Zombie: The Coil

Zombie: The Coil is a fan made game part of the Classic (Old) World of Darkness. You get to play as a "Born" zombie, not the mindless slow walking version, but more like an undead human with sentience (Eric Draven in The Crow). Rulebook and Character Sheets

Background

Story is centered around different zombies and their struggle to fight against The Coil, aka mortality. For some strange reason there is enough of these fuckers going around that they have an organization system set up with different groups with varying beliefs, the standard WoD thing of taking monsters and giving them normal organization methods.

Becoming a "Born" Zombie

So let's say you die and hopefully you stayed almost entire intact otherwise revival is impossible, you get brought back to become a zombie by an Augur. An Augur can be anything from Mages trying to resurrect people, a scientist trying to make a cure to death, etc. It's a catch all term for the person(s) or being resurrecting dead people. OR you can be resurrected by an event called a Hounfar, they're somewhat random (possibly tied to important events such as the Black Plague) and can happen to such severity from one or two people being brought back to a massive zombie army. In either case, when brought back you're a Féos, the classic dumbfuck zombie that wants to eat people. Can't remember anything, but now you have an insane hunger for flesh. After this, something important happens and you're now "Born". You get a couple memories back and you can talk, think, and have full sensory ability. The event that causes this is unknown and there is only a rough 25% that Féos are "Born", but you got a new undead life to live.

Zombie Life

The only thing that reminds them of who they were are Whispers, things from the zombie's past life from voices or sights that haunt them. As they progress longer in their new life, that memory haze starts to lessen and they will remember more parts of their past life. In the meantime, the zombie will suffer Compulsions related to their previous life as well as what might have gotten them killed. In order to keep going, the zombie are going to have to eat Viscera, any meat from a person (the two types of zombies distinguish on whether you have to eat living or dead flesh). This Viscera keeps the spiritual energy called Meridians going to keep the skeletal structure and avoid decomposing further. Eating Viscera also keeps off the Feast,a cannibalistic frenzy. The Fever is the hunger for Viscera and if left unchecked can hurt the zombie.
In addition to all this, when a zombie is created there is also a spiritual being called a Lich, not the awesome kind. This Lich can't be permanently destroyed and can possess any dead thing near the zombie (this includes plants). The Lich's job is to hunt down the Zombie at their weakest moment and attack them. If they make physical contact with the zombie and latch on to them, then the Zombie is going to have a mindfuck battle called an Ordeal. The Lich will fuck with their head, bringing back memories trying to convince them that The Coil is much better than their Zombie life and will manipulate memories to accomplish that, like having a family member saying that The Coil is better than being a zombie and they miss them, all that shit. After the Ordeal, the Lich's possessed form will rapidly decompose and the Lich will disappear to recover from the experience. If the zombie won, then an extra point of Meridian is given. If it was a draw, then nothing happens, but if the Lich won, then the zombie is scarred and part of their memory is gone and they lose a point of Whisper.
One powerful weakness of zombies is the damaging effects of non iodized salt. You read that correctly. Fucking salt can cause massive damage against zombies. Other than that, zombies are actually pretty tough. They can soak everything else for damage, but fuck do they take forever to recover health levels. Unless you eat the brains apparently, this grants you 7 health levels and 7 levels of Viscera. Another power of zombies is The Pulse, it allows Zombies to speak to each other even if their vocal cords are gone. As well this power allows zombies the ability to see, hear, feel, smell, etc.

Categories of Zombies

Living Flesh or Dead Flesh

The determination of whether a zombie will prefer living or dead flesh is at random and there is no ability to switch.

Grande

Grandes have to eat living flesh in order to replenish Viscera and satiate their Fever. Dead flesh won't help. Viscera for them can be used for powers, but nothing too crazy until later levels.

Jackal

Technically enemies of the Grandes, the Jackals have to eat dead flesh in order to replenish Viscera, so they're looking at Grandes like a next meal. And they view themselves as better than Grandes because they aren't required to kill their prey, but that doesn't stop many of them. When consuming Viscera, it doesn't stop their Fever, it instead lessens the resistance, and can turn them into horrific monsters of pulsing organs and decay. This constantly changing forms limits their Meridians. Jackals will try to pass themselves off in a sophisticated manner to dissuade prejudices.

Age of Decomposition

When a zombie (Grande or Jackal) is awakened to be a Féos is random, but when they become zombies can affect their abilities and appearance.

Péle

Recently awakened from being a corpse. They can reasonably be passed off as being a little sick, but can easily talk to people without worry about revealing themselves. The problem with them is that Péle's don't remember much outside of some basic skills and very few memories of themselves, so they struggle with surviving.

Carnes

Half and Half on the decomposition/intact flesh appearance, but with some long sleeved hooded clothes, most people can't tell the difference. Some convincing might be needed about their wounds and their voices might sound a little raspy. Carnes start with more memories than Péle's, they remember who they are, why they are there when Born, where their location is. This is the most common type of Zombie.

Knochen

This is the fucked in the appearance category type. Decayed bodies, sometimes can be near skeletons and this hinders their ability to move around and Meridians. This type starts with the most memories of their past and start with the highest Willpower. Additionally they are the most respected amongst zombies.

A Knochen smiling at you

History

• • • Disclaimer, don't use this for your game lore, read this and make up something else that sounds less stupid than this***
      
      

Long ago when apparently the dead and the living weren't so separated, then something (the Umbra) came up and divided the world. Cut to a shaman named Zemi whose wife died and he started to hear voices about past lives. He asked other people in his village if they also heard the voices, but no one else did. So he pondered on life and death for awhile, estranging anyone else from his life. But one day some other weird fuckers who thought similar to him showed up. And they talked about mortality for 3 days until they all decided a way to break away from mortality and give life and death the middle finger. This group would call themselves Zombies since they were disciples of Zemi (fucking dumb).Their plan was to let their body die, but by sheer willpower overcome death and still live on thus fooling The Coil. So Zemi leads a funeral for his disciples and himself and after 3 days and nights it somehow actually fucking worked because they start rising up out of their coffins. Except that Zemi's disciples started wandering brainlessly towards the village and started attacking and eating people, Zemi, being the pussy that he is, just watched from afar. Some of them eventually snapped out of it and then left with Zemi feeling remorseful about what they had done, except not remorseful enough to stop the others who were still (Féos) walking around wanting to kill and eat living flesh, but fuck those guys no one gives a shit about them. Then the Zombies and Zemi chilled in a mountain for a century, presumably eating other people from other villages. Then shit started happening in Europe and they left their mountain to go find out, however some of them got hungry on the way and devoured the previous Féos from before and they became the jackals.

This shit gets dumber. Time jump to 1860's because there aren't many tales of other things going on apparently inbetween(fuck everywhere war and plague that could have had an Hounfar possibility). By the game's storyline, after the deaths from the American Civil War there were many Hounfars and new zombies being created, that previous zombies decided to devise a way to protect the newborn and shelter them into safer areas, combining with the movements of escaped slaves aka the Underground Railroad. Shit continues happen, especially with the two World Wars, and Hounfars growing, making these sheltering operations struggle. Jackals start showing up and killing Grandes in mass, but the Grandes organized and used the communication between groups to get to safety.

Culture

As mentioned before, for some reason these guys have their own culture even if they are 1/10 the population of Vampires in the universe. This shit kinda makes sense