Category: Editorial

The other night we had our final game of the War of the Dead campaign. It’s rare that we finish a campaign, so this was a particular treat.

We pick up with our heroes deep inside the Center for Disease Control Headquarters in Atlanta. They had just escaped the main control room for the self-destruct system before it was overrun with the living dead after fighting with soldiers intent on setting it off. It had been armed just as the elevator doors, but the zombies had also just overtaken the room, so the heroes hoped that they might have taken out the soldiers as well.

Safe in the elevator, they push the button for Level 5, where they had left their allies in control of the main security operations centre. When the door opens, a security guard lies on the ground in front of them in a pool of blood, bite marks evident on his neck, another’s head and shoulders can be seen sprawled halfway out of the door to the ops control room. It is all quiet otherwise and no zombies can be seen.

Immediately, the cat burglar fires a burst into the chest of the guard in front of her. The others spread out, two moving quietly up toward the control room, the others flanking around the side corridor while the kid stays back at the elevator.

The other guard pops up when the burglar approaches and strikes at her. Already strained from almost being zombie lunch in the previous session, she’s slow and almost gets bit, but the mother moves up and deftly slips in behind the dead guard and slams her knife deep into its chest, puncturing its heart and spraying blood over the burglar. The zombie drops to the ground.

The lounge singer, held up by his daughter, peer around the corner in the hall and notice one of the lab techs who had just arrived a few minutes before them and was just as puzzled as them about what has happened. The only hint was the faint sound of keyboard strokes coming from the control room and now sounds of someone moving around in the room.

Suddenly, the floor is filled with the booming sound of alarms, “Self-destruct system initiated, 10 minutes to self-destruct. All personnel evacuate immediately. All personnel evacuate immediately.” Lights flash and klaxons sound. The nuke has been activated.

Peering around the corner, the burglar and wife notice feet vanish from a hole in the ceiling tiles above in the control room. Also, their FBI contact lies in a pool of blood on the floor and the CDC security commander is clearly dead, her neck snapped lying at an odd angle.

The burglar again moves in and fires off rounds into the commander’s body, ensuring she stays down. The FBI agent croaks out, “It’s Khan, get him!” They look at the screens and see that he has activated the self-destruct system and the monitors show hordes of the living dead pouring over the walls outside, overrunning the camps and the soldiers vainly trying to hold them back.

The technician moves over to the computer terminal and begins trying to cancel the self-destruct system, but keeps being locked out. Finally, he manages to add 10 minutes to the count-down, buying them more time.

As they investigate further, the kid by the elevator watches on and is surprised by someone dropping down on him from the ceiling. The kid rolls out of the way and looks up to see a strange face. Oddly rotted and wearing patient’s robes, but with an intelligence behind his eyes he snarls, “There’s a new evolution that is taking place, either you are part of it or you are part of the past. The last threat to it will die with this place along with you. As for me, my servants have cleared a path for me to leave, so I will say goodbye.” It’s Khan! Patient Zero for the plague, a former BioTech executive who had stolen a virus from the lab to sell to unknown parties. The heroes knew him originally as an elderly wheelchair bound man on the cruise ship, but learned that was his disguise and last saw him on an island after the cruise ship sank, having apparently recovered from the sickness and with superhuman strength and strange determination.

He steps back into the elevator and pushes the door close button.

The burglar, hearing this, sprints back to the elevator and slides in as the door is about to close. The kid grabs a wrench from his backpack and lodges it in the doorway.

Slamming into the back to the elevator, she pulls up her carbine and unloads on full automatic, riddling Khan’s body with bullets. But, he keeps coming, leaping on her, biting with a fury. The kid opens fire blasting the killer’s head, dropping him to the ground.

The klaxon continues to sound. The heroes regroup and the technician tells them that Dr. Oppenheimer has found a cure. They descend in the elevator to the Secure Labs, leaving Khan’s crumpled body in the corner.

They arrive to find Oppenheimer alive and well. She explains that she believes she has found the cure, but needs to test it. The burglar, burning up with fever already and covered in zombie bites, volunteers immediately. Oppenheimer points what looks like a modified cell phone at her and activates it. The burglar drops to the ground with spasms, convulsing and blood spilling out from every orifice.

The others look at the Doctor and ask, is this what’s supposed to happen? The doctor looks excited. She says, yes, that’s what I expected. The virus is shutting down and is trying to take her with it. Will she live, they ask? Probably not, the Doctor replies.

