GURPS Monster of the Week#3 Lanfe Nan Paradis: Hell in Paradise (Zombies in Haiti)
Lanfe Nan Paradi: Hell in Paradise.
A massive zombie outbreak scenario in Haiti, for GURPS. Today, the overview, and stage 1 infected. In this case, most of the infected are gang members for some reason...
horrific virus gets loose from a secret laboratory in the island nation of Haiti. It infest both the living and the newly dead, and turns one into the other. But the dead don't stay down. And the virus has effects that in some ways mimic Haitian folklore about zombies....
Here are the varieties of infected in this scenario:
A stage one infection of a living subject results in reddened sclera and a black spiderwebbing along the veins in the skin. The victim becomes much more violence prone, to the point of berserk anger fits. It also removes their sense of pain and touch, and their rational appraisal of danger. But they are still intelligent, still tool users. They are tough, but still human, still killable. Not that doing so is a great idea...
A stage two infection of a living subject causes further devolution. The subject begins to lose higher thought proces, and becomes much more like a wild animal. They are still cunning, and very dangerous. Their teeth sharpen, and nodules of calcium begin to form at random in their epidermis.
They constantly run a high grade fever. But as insane as they have become, they are still intelligent...
A dead subject, or walker, at first, is hard to distinguish. But they are red eyed, and they begin to rot, their skin falling off in strips. They are even tougher than a stage 2 infection, and are now unable to use tools, though they are still very cunning. They move slowly, and are harmed by contact with salt.
The second stage of dead subjects, or stalkers, become even more bestial. Faster, hungrier, stealthy. Much harder to kill.
Finally, the last stage...the rawhead. Larger than human now, skinless, bone plating showing through red weeping flesh. Angrier, stronger, nearly unkillable, except by salt or fire.
Have fun subverting the players expectations with these monsters.
As to the virus itself, it is extraordinarily virulent, but requires blood contact. What this means is, anyone not exposed to the initial event, which was a one time accidental aerosolized release, must get the blood or saliva of one of the infected or zombies in a wound. This is represented by a roll of HT vs -3 for virulence after an appropriate contact (bites always apply), keeping in mind the amount of exposed and bleeding skin increases as the infection progresses. NPC's don't roll, they just catch the disease. If killed, the body gets up with minutes as a walker, regardless of the stage of infection they were at.
But: For an action horror game, you could choose to say the PCs are all immune...which could have it's own implications. Maybe they were exposed and gained some strange zombie abilities...
I strongly recommend picking up GURPS Horror and GURPS Zombies, though you don't strictly need them to use this scenario.
