Thread: Braaaiiiiinssss!

How would you like to see zombies?

So far in my WIP, I've run into a tiny tribe in the middle of a nasty peat swamp full of araowana and crocodiles, a tribe that keeps zombies hidden in the oxygen-depleted peat so they don't decay quite so much. I'm harkening back to the Voudo/voodoo roots with this as a witch performs a ceremony and a corpse or living person can be turned into a zombie (variable rates of decay or soul-attachment depending on how she does it).

MC is needing to form an alliance of sorts with these people because of their fearsome reputation and her desperation, but now that she's there, they're kind of a small, unintimdiating group of people... with an army of zombies.

The zombies are easier to make if the person is still alive and killed via a poisonous concoction (insert cool name here) that will almost always render the person a zombie but has the weird effect of halting the aging process in probably .0000000001 percent of the people who take it. I'm not sure exactly, but this process might just be Instant Zombie--a person who doesn't need to breathe, eat, sleep but can't reproduce and won't decay but can still be dismembered like any other creature. Because of that extremely rare side-effect, many warriors from a nearby tribe of cannibals and even members of the zombie-raiser tribe take the concoction (consequently keeping the zombie count high and the population low).

I'd initially had them in mud huts, but now they're living in wooden French Colonials on stilts or stone foundations (zombies haul the limestone from under the mud because they don't need to breathe). I did this partially because I don't see why on earth an ambitious lady would suffer living in a mud hut--esp not if she's the one living survivor of the poison and probably a lot older than she looks (the face of the operation is her elderly apprentice who did not take the potion).

So, what say you on the above, and what would you like to see with zombies?

Them being in the ground sounds cool, that makes me think of zombies crawling out of graves. I have a similar idea with trolls hibernating for the winter, digging themselves into pits. Just their hair pokes out (which is a plant in the spring).

So with yours, a drug turns people into zombies but there's a tiny chance that it makes them immortal non-zombies? What exactly are the differences between these guys and the zombies? Are they more conscious and aware? Less decayed?

(zombies haul the limestone from under the mud because they don't need to breathe)

I don't quite understand this. So the zombies swim down through the mud and mine the limestone?

I threw a zombie flick up on WF about a year ago with zombies that, instead of eating people, fell in love with them and, like, hugged them. Yup—that's all they did. Very easy to kill. Link here (offsite). Body's Nectar Lend

I'm not precisely sure what these other people are. Bodily functions seem to be voluntary--they can chose to breathe or move, but their bodies don't function when they're not thinking. It's kind of like a zombie but I'm not sure if they qualify as undead or alive or even how long it takes them to achieve this state after imbibing the poison. I know the posions include those commonly blamed for 'zombified states' but also datura/jimson weed, which causes dissociative issues and delirium rather than hallucinations.

The zombies don't swim so much as they sink and quarry, then haul out the rock via ramps. The original West African zombies weren't a military force so much as a labor force, whcih is teh primary function of these, beyond being a sort of very low maintenance guard dog.

I know the witch so far cannot keep the soul inside an undead body that does not rot. She can make a non-rotting zombie, or imprison a soul in a rotting zombie (or form a soulless rotting zombie, which is much easier). I think this 'immortality' is simply a zombie with a soul in a body that ceases to truly live but also ceases to age.

I know these 'ageless' people are also infertile, but apparently can still eat and taste and nap when they want to (one likes chocolate and sunbathing). I think a lot of sensations take awhile to disappear from them because, as mortals and living creatures, they were so accustomed to feeling pain, hunger, fatigue, etc.

Kinda cool that you mention the hair because that's the only part that ever touches the surface of the peat water while the zombies are 'sleeping'.

How would you like to see zombies? In the far distance, retreating.

Sorry about that, I know little of these things but it did strike me that the effects of long term submergence in peat water would affect the physical appearance.
Isn't it the irreversible effects death has had before they are raised again that makes zombies so zombie like, wouldn't ones that had never died be almost like 'normal' people?

According to the witch/bokor I'm trying to write, the people have to be alive when they initially receive the poison coctail. The poisons have varied effects at differing times, with the first effect being a glassy-eyed blank state where the bokor imprints on the person that he is now owned by her and will follow her commands. The other poisons shut down bodily systems at differing rates now that the brain is pretty much numb to most sensations. They appear to go in this order: nervous numbing, reproductive toxicity, severe digestive slowing, respiratory failure (though zombies will occasionally 'breathe'), necrosis. The full effects sometimes takes months.

The line between true death and still kind of alive is awfully blurry and the resultant "travail-cadave (working dead)" are not submerged until it is certain they are truly dead and not merely greatly slowed (takes much longer than it seems). The older a 'zombie' is, the slower it moves, so perhaps none of them are truly dead but only greatly slowed to the point they appear dead (and may even be rotting to some extent).

