess.

Anyway, so we start things off with the doctor screening survivors of the infection before letting them be transported to the frigate. Simon, the minor jedi, evades the doctor for awhile. This adds tension to the scene because my player knows that he's the spirit and is trying to act with only character knowledge. Eventually, Simon is scanned and no signs of the virus are present. A few scenes are described for the players benifit that describe "Simon" doing normal things such as fending of zombies and saving people. He also assists the doctor in checking the survivors. (of course the player didn't trust him and had the doctor double check his work) For awhile it seems Simon is ok.

Remember the pilot? Zallana is her name and she's a Zeltran. Her species can sense the emotions of others. Naturally she was confused to sense such hatred in Simon. The spirit had to deal with her...
Her absence and a few other disappearances worried the doctor but it wasn't until infected started to appear in different places on the ship that he started to suspect something was going on. Meanwhile, Simon had been reported to have been seen with one of the missing crew members, a crew member that became infected and attacked her bunkmates. Simon ignored all calls and somehow evaded the guards. The situation began to get even more tense. Even with non-essential crew in their quarters infected were appearing and attacking. The latest incident occuring in engineering. The doctor suspected that these infected were not attacking randomly, but taking actions like they were "directed".
During an attack in the medbay the situation became clear. The doctor tried to calm a panicked crowd as an infected patient attacked. As the mob overpowered the guards and openned the medbay doors to escape, the doctor spotted Simon in the corridor. He was wearing a black cloak and flashed the doctor a wicked grin before walking out of sight. Luckily, this doctor was not just a man of science he was a man of action. He took hold of his blaster rifle and ran after Simon. Simon had disappeared again, but the doctor guessed that Simon was heading for the freighter docked under the frigate. He was right.
When the doctor caught up to Simon he was walking a bound Zallana toward the docking tube. His face had become paler and his eyes bloodshot. It was apparent that he was infected but somehow in control of himself. The doctor reasoned that he came in contact with something on the planet that transformed him into some kind of "carrier". After few choice words the doctor fired a heroic(force point) shot to Simons head. Simon spun and fell to one knee as he released Zallana. The doctor rushed to her side but was overcome by pain. He crupled to the floor dropping his blaster rifle. Simon, now with a chunk of his face blasted away declared it was time to get a prettier face. Zallana, with her hands bound behind her, grabbed the blaster and with a desparate(force point) shot, blew off Simon's head completely! Simon's body fell to the floor. The doctor recovered from the spirit's grip(inflict pain). Suddenly, the deck began to shake and the lights burned out as the spirit shrieked. The spirit appeared in a shadow form and began to envelope Zallana. Using all her will(and 2 character points, in the hopes of getting multiple wild die) Zallana repelled the spirit. Having exhausted itself the spirit vanished. All was calm once more.

So ends the zombie menace...for now.
The scene opens with a recoving rebel soldier finally cleared to return to his quarters. His hand gently touches the spot where his arm was severed to prevent the infection from spreading. Another soldier asks him "Are you going to be ok?"
"I'm going to be fine." the recovering rebel says. From outside the ship we see the rebel turn toward the viewport and with a wicked smile says "Just fine."

End

That final piece was for the player's benefit as it mirrors the end of the last game with Simon being asked if he was ok. Simon respons by saying "I'm fine" looks toward the audience "just fine".
Some additional info, the one-armed rebel was in the last game and suffered his injury because of poor decisions on Simon's part during the medbay attack. During the second game, the same rebel is in medbay and during 2-3 scenes is asking to be cleared to return to his bunk.
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"This job is 90% talking to people and 10% shooting at them."

[CRMcNeill]

So, Lane, what form do your zombies take, insofar as to their adherence to plague zombie popular behavior?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Lane Arroway]

Well, they behave like typical zombies like we've seen in walking dead and some classic movies. I haven't gone into specifics because what they did when they did them depended more on the plot. They have typical human stats (2D) with professional levels in brawling. I gave their bite a +1D damage. I would say their move would depend on level of decomp. A fresh one would have a move of 10, while a long dead one might have a move of 5.
They ignored penalties to being wounded but could be slowed down by serious injuries. I would make it stall for a bit if it took a nasty hit. Headshots killed them as long as it was lethal damage, otherwise it stunned them.

In my first adventure I also used a giant sized zombie/things to challenge and scare the players. They were more of a resident evil type of brute being about 8ft tall and wielding a large sledge hammer. I think it had around a 6D strength, but I might have fudged it's soak roll a few times. It had a 8D brawling and a 4D melee combat. It was slow with a move of 8. If I had to give it other stats they would be 1D to 2D.

Without direction from their Sith master, I would say that the zombies would attack any living thing they sensed. I think they would be attracted to noises and can be easily tricked. They also tend to form into groups or mobs.
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"This job is 90% talking to people and 10% shooting at them."

[CRMcNeill]

You should check out World War Z (the book, not the movie) for some in-depth information on possible quirks for zombies. A couple of the more interesting ones in the book: zombies freeze in extremely cold temperatures, but thaw out and reanimate when things warm up, and since they have no need to breathe, they function quite well on ocean floors...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index