Blood and Brains: The Zombie Hunter's Guide

[PosterBoy]

zombie (ZOM-bee): n. 1. According to voodoo belief, a supernatural power that can enter into and reanimate a corpse. 2. A corpse revived in this way. 3. One who looks or behaves like an automaton. 4. Target practice.

Our professionals at the National Center for Reanimation Prevention and Control (NCRPC) have done all the hard work so you don't have to - chopping, hacking, chainsawing, and blasting the bloody gibbets off of the shambling undead, all to make your life a little easier. If you've got a case of the zombie blues, this book's the cure.

Blood and Brains: The Zombie Hunter's Guide is a d20 Modern supplement full of zombie hunting goodness, including:

# 10 new occupations
# a new organization (The National Center for Reanimation Prevention and Control)
# 16 new feats
# plenty of stuff to blow zombies up with, including the trench spike and Shaolin spade
# seven new combat techniques
# five new advanced classes
# three psionic powers and 37 spells
# madness and trust rules
# five new FX items
# and of course, lots and lots of zombies (over 20), including a random zombie generator

So what are you waiting for? Grab your shotgun and your axe and start the dezombification process in your local town today!

 

[Messageboard Golem]

After reading the initial section of the Blood and Brains Modern D20 supplement, I immediatly recalled some of the B movies I watched when I was younger, like night of the living dead. After finishing reading the supplement, I was left with the same feeling. This supplement should be enjoyable by all who enjoy a bit of horror, that is very much tongue in cheek.
The theme of the content of the supplement works well. You are given plenty of options for chreating characters, designing encounters, and running a very fun campaign. Don't mistake this for Ravenloth however. This is very much about tongue in cheek humor. A good example is that in Ravenloth, you slay a 100 zombies, and get ready for the master of the domain to come kick your ass. In Blood and Brains, you kill the 100 zombies, swig a beer, kiss the b movie screen queen next to you, and go back to your y-mart job the next day.
The other highlight of the supplement in my eyes was the madness system. I most games I play we make a horror check, and we are stunned, go running out the room etc. Nothing ever seemed to well defined. The madness system works very well with the horror aspects of the supplement, giving GM's and players some fun options for how their characters react to a constant undead menace in their lives.
That being said, the writing does seem to wander a bit. I sort of felt that it was trying a bit to hard to capture the fantasy feel of and meld it with the technology area. To be fair, I have a similar feeling in general with most of Modern D20, but that was my gut reaction upon reading hte material.
The next thing I normally look at for a supplement, wether I want to use it as a player, or introduce it as part of a campaign as a DM is for unbalanced material within the supplement. While I would highly recommend also using Urban Arcana with this supplement, there is nothing that I would consider to out of line in this supplement.
Overall, I like the supplement. I'm not sure I'd buy it for 35 bucks at my local gaming store, but I'd definetily recommend it as a pdf download, and did to my local gm running a Modern D20 Ravenloth game.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

After being asked whether I would read and review Blood and Brains, I was a bit hesitant, as Zombies were not my thing. But I agreed, and now, I am glad I did. Filled with a dark humor and having flashbacks of all the old 1980s and 1990s zombie movies, I would recommend this supplement to anyone who asked.
Beginning with an etymological explanation of the word zombie, it proceedstp lay out the basics of the supplement (Who What Where When How), while the author attempts almost immediately to reach the reader with humor. While at times the humor seems forced, it is nonetheless enjoyable.
From a neutral standpoint, the book offers new occupations, new psionics, various weapons, types of zombies, new feats and abilities, and different classes to choose from. While as a GM I do not run Urban Arcana games, I am familiar with the rules, and the classes and zombies seem to be excellent additions to any game involving undead.
However, also a GM to a few Ravenloft campaigns, I see very few parallels to this supplement. In Ravenloft, you can kill zombies all day, and by the end of the day, you're either dead, or soon about to die. In this supplement, you can kill zombies all day, crack open a bottle of Tequila, and reload your shotgun, while attending your daily job of cashier at Y-Mart.
Again, I would recommend this book to anyone who asked about a decent Undead supplement. The book itself is reminiscent of a cross between the old Night of the Lving Dead movies, with a strong theme from the Evil Dead movies, giving it a humorous twist to it. And while the book itself is written superbly, it is this reminder that forces me to give it a 4 out of 5, simply because the idea has been used so many times in so many places.