Meanwhile, the kid has stayed back by the elevator and is startled by an unnerving bang on the roof of the elevator. Then, Khan rises up and lunges toward the kid, biting at him. The kid dodges out of the way and races away. Just then, a zombie drops from the ceiling of the elevator, picks itself up and shambles toward the nearby group.

The herbalist turns and unleashes a full auto burst on Khan again, this time blasting his heart apart and ending him for good (they hope!). The zombie shambles forward just as another bang is heard in the elevator. They quickly dispatch them and try to close up the elevator ceiling access door.

Looking at their friend who had received the cure lying limp, they ask the doctor about the cure (good to ask after getting it!). She explains that the virus is in fact a nano-virus – microscopic robots with the ability to self-replicate. BioTech had created it trying to find a path to immortality. The nanites were designed to not only repair damage to the body (hence the zombie’s ability to regenerate), but improve it. Unfortunately, the project was not a total success at the time Khan stole it (the technicians had hidden information about it from the VPs).

In infecting a body, the fever caused brain damage that the nanites weren’t able to repair and led to the body returning to life with a reptilian brain focused on feeding and spreading the virus. Only a very, very small percentage kept their faculties intact (such as Khan). The nanites were very determined though and would regenerate any body that had an intact heart. And even that could be repaired given enough time (weeks), so the only way to permanently destroy a zombie is to burn it entirely.

The cure is simple, a microwave sending instructions to the nanites to shut down. She explains that since the zombies need the nanites to keep going, anyone fully infected will die once they receive the cure, but those who have not yet succumbed might survive, depending on how infected they are.

Further, she says, this cure could be spread throughout the world through satellites still functioning, they only have to transmit it and instructions to retransmit across the globe using the satellite uplink on the roof of the building.

The group pulls together and regroups in the elevator, heading up to the first floor (the highest this elevator goes to). The burglar comes conscious and the group sighs relief that she has survived. The doctor is fascinated.

The elevator door opens to the main floor and zombies fill the area. The kid races across the hall toward the stairs, finding more walking dead inside.

The burglar pushes forward, unleashing her carbine, taking a few of the closest down. The next second though, more move in and pull her down, tearing her to pieces.

The group pushes on, unleashing torrents of bullets clearing a path to the stairs and up them. As  they climb the stairs, the klaxon continues to sound. Even with the time they bought, they are now down to five minutes to self destruct.

One of the players asks, Hey, even if we get the cure out, aren’t we going to trapped in this building and all killed by the nuke? Good question. I had wondered how long until they realized this.

On the top floor, they emerge from the staircase and find only a couple zombies stumbling about.

The wife moves forward and quickly dispatches one of them, but is suddenly surprised as someone grabs her from behind and points a large pistol at her heard. It is Hell Furrie, a gang member they had encountered earlier and who has been hunting the lounge singer for a long-past betrayal of his gang. “I told you you would pay, and now you’re going to watch your wife die in front of your eyes before I kill you,” he calls out.

Before he can pull the trigger though, the kid gets a lucky shot off, killing Hell instantly. They easily take out the remaining zombie and arrive at the roof, only to find a helicopter there sitting on a landing pad.

There is only three minutes before the self-destruct goes off. The technician goes to work uploading the cure instructions and the rest pile into the helicopter, trying to get it started. They manage with seconds to go and the cure is uploaded. The technician loads into the helicopter which they have gotten going and lurch off the roof as hordes of zombies continue to mass below them.

The nuke goes off just as they make it outside the main blast radius, but the shock wave hits them and the rookie pilot can’t keep it in the air, the helicopter slams into the ground.

The next day, four survivors awaken and pull themselves from the wreck to find a strangely silent world, cured of the plague that had wreaked such destruction.

Here are the four who lived:

The Kid: Grandson of “The Cuke”, a retired firefighter who had died on the island confronting Khan.

Laura: Daughter of the lounge singer.

CDC Technician: Transmitter of the cure.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Creator of the cure.

None of the original PCs survived, but they succeeded overall and two of their family members survived. A brutal, but exciting end to the War of the Dead campaign.

We’re closing in on the finale of our Savage Worlds War of the Dead campaign. We pick up with our heroes after they escaped the relocation camp run by the army just outside and broke into the CDC buildings. There, they are greeted by a few of the surviving employees and brought down into one of the sub-levels of the CDC Headquarters in Atlanta.

