NO EXITS

On the seventh day at precisely 1:32 AM, the campus once more resets. Everyone trapped in the experiment falls unconscious (if not sleeping already) only to wake up sometime afterward in their assigned bed, in their assigned room, in their assigned dorm…

In the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

The campus has been restored to its location in a post-apocalyptic Dunwich, Massachusetts. Your rooms are restored to that of normal dorms, albeit those which have not been lived in for years. The kitchen and supplies on campus have already been raided a dozen times over by survivors, though no survivors are currently to be seen.

It’s going to be a hell of a week.

Thankfully, the campus is not overrun with the walking dead. The zombies themselves are slow moving and pretty easily dispatched. The problem isn’t one or two, or even ten. The problem is when you get overrun by a herd.

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to do some scouting and take risks this week if you want to survive.

Don’t worry, it gets worse.

This is a dead world and not just where humans are concerned. Magic is on the fritz and unreliable. Powers don’t seem to work quite as well or easily as they once did. This world won’t be the cakewalk with the campus powerhouses not being at 100 percent capacity.

It’s like the reality of this world itself just gave up and lost hope.

Good luck. The only thing worse than the zombies? Other human survivors.

CONTENT WARNINGS

• Not everyone is into zombies. Please be mindful, use warnings and cut tags if describing anything particularly violent or squicky or gross. (Or pandemic/flu-like.)

• What about the characters of those players? See “The Void” for what those characters will be up to this plot!

NOTES

• Why “Walking Dead” zombie rules?
  • The zombies are slow, but sound and the smell of your delicious living bodies attracts them. Seems like a good balance of survivable and challenging. (See zombie rules below for more details!)

  • According to The Walking Dead, humans are assholes. So if you want to run into other humans? Good luck. They’re probably a bigger threat than the zombies, tbh. More likely to kill you and take your supplies than like… work as a team because the show has a dark view of humanity.

  • Also yes, if any humans die during this plot, even of non-zombie related causes, you will come back as a zombie. Just a nice little surprise for those familiar with “typical” zombie rules. (Don’t worry, you will be clear of the zombie virus after the reset.)

• What about vampires, robots, etc?
  • Robots might get pawed at a little if the sound and movement attracts zombies, but won’t get eaten. But once again, the living are the real threat. A robot could be real valuable, even just for parts.

  • Animals and non-human creatures made of flesh are just as delicious to zombies. Protect your alien friends, pets, etc. Normal animals won’t come back as a zombie, but I leave it up to you if your character species would come back as a zombie or not.

  • So vampires. They are technically walking corpses. If they’re quiet, they can totally slip in among zombies. However…
    • If they talk or make too much noise, a zombie might try a bite anyway, but… vampires are already undead. They’re not turning into a zombie.

    • However, once a vampire is bitten, they’re a carrier for the virus, and if they try to feed on any human directly, it will have the same effect as a zombie bite. Oops.

• Okay but what about powers? Won’t that give people with guns a HUGE advantage?
  • Powers are unreliable to make things more challenging. Nothing more boring than a character waving a magic wand and making everything better for everyone. How fritzy and how unreliable I’m leaving up to you the player so you can have fun with it. Give me some dramatic tension!

  • Zombies are attracted to noise. Want to bring a herd of zombies to your location? Guns are an excellent way to do that and can be heard for miles.

  • How are zombies able to hear, see or smell when they’re walking rotted corpses? IDK, man. That was the one part of The Walking Dead that made no sense to me. We’re just going with it.

• No roles for injuries or death. This plot is going to be totally player driven as to what you want the story of this plot to be, how you want it to go down, etc. Please, please communicate and check in with line partners.

• Okay, so explain what’s going on with the campus? Do we still have wards on the dorm rooms?
  • The campus is whole and complete within the world of the zombie apocalypse. It’s essentially one of those AU timelines. (Check the campus map of Yale to get an idea of the size, the part of campus that makes up Derleth is based on the “old campus”.) This also means no woods in the middle of campus, just a field with overgrown weeds.