 

[Gramcrackered]

Bit bare bones eh? And...er...quite a few errors scattered about as well.

 

[Gramcrackered]

Quite a few parallels between this review and arnoth's, eh?

 

[Psion]

RavenLOFT. RavenLOFT.

 

[Crothian]

Blood and Brains

Zombies. How many different ideas does that bring to ones mind? There are the slow ones from the classic Night of the Living Dead to the every quick ones in the newer Dawn of the Dead. There are the ones raised by alien technology, voodoo magic’s, or just some wired disease or drug. They are all great or not really depending on the movie they appear in. But they serve as great ideas for zombies in the modern games. Are the zombies the players fighting some government experiment that went horribly wrong? Or maybe it really did not go wrong at all. It could be an invasion from outer space or even from the dreaded Mole People. Or it could be the sign of the Apocalypse. It just leaves one question hanging: Who’s your Zombie?

Blood and Brains is close to being the quintessential modern zombie guide. It covers pretty much everything one would need for the zombie game. It is designed for the modern times and using d20 Modern. However, the monsters can easily be used in a fantasy setting.

Blood and Brains is by the great guys over at RPGObjects. A few years ago I was like who are these guys? Now I find myself eagerly awaiting their new releases to see what cool stuff they have in store for gamers. They are well known for their innovative post apocalyptic setting Darwin’s World and their line of Blood and X titles like Blood and Space, Blood and Relics, Blood and Fists, and Blood and Circuits. There are others in the series as well.

Blood and Brains is a sixty six page PDF. It comes in eight meg file. The Layout is good and the art is fair. The pictures are mostly of a bunch of zombies and people that kill zombies. The file is not designed for printing as it is full color and has nice borders. The art is black and white but there is green background of some of the writing and a color border. The book is also book marked. That makes me happy.

The book is set up pretty basically except for a short story that fills a column down each page. It starts out with a well written introduction exploring the zombie type of adventures. It discusses what the zombies are, who the heroes are, and where it all takes place. From there is goes into character occupations, just like what is found in d20 Modern. The occupations here though are more cliché reflecting the typical cast of a zombie movie. There are the typical high school types like Boy Scout, Jock, Cheerleader, Nerd and Prep. There are the more traditional horror types like the Scream Queen, Y-Mart Employee, and National Center of Reanimation Prevention Employee. The occupations are pretty standard for the names. There are a few advanced classes. There is the Bokor who uses magic to control zombies. Then there is the more traditional Mad Scientist and Necromancer. There is the Psychokinetic which oddly enough can only be taken by the Scream Queen. And lastly they have the Zombie Hunter, the one class that really makes the most sense for player characters.

The feats are pretty much also in the tone of the classic horror movies. There is Chainsaw Impale and Over the Shoulder which is designed to fire a shotgun over one’s shoulder. There are Improvised Implements and Improvised Weapons for using what ever is at hand to aid you. Some of the feats are a little tongue in cheek and they really do enforce the traditions of the zombie movies. Next is what everyone needs to kill zombies: Weapons. There are also new types of ammunition. The best though are the rules for shotguns like loading one handed and double barrel verse single. They have optional critical hit rules for zombies for people who want them. While in the normal system undead are immune to critical hits; it is shown in many movies that one can slow down a zombie with some well placed shots.

There are a few new FX options like spells and psionic abilities. There are way more spells though. Lastly the book offers forth many new creatures most of them alternative zombies types. There are plenty of things here to confuse and scare players.

Blood and Brains is the book for Zombie adventures. It has great monsters and tools for the DM to create their own adventure and campaign or to use one like Weekend Warriors a PDF adventure by 12 to Midnight. Blood and Brains does a through job of covering the topic and providing a fun and interesting way to do it all.