The Scenic 78 - Day 5, The Zombie Master

Not sure how we got roped into this one.

Heading west on the scenic 78 we were flagged down by a local resident. He claimed his town had been taken over by a Zombie Master of some sort, disguised as one of the townsfolk - the only difference was that his eyeballs were different than a human's. Simple, somebody just had to get close enough to identify this monster. I guess that was us. We should have kept on driving....

It could be one of these residents or somebody inside one of the buildings.

Could the Zombie Master be the lady with the baby?

A guy smoking in the park?

Or Santa begging for a handout?

Cheap gas!

It was up to us to find out.

We split into two groups checking out the two houses on the side of the road. Frankie and Eddie found nothing in the first house. Since people were still living in town we didn't search for any loot. Dick and I took the next house.  Nothing in the front room. In the back room there were three armed townsfolk.  We checked them over.  I whispered to Dick, "These guys aren't humans..."

Dick and I blasted away. It was the Zombie Master with two of his minions! My shotgun blast blew all three to the floor. Dick fired his rifle into the Zombie Master. All hell broke loose in the town!

Zombies coming out of the woodwork!

More zombies poured in!

Yikes! A zombie cat!

Some of the civilians panicked or ducked back. Some of the town residents took arms and were able kill a handful a zombies as soon as they appeared. As Frankie exited the house he was overwhelmed by zombies.

It doesn't look good for Frankie!

Frankie swung his SMG and bashed the head of the first zombie. Unfortunately there were just of too many of them for Frankie. Around the corner, the panicked lady and her baby were discovered by Zombies from behind. She never knew what ate her. Fortunately for the rest of us, all this feasting provided a temporary distraction for the zombies.

The zombies feasting on the two humans.

Eddie jumped out the side window while the goons were busy eating Frankie. He made a dash for the truck.  Dick and I ran out the front door past the feeding frenzy back to the truck. The zeds paid no attention to us.

The townsfolk down at the gas station looked as if they had under everything under control.

The zombie body count was piling up at the gas station.

We killed the Zombie Master and lost one man in the process.  Our job was over.

Time to get back on the road.

Game Note: After the encounter ended  I rolled on the Keeping it Together table and Eddie decides to stay with the group. No increase in rep for me and Dick. 

The Scenic 78 - Day 4 Very Early Morning

It was a tough night last night. The two soldiers left during the night.

We occupied the bottom floor of the house, trying to get some shut eye. For some reason Ron went nuts wanting to take charge of the group. Ron opened fire with his shotgun on me, Dick and one of the new people. The woman was shot dead, Dick was wounded and knocked down and I was stunned.

The girl on the left was dead, Dick was wounded, and I was knocked to the floor stunned.

The others in the group fired back at Ron, but missed. Ron blasted back as they ducked out the window. The exchange of gun fire attracted a couple zombies.

The zombies quickly approached the house and found Eddie on the ground prone after taking cover from the shotgun fire. Eddie clubbed the two zombies with his assault rifle as they attacked him. He was lucky to survive.

Eddie had jumped out the window and was attacked by 2 goons.

Ron could have finished us off, but decided to leave the house. After regaining my senses I got up and got a shot off at Ron as he was leaving the building, severely wounding him. I searched his body and grabbed his shotgun.

"Out Of the Fight." I found a Derringer Pistol and some food on Ron.

Sam, one of the new guys who was shot at, ran off into the night. We packed our stuff and headed back to the truck. Not much sleep tonight.


The encounter was based on the Keep It Together table. Ron rolled the mutiny result. I substituted  the Derringer from 6 Gun Sound for the Machine Pistol to the Recovered Items table in I Zombie. Dick recovered minus 1 to his Rep after being shot. Because this happened at night the remaining group members will roll on the Lack of Sleep table found in I, Zombie.

The Scenic 78 - Day 3

Cruising down the scenic 78, in the area of the Anza Borrego Desert State Park, there was a small pond off the highway. We pulled over to fill our water bottles. Our group approached the pond from the west.

The pond in the middle, 5 basketcases to the left.

As we neared the pond a group of huddled survivors appeared. They seemed like a helpless bunch. As soon as they saw us they dispersed.

5 basketcases before they dispersed. One waved at us.

Off to our right a fairly well armed group of residents appeared in cover. Since Dick and I were unarmed we stayed put and Ron carefully approached the armed residents as Frankie and Eddie provided cover.

Ron talking to the 5 Residents of the area.

Fortunately, the residents were friendly and were open to trading with us. Ron knew Dick and I needed fire arms so he was able to trade a couple bolt action rifles for a can of Coke. Not bad!

Another strangle vine appeared on the banks of the pond. Looks like we'll skip the water.

