Zombie: the Coil © Daniel Solis 2001Zombie: the Coil © Daniel Solis 2001

zombiethecoil@yahoo.com1

 

A Storytelling Game ofA Storytelling Game of  Mortality, Identity and Freedom Mortality, Identity and Freedom

 

 First Edition

 Table of Contents Table of Contents

 Prelude 2  Introduction 5

 Part One: Flesh Part One: Flesh 10 10

Chapter One: Setting 11 Chapter Two: History 22 Chapter Three: Society 30

 Part Two: Bones Part Two: Bones 6464

Chapter Four: Character Creation 65 Chapter Five Systems 72 Chapter Six: Powers 81

 Part Three: Tears Part Three: Tears 115 115

Chapter Seven: Storytelling 116 Chapter Eight: The Stage 121

 

Zombie: the Coil © Daniel Solis 2001Zombie: the Coil © Daniel Solis 2001

zombiethecoil@yahoo.com2

 

 

 Prelude: Prelude: Leaving the CoilLeaving the Coil

By Jean-Paul Gagnon

“To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life;” - Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1

Rain-washed marble statues stand in silent guard, the radiant setting sun causing their cold-lidded eyes to acquire mimicry of life in the ebony darkness. Flowers are strewn, carelessly deprived of their roots, dying upon freshly disturbed earth. A weeping willow stands solid as its age, branches swaying silently in the breeze, bathed in the light of the Cheshire moon. A black gate breaches the opening between two rough-hewn granite walls. The night is pregnant with stars, the air thick with the cold of evening. Sounds of life are present in this place of death. Nocturnal birds and insects fly through the silky moonlight intent on their twilight errands. Beneath the earth, burrowing worms

 

Zombie: the Coil © Daniel Solis 2001Zombie: the Coil © Daniel Solis 2001

zombiethecoil@yahoo.com3

crawl through the damp soil, enriching the nutrients with their passage; extracting salts and worm food.  You see none of this. You hear none of this. Yet  you feel much of your surroundings. You do not know what this means. You only see darkness, an encroaching closeness, tight with the black that surrounds you. Shadows feed upon your inner being, pulling you upward... outward... towards what you sense in the darkness beyond. You start to reach out  your arms but are halted; your fingers scratch against what is holding you, but you find no purchase. Velvet covered wood keeps your arms from rising. You feel a sudden panic and push. Wood splinters and moist soil fall onto your prone form. You bring your arms in front of your face and push upward with your spine, crashing through the wood and swimming out into the soil. You can't breath but neither do you have to. You swim through the earth as if through water and burst from the sucking hole that was once your grave.  Your memories are absent and you are unstable on legs that do not know how to move. Clumps of dirt fall from your shoulders and hair. The sun has set and the night seeps through the headstones and statues of the cemetery. A wind sighs through the bars of the gate as you turn towards the streetlights. A simple stone is behind you, its legend carved deep with a diamond saw. However, you cannot decipher the glyphs written there. Your name is part of a world you are no longer a member of. All you remember is a face and a desire. All you experience now is a hunger. A terrifying hunger.  Your bones slowly remember their accustomed gait as you push through the cemetery gate and shamble towards the lights of the city. You walk in the middle of the street. You would read Old Hallow Lane on the road signs, if you could still read. The night is with you and the streetlights seem to dim as you pass.  No one notices you as you walk down the deserted street. Even if they did notice you, they would not remember. The face is ever in your mind, calling you with its familiarity. With this one you will find an answer, a release from your hunger. The face now has clear features in your dead mind, two deep green eyes and high cheekbones framed eloquently by black strands of long straight hair. You can almost see her body, her sweet flesh in a pair of denim jeans and a tank top.  You can almost remember how her body felt, pressed against you in the darkness. Enfolding warmth. Your body craves the warmth, warmth so terribly foreign to  your present state. The wind whips the street, blowing leaves and paper bags into the drains to collect with old newspapers and soda cans. Everything is so unfamiliar. You know the streets… and yet you do not. Your feet are taking you in this direction, and  you are not sure why. Your clothes are a mess, smeared with dirt and torn from where they caught against the jagged wood of that box you left behind.  Your hair is disheveled and unkempt and your face is sallow and pale beneath a layer of mortician's makeup.  You step up onto the curb and begin walking on the sidewalk. You are careful not to step on a single crack in the concrete and you do this without ever moving  your eyes from straight in front of you. Your arms hang at your sides, swinging with the motion of your movement but not as if they held any strength within them. But they are strong. You are strong. You have defeated the grave, and though you do not have the words to understand what you feel, you are freed from a destructive cycle of pain. You know where you are going now. You are going to the face. The street might seem familiar if you had a memory of streets. The building might seem familiar if  you had a memory of buildings. Perhaps you once lived here in your life, whatever that entailed. Perhaps  you once walked this street arm in arm with the face at your side, together forever. However long forever lasts these days. You walk up the steps to the building, being careful to step over the third step. You don't know why you do this; neither do you know why you haven't stepped on any of the cracks in the sidewalk all night long. In fact you don't even notice that you do this or that your hands are rooting through your pockets, tearing at your ragged pants and what remains of your clothes, looking for something that is not there.  You push against the door and it creaks from the force of your skeletal frame. The bones of your hand seem to become more pointed as you claw at the door and tear great swaths of splintering wood from the frame. Your hunger is growing unbearable. All you can think of is the hunger and the face. You know that she will release you from your pain. You are in the entranceway to an apartment complex. Architecture from the Fifties appears before your sunken eyes and you mount the staircase leading to the landing of the floors above. Step, step, long step,