Zombies, Werewolves, and Vampires in Traveller

[towerwarlock]

I know this sounds strange, but I recently got some of the miniatures for the Secrets of the Third Reich game from West Wind Productions, and got the idea of using some of their stuff in Traveller. I have already designed the stats for several of their vehicles, but I was wondering if anyone had done anything along the lines of zombies, werewolves, and vampires for Traveller. And please no pretty sparkly Twilight stuff either.

 

[Captain Jonah]

No sparkly stuff.

Vampires. Do they drink blood to replace a genetic fault caused by a generations ago biogen war. Do they drain Psi energy and have been driven out by the Zho and now hide in the Imperium where Psions being illegal means there is no organised resistance to them.
Are they an alien species from beyond the claw, the results of Zho genetic manipulation gone horribly wrong or something as yet unexplained.

Zombies. Humans driven made by viral infection that also prevents them feeling pain. Nanite attacks of the higher brain functions. An unknown alien effect. The victims of the Psi vampires who have lost any sense of will or higher functions due to being drained of nueral energy by the vampires. Drugs. We have plants that already do this, google zombie ants.

Both of the above think Lifeforce for sci fi vampires and zombies.

Werewolves being humans who change into a wolfman and stay there, mutagenic experimentation, nanites again, a left over shock trooper production facility from Grandfathers wars (turns puny primitive humans in to howling and very loyal shock troops/cannon fodder).

Werewolves who can shift between forms is a lot harder. The only thing aside from some grandfather plot wiggle would be some form of Quantum mass/form displacement where one form overlays the other so that the human is inside the werewolf form. Or they could be very strange life forms with no large bones and able to radicaly change overall form using some form of cartalidge and tendons than can link and unlink to allow them to form psuedo bone structures and go from human to wolf and back.

 

[hdan]

<SPOILERS OF THE 20+ YEAR OLD ADVENTURE - DEATH STATION>
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The adventure "Death Station" is really a space "undead monster" hunt in a "haunted space station", even though the authors seem intent on not presenting it as such.

The station was testing new form of combat drugs, one of which makes people extremely light sensitive and psychotically violent (and cannibalistic), as well as super strong, fast, etc. If you catch the "subjects" in the right conditions, they can almost be reasoned with, but will go into a homicidal rage when, for example, the lights are turned on or you catch them feeding.

 

[Vargrz]

I have run a pseudo zombie scenario utilizing Traveller.

I set it up as your basic undefined plague resulting in mindless automatons attacking the players as they tried to get to an evacuation center. There was plenty of mayhem and chaos, and the game went very well. The mechanics of creating zombies is less fantasy than your idea of werewolves and vampires, since (although far fetched) zombies can be justified via a science fiction plot line.

However, if you can accept the merging of the genres, it sounds like a cool idea. I immediately imagine some sort of ghost ship or haunted ship...

 

[towerwarlock]

Vampires - near as I can tell the Vampires are blood drinkers that are created by draining them of all their blood and then the victims ingesting the blood of a Vampire. However the new Vampire is now controlled by their maker.

Zombies - non-nanite zombies. They are created either by a serum or a gas. The Nazis unleashed them via the V2 rockets they unleashed. Details are not clear.

Werewolves - This one is harder. You have the ones who turn into human/wolf humanoid hybrids when the moon is full. Then you have the ones created by weird science into canine-human hybrids. You also have the Were-bears.

Then there are the Frankenstein lab experiments that have warped people into combat monsters.

 

[Vargrz]

The additional problem with werewolves is that you already have a race of walking canines! I suppose a homicidal, deranged, or drugged up Vargr could serve as a werewolf (of course he doesn't change back and forth to human).

 

[locarno24]

If you want a proper werewolf scary rather than just a walking talking doggy, have a look in Secrets of the Ancients (episode 5, I think?) at a Vargr subspecies called The Hunters of Men.

They are very, very scary and having one get loose in wider space would cause all sorts of problems - they are genius-level intellects with massive levels of paranoia, megalomania, homicidal tendancies and active genetic blocks preventing them developing any sense of compassion or co-operation. Lovely people.

They're not 'infectious' like a classic lycanthrope, but they certainly fulfill the role of 'scary monster in the dark' - all the more so because (unlike the classic version) as well as being stronger and faster this one is much, much smarter than you are and is capable of learning at a seemingly impossible rate.

 

[Vargrz]

If you want a proper werewolf scary rather than just a walking talking doggy, have a look in Secrets of the Ancients (episode 5, I think?) at a Vargr subspecies called The Hunters of Men.

I agree! I went back to Secrets Episode 5, and The Hunters of Men are a cool option!

In fact, I'm now going to plan a one-shot around them for my group!

 

[hector]

Good old zombie ants. All you need to do is find somewhere for the zombies to need to go, and maybe give the fungus some kind of intelligence (it can't make the zombies run because it doesn't have *that* good control over its hosts), so that it can work out when it needs to attack stuff. At which point, a human needs food to provide energy for travel/fighting, so why not eat what you just killed? They could potentially have a slightly higher strength from not being limited by pain, and along the same lines, would not be knocked unconscious under the usual circumstances. Sufficient antibiotics will cure the infection, but good luck giving someone antibiotics before they gnaw your arm off.

That would, incidentally, allow for a resolution other than simply escaping; get as high a dose of antibiotics into the air as possible; they breath it in, and are cured - as are any minor infections. Obviously, anyone with a massive fungus growing out of their head is still dead, but you can't have everything...

 

[Jame Rowe]

There is an old article (pronounce it "art-ic-lee," I dare you!) in GDW's JTAS about a werewolf serum. I can't remember the details though.

Maybe I should look it up but it might be copyrighted.

 

[Darzoni]

There's something werewolfish in the Darrian book. A herbivorous hippo that turns into a vicious killing machine... well, not so different from normal hippos really, but this one physically transforms into something nasty.