Zombie Plagues in your Campaign Setting

[atomn]

It'd also be interesting to have battles between various settlements of the living, where one isn't concerned about banding together and wants to sack another to take their survival essentials.

 

[Wraith Form]

Now that we have discussed the zombies' point of view, perhaps it is time to talk about countermeasures. How would you, within the context of the D&D rules, deal with the following:

- Zombies have spread through multiple sections of a city - but most people haven't been infected yet. How can you save as many people as possible?

- How do you cleanse an area of zombies so that you can be reasonably sure that none are left - and then protect it so that the farmers can get back to working in the fields and providing people with food?

- Your own city/province/kingdom has not had major zombie breakout yet, but the neighboring kingdom is close to being overrun. How do you protect your land to make sure you aren't overrun either?

- How and where will you establish "safe zones" for the remaining living people? Where will you get food and other supplies required to keep the refugees alive?

Fireballs. LOTS of fireballs.

 

[phindar]

I think its going to come down to something very much like Land of the Dead. Fortress-like cities held by whomever is powerful enough to defend them. One might be held by a cabal of powerful necromancers, another by paladins and clerics. One might be hedonistic carnival like Masque of the Red Death, another a grim, taciturn military socitey. The people in each place would essentially be held captive, whether their benefactors are kind or cruel, there is no alternative but the wasteland of the living dead.

And even inside the fortresses, there would have to be precautions. Anyone dying is a potential outbreak. Teleportation level magicks would be the only real way to travel between the fortresses. Trade would be limited, communication sporadic.

There would also be a lot of the world not protected by those fortresses, lots of cities abandoned by all but the living dead, and small pockets of survivors hiding out in the wilderness. So there'd be lots of rescue missions, lots of looting missions. The pc's could be sent out into the wastes to recover lost things and search for survivors, and as they go up in levels they might form their own fortress-city or take one over (either as a reward for faithful service or by force).

I imagine with the small number of survivors (I'd think even a large settlement would have less than a few thousand people) and the small amount of usuable land, most people are going to have to rely on magical means to produce food. Low level cleric spells, and items like Endless Water Decanters, Murlyun's Spoons, as well as Plant Growth spells will all get a major workout.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Fireballs. LOTS of fireballs.

Several problems with that:

- In the first case, this will likely burn down the city - and any surviving citizens with it.

- In the second case, you are unlikely to be able to cover many square miles of territory simultaneously - and if the weather is dry, you will burn down the crops and any buildings in the area. Not very productive.

- In the third case, are you really sure that you can cast enough fireballs to defend an entire border with them - repeatedly in a single day, since more and more zombies will approach it?

- In the fourth case, fireballs won't feed your people.


To sum it up: Strange as it seems, not all problems can be solved by fireballs...

 

[phindar]

Any problem can however be solved by the proper application of enough celestial dire badgers. (At least, so claimed my halfing conjurer Nefarious Highhat.)

Anyway, the underlying point is a good one. A world full of living dead is not a problem D&D characters can power through. Its not even one they can make a dent in. As I have long said, Night of the Living dead is a case study in asymmetrical warfare.

And that's a tough sell in D&D. It can be a hard nut for the players to get their heads around.

 

[Nifft]

- In the first case, this will likely burn down the city - and any surviving citizens with it.

I must be missing something -- fireball doesn't seem to say anything about starting fires. (Look at the two different functions of fire seeds -- one starts fires, the other does not.)

Also, when I ran through the Zombie Simulator, the only way to win was to use the MOAB-bombs early & often. Who cares if you take out a block of civilians along with a zombie or two? Those civilians who were near the zombie would have become targets anyway. Until the zombies are all dead, all civilians are a liability.

Yours in necromantic friendship, -- N

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I must be missing something -- fireball doesn't seem to say anything about starting fires. (Look at the two different functions of fire seeds -- one starts fires, the other does not.)

Fire Seeds are especially good as starting fire. However, I think that applying up to 10d6 fire damage to all objects in the area - combustible or not - has a good chance of starting a fire if there are combustible objects around.

And as it happens, the typical buildings in fantasy cities tend to have an awful lot of wood in them.


Now, this might be just a personal preference - but in my campaigns PCs had better be extra careful with fire-based attacks in a city environment. The authorities in cities tend to have views about people starting fires in them (as a priest of Lathander discovered when he cast flame strike in an old, wooded building in Waterdeep...).

 

[Firedancer]

Whilst this is a good idea and a challange to the PCs promising hours of fun there are a couple of points need consideration. This is not to dampen the idea but to make it a more thought out experience.

Firstly contagious undead is nothing new. Ghouls and their fever are reasonably common, and whilst won't spread as fast as what's proposed above it is contained and I expect the organised church's have contingency plans should it ever spread further/faster. This plan will need little modification to work on zombies. So to answer the original post, I don't see a zombie plague being an issue and certainly not worldwide.

If you are going to use this plan to change a set world you need to consider cause and effect from more than just the plague spreading issue. Or perhaps I'm too hung up on making the world too realistic?

Secondly, on a boring level, the modern zombie movies have the disease spreading far and wide and quickly, this would not happen so much in a DnD setting as the towns and villages are so far apart. 3 hours walking (whilst the disease takes hold) is very different to driving/bus/train. Add to that the geographical location and state of the roads in between....many towns and villages will be abandoned before the zombies arrive as they will be warned (on the basis the good guys travel faster, or have other means to communicate). Once contagion takes hold, a place is lost, but taking hold is so much harder. Consider the standard town or city - they have limited access points and forces to hand, modern cities are open with no control and little forces to hand.

As Nifft suggests a commoner has no rights, if its for the survival of those more important (or indeed the country as a whole). Plague is in city X? Fine, fireball away, start in the poor quarters and we'll rescue those of importance (and this is a common, accepted facet of life in many DnD settings).

Lastly, a note on DnD itself. The use of spells, abilities, loss of HP etc - parties resources are designed to support the "4 encounters of parties CR per day" idea. By unending waves of undead you are stretching the game beyond its fundamental design, so of course the PC's will struggle and then fail. You will have to be careful when designing a game like this as it will be overwhelming because you have escalated it beyond what the core system is designed to function with.

 

[Nifft]

Fire Seeds are especially good as starting fire. However, I think that applying up to 10d6 fire damage to all objects in the area - combustible or not - has a good chance of starting a fire if there are combustible objects around.

Sure, and I guess thatched roof cottages are pretty combustible. But again, I really don't care about buildings where peasants live. My house is made of stone.

The authorities in cities tend to have views about people starting fires in them

If "the authorities" see a few dead peasants as worse than a doomsday zombie plague, well, I know who to fireball next...

Cheers, -- N

 

[Wraith Form]

Several problems with that:
* * *
To sum it up: Strange as it seems, not all problems can be solved by fireballs...

Obviously, I was kidding.

...as I meant to say meteor swarm.