JAB Rocks. That is all.

I'm a huge, rediculous, almost sick fan of all things zombie. And I've always wished that the flesh-eating geeks had more, better, coverage in fantasy adventure modules. Louis Porter Jr's Cold Visitor was, until about five minutes ago, the only example of a full-blown zombie fest (albeit one dealing with alien imitations) that I could find for D&D. The mode (i.e., survial horror) is simply not covered well in Fantasy.

Last year, I had an opportunity to discover why such adventure are so few and far between. I talked to a publisher about writing one but, without some seriously warped interpretations of the RAW, I found that making plague a real, substantial, threat in D&D is not at all easy. In the end, I couldn't get the job done, much to my chagrin. I did end up writing something similar for another system but that's a different story.

Today I found out much to my frustration that I can't debit my bank account for anything less than $20 and, since I didn't have $20 in it, that was a problem. So. . . what to do with that lingering $8? Hit up RPGNow, of course! I had planned on picking up some of Justin Alexander Bacon's city modules since he posted to 'OGL Settings' thread here -- but what really caught my eye was a little thing called "The Complex of Zombies".

This short adventure is more or less Resident Evil in Fantasy. Which rocks. It rocks hard. And it rocks because it's not just zombies but zombie-like things. Bad things. Bad things that eat people. Bad things that are just different enough from bog standard zombies to scare the crap out of players when they first encounter them. And all for $2.00. I've been looking for a promising hook to start a guilty pleasure hack and slay campaign.

And, by gawd, I think I have!

Definitely sounds wicked. I probably should pick this up since I have been getting an itch to run Ravenloft, the setting, again.

Treebore said:

Definitely sounds wicked. I probably should pick this up since I have been getting an itch to run Ravenloft, the setting, again.

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Really, for $2.00, it's a steal (I think it may be on sale, though I'm not certain if that's a temporary thing or a permanent markdown). The city books are cool, too, though I'm not certain how I'll use them just yet. Something odd, though. . .

When I purchased the product in question, I was alloted multiple downloads by OBS, which is something that I've never had happen before. Respectively, I was alloted eight downloads of 'Zombies', eight of Dweredell, and ten of Aerie. That's a. . . ah. . . lot.

I was planning on leaving some in my download queue 'just in case' and distributing some to my players (the city supplements, anyhow) as this seems to be permissible by law, given that each copy downloaded is a distinct and seperate entity. This is WAY cool.

Provided it isn't a glitch

jdrakeh said:

Really, for $2.00, it's a steal (I think it may be on sale, though I'm not certain if that's a temporary thing or a permanent markdown). The city books are cool, too, though I'm not certain how I'll use them just yet. Something odd, though. . .

When I purchased the product in question, I was alloted multiple downloads by OBS, which is something that I've never had happen before. Respectively, I was alloted eight downloads of 'Zombies', eight of Dweredell, and ten of Aerie. That's a. . . ah. . . lot.

I was planning on leaving some in my download queue 'just in case' and distributing some to my players (the city supplements, anyhow) as this seems to be permissible by law, given that each copy downloaded is a distinct and seperate entity. This is WAY cool.

Provided it isn't a glitch

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From what I understand it, 8 downloads allocated to you doesn't meant that you have 8 copies to distribute to whoever you want. It just allows you to go back and download another copy of the PDF should you lose yours due to your computer getting stolen or your hard drive crashing.

At least that's how I understood it to work. From my experience, I have always gotten 5 downloads of everything I buy from DTRPG.

Keep in mind that this is just my take on it. I may be mistaken.

Olaf the Stout

Olaf the Stout said:

From what I understand it, 8 downloads allocated to you doesn't meant that you have 8 copies to distribute to whoever you want. It just allows you to go back and download another copy of the PDF should you lose yours due to your computer getting stolen or your hard drive crashing.

At least that's how I understood it to work. From my experience, I have always gotten 5 downloads of everything I buy from DTRPG.

Keep in mind that this is just my take on it. I may be mistaken.

Olaf the Stout

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Thats how I understood those "extra" downloads are to be used. In case my computer crashes and my dog pee's on the back up drive.

jdrakeh said:

Today I found out much to my frustration that I can't debit my bank account for anything less than $20 and, since I didn't have $20 in it, that was a problem. So. . . what to do with that lingering $8? Hit up RPGNow, of course! I had planned on picking up some of Justin Alexander Bacon's city modules since he posted to 'OGL Settings' thread here -- but what really caught my eye was a little thing called "The Complex of Zombies".

