Stormonu
NeoGrognard
This is the skeleton of an idea - I'd love to hear any thoughts other might have about fleshing this out more.
Fifteen years ago, it all went to hell. Now, it's 2035 and things have settled a bit. Just a bit.
It doesn't really matter where the zombie plague started, but within three months, it was everywhere, on all the continents - well, save maybe Antarctica, but no one really cares to check that out for sure. By the end of the first year, the world's population had dropped to just a few million left, scattered in roving caravans running out of fuel and abandoning their dead where they fell (what was the use of burying them? And burning them took fuel needed for transportation) or cowering behind the walls of fortified cities and throwing their dead over the walls - or burning the corpses.
Luckily, a given zombie didn't have a long lifespan. Something about its strange metabolizm caused it to burn through calories at an atrocious rate. An unfed zombie might last a week or two, then literally starve to death. But a fed zombie - even feeding on another zombie - could last as long as it had food to fuel it. Each year literally millions of zombies starved to death or were torn asunder by their comrades in the zombies quest for sustenance. Some people dared to hope that the zombie plague might burn itself out. But after three years, most folks had given up that hope - there still seemed to ravening hordes everyone you turned.
After five years, I don't think anyone had realized that the plague had become so rampant that it was in just about everything - the soil, the animals - even the food and the water. Mammals seemed to be the easiest infected - dogs, cats, pigs, bears and apes being noted the most often zombie animals to be found shortly after the start of the plague. Luckily insects, birds and reptiles were immune - though they could contaminate other areas by spreading filth or diseased blood to other humans. Plants seemed to be immune as well, though they could get contaminated if. Nothing like biting into an apple to fall over a few minutes later and rise as a zombie. That gave more than one person a shock or two.
Somewhere around six years down the road, some doctor who'd survived managed to puzzle out a sort of cure for the plague. And then some dumb schmuck killed him - or he was assassinated - before he could properly distribute the vaccine. A handful of lucky souls received the cure, but the only way to spread it was to inject the blood of the cured into another person ... and hope it took. If you had the wrong kind of blood - or DNA - or something, all the cure would do for you was hasten your transformation into a zombie - rather unpleasantly.
Seven years going and the last of the fortified cities fell and the last road caravan rolled to a stop. Only a few thousand living souls were left, but they were still outnumbered by the dead by at least ten to one. And each person that fell kept adding to the ranks of the damned, even if for but a brief moment.
Eight years into the plague and something - bizarre - happened. They say it takes evolution thousands, if not millions of years to occur. Somehow, eight years of hell started a crash program in the remains of mankind. Perhaps it was the hand of God, who had finally tired of the destruction he had wrought to punish man's hubris. Whatever the reason, there came the whispers of the Necromancers.
Born in the wastes of the deepest concentrations of zombies, there arose men with the innate power to first hide among and then eventually influence or destroy the risen dead. The living who could, flocked to their side. Some of the necromancers rebuffed the presence of others, but most could not stand to dwell alone among the dead. And as has always been the case in times before, these Necromancers grew in power and influence.
Some were generous individuals who cared for and protected those in their care. Some were evil who set out to conquer everyone and everything about them. Most were simply men and women with human virtues and foilables. They did what they could, but they were imperfect. But the living steadied under their care and the world could slowly be rebuilt.
It's been twelve years now since the Necromancers first emerged, and the world is still wounded, but perhaps it is recovering. The world of the living and the dead has become divided among nine of the most influential Necromancers.
Two great Necromancers rule North America - one the east, one the west. Each roars at the other, sending what feeble armies it can muster against each other in the hope of ruling the continent alone.
Ruin-scarred Europe is home to the most debase Necromancer who has forsaken the living to cavort with the dead. His only subjects are the dead and the lesser Necromancers he has driven to the brink of insanity - and to ghoulish appetites.
Asia is split between the Necromancer of Moscow - who demands sacrifice of living blood, and the great Necromancer of China who holds the orient in his iron grip.
Africa is home to a great Necromancer who sells the zombie cure to any and all, but who turns a blind eye to those who will not give him fealty.
Australia is home to perhaps the quietest Necromancer of all. Having driven the undead of the continent literally into the sea, he/she has worked tirelessly to help mankind rebuilt - starting with Melbourne itself.
South America houses the last of the greatest Necromancer, who commands the life force of the tainted jungles of the south. It is said that it hunts the jungle wilds, but lets those in the city live free of their undead brethren. Those who die within the city have been seen to simply walk (unmolested) out into the wilds, never to be seen again. And every so often, the jungle simply claims a town to feed the Necromancer's hordes.
That is the world we live in. It is a world for your taking, if you survive.
Are you a Blooded - given the gift of serum and immune to the ravages of undeath?
Are you a tool of the Necromancers - granted some protection from the undead hordes by the pheremonic relics given to you by your master?
Are you an emergent Necromancer - gifted with the innate ability to rouse or slay the dead for to benefit or plague humanity?
Or perhaps you are Tainted - a typhoid Mary immune to the disease you carry, but capable of tapping zombie-like abilities to survive in a world gone mad?