In a situation room, they learn that the remaining scientists and technicians have recruited their loved ones to help, given that there are so few of them. Two of the original characters from the start of the campaign are here, a doctor and a lounge singer, now hardened by the events of the last few months.

The loved ones learn that Khan (patient Zero who started the infection in New York City and then on the cruise ship the PCs were on) has been captured and brought here. He was being studied by their scientists, as well as interrogated by the General. The General in particular was fascinated by this man who had survived the infection and now appeared almost invincible to all disease and injury.

They have learned that the infection is unlike any they’ve seen before. It is incredibly infectious, causes a fever that almost always kills the patient, then starts regenerating bodily systems and brings the body back to life – but with an animal-like intelligence, only interested in attacking others and spreading the infection.

But, they have seen in Khan’s case, and heard cases of at least a couple others, surviving the infection with their intellect intact, and gaining a regenerative system that protects and heals them from all disease, poison and injuries.

Only by damaging the heart can they stop the process – for a time. Eventually, even heart damage will heal up and the dead will walk again. Only complete incineration is a final solution.

A couple days ago last couple days, Khan broke free from his secure holding area and is somewhere in the building. The General views him as the biggest threat there is. He blames Khan for all the walking dead who are massing around the walls of the relocation camp and CDC. There are hundreds of thousands now and the General seems to believe that by killing Khan, he can somehow end this disaster.

As such, the General has put the CDC under quarantine, surrounded it with troops and vowed to activate the facility’s self-destruct system, a nuke embedded in the building. He believes everyone left in the building is contaminated and will shoot and burn anyone who tries to leave.

However, their research on Khan and the information provided by the memory stick and hard drive the heroes recovered from the cruise ship (from Khan’s possessions – he was an VP with a bio-tech firm and was trying to smuggle the information on a new project out of the country to a secret buyer, but feel victim to it), they are close to finding a cure. In the secure lab on the next level below, a lone scientist believes she can stop the virus.

While the CDC Director is explaining this to the PCs, an alarm goes off – two breaches detected. One of on Level 2 – where the self-destruct control terminal is located and one on the main level (where they had entered themselves). They quickly discuss what to do and decide it is likely the General’s soldiers trying to activate the nuke, so head to Level 2, arming themselves with the remaining CDC Security Station weapons.

On Level 2, the elevator doors open and they see the control room, but three walking dead are here.

The heroes decide to keep quiet and holster their pistols, instead using knives and a fire axe to go to work on these zombies. As they do so, the kid scoots past them, grabbing a mop as an improvised weapon and harasses them from behind.

They suddenly hear automatic gunfire from behind the door across the room. The kid breaks off and runs to the door, listening closely (and rolling an 18 on his Notice roll!). He hears a group of men talking in hushed whispers, “Don’t put too much, we only want to open it, not blow up the whole place!” Wisely, he dashes away from the door into the corner, but shouts out, “Hey guys, I think there’s someone at the door!” to his friends (Big Mouth disadvantage).

The next second, the door is blasted open and a flash bang grenade is thrown in, blinding the herbalist.

One of the girls runs across the room, grabbing the re-killed security guard’s pistol as she goes, hiding in the other corner.

The soldiers go next and unload their rifles at the group, spraying them and the zombies as they burst into the room, running for cover on either side.

The Corporal in charge runs toward the corner with the girl, laying down suppressive fire on the main group as he goes, but misses seeing the girl. She pops up and unloads her pistol into him, scoring a head shot and dropping him instantly.

Meanwhile, two of the soldiers are in the other corner with the kid. He’s hiding and they haven’t noticed him, concentrating their fire on the main group who are now caught between shooting back and dealing with a couple remaining undead. The kid pulls a flash bang grenade from one of the soldiers, pulls the pin and shoves it back in the soldier’s pocket. BANG! Soldier down.

The burglar meanwhile is struggling with the zombies and pulls off a double-move, grabbing one of the zombies and using it as cover while she shoots at the soldiers. Unfortunately, the zombie breaks free and bites the arm that held it, chomping down hard and knocking down the burglar. The other zombie bites at the herbalist and connects with her shoulder, she screams and is taken down as well.

The doctor shoots the soldier still outside of the room and hits him, knocking him down, then races forward to finish him off, but his shot hits armoured kevlar and looking up he sees there are more walking dead moving in, so decides to abandon the soldier’s fate to the zombies and get out of there. He sprints back into the room, just as the lounge singer who has been exchanging shots with the soldiers to the south is hit by a burst of automatic fire and is almost killed on the spot.