The zombies aren't hungry--at least not often, especially the old, really ugly ones. They're also not contagious beyond actually being diseased and hosting numerous bacteria; point being that you own't be infected by them and become a zombie, though you'll probably die anyway.

It might explain why you never see zombies devolve into skeletons due to necrosis. I'd originally thought that was the case, but I just haven't seen any skeletons or even 'true magic' so far in this world. Everything is explained by drugs and hypnosis, which fits more in line with the real-world West African tribes and the original zombie.

I'm not sure precisely what causes this difference but some don't rot and some do. I think it's in the poisons and who might be immune to which ones or if a given poison was present in the cocktail. Also, some regain their minds later after the effects of some drugs wear off; these are often violent but always rot. The ones that don't rot can remain forever youthful but don't possess full mental faculties, continuously in the blank state. The combined recipes yield blank zombies that rot instead of souls in forever youthful bodies, which seems to be the case for these 'forever young' people everyone wants to be when they take the drug. I think those not-rotting soul-bearing people account for that last .0000001%.

Which brings me to a zombie queen. If I say "a woman who raises zombies", what do you picture and what would you like to see in fiction?

Sounds like a very scientific kind of zombie, not that that's a bad thing. And yeah, from a scientific standpoint, it wouldn't make sense for muscle-less zombies to be walking around.

So there isn't any actual, supernatural magic to your universe so far? Like the-fireball-shoots-out-of-the-wand kind of magic? And as for a Zombie Queen—she's got to have some kind of freaky, voodoo outfit. That's a given. Maybe even she can have a Homonculous wand (miniaturized person)? That would rock.

There was a Witch Doctor/Necromancer character I was developing, but he felt a little too cliched. He was really Jamaican, 'ay hows it going mon, which lots of voodooey characters seem to be these days. He's of the actual-magic variety, and raises the dead with sombre incantations. . . "Bdi! Bdi! Bdi!—Mna! Mna! Mna!" Not exactly words per se.

So far, the only supernatural magic is something she remains rather mum on and involves either blood sacrifice or sex (especially the conception of a child). She has hypothesized that having sex in a magic circle (not just any sex but really good sex) might bribe the dead into living.

For the most part, the Witch Queen is actually a scientist recovering from a jealous evil phase after realizing the implications of an ageless infertile body with a dreadfully slow metabolism. She spends much of her time now trying to 'cure' the condition she fought so hard to create. She's invented or improved upon electric power and lighting, the microscope, basic genetics, medicine and horticulture.

She's very attractive, about 5'8" with a round open face, white skin, large sky blue eyes and blue-black softly curling, very shiny hair that hasn't grown an inch in more than three hundred years. She seems to get curvier with age as her metabolism slows. She doesn't run and can't keep up grueling paces long without risking nearly-irreparable tissue damage. She usually wears comfy (esp. blue) dresses with long loose fitting skirts and fitted waists. She wears gloves when she gardens--not because of the poisons but because her body heals very slowly and she has a diminished sense of pain. She has refined, airy tastes, likes dark wood and old furniture, azaleas, lacy curtains, sunbathing, chocolate, cotton clothes and satin sheets.

Her household staff is formed entirely of non-rotting soulless zombies, which she talks to (she also talks to her furniture and has a great affection for one particular end table). She has nicknames for zombies and some plants but not furniture.

One of the zombies is half-term pregnant and from a now-extinct people. She calls this one "Willow". The woman had come to the Witch Queen seeking aid concerning a disease among her people. Jealous of the baby, the Queen destroyed the woman and let the people die because she had, at that point, tried for a century to conceive a child of her own. Within a few years of "Willow's" constant, soulless presence, the Queen did an about-face and is now determined to somehow revive the woman and (hopefully) the child.

Other than zombies and furniture, her only company comes from a 'pet' zombie-eagle Horace and, over the centuries, a handful of female apprentices. Horace is of a species related to Haast's Eagle and stands about 3ft tall.

Originally Posted by seigfried007

It might explain why you never see zombies devolve into skeletons due to necrosis. I'd originally thought that was the case, but I just haven't seen any skeletons or even 'true magic' so far in this world. Everything is explained by drugs and hypnosis, which fits more in line with the real-world West African tribes and the original zombie.

I think hypoxia also accounts for the lack of cognitive functions in "zombies" in certain tribes in Africa. How exactly are your zombies in terms of mental facilities?
Also, how do they restore their energy since they don't eat, drink or breathe? Do they use the reserves that they have already?
What keeps their bacterial infections/parasites in check and keeps them from rotting? Is their immune system responsible, or some other mechanism of the cocktail?