This short adventure is more or less Resident Evil in Fantasy. Which rocks. It rocks hard. And it rocks because it's not just zombies but zombie-like things. Bad things. Bad things that eat people. Bad things that are just different enough from bog standard zombies to scare the crap out of players when they first encounter them. And all for $2.00. I've been looking for a promising hook to start a guilty pleasure hack and slay campaign.

And, by gawd, I think I have!

Click to expand...

Wow! I opened this thread completely at random and literally could not have received a more welcome surprise. It also couldn't have come at a better time: I've been going through something of a melancholy funk this past week as far as my creative life goes, and seeing my work praised in such unexpected and effusive fashion has done wonders for my soul.

Thank you very much.

Last year, I had an opportunity to discover why such adventure are so few and far between. I talked to a publisher about writing one but, without some seriously warped interpretations of the RAW, I found that making plague a real, substantial, threat in D&D is not at all easy.

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It's interesting you should mention plague. A few years ago I wrote up several submissions for Atlas Games' EN ROUTE II. A couple of them ("Lure of the Serpent" and "Purple Storm") got accepted, but my personal favorite at the time -- a piece called "The Black Mist" -- was rejected.

"The Black Mist" featured a magical plague designed specifically to work around the typical limitations of disease in bog-standard D&D and produce an effect much like the black death... but a black death spiced up in all the ways that only true fantasy makes possible. Looking back over the manuscript now, I can see why it was rejected: I struggled long and hard to figure out how to squeeze the entire scenario into the word count for EN ROUTE II and the result is disjointed and kind of scant on detail.

But now that you've brought this little scenario back to the forefront of my mind, I think I know what my next RPG-related project is going to be. Right now I'm wrapping up the final touches on the forthcoming Rule Supplement 1: Mounted Combat, but once that's done I think a quick clean-up and expansion of The Black Mist is in order (if it can be so managed).

Really, for $2.00, it's a steal (I think it may be on sale, though I'm not certain if that's a temporary thing or a permanent markdown).

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$2.00 is the permanent price for the PDF edition. A print edition is available from Lulu.com (see the link below) for $6.49.

Now that RPGNow and DriveThruRPG have finished their database merge, I believe RPGNow has adopted the old DTRPG practice of listing the price of the print edition and then showing you how much you're saving by buying it as a PDF. I think that's the "mark-down" that you're seeing.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

This sound spec-tac-u-lar. I want.

JustinA said:

"The Black Mist" featured a magical plague designed specifically to work around the typical limitations of disease in bog-standard D&D and produce an effect much like the black death... but a black death spiced up in all the ways that only true fantasy makes possible.

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I never understood why anyone thinks that D&D magic would stop the Black Death. Let's start with the bubonic variant of Plague being carried by infected fleas within wool or other textiles that has an onset time of 6 days. Town size is 500.