Fifteen years ago, it all went to hell. Now, it's 2035 and things have settled a bit. Just a bit.
It doesn't really matter where the zombie plague started, but within three months, it was everywhere, on all the continents - well, save maybe Antarctica, but no one really cares to check that out for sure. By the end of the first year, the world's population had dropped to just a few million left, scattered in roving caravans running out of fuel and abandoning their dead where they fell (what was the use of burying them? And burning them took fuel needed for transportation) or cowering behind the walls of fortified cities and throwing their dead over the walls - or burning the corpses.
Luckily, a given zombie didn't have a long lifespan. Something about its strange metabolizm caused it to burn through calories at an atrocious rate. An unfed zombie might last a week or two, then literally starve to death. But a fed zombie - even feeding on another zombie - could last as long as it had food to fuel it. Each year literally millions of zombies starved to death or were torn asunder by their comrades in the zombies quest for sustenance. Some people dared to hope that the zombie plague might burn itself out. But after three years, most folks had given up that hope - there still seemed to ravening hordes everyone you turned.
After five years, I don't think anyone had realized that the plague had become so rampant that it was in just about everything - the soil, the animals - even the food and the water. Mammals seemed to be the easiest infected - dogs, cats, pigs, bears and apes being noted the most often zombie animals to be found shortly after the start of the plague. Luckily insects, birds and reptiles were immune - though they could contaminate other areas by spreading filth or diseased blood to other humans. Plants seemed to be immune as well, though they could get contaminated if. Nothing like biting into an apple to fall over a few minutes later and rise as a zombie. That gave more than one person a shock or two.
Somewhere around six years down the road, some doctor who'd survived managed to puzzle out a sort of cure for the plague. And then some dumb schmuck killed him - or he was assassinated - before he could properly distribute the vaccine. A handful of lucky souls received the cure, but the only way to spread it was to inject the blood of the cured into another person ... and hope it took. If you had the wrong kind of blood - or DNA - or something, all the cure would do for you was hasten your transformation into a zombie - rather unpleasantly.
Seven years going and the last of the fortified cities fell and the last road caravan rolled to a stop. Only a few thousand living souls were left, but they were still outnumbered by the dead by at least ten to one. And each person that fell kept adding to the ranks of the damned, even if for but a brief moment.
Eight years into the plague and something - bizarre - happened. They say it takes evolution thousands, if not millions of years to occur. Somehow, eight years of hell started a crash program in the remains of mankind. Perhaps it was the hand of God, who had finally tired of the destruction he had wrought to punish man's hubris. Whatever the reason, there came the whispers of the Necromancers.
Born in the wastes of the deepest concentrations of zombies, there arose men with the innate power to first hide among and then eventually influence or destroy the risen dead. The living who could, flocked to their side. Some of the necromancers rebuffed the presence of others, but most could not stand to dwell alone among the dead. And as has always been the case in times before, these Necromancers grew in power and influence.
Some were generous individuals who cared for and protected those in their care. Some were evil who set out to conquer everyone and everything about them. Most were simply men and women with human virtues and foilables. They did what they could, but they were imperfect. But the living steadied under their care and the world could slowly be rebuilt.
It's been twelve years now since the Necromancers first emerged, and the world is still wounded, but perhaps it is recovering. The world of the living and the dead has become divided among nine of the most influential Necromancers.
Two great Necromancers rule North America - one the east, one the west. Each roars at the other, sending what feeble armies it can muster against each other in the hope of ruling the continent alone.
Ruin-scarred Europe is home to the most debase Necromancer who has forsaken the living to cavort with the dead. His only subjects are the dead and the lesser Necromancers he has driven to the brink of insanity - and to ghoulish appetites.
Asia is split between the Necromancer of Moscow - who demands sacrifice of living blood, and the great Necromancer of China who holds the orient in his iron grip.
Africa is home to a great Necromancer who sells the zombie cure to any and all, but who turns a blind eye to those who will not give him fealty.
Australia is home to perhaps the quietest Necromancer of all. Having driven the undead of the continent literally into the sea, he/she has worked tirelessly to help mankind rebuilt - starting with Melbourne itself.
South America houses the last of the greatest Necromancer, who commands the life force of the tainted jungles of the south. It is said that it hunts the jungle wilds, but lets those in the city live free of their undead brethren. Those who die within the city have been seen to simply walk (unmolested) out into the wilds, never to be seen again. And every so often, the jungle simply claims a town to feed the Necromancer's hordes.
That is the world we live in. It is a world for your taking, if you survive.
Are you a Blooded - given the gift of serum and immune to the ravages of undeath?
Are you a tool of the Necromancers - granted some protection from the undead hordes by the pheremonic relics given to you by your master?
Are you an emergent Necromancer - gifted with the innate ability to rouse or slay the dead for to benefit or plague humanity?
Or perhaps you are Tainted - a typhoid Mary immune to the disease you carry, but capable of tapping zombie-like abilities to survive in a world gone mad?
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