  • Butler Hall in this timeline does not have magical wards. It is like the very first incarnation of the dorms that were in game; more typical of a college campus. See details here. (Yep, the dorm is changing again! But the room assignments will stay the same.)

  • Power and water do not work. It’s been a zombie world for several years now and humans haven’t maintained infrastructure in most areas. The kitchens are cleaned out of canned goods and non-perishables. Gunna have to explore if you want clean water and food.

• I don’t know the zombie rules/how they work on The Walking Dead.
  • In this world, zombies are called “walkers” or sometimes “biters”. The concept of zombie movies doesn’t exist in this universe, so no one knew the rules to surviving a zombie horror movie.

  • Your characters can have general zombie knowledge, but it might be conflicting from the zombie rules in this one. Please feel free to have your characters get things wrong! Make mistakes! This is how you create interesting plot moments!

  • The rules in short sentences:
    • Walkers can't run, jog, or power-walk
    • Walkers must look terrifying at all times
    • Walkers need to groan, screech, and make garbled squishy sounds at all times
    • Walkers can't be talkers (no sign of intelligence)
    • Walkers must love to eat living flesh (that is their ONLY drive)
    • Walkers must find fire utterly fascinating (sorry, fire doesn’t scare them)
    • Walkers have to die when someone stabs or shoots them in the brain
    • Walkers can't die until their brain is destroyed (no matter what condition they’re in)
    • Walkers are rarely loners and tend to form groups
    • Walkers can't have hobbies (no Shawn of the Dead repurposing them for retail jobs)
    • Walkers have to be single-minded (See: Walkers must love to eat living flesh)

  • Walking Dead rules the mod has observed:
    • Every living human/zombie capable person has a dormant infection in their blood, and will become a walker upon death
    • However a walker bite will overwhelm the immune system and turn a human into a walker after a day or two of illness
    • Disguising yourself among walkers:
      • If you cover yourself in walker guts, you can disguise your scent and quietly walk among herds though it is VERY risky
      • If you take the time to skin a zombie, it works as a better disguise than guts but then… holy hell that’s grisly
      • If you remove the teeth/jaw of a walker so it can’t bite, and the arms so it cannot reach, it will stop attempting to kill you, and can be a grisly alternative way to disguise your presence among walkers by walking them like a pet -- but are you likely to discover this in a week? Probably not.
    • Some humans have made zombie traps, where they might pack a ton of zombies into a shipping container or other closed off space, and spring the trap open and unleash them among trespassers in their territory-- so be careful!
    • Humans have largely developed small groups and are more likely than not hostile to outsiders; see the wiki for ideas, but since this is a different part of the county than either show feel free to dream up what other groups of survivors might do!

THE VOID

• Not every player wants to participate in this plot, and that’s okay! At the start of the week, a few people won't be waking up in the zombie apocalypse!

• Lara Croft, Paul Atreides, Alison Hargreeves, Alina and Hugh Christian will instead wake up in The Void, safe on the Derleth campus that they know. Everyone else appears gone. (Fen is in a sleeping beauty rest this plot.)

• Thankfully there is still just one shared network. Missing your roommate? They appear to have ended up in the other place, but at least everyone will be able to communicate with one another.

• On the Void!Campus, characters that turn any tv on will see the zombie world as if it's a movie starring everyone else that woke up there. They'll be able to communicate via the network with the stranded characters. Due to the camera/tv show view of the world, they may be able to give characters a heads up/help using their safe perspective.
  • What shows up on camera? In logs and IC/OOC events please state if this is something that can be seen on camera or not.

  • Failure to specify if a log, thread, narrative or ic/ooc event is visible or not will be assumed as visible on television in the void.

  • As for network posts, private messages will not be seen on camera unless specifically stated otherwise for dramatic effect.