*Intelligent* zombie

[Cheka Man]

I was thinking about zombies and a way to make something new out of the tired old running around eating humans or slaving away working type. And I thought...what if there was a zombie with an intelligent mind? But to stay intelligent and keep from rotting away and becoming another crumbling corpse, he has to drink blood and/or eat brains every week or two. The blood/brains he eats replenishes his body so in effect, it is like it only just died. He might look a little pale, but otherwise looks perfectly human, his dead skin fresh and supple.
Sunlight does not harm him;heat however makes him need more *food* to avoid decomposition. Flies are a slight problem. He hates murdering people;he only does it to avoid decomposition.

Any ideas to do with this?

[Shadoweagle]

Dossta has created something of the like in Maire's Monsters: http://strolen.com/viewing/Maires_Monsters

However, there's plenty of untapped potential in an intelligent zombiefied creature, as per our chat :p

I always think undead are a much underratted abbhoration and deserve more fear and respect. As far as i'm concerned a single, rattling skeleton should evoke as much fear and portent as the suave, powerful Dracula or monstrous Nosferatu does, and they should all hold as much power as a 'high grade' undead.

Hm. I must ponder more! I might try remaking some undead of my own, creating zombies and skeletons as powerful creatures deserving their titles.


Also, this:

(14:08:40) Cheka_Man: Maybe he works as a hired killer for a crime family, that give him somewhere to live and help him avoid getting caught in exchange for him killing for them.
(14:10:18) Shadoweagle: Perhaps he could even be used as a PC in games; his motivation for adventuring being the fact that he can kill the bad guys and eat their flesh, and nobody would care! In fact, he would become a hero!
(14:10:44) Cheka_Man:
(14:11:22) Shadoweagle: Plus it would be hilarious to see the other players balk as 'Hugo the righteous' lops the head off a bandit and then starts tearing the bandits flesh apart in a bloodened frenzy.

[Dozus]

To be a devil's advocate here, what would make an intelligent zombie any different from a lich, vampire, or other intelligent undead that needs to feed? Is there enough to make an "intelligent zombie" any different from the other various thinking dead types?

[Dossta]

To be a devil's advocate here, what would make an intelligent zombie any different from a lich, vampire, or other intelligent undead that needs to feed? Is there enough to make an "intelligent zombie" any different from the other various thinking dead types?

I've thought about this a lot recently.  Lets start with Liches: they are not akin to zombies/vampires because they actually don't need to feed.  The entire point of a lich is that he has given up his body and left it to freely decay, and has instead bound his soul to a physical object.  They are powered by arcane forces, and need take in no sustenance to keep going.  A lich is dangerous primarily for its mastery of the arcane arts -- not for any of its physical attributes.  I imagine that they would be quite fragile if deprived of that source -- no more threat than an old pile of bones.

So why an intelligent zombie, when we already have vampires?  Two reasons I came up with:

1. Intelligent zombies could simply be a more primitive form of undead, developed before the process was refined with vampires.
2. Added horror.  Vampires need blood to survive, but can conceivably take some from a living host without killing them.  Or live off of donated blood, for that matter.  An intelligent zombie can NOT.  They would require living flesh to survive, right?  I'd like to see the victim survive having a large chunk of flesh ripped out of their leg.  Almost of necessity, the intelligent zombie MUST murder their victims.

[Scrasamax]

Well I have been thinking about this as well, and wouldn't ghouls and ghasts basically be what Cheka is asking about? Technically undead, but require the warm flesh of the living to sustain their undeath? While well fed, they are reasonably intelligent. When hungry, they are animalistic

[Dossta]

Well I have been thinking about this as well, and wouldn't ghouls and ghasts basically be what Cheka is asking about? Technically undead, but require the warm flesh of the living to sustain their undeath? While well fed, they are reasonably intelligent. When hungry, they are animalistic

Pretty much, though it is my understanding that ghouls and ghasts can subsist on dead flesh as well as living.  Given Cheka's ideas about an adventurer who consumes freshly dead corpses, it does seem to be more in line with a ghoul than with a true zombie.

[valadaar]

Why bother with undead?  Go Wendigo on em.  More horror there really, since you don't have the excuse of being undead.

[young0ne2]

With the idea that medical science has brought us so far, and i am about to mix fact with fantasy and a kitten might die some where because of it i would like to say this:

You COULD treat the Zombie-ism as almost like a Vampirism.
In the sense that when one first has contracted the Zombie virus, they are still mostly human, maybe with a few little resistances added on or maybe a natural armor bonus because their skins hardening, what have you. Eating Corpsuse sustains the hunger and they are allowed to live their "life" as "normal", but if they dont feed, the virus spreads...

This comes from the fact that when people first die the body dosent decompose instantly, and in all fact, the body still functions for a few hours after "death" ( of course this does depend on the death in question, bullet to the brain, yeah, having a 300K metal beam fall on you, not so much)

So, in theory, if you "replenish" the blood and dying tissue with "fresh" tissue, you would stay at the state you were when you "died". This is like the theory behind Vampires, they're dead and they need fresh blood to keep their bodies functioning.(old mythological idea there) The Zombie Virus could act the same way, either provide more fresh flesh for it to consume or its going to consume yours.

This could have Pros and cons depending on how you go about it.
On the one hand if you cant find any food for a while for what ever reason ( maybe you in prison or trapped in a cave) you get the properties of the undead, and getting a lot of advantages for it, like being immune to certain attacks or abilities.
On the other hand, because your body has decomposed so much, you have to consume X amount of bodies now to get back to your normal state, and you cant really tell who's friend or foe anymore, and might require a WILL save in order to not eat them( you are so far gone at this point every thing looks tasty, like a stereotypical zombie) but you have JUST enough intelligence left to be able to think... even if its at about the same level as a dog or house cat.

... Too much?

[Dossta]

I actually really like this idea.  Consuming flesh to feed the virus so that the virus doesn't consume *you* is a really neat way to handle it.  The only caveat I have is that there should be no way back for one so afflicted.  What the virus consumes, it consumes -- you don't get to go back to "the way things were before", no matter how much flesh you consume.  On the plus side, any positive effects you gained while the virus worked on you (undead immunities & resistences) remain, but so does the gradual loss of intelligence and humanity.

[Cheka Man]

Maybe I should do a submission based on this.

[young0ne2]