The soldiers turn their attention to the console and one begins starting the nuclear weapon activation sequence while the other covers him. The doctor sees this and stops to open fire on them, unfortunately hitting their armour.

The rest of the group sees the horde of walking dead approaching and decide they need to get out here now, the kid, the girl, the lounge singer all sprint to the elevator, pulling the zombie off the burglar and into the elevator too. As the door slides shut, the soldiers continue the arming process as zombies pour into the room, overwhelming the doctor who is busy trying to shoot up the console and dodge the covering soldier’s bullets. He is overtaken and the door closes.

The doctor is overtaken as the elevator door closes and the session ends.

One PC was killed, as well as his loved one. Two more are badly wounded. The kid and the girl survived untouched. I don’t think there were any bennies left by the end. A bloody night.

The next session will likely be the last when we’ll find out:

Was the nuke activated?

What happened to Khan?

And, what about that cure?

GAME PROP NOTES

This session, I used the third basement level from Dramascape’s The Bunker for the main sub-level and situation room and then their City Sewers map for the Level 2 control room. For minis, I used the usual assortment of Heroclix and a bunch of painted minis borrowed from one of our players, Michel (thanks!).

I also used the Stuffer Shack counters for keeping track of the various soldiers and zombies, as well as the Shaken (S), Wounded (W) and other (X) notations as needed. This allows me to run a combat with almost no paperwork, other than marking off when someone is killed. I highly recommend them.

We returned to the War of the Dead campaign just outside the CDC in Atlanta with the PCs (survivors) being herded to a relocation camp set up by the military to contain the residents of Atlanta who had not succumbed to the sickness.

As they were being led to their camp, the FBI agent with them breaks away, running toward a military commander on the scene. She yells at him, “Morrison, what the hell are you doing!” as the survivors notice that the CDC buildings are themselves surrounded by barbed wire fencing and soldiers facing in. The commander tells her that her little plan is over and that he’s in command now. She is led back to the group, who meanwhile use the distraction as an opportunity to steal a taser from one of the soldiers.

As they’re being forced into the fenced in camp, the soldiers pat down each of the survivors, but through more distractions, the survivors manage to sneak in the taser and a couple of small knives.

Inside the camp, they meet a number their fellow inmates residents, including Max the Fixer. You want it, he can probably get it. They trade the taser for crucial information on the guards and a promise of some lockpicks in four days time from him. They learn that some bikers recently arrived, but were put in a different camp.

The next day, a biker in an adjacent camp threatens Gina, one of the survivors. Hell is coming for her and her husband. She taunts him back to come and get her.

The rest of the group settles in to figuring out the weaknesses in the fencing, tracking the guards to ensure their information is correct and planning their escape. One of the survivors was bitten and has hidden it from the guards, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before she starts showing signs of the sickness. A guard who carries a flamethrower is a grim reminder that the camp’s way of dealing with the sickness isn’t a nice one.

The survivors put their plan to escape in action close to midnight on the their second night there, using a weak point in the fencing to sneak out. Miraculously, they all make their stealth checks and manage to get away. As they’re leaving, Gina notices the profile of Hell Furrie, the biker who is coming to kill her in an adjacent camp. He’s obviously waiting for his opportunity to escape into their camp and kill her. The group decides to just leave him and proceed to the barbed wire fencing.

Although a few of them get caught on the barbed wire, cutting themselves up a bit, they use a blanket and make it over without attracting any attention. It’s only once they make it into one of the CDC buildings that one of the girls with them slams the door closed too loudly and suddenly all lights are on the building. But, they’re in and they encounter some CDC scientists who, upon meeting the FBI agent with them, urges the survivors to go with them, there’s something big they have to see.

This night went very smoothly for the PCs. They played it smart and careful. No big risks were taken (other than the escape). They planned their escape well and didn’t take my bait for them to settle some scores and instead kept to plan and as a result there were no combats and no major confrontations at all. It was a good information gathering and plot development session, which is ironic since the sets were a huge amount of work, but everyone loved it and it added to the feeling of being penned up.

I also wanted to take a shot of what it looks like behind the GM screen. I have my item cards ready for most things they could get their hands on (and some that they’re not likely to get), face cards for the major NPCs they encounter, a zombie deck of cards, dice, markers, my wheel of raises, rulebook and notes for the session.

Happy gaming!

