City of the Dead
Welcome again to Masters and Minions, where I strive to give you interesting NPCs and encounters that can be placed easily into your game. Since this week is Zombie Week, the PCs are trapped in the now zombie-infested capital. Since the capital’s officials refused to see the warning signs of a zombie epidemic, the infestation has grown from just the city’s homeless to approximately 90% of the city’s total population. The only “safe” part of the city is the church district, where clerics have begun to try to push back the zombie menace.
The PCs now find themselves trapped deep within the center of the city, several blocks away from the relative safety of the church district. They must fight their way through the zombies in order to escape the city.
The majority of the zombies are plague zombies. In addition to the plague zombies, there are two special types of zombies know as stalkers and brutes. The stalkers and the brutes retain portions of their former intelligence, but no longer care for their former lives.
In order to maintain a sense of dread in your players, this scenario works best with lower level PCs.
Death Burst (Ex)
When a plague zombie dies, it explodes in a burst of decay. All creatures adjacent to the plague zombie are exposed to its plague as if struck by a slam attack and must make a Fortitude save or contract zombie rot.
Disease (Su)
The slam attack — as well as any other natural attacks — of a plague zombie carries the zombie rot disease.
Zombie rot: slam; save Fort DC 12; onset 1d4 days; frequency 1/day; effect 1d2 Con, this damage cannot be healed while the creature is infected; cure 2 consecutive saves. Anyone who dies while infected rises as a plague zombie in 2d6 hours.
Staggered (Ex)
Zombies have poor reflexes and can only perform a single move action or standard action each round. A zombie can move up to its speed and attack in the same round as a charge action.
