Don't blame me blame Buck Rogers!

[Hopeless]

Just posted a query on running a mummy game in Legend and figured I'd do the same here to see how different it could be in a science fiction setting?

Oh and the Buck Rogers reference was to an episode from the Gil Gerard series where he went up against a Vampire who naturally went after Wilma! :shock:

I'm thinking either when the group locates the tomb and breaks in whoever breaks the crypt or the sarcophagus inadvertedly releases the mummy in a gas/sand form that eventually possesses one of the group and later skips bodies in an attempt to avenge their crime against it.

Could also look at a science fiction variations like the Borg for example or reveal the reason they got in is because one of their group is the intended "bride" or descendant of the mummy who needs their body so it can "live" again without worrying about their body drying up and withering away... :twisted:

 

[enderra]

Are you looking for stats or a rationale?

Can't help with stats, but the rationale is easy.

You could use some weird alien (or outdated terran sleeper ship technology, whatever your setting permits) "suspended animation" technology... the PCs discover those sleeper chambers and disturb them. Due to the age - way past the projected product life for the devices - or because the PCs do not know how to properly revive the occupants, their brains get damaged and they revert to a more primitive, murderous state of mind.

The mummy wraps are part applied as part of the process of putting the sleepers in hibernation, they are designed to prevent frost from building up on the users' skin or whatever. They were not designed to be worn while the person moves - so now hang off the arms etc.

After that it's lots of chasing and screaming and eventually torching of mummies.

 

[alex_greene]

Describe it as a colonial fungal infection similar to a Cordyceps; the fungus exists in the form of a cloud of spores, which infects those who breathe them in. After a suitable incubation period, the spores kill their hosts and infiltrate their bodies through their nervous systems, bloodstream and lymphatic systems, producing a natural preservative which keeps the dead flesh from decaying - the fungus kills off all the usual decay bacteria and fungi which would normally descend upon a dead body, not to mention destroying blowfly eggs before they can hatch into maggots - and allows the fungal mycelium to animate the cadaver, allowing it to walk about.

The old cadavers released from the first casket may have been preserved for millennia, utterly intact by what could well be an immortal organism.

To make it even more chilling, multiple animated corpses share a colonial hive mind. There really is only one fungus. Not even killing the first, oldest, corpse will stop it.

 

[locarno24]

If you want a 'proper' vampire (rather than a zombie plague type), look into Psion.
There is a 'tapping' psionic talent, which is essentially vampire powers down to a tee, allowing you to top up (and 'overcharge') your psionic powers by draining someone else's life force.

Add in awareness abilities (which include 'self-stasis' powers), telepathy, etc and you've got a pretty fair dracula analogue within the rules.

If in doubt; go with the universal answer - The Ancients Did It; make it some sort of ancients terror weapon/infiltrator/etc

 

[Meanderer]

If you want a 'proper' vampire (rather than a zombie plague type), look into Psion.
There is a 'tapping' psionic talent, which is essentially vampire powers down to a tee, allowing you to top up (and 'overcharge') your psionic powers by draining someone else's life force.

This psionic talent could be modified for a special version (hey, not everyone has exactly the same power(s)).

The special version allows the draining of attributes of others to restore the user's attributes. The drain can be permanent, resulting in restoration of attributes, but not on a one to one basis and not quite permanently.

Being able to restore attributes in such a manner can make the individual virtually immortal the way aging works in Traveller. If you keep restoring the attributes you lose from aging rolls you never actually get to dying of old age.

But the more the power is used in this manner the more of the character's attributes become temporary batteries for drained life force. Eventually, that is all the character has left - no real attributes but just temporary points and the character must feed regularly to keep from losing these attributes and dying.

If the "vampire" can keep doing this long enough he/she may look pretty decrepit. This creates an opportunity.

Perhaps the vampire has a couple of latent instinctive powers that are extensive but subconscious. First, it bends light to conceal its body, effectively being invisible. Second, it projects an illusion of its youthful form (its own body image) so this is what other people see. If it hasn't fed in a while it feels weak and this can reflect on its body image as it will appear older with its skin drier and more stretched and pale.

Of course think of how mirrors work with this. The vampire is invisible and what people see is the illusion which is in the person's mind not reality. So if you are looking at the mirror you won't see the vampire approaching. But if you turn and look you see it there.

Maybe some control over the telepathic illusion could be made to suppress the illusion. The vampire would seem to disappear into a puff of smoke. This should require some concentration and only be possible for brief periods.

The beauty of this vampire is that it doesn't require any undead - it is very much alive - but you get a creature that robots and starship security systems can't deal with as the vampire is invisible on all wavelengths and can only be sensed by living things.

It would take the players a while to figure out that watching the security cameras won't help them locate this thing.

 

[Hopeless]

I figured being able to possess the bodies of others would allow it to evade pursuit after all the Buck Rogers episode highlighted the fact almost nobody knew what the creature was let alone how to defend themselves!

What about an artefact that renders the wearer invisible and temporarily intangible with the unfortunate side effect that unless you were of a suitable species would require a blood transfusion to avoid dying...

 

[Meanderer]

That would work too. An artifact that provides some interesting powers but won't unbalance the game because no player wants to be the one to use it.

 

[Participant-Observer]

(Not quite on topic but still thinking of SF undead)

SJ Games' great unpublished multi-genre miniatures game (Hot Lead) was to have a Space Knights setting. Ral Partha made 25mm for the Necrovores -- essentially cyborged animated skeletons.

Stuff of Legends has a listing but no pics, I'm afraid. I do quite like them and occasionally scout around for them on eBay.

More recently, KillerB Games's GAFDOZ range has a couple of spacesuited "Space Phantoms". They look rather nice.