Hello! I’m Blake Barton. Welcome back to Monster of the Week, a look into the development of my post-apocalyptic TTRPG through the lens of NPC stat blocks.
I’ve been moving all week, so my development has stagnated somewhat, but I’ve built up a sizeable backlog to dive into. I’m writing this with 98 minutes left on my self-imposed clock, so I’m going to try to make this a quick one, as opposed to last week’s post on The Ranger.
This week’s monster is basic but foundational to the post-apocalyptic genre: the Zombie. More specifically, the “minionized” version of the zombie, the Lesser Zombie.
Click here to jump straight to the stat block.
Inspiration
I’m honestly not sure how important the inspiration section is for this. Zombies are so prevalent in modern media that any explanation of them is superfluous. Here’s a quote from World War Z to sum them up better than I could.
“The living dead had taken more from us than land and loved ones. They’d robbed us of our confidence as the planet’s dominant life form. We were a shaken, broken species, driven to the edge of extinction and grateful only for tomorrow with perhaps a little less suffering than today. Was this the legacy we would leave our children, a level of anxiety and self-doubt not seen since our simian ancestors cowered in the tallest trees? What kind of world would they rebuild? Would they rebuild at all? Could they continue to progress, knowing that they would be powerless to reclaim their future? And what if that future saw another rise of the living dead? Would our descendants rise to meet them in battle, or simply crumple in meek surrender and accept what they believe to be their inevitable extinction? For this alone, we had to reclaim our planet. We had to prove to ourselves that we could do it, and leave that proof as this war’s greatest monument. The long, hard road back to humanity, or the regressive ennui of Earth’s once-proud primates. That was the choice, and it had to be made now.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Concept
Fantasy
The living dead. A horrifying abomination of nature that hunts in packs and will never, ever stop hunting for flesh.
Goal
Make a monster that’s trivial to defeat on its own but terrifying in a group. It should not have reactions like normal NPCs and should essentially be an organic automaton that only knows how to consume.
Combatant Role: Minion
The lesser zombie is a minion, an enemy that’s meant to be exceedingly simple for a GM to run, easy to kill, and can be threatening either in a group or as a supplement to more dangerous combatants.
I’ll be lazy right now and copy-paste from my working core rulebook (do I need to quote myself? Do I care? Honestly I’ve already messed this up). This is inspired by MCDM’s Flee, Mortals! and Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition.
“A Minion is a creature that acts as cannon fodder in combat. They’re easily dispatched, often come in large groups, and don’t do much on their own. The following points apply to all minions:
- Death Spiral. Killing a minion grants an action point➡️ to the slayer.
- If a minion takes unblocked damage💔, its total damage is set to its health❤️.
- Dev Note: in 99% of cases, this just means death. This wording is intended to account for special situations where something other than death happens when a certain creature’s damage hits their health.
- Minions do not take reactions↩️, and they can’t make more than one attack⚔️ per turn.
- Minions don’t roll for damage💔. They always deal a static amount. They still need to make accuracy rolls🎯 for ranged attacks.
Creatures that are minions have the Minion trait.”
(I quoted myself! Feels self-aggrandizing. Especially since I’m the only one that’s ever seen the rulebook.)
Diseases
In a broken world where modern miracles of medicine have long been forgotten or locked away, disease prevention returns to its pre-industrial state. I’m still tweaking my final disease rules, but here they are in brief:
- Diseases are essentially bundles of negative status effects.
- “You can contract diseases from open wounds, gas, contaminated food and water – basically anything gross.”
- “If the Game Master thinks you’re doing something that could reasonably expose you to an infectious disease, they’ll make you roll an Endurance check known as the Disease Roll to see if you contract anything.”
- Diseases have one more more pathogen types that determine how they spread and how they’re treated.
- Bacterial
- Fungal
- Parasitic
- Viral
- A character with a disease rolls an Endurance check known as the Disease Recovery Roll to see when they’re cured. The interval at which a character can make this roll is determined by the disease (more severe diseases have longer intervals).
- Items such as antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics, and antivirals can induce recovery rolls.