Nice little morbid world you've concocted. Are you going to post a sample on the forum?

Originally Posted by guy_faukes

I think hypoxia also accounts for the lack of cognitive functions in "zombies" in certain tribes in Africa. How exactly are your zombies in terms of mental facilities?

Depends on which type of zombie is made by the Witch's Life cocktail. Due to a person's inherent or acquired immunities or resistances, the poisons used have differing effects:
1. soulless and rotting
2. soulless and non-rotting
3. rotting but coherent
4. coherent and ageless
Thus, they run the gamut of health and mental faculties, and the same cocktail can make someone a zombie or 'immortal'.

Also, how do they restore their energy since they don't eat, drink or breathe? Do they use the reserves that they have already?

They do eat, breathe and drink, but as they age, they do bodily maintenance less and less until they're only breathing once every few hours or days (or less) and almost never eat.

The 'rotting' subtypes are less able to perform bodily maintenance, or, more to the point, one of the poisons is slowly killing off tissues, which become necrotic under normal circumstances.

What keeps their bacterial infections/parasites in check and keeps them from rotting? Is their immune system responsible, or some other mechanism of the cocktail?

Not typically immune system or the cocktail but the environment itself. The Witch Queen keeps the Type 1s submerged in a peat swamp, which has extremely low oxygen content and therefore impedes rotting and disease, thus preserving the bodies for centuries.

Outside the peat swamp, the zombies would rot away into uselessness or worse (they could spread disease to allies), thus it becomes important to transport them in peat water or forge a new army on the battleground.

Thus zombies are fragile but still hardy. They are not as susceptible to diseases, pressure, poison, suffocation, starvation, dehydration or any kind of damage (but especially bullets and other projectiles). They linger on long after normal people would be dead, often taking several minutes to completely die from decapitation. They move more slowly but typically form ambush strikes instead of pursuits.

They feel no pain and are thus capable of pushing their bodies much longer and harder than normal living people and can continue working with numerous broken bones (indeed, they are known to hit a foe so hard that it will break their own bones).

Nice little morbid world you've concocted. Are you going to post a sample on the forum?

I posted the first part of the story in the Workshop (four parts of The Forbidden People) but I haven't gotten anybody to read all the way through it yet. The entire story is divided into several four or five arcs as Princess Otakiri Omi pursues the Forbidden People, accidentally starts a war and is forced to seek allies and finish the war for her homeland. The part I posted (probably 30K) deals with how the war started and introduces the races involved. In the second part, she seeks allies among a tribe of dominance-oriented cannibals and the Mortiviventi, who control the zombies.

Think I'll go ahead and post an excerpt from the second sub-book in the workshop.

I took a look at the first part of The Forbidden People. You seem to have a lot of general intelligence that you lace here and there throughout your writing.
Will definitely go through the rest bit by bit, it's very interesting reading.

Originally Posted by seigfried007

Thus zombies are fragile but still hardy. They are not as susceptible to diseases, pressure, poison, suffocation, starvation, dehydration or any kind of damage (but especially bullets and other projectiles). They linger on long after normal people would be dead, often taking several minutes to completely die from decapitation. They move more slowly but typically form ambush strikes instead of pursuits.

They feel no pain and are thus capable of pushing their bodies much longer and harder than normal living people and can continue working with numerous broken bones (indeed, they are known to hit a foe so hard that it will break their own bones).

I'm a bit of a info nerd, so I'm curious to know more about their internal, biological processes that behind the above characteristics. Are their vital systems still vital, does their blood look a certain way, do well placed blows and round still incapacitate them, etc.
Does the Queen try to augment them, like dress them up in armor and protective gear to make them more durable?

How would I like to see zombies? In zombie-land. Remember the rules to live by.

If you go the voodoo route, they can have dead zombies and live zombies.
I believe rumors and lore tell of voodoo mind control techniques.
Just another aspect you might consider.

Originally Posted by guy_faukes

I'm a bit of a info nerd, so I'm curious to know more about their internal, biological processes that behind the above characteristics. Are their vital systems still vital, does their blood look a certain way, do well placed blows and round still incapacitate them, etc.
Does the Queen try to augment them, like dress them up in armor and protective gear to make them more durable?

Well-placed blows still have an effect--so does electrocution, siege engines, etc. They do die, it just takes them longer. Their blood looks like ours, it just pumps slower so it takes them longer to bleed to death from grievous wounds, like head and chest shots. Older a zombie is, the slower its metabolism runs. It translates to a field of submerged zombies in a bog with only their hair poking above the water, and any creature unlucky enough to attack them getting mobbed and ripped into pieces. Unless physically threatened/injured, the zombies take no notice on their own of creatures or people.

Fitting them with armor and using them as shields will probably happen later.