Five groups of survivors.
One zombie-infested city.
Who will live… and who will die?
Danger lurks at every turn. There are unspeakable horrors here, with an unquenchable hunger for brains.
A pair of well-dressed musicians approach the city from the south, bearing guitars, a shotgun, and a sword. They are lead singer Francesco Galán of the famed mariachi band Los Desperados and the other surviving member of his group, Alex “El Cid” Jones.
THE BAND
You arrived in the city to play a concert when the scene went bad. Far from the adoring fans you expected, you instead found yourselves beset by murderous hordes of undead. Ever since, you’ve been holed up in your hotel, awaiting rescue, and making do with whatever food and alcohol you have been able to scavenge.
But things aren’t going to get any better, are they? You’ve decided to make a break for it—find a car, load up on supplies, and head north. Perhaps things are better in Canada.
Not just any car will do, of course–you’ve got an image to maintain.
Be careful of people. You’re never really sure what their goals are, or how they’ll react.
Objectives
- Locate sports car or convertible, and exit city to north: 15 points
- Exit city to north on foot: 2 points
- Each food supply: 1 point
- Describing your victory conditions to another player: -3 points
- Each band member lost: -10 points
From the north, three small schoolgirls make their way cautiously, under the watchful gaze of a high school senior:
THE GIRLS
Miss Congleton’s School for Girls had—or rather had–quite the reputation. This was less for academics (at which it was merely average) than for the formidable performance of its field hockey team. Five years running it had won the divisional championships. Three of those years, at least one other member of the opposing team had been hospitalized.
When the Apocalypse hit, most of the teachers perished. It was thus left to Head Girl Claire Kensington to lead the pupils to safety.
Fortunately, Samiha has found a (single-shot) rocket launcher. Young Poly is a feisty one. And little Lucy often seems to know what will happen before it happens…
Try to find some food and ammunition, and make your way south. Be careful of people. You’re never really sure what their goals are, or how they’ll react.
Objectives
- Exit city in any direction to south: 10 points
- Each food supply: 1 point
- Each ammunition found: 1 point
- Describing your victory conditions to another player: -3 points
- Each student lost: -10 points
From the east come an unlikely family, in search of Uncle Wilf’s medications:
MEET THE MAYHEMS
Everyone has a part of their family that no one wants to talk about, and which somehow never gets invited for Thanksgiving or summer family picnics. The Mayhems were those embarrassing relatives.
While Aunt Agnes seemed normal enough, Uncle Wilf was always a little bit strange, with a glint in his eye, fanciful stories, and sudden mood-swings. Cousin Alice was even stranger still, taken to bouts of muttering to herself, and with an almost psychopathic fondness for firearms.
When the world ended, the more normal branches of the family were quickly devoured. The Mayhems, however, survived. They’re running low on medication for Uncle Wilf, however—before all hell broke loose, it used to get delivered each month from one of those mail-order pharmacies. They have thus decided to check out the post-office.
Be careful of people. Somebody has been raiding your supplies as of late, and last week your pick-up truck was sabotaged. They are clearly out to get you, and you think it is one of the other groups of survivors…
Objectives
- Search the post office and find Uncle Wilf’s medications: 10 points
- Find the thieves and teach them a lesson: 5 points
- Each zombie killed: 1 point
- Describing your victory conditions to another player: -5 points
- Each family member lost: -10 points
Dick “Danger” Danger is no stranger to danger. On the contrary, danger is his middle name (and his last name too). He enters from the northwest, eager to find others and impress them with his survival skills and general post-apocalyptic coolness.
SURVIVAL STAR
As the star of a hit reality TV series about extreme survival, you are better equipped than most to make it through the zombie apocalypse.
Your base camp is a little outside of the city. It is pretty secure, but having scavenged most of the area already you’ve been forced to make forays further into the city in the hopes of finding supplies.
Remember: people are idiots. Don’t let them get you killed. And don’t let them find your camp.
Objectives
- Each food supply found: 1 point
- Every 5 ammunition found: 2 points
- Each firearm found: 5 points
- Boastfully convincing another player to follow your advice: 1 point (per player)
- Helping another player without being paid or rewarded: -1 point (per player—after all, you’re a professional dammit)
- Describing your victory conditions to another player: -5 points
- Exit the board other than at starting location: -5 points
For Sir Jeffrey Barton, the unusual is the usual. While the world-famous anthropologist hadn’t been planning on the end of the world, it would make a very good book.
FIELD STUDY
You’ve seen everything, from exotic cannibal tribal rituals to strange murder cults. While the Apocalypse was unexpected, you were less surprised than others. It also provided some exciting new research opportunities.