Lesser Zombie Stat Block
LESSER ZOMBIE | MEDIUM | MINION | LOW THREAT
Types: Organic, Humanoid, Zombie
Health ❤️ 1
DT: 🛡️0 ⚡0 🧪0 ☢️0
Speed: 🏃♂️4
Resistances: Mental🧠
Immunities: Poison☠️
Condition Immunities: Terrified
STR 💪8 (+1) AGI 🖐️7 (+0) END ♻️8 (+1)
PER 👁️5 (-1) MIN 🧠2 (-3) CHA 🤠2 (-3)
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TRAITS
- Disease Ridden. If the lesser zombie deals unblocked damage, the target must make a disease roll at the end of the encounter.
- Horde Attacker. The lesser zombie ignores 1 physical🛡️ DT on its target for each additional zombie adjacent to the target.
- Minion. If the lesser infected takes unblocked damage, its total damage is set to its health❤️. It cannot take reactions↩️. and can only take one attack per turn.
- Savage Attacks. The zombie’s attacks cannot be parried.
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ACTIONS
- Scratch ⚔️➡️🔚. Melee. Damage: 3 slashing.
Nature of Zombification
The “Nature of Zombification” (how zombies actually come about) has gameplay implications. Because one of my goals for this game is to make it a “custom post-apocalypse TTRPG engine… thing”, and zombies are so variable in their presentation, I’d like to include advice on how to tailor them to a custom setting based on common tropes.
Infection
- Keep the disease ridden trait.
- Determine the nature of the infection. What’s its pathogen type? How quickly does it take effect. Does everyone already have it (Walking Dead style)?
- Can it be cured? Does severing the infected limb stop the spread?
- Is it just the bite that’s a problem? Does the scratch also spread disease? What about bodily fluids? Is it spread by airborne spores (Last of Us style)?
- Player characters with the zombie virus come back as zombies when killed.
Radiation
- Are these basically Fallout ghouls?
- Add immunity to radiation☢️. Maybe even heal them with radiation.
- Add 1 radiation☢️ damage to the Scratch attack.
- Player characters that are killed with a rad count have a chance of coming back to life as radioactive zombies.
Supernatural Curse
- All bets are off. Go buck wild with the zombie plague. May chaos take the world.
Lesser Zombie Outfits
Minions are meant to be simple so the variants are cosmetic only. The actual zombie stat block that the lesser zombie is based on has crazier variants going on (think Left 4 Dead). These are just for a little fun.
- Naked
- Scavenger’s Leathers
- Postal Worker Uniform
- Chef Whites
- Farmer Overalls
- Mechanic Jumpsuit
- Formal Wear
- Gym Clothes
Design Explanation
Threat: Low
The lesser zombie only deals 3 damage on its own and can be killed in one hit by any implement. Almost any single player character isn’t going to be endangered by one. These are meant to drain resources, not kill anybody (though they could).
Health: ❤️1
One shot, one kill.
DT: None
I imagine lesser zombies as being extremely average zombified people. Any kind of armored zombie wouldn’t be a minion.
Speed: 🏃♂️4
Fast enough to act as a looming but not immediate threat. I’m taking the “walker” zombie approach, but a GM that wants “runners” could easily up this by a few meters.
Attributes
Basically humans that have been turned into beasts by the zombie plague. They’re stronger, but mindless, and their senses have been dulled by rot.
Resistances and Immunities
Mental🧠 Resistance: Zombies still have brains, they’re just sort of rotten and messed up. A psyker could still do a little damage, but not like they could do someone with a working frontal lobe.
Poison☠️ Immunity: Zombie blood is already so screwed with disease (and let’s be honest, magic) that I can’t imagine any poison actually working on them.
I could absolutely see either of these being tweaked by GMs depending on their idea of the zombie fantasy.
Traits
- Disease Ridden: These are dead things. They’re rotting, maggot-infested bags of putrescence. Anyone that touches one of these things is going to catch something (maybe even a zombie virus).
- Horde Attacker: Zombies are “strength-in-numbers” enemies. I imagine them overwhelming their prey — digging their fingers between the plates of an armored soldier while his back is turned. This trait makes them far more threatening in groups.
- Savage Attacks: Any weaponless creature isn’t going to have parryable attacks.
Actions
The non-minion zombie gets an additional Bite attack that has some extra effects, but a GM running a lesser zombie doesn’t have to think at all. Scratch does 3 damage. That’s it.
Conclusion
Okay! First basic minion character down. Once I get settled in I’ll hopefully have time for an entry on a non-humanoid with deeper complexity. Until then 🙂