A Strangle Vine waiting for its next victim to take a drink from the pond.

Dick and I tried to rally the basketcases. We found it difficult. As soon as we approached one or two of them they just took off and hid in the bushes. Ron and his group had the same problem. The residents we traded with did their best to round up the basketcases. Either that or let the goons eat them for lunch.

A basketcase taking cover.

As Dick and I attempted to help a basketcase, we spotted a lone house (3rd PEF). Since Dick and I were still unarmed we stayed outside. Ron signaled that he'd go into the house.

Dick spots a house!

Ron's group entered the house. Only two soldiers and a couple of frighten civilians were hiding out. A bottle of booze and a book of matches were found inside - they might come in handy later on. The booze might be good for trading.

Group meeting.

Unfortunately, we will be unable to get water from the pond because of the Strangle Vine. It's too unsafe. We'll spend the night at the house and move on in the morning. Ron handed over the the two bolt action rifles to Dick and I. No sign of the local residents or the basketcases.

This was an encounter I created - attempt to get drinking water from the center of the table with PEFs. Game wise, we failed to get the drinking water.  It wasn't worth risking our lives. The strangle vine was an idea I found online somewhere. No fame or fortune points gains or lost.

The Scenic 78 - Day 2

There wasn't enough here for us to survive on. Dick and I decided to head back to Long Beach and figure out what has happened along the way. Three of the suvivors decided to come along with us:

Ron - Rep 5, civilian, shotgun
Frankie - Rep 3, survivor, SMG
Eddie - Rep 4, soldier, assualt rifle, body armor

Pete and one other survivor decided to stay.

We attempted to hot wire the yellow pickup parked across the street.

On the 4th attempt, Ron got the truck started which attracted a zombie.  

Game note: Any doubles rolled during activation triggers a random event from Haven, page 26.

We passed the goon on the way out of town as we headed west on the scenic 78.

Seeee ya!

The Scenic 78 - Part 2

The goons chased us down the street and just about had us surrounded, when a strangle vine appeared out of no where and grabbed Dick by the leg. Pete was able to cut the vine holding Dick. The vine also took down some nearby zombies. In my first melee with a goon I only had a crowbar - I had to cheat death, bad luck and poor dice rolling. (4 dice to 1 and I still lost).

A Strangle Vine appears on the farside of the church!

We finally eliminated the goons and left them littered on the street. Will there be more?

We gathered a few suvivors along the way, but there were very few resources to be found in town.  Looking at our map, here's our situation:

We are currently at Point A.

Not sure what to do. Do we head back to Long Beach? Or stay and figure out what the hell is going on?

The Scenic 78 - Day 1

For years Dick wanted to explore the Scenic 78 somewhere in southern CA. I went along to see how scenic it was. We were listening to Sinatra's greatest hits, when the car sputtered to a stop. Dick forgot to fill up the rent a car BMW Roadster when we had lunch a few hours ago at a Chizzler. We pulled over hoping to hitch a ride to the next gas station. Unfortantely, the Scenic 78 is all scene and no cars. We decided to check out the small town where we pulled over- perhaps somebody would lend us a few gallons of gas... that seemed easy enough.

Me and Dick trying to hitch a ride along the Scenic 78.

We didn't know it at the time but we were being watched. Dick and I headed over to the closest building. Nobody answered. That's where we met up with Sgt Pete. Sgt Pete talked about some kind of things walking around that might be harmful. As soon as we walked out the door we saw what he was trying to tell us. Sgt Pete took a a shot and knocked it down. "Zombies!" Sgt Pete yelled.

What the heck?

After searching a few more buildings the Zombies closed in on us. To be continued......

They were so close we could smell them...

Results of the First Expedition

After 19 days exploring and mapping the area north east of Cape Town, here's what we discovered.

We engaged and defeated a large hostile tribe. At the sight of the hostiles, a couple of our hired soldiers ran into the jungle and were never heard from again. We sacked their village and captured 6 natives for bearers, 3 food supplies, 1 loot and a donkey.

Other known and unknown tribes we met.
5 Tribes – Friendly. One tribe chief signed over his lands to us.
Makolo Tribe
Mongo Tribe
1 Tribe – Neutral

We met some friendly slavers.

Discovered a cataract and a 48’ waterfall.

Discovered Iguanadon and paradactyl.

Discovered ancient ruins.

Bagged Trophy Elephant and a Trophy Hippo.

We lost Dick, several soldiers a donkey and other supplies due to a flash flood.

On the way back we cached some supplies just in case we were out that way again.

We are now headed back to the University of Heidelberg to report our findings. Hopefully this newly found information will bring us donations so we can continue our exploration.