Should Zombies be armed or should their bite be enough?

[modelwarrior]

I dont like my zombies to be armed but I do like the zombies in JL Bourne`s world. Irradiated zombies are faster and more intelligent. So basic problem solving(eg learning to turn a door handle) etc becomes possible. They have a tiny amount of human intelligence left in them. Also tackling a radiation dripping zombie adds to the perils of hand to hand.

[Muzfish4]

Never really understood the fascination with zombies but then I saw the film World War Z which I thought was great. So my vote is for them to be like those in the film. Not dead or armed but just as fast and agile as humans.

If you liked the film you (might) like the book - they are totally different. I found the book a terrific read but the film very much a let-down - when I saw it at the cinema in the big dramatic lab scene half the audience laughed when B.Pitt injected himself.  The book is a series of interviews with survivors from World War Z very much in the Studs Terkel style.

[Grumpy Gnome]

If you liked the film you (might) like the book - they are totally different. I found the book a terrific read but the film very much a let-down - when I saw it at the cinema in the big dramatic lab scene half the audience laughed when B.Pitt injected himself.  The book is a series of interviews with survivors from World War Z very much in the Studs Terkel style.

I agree with Muzfish4. The audiobook with Mark Hamill was pretty good too.

[Daeothar]

Absolutely; totally different beasts, the book and the film.

For me, the film is kind of OK, but the book is just awesome... 

(can't comment on the audiobook, but... Mark Hamil!)

[Emir of Askaristan]

I understand that zombies were resurrected and enslaved corpses from Haitian folklore under the control of their master. So I see them as somewhat slow, slack jawed and dim witted, capable of wielding agricultural implements, (hence scythes), but lacking willpower. They have no especial taste for human flesh. In "The Horse Lord" by Peter Morwood, the Necromancer raised the dead of ancient battlefield and changed the weather to stop them from decaying. Hidden amongst his dead army were units of human mercenaries who attacked with speed, surprising their protagonists who were tied up fighting the slow but difficult to put down dead.

The fast zombie, which seeks to kill and consume, is more like a Ghoul, (Ghul), but only in that it seeks to kill and eat. Wendigo is similar with an insatiable desire to eat human flesh. Both have similar famine/starvation origin stories I suppose.

The modern fast zombie seems to be a plague victim however, rather than undead. A different monster altogether.

[Ray Rivers]

I understand that zombies were resurrected and enslaved corpses from Haitian folklore under the control of their master. So I see them as somewhat slow, slack jawed and dim witted, capable of wielding agricultural implements, (hence scythes), but lacking willpower. They have no especial taste for human flesh. In "The Horse Lord" by Peter Morwood, the Necromancer raised the dead of ancient battlefield and changed the weather to stop them from decaying. Hidden amongst his dead army were units of human mercenaries who attacked with speed, surprising their protagonists who were tied up fighting the slow but difficult to put down dead.

The fast zombie, which seeks to kill and consume, is more like a Ghoul, (Ghul), but only in that it seeks to kill and eat. Wendigo is similar with an insatiable desire to eat human flesh. Both have similar famine/starvation origin stories I suppose.

The modern fast zombie seems to be a plague victim however, rather than undead. A different monster altogether.

That's not true is it? 

 

[Grumpy Gnome]

Absolutely; totally different beasts, the book and the film.

For me, the film is kind of OK, but the book is just awesome... 

(can't comment on the audiobook, but... Mark Hamil!)

I believe he only does one small bit, a Yonkers Vet. You can hear him here…

[Daeothar]

Cheers mate; I'll listen to this if I get the chance to paint this evening

[Grumpy Gnome]

Cheers mate; I'll listen to this if I get the chance to paint this evening

[Cat]

Whacky weapons are fine, even old firearms that they still like to thump people with.

[Hobgoblin]

Aesthetically, I prefer a divide between "fantasy zombies" and "sci-fi zombies".

The former are the kind you get in D&D, RuneQuest, Warhammer and Fighting Fantasy:



They're really more akin to the draugr-type walking dead of Norse myth (as seen, for example, at the final battle in Hrolf Kraki's Saga). And they use weapons by default.

Sci-fi zombies, on the other hand, aren't magically reanimated warriors but corpses turned into predators by dint of some pseudo-scientific rationale: radiation, alien virus, whatever. The use of weapons isn't really part of the pop-culture tradition here - whereas it very much is for the fantasy type.

[Grumpy Gnome]

That is an interesting way of looking at it Hobgoblin. I was nodding along with your point until I began to wonder, what makes a Draugr a Draugr and not a Zombie? When does a Zombie stop being a Zombie but instead is a Ghoul?

The lines between different classifications of undead seem easy to blur.

[Cubs]

I guess it's a case of what force is animating them. Most of us probably think of the same physical thing when we think of zombies - a dead body with no higher functions, slowly decomposing. An exception could be the Haitian type zombie who might just be a living body controlled through drugs/magic. But what is the will behind their motivation and aggression? Is it the instinctive remnants of a much reduced human (tortured?) soul, or the controlling will of a necromancer? To go down the Warhammer lines, I saw zombies as being the former and skeletons the latter. Hence skeletons have some skill with using weapons that zombies lack. A ghoul I see as not strictly undead, so much as a transformed human that feeds on the dead, and then of course we get into all sorts of weird classifications like lyches, wraiths, wights etc..

[jon_1066]

For me a zombie is a reanimated corpse.  A ghoul is a living creature than has been corrupted from feeding on human flesh.

[Michi]

I guess it's a case of what force is animating them. Most of us probably think of the same physical thing when we think of zombies - a dead body with no higher functions, slowly decomposing. An exception could be the Haitian type zombie who might just be a living body controlled through drugs/magic. But what is the will behind their motivation and aggression? Is it the instinctive remnants of a much reduced human (tortured?) soul, or the controlling will of a necromancer? To go down the Warhammer lines, I saw zombies as being the former and skeletons the latter. Hence skeletons have some skill with using weapons that zombies lack. A ghoul I see as not strictly undead, so much as a transformed human that feeds on the dead, and then of course we get into all sorts of weird classifications like lyches, wraiths, wights etc..

That's the way I look at it too:
Ghoul - Living being that feeds on corpses and suffers from mental degression, more driven by instincts and less by planning
Haitian "Zombie" - bewitched living being under mental control by a living master
Zombie - undead soulless being driven by predator instincts
Skeleton (warrior) - (un)dead (magically resurrected) not-being (corpse in any state of decay) under magical & mental control by a (not necessarily living) master - I would even accept a single corps resurrected by a necromancer's spirit who is going to possess it. Due to the master's will and his magic a "skeleton" can be formed out of fragments or heaps of single bones and also use any sort of tool and weapon.
Golem - Much like the "Skeleton", but made of anything