Having survived a helicopter crash, escaped Augusta, Georgia in an SUV, and successfully fought off a biker gang attack, we find the loved ones of our main heroes continuing on the road to Atlanta, Georgia, and the main HQ of the CDC.

You can find Session 1 here and Session 2 here.

Tonight’s session begins with our group finding a pile up blocking the highway. They decide prudently to slow down and a few of them get out to check things out. They discover a few of the walking dead wandering around the scene.

The bennies start flying right off the bat as they leap onto cars to get a better view of what the situation is and to try to find a way through it. The zombies manages to team up on one of the women and bites her. The bennies don’t save her from suffering a wound and… possibly infection. The shots begin to fly and they decide they need to get out of here.

The herbalist notices a path through the wrecks and the rest of the group piles into the SUV as they drive through it, running over several of the zombies on their way. As they leave the area, the burglar notices that the grass is all trampled down around them and realizes it’s been like that since they left Augusta. No one says it, but everyone has a bad feeling about it.

Their concerns are soon confirmed as a dust cloud is sighted on the horizon and looking through the binoculars they can see the walking dead filling the horizon to either side of them, hundreds and thousands of them, all moving toward Atlanta. There’s a brief discussion of running through them, but they realize this would be suicide and, looking at the map, decide to backtrack and take an alternate route through a park to the north.

Just outside the park, one of the players asks if there’s an information station. Sure, I say. He goes up to it, knocks on the door and sure enough a moan comes from inside. He opens the door and quickly knocks the living dead attendant down and dispatches her. He loots the station (not finding much), but does get what he was looking for – a map of the park. He locates the camp ranger’s station and they take a back road to it.

They arrive to find the station is a house, a barn and a small tower over looking the main road (they entered from the bottom of the map, the top of the map is the main road).

This was a real advantage to them, as I had a group of cannibals holed up here. They had a whole ambush planned for the main road, including ropes across the highway to catch motorcyclists and tire spikes. Unfortunately, they rode their motorcycles into the area, spoiling any surprise. And further bad luck, one of them decided to ride around the barn on the main road and rolled a double 1s as she went around, which I determined meant she hit the rope and was knocked off her bike and unconscious for a few seconds.

Meanwhile, the herbalist checked out the barn and noticed a car and fresh tracks showing it had been recently used. As the kid and burglar walked up to the house, she walked across the grounds and then – a shot. A deadly three wound sniper shot hit her hard, knocking her to the ground, but her last benny managed to reduce it to one wound.

Bursting out the front door is a madman wielding two machetes. He attacks the burglar ferociously, and the kid sneaks up along the house to get a peek at the sniper.

The unconscious woman wakes to find herself on the ground with a very sore neck,  her motorcycle running nearby and a man with a rifle peeking around the barn at the rest of her friends. With quick thinking, she drew a flare from her pack and pressed it against him and pressed the trigger. Flares launched into his body, bursting inside him and killing him instantly.

The kid opened up with his pistol on the sniper and the herbalist on the ground recovered enough to get her carbine up and unloaded a 3-round burst into him, dropping him from his perch.

Meanwhile, back at the house, a raging fight between the madman with machetes finished with him escaping into the house and being gunned down by the FBI agent as he failed to ambush them on the second floor. 

The group searched the premises and found a store of bodies in the barn in various states of carving. They realized that the meat in the fridges wasn’t from hunting, at least not in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, they looted what they could and holed up there for the night, getting some much-needed rest and recuperation.

One of the women decided to take watch in the tower and late at night, she heard motorcycles coming. She watched as they passed, headed toward Atlanta.

The next day, they loaded up their SUV, ditched their motorcycles and took the car from the barn and headed out toward Atlanta.

They found a couple on the side of the road a few hours later stranded. After a tense, but brief exchange, they decided to barter trade and gave them some gas for a kevlar vest. The couple warn them that Atlanta is overrun and that they should avoid the relocation camps. And yes, they did see a couple motorcyclists go by.

The next stop was the CDC HQ in Atlanta. They arrive late that evening to find a very fortified compound with soldiers and humvees guarding the gate (we failed to get a picture of this!).

The FBI agent approaches and explains who she is and they let the group enter. Once inside, they stop them and order them to leave their vehicles. Once outside, they order them to drop all their weapons (they all keep some hidden) and then begin handcuffing them all and explain to the FBI agent that she is under arrest. In the distance, they can see fence lines and tents and hear people’s voices.

And, the session ended here. Next session starts with them in the relocation camp controlled by the CDC. What could possibly go wrong with that?