Your support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)Vampires get all the alternate rules and rewrites! >.< Zombies seem to stay the same. Bullet to the head kills them, they run or shamble, and biting spreads infection. Its never really changed. I've had this idea rattling around in my head for the past few months, a reimagining on the Zombie setting. I've been a little nervous about revealing it, as its still got some holes in it, and some thin science behind it, but I would REALLY appreciate some opinions 
Okay, here goes...
In the year 2013, the human soul has become a phenomenom pursued by the scientific world. Does it exist at all? And if so, what is it? How does it work? Is it essential to out well being?
The exact science behind the soul is young, but it has been identified and recognized as a real scientific occurance. It is an energy that exists on a plane of existance completely invisible to human senses. It is the puppeteer of our bodies. It is everything we are, using our bipedal forms of matter as a way to operate in the physical plane. Once this body expires, the soul can no longer manipulate the world, and will lose touch with it, eventually returning to nature.
This has explained why some victims can still feel their 'phantom limbs' despite having no actual limb there, or how ghost can exist, or how some can send their souls away from their body in Astral Projection.
By the year 2016, the first recorded attempt of a Soul Extraction takes place. The subject managed to walk several paces under Spectral Analysis before returning to its physical body.
By 2017, the second attempt took place, and was an absolute failure. The Soul Disipated and returned several moments later to the deceased patient, the body roaming the test area as if in a sleep walk, even conversing with a doctor he had known and responding to a nickname not many had known of. The patient died a second time shortly after, but its 'Ghost' would continue to walk the test area for 9 months, its strength sporadic, sometimes able to manifest visually to the naked eye and manipulate physical objects.
By 2019, the dead do not rise. They never fall. A body that expires simply will not die, the soul stubbornly clinging to its mortal puppet, its memories and intelligence slowly fading, as if from old age. This confusion can cause many to become violent, but some are simply sedate, as if sleep walking, while others try to seek help, or self mutilation.
The only way to kill these Zombies is outright destruction of the physical body. Sever every limb, crush every bone, blast every piece off of it, until the Soul simply cannot recognize its form anymore, and is forced to Disperse.
However, this did not work for long. As their bodies decayed, they improvised and repaired themselves, displaying their former human intelligence and ingenuity. Mending their broken limbs with all manner of debris, the Soul can seem to accept any foreign object that conforms to its original shape.
A broken leg with metal shoved into the fractured bone and bone tight with barbed wire. Metal stitches and wooden slates across a broken ribcage. Railrode spikes shoved into a shoulder to keep an arm on. This can go on and on until the body is completely replaced, and when there is no muscle tissue left to move these makeshift limbs, the Soul will accept the foreign parts so indefinitely that it will move them regardless, in the same manner a weak Ghost could move small objects.
Once at this stage, a broken, hobbling Zombie becomes something much deadlier, its senile, lost Soul now complimented by a makeshift body that can overcome its former weakness, gaining strength and speed and mobility through a Soul that is now so perverted and broken it no longer relies on muscles, bones and eyes to operate in this plane.
Some appear smarter then others. Some are simply better are mending then others. Some are harmless and lost. Some only seek to kill. But all are senile, going slowly insane as the Soul and its aging body drift apart, yet cling together, the qualities of its past life sinking away, yet never truly dying.
Okay, here goes...
In the year 2013, the human soul has become a phenomenom pursued by the scientific world. Does it exist at all? And if so, what is it? How does it work? Is it essential to out well being?
The exact science behind the soul is young, but it has been identified and recognized as a real scientific occurance. It is an energy that exists on a plane of existance completely invisible to human senses. It is the puppeteer of our bodies. It is everything we are, using our bipedal forms of matter as a way to operate in the physical plane. Once this body expires, the soul can no longer manipulate the world, and will lose touch with it, eventually returning to nature.
This has explained why some victims can still feel their 'phantom limbs' despite having no actual limb there, or how ghost can exist, or how some can send their souls away from their body in Astral Projection.
By the year 2016, the first recorded attempt of a Soul Extraction takes place. The subject managed to walk several paces under Spectral Analysis before returning to its physical body.
By 2017, the second attempt took place, and was an absolute failure. The Soul Disipated and returned several moments later to the deceased patient, the body roaming the test area as if in a sleep walk, even conversing with a doctor he had known and responding to a nickname not many had known of. The patient died a second time shortly after, but its 'Ghost' would continue to walk the test area for 9 months, its strength sporadic, sometimes able to manifest visually to the naked eye and manipulate physical objects.
By 2019, the dead do not rise. They never fall. A body that expires simply will not die, the soul stubbornly clinging to its mortal puppet, its memories and intelligence slowly fading, as if from old age. This confusion can cause many to become violent, but some are simply sedate, as if sleep walking, while others try to seek help, or self mutilation.
The only way to kill these Zombies is outright destruction of the physical body. Sever every limb, crush every bone, blast every piece off of it, until the Soul simply cannot recognize its form anymore, and is forced to Disperse.
However, this did not work for long. As their bodies decayed, they improvised and repaired themselves, displaying their former human intelligence and ingenuity. Mending their broken limbs with all manner of debris, the Soul can seem to accept any foreign object that conforms to its original shape.
A broken leg with metal shoved into the fractured bone and bone tight with barbed wire. Metal stitches and wooden slates across a broken ribcage. Railrode spikes shoved into a shoulder to keep an arm on. This can go on and on until the body is completely replaced, and when there is no muscle tissue left to move these makeshift limbs, the Soul will accept the foreign parts so indefinitely that it will move them regardless, in the same manner a weak Ghost could move small objects.
Once at this stage, a broken, hobbling Zombie becomes something much deadlier, its senile, lost Soul now complimented by a makeshift body that can overcome its former weakness, gaining strength and speed and mobility through a Soul that is now so perverted and broken it no longer relies on muscles, bones and eyes to operate in this plane.
Some appear smarter then others. Some are simply better are mending then others. Some are harmless and lost. Some only seek to kill. But all are senile, going slowly insane as the Soul and its aging body drift apart, yet cling together, the qualities of its past life sinking away, yet never truly dying.