Your base camp is a little outside of the city. It is pretty secure, but having scavenged most of the area already you’ve been forced to make forays further into the city in the hopes of finding supplies.
You hope one day to write a book, so observing other survivors is quite useful. Don’t tell them what you’re doing, however—-it would alter their behaviour, and be poor research methodology.
Objectives
- Each food supply found: 1 point
- Every dog befriended: 2 points
- Each person met (within 1”): 1 point
- Describing your victory conditions to another player: -5 points
Francesco and El Cid cautiously approach an ambulance, which seems to have crashed into a burned-out church. It wasn’t exactly the kind of fast wheels they were looking for, but perhaps it contained something useful? More drugs?
Unfortunately, they are both too stoned to get the doors open.
The Mayhems are crossing an abandoned construction site when the first zombies come shambling towards them. Then more. Then still more. And finally a fearsome zombie-clown appears, laughing maniacally.
Uncle Wilf laughs back. Between his crazed axe-swings and Cousin Alice’s quietly psychotic aim with a revolver all the undead are soon dispatched. “You’ve got a few scratches there, Pa,” says Aunt Agnes as she patches Wilf up.
Dick Danger appears on the scene, and coolly drops a few of the undead with carefully-aimed shots from his customized high-powered survival pistol. It’s a shame, he thinks, there is no film crew to record it. After all, Danger is his middle name.
As he does so, Claire leads the girls cautiously into the forecourt of a gas station. The truck parked there is in no condition to start, however.
The commotion caused by Dick’s shooting and the Mayhems’ melee attracts still more of the shambling horrors. Both the girls and the survival star take refugee in a garage, while Wilf, Agnes, and Alice continue to carve themselves a path to safety.
With a pack of feral dogs on the prowl, the two band members press deeper into the city. Unfortunately, the liquor store has been looted long ago, and there is no way that members of a mariachi band are going to be seen dead driving a Mini.
Not far behind them, Sir Jeffrey befriends some feral dogs. By now he has amassed a considerable pack of canine companions.
Claire, the girls, and Dick Danger decide to make a run for it from the garage. Frankly, Claire is hoping to get away from the survival star as much as from the zombies. She is starting to suspect that Dick—not Danger—is his middle name.
Everywhere, undead abominations roam in search of the living. The survivors nickname this one “Andrew.”
Sir Jeffrey finally catches up with the Los Desparados on a downtown street and interviews the musicians. Together, they search a few buildings, finding a few supplies. El Cid is happy to have some munchies.
The Mayhems, having fought their way through waves of undead hordes, approach the same area, headed towards the Post Office to see if they can find Uncle Wilf’s mail-order medications. Needless to say, Sir Jeffrey soon interviews them too.
Dick Danger pulls back a bit, drawing the zombies towards him so that he can finish them off one at a time. It doesn’t go quite as planned—he stumbles over something in the tall grass, and one of the zeds bites him before he can finish it off. That could be a problem…
Dick, Francesco, and El Cid then meet up in the parking lot of a strip mall, where they admire an abandoned Ferrari. Andrew the zombie tries to interfere, but is cut down. El Cid is wounded in the fray.
With zombies closing on their location, the trio leap into the sports car, Dick at the wheel. The car starts, purring like a ghost (or a tiger).
They speed out of the parking lot, wheels spinning.
“No, not that way, tonto!” shouts Francesco, as he realizes that Dick is driving them back into the center of the city.
“Don’t worry, my middle name is… oh f@ck,” replies Dick as he suddenly realizes his route is blocked by wreckage and looted cars. With a screech of high-performance tires, he executes a perfect hand-brake turn. He then floors the gas again…
“Whoa maaan, like watch for the zombies..” warns El Cid from the back seat. It is too late: the Ferrari ploughs into a crowd of shufflers, destroying several but also clipping the corner of a building. Smoke, then flames, begin to billow from the engine.
Dick fires with his pistol at the zombies surrounding the burning vehicle. As he does so, Los Desperados bail out and run back into the parking lot of the nearby strip mall.
Unfortunately, no sooner do they arrive when a large crowd of shufflers appears from the alley between the bar and the laundromat. They quickly tear the musicians into bloody guacamole.
Claire and the girls meet up with Sir Jeffrey. He interviews them, and they decided to join forces. After fighting off a few runners, they all make it safely out of town.
Dick Danger finally slips away from Ferrari, knee-capping several of the undead to slow their pursuit. He will survive another day—assuming he doesn’t succumb to that earlier zombie-bite.
The Mayhems make it to the Post Office, and there find the mail-order drugs they were looking for.
Having achieved their objective—and having eliminated almost as many of the undead as everyone else put together—theirs was clearly the most successful foray of the day.