Day 1. fabric arrives at the weaver/tailor/etc. One of the weaver's sons that unloaded the material becomes infected immediately.
Day 2. infected fleas begin spreading and encounter the dog
Day 3. infected fleas continue to spread and infect the cat
Day 4 the weaver's son and the cat begin infecting the household flea population
Day 5 every person in the household has been exposed, assume 1-2 more have been infected
Day 6 those infected spread the infection through town by either leaving infected fleas behind or infecting the fleas that bite them.
Day 7 The weaver's son develops the first symptoms and becomes contagious via contact. There's a 10% chance that the weaver's son will hide the fact or ignore the symptoms. Let's say he goes public. The house is immediately quarantined. Any goods sold by them are burned. Riders are sent out to nearby villages to provide warning. Odds are poor there's a priest who can cure disease by bog-standard D&D but go with it and say there's a 6th level priest who can cast 2 Remove Disease's day. He RD's the son and probably the sickliest person in the house as a preventative measure.
Odds are 100 people in town have been exposed to the plague through goods sold, visiting the weavers, or running into them at the market, church, or ale house. The priest prays over those who have been near the weavers and gets lucky, providing a boost to saves so only 25 of those exposed become infected.
Day 8. The priest fires off 1 more RD on the household and dumps another on himself to be safe.
Day 9 the cat shows symptoms and is killed. The priest puts an RD on the two people with the most contact with the weavers.
Day 10 Two more priests come into town and begin to share the RDs around, by chance reducing the total infected to 20. Those 20 infected begin to share it via infected fleas, likely exposing another 100 despite containment efforts (households are likely 4+ people).
Day 12 & 13 the priests hold small ceremonies to pray over the townsfolk and again manage to cut the infection rate in half so that only another 25 are infected.
Day 14 The infected 20 become symptomatic. Quarantines are enacted and all but 6 of the infected are quarantined. They expose another 100 of the town to the disease, again only 25 are infected.
Day 15 The priests RD 6 of the symptomatic, cutting the symptomatic down to 14.
Day 16 The infected 25 from day 12 become symptomatic (total 39). The priests RD 6 of them (total 33).
Day 17 5 people die (1% population). Priests RD 6 more leaving 28 symptomatic.
Day 18 5 people die (10 total). Priests RD 6 more leaving 17 symptomatic.
Day 19 5 people die (15 total). Priests RD 6 more leaving 6 symptomatic
Day 20 3 people die (18 total). The 25 infected on day 14 become symptomatic and have exposed another 50 people (people are getting paranoid) with 13 infected. Priests RD 6. 22 are symptomatic.
Day 21. The priests RD 3 people plus themselves leaving 19 symptomatic.
Day 22 Priests RD 6 more leaving 16 symptomatic
Day 23 7 die (25 total) Priests RD 6 more leaving 3 symptomatic
Day 24 1 die (26 total), priests RD remainder of symptomatic
Day 25 Priests RD themselves and the weakest people in town who have the most exposure, curing 1 of those infected on day 20 by chance.
Day 26 12 infected on day 20 become symptomatic.

At this point the priests can quickly kill off the plague. But we've got 26 dead out of 500 (5% mortality) under the lucky circumstances of having a priest onsite with RD, two more able to be requested and arrive in 3 days, and the improbable circumstance of not being reinfected by the fleas in the house or on the animals in town.

As the population increases the impact of the priests' drop quickly until mass heal becomes available. Even that becomes moot with a very long incubation period (10-14 days) that would allow for rapid dispersal of the disease beyond the ability of the high level priests to cope with.

The only real advantage D&D magic provides is the possibility of some divination providing warning of the disease prior to a full blow outbreak.

kigmatzomat said:

The only real advantage D&D magic provides is the possibility of some divination providing warning of the disease prior to a full blow outbreak.

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You know, that would be a heck of a logical magic item: A statue or something in the local temple that begins speaking when certain types of disease are present in the town, even if they're not yet contagious.

It'd probably be a magic mouth for that aspect of it, so the information it could give -- likely the name of the disease -- wouldn't be enough to totally forestall a plague.

The Complete Book of Eldritch Might, and probably other sources, has detect disease as an orison counterpart to detect poison, which would certainly be more commonly used than the latter, except for dungeoncrawlers.

kigmatzomat said:

I never understood why anyone thinks that D&D magic would stop the Black Death. Let's start with the bubonic variant of Plague being carried by infected fleas within wool or other textiles that has an onset time of 6 days. Town size is 500.

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Unfortunately, I don't have much time at the moment to do a point-by-point rebuttal of your post. However:

(1) You aren't using the standard demographics found on pg. 136 of the DMG.

(2) You aren't taking into account the availability and likelihood of magical items (although you mention one possibility later on, it's not accounted for in your scenario).

(3) You aren't taking into account the effectiveness and reliability of divination spells.

(4) You've gotten unspoken premises of the Fort DCs and death rates for the plague. I can't seem to get any sense out of them. Apparently everyone who becomes symptomatic in your scenario either needs to get an RD cast on them or die.

Most importantly, you've ignored the fact that -- all other things being true -- the disease still represents essentially no threat to the PCs whatsoever. This is the primary problem with using any disease-oriented scenario: The PCs aren't at risk and, with only a minimal expenditure of resources, they can make sure anyone they care about isn't at risk, either. Other people may or may not die, but they're just the nameless masses as far as the narrative is concerned.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net