The Book of Evil!

[arveljoffi]

Demonic forces have caused the dead to rise from the grave! Father Joseph knows the horrible truth: though he had thought that the book was destroyed in his youth, someone has obviously found and read from the Book of Evil, calling the dead forth from Hell! Whoever read from the book is surely perished, devoured by the undead.

The townsfolk’s only hope is to find the book, somewhere in town, and read an incantation at each spawning pit to close the Gates of Hell before nightfall!

Take numbered markers, 1-6, and shuffle them face down. Keeping the tiles face down, the zombie player(s) place one marker in a space of their choice in each "L" and two in the center of town. One of them is The Book of Evil. Some markers are helpful and others are harmful. Each pit is successively harder to close, as the spawning zombies have fewer and fewer places to start.

*Standard board.
*Betsy is removed from the Hero deck.
*Heroes start with one card each, in addition to any cards they may already receive.
*We did 18 turns, but this one might need 20.
*Heroes replenish. There are always four Heroes on the board.
*Heroes use their search action to turn a marker face up.

The numbered markers represent:

1. You’ve uncovered another spawning pit! A spawning pit marker is immediately placed in that square. This pit must also be closed for the Heroes to win.

2. You live to too close to Springfield! The nuclear power plant has illegally buried radioactive waste there. All Heroes in that space take a permanent wound from radiation poisoning. That wound can never be healed. The waste marker remains in the space, and any Hero passing through that space for the remainder of the game takes a permanent wound. Heroes take one permanent wound for each turn spent in the space.

3. “I just had it!” Lose an item. While digging through rubbish or crawling around to find the book, you dropped your (hold up your item cards so that the Zombie player can't see them, then Zombie player picks).

4. First aid. Remove from draw deck and reshuffle.

5. Betsy accompanies the Hero, giving one extra fight die. She takes two wounds, and is always wounded before the Hero. If the Hero dies, another Hero within 6 spaces can call her to them on a roll of 4+. If a card is played that would turn the Hero into a Zombie Hero, Betsy is turned instead (as she is guarding the Hero and takes all wounds first). If Betsy is turned she will take 2 wounds, move 2 spaces and use 2 fight dice. Zombie Betsy moves independently.

6. The Book of Evil. A Hero character must go to a space with a spawning pit and give up their search action to read the incantation that will close the pit. A roll of 3+ is required for Heroes with 3 or more wound markers; 4+ for those with 2 wound markers (they tend to be teenagers, and are more arrogant or nervous; more mature characters will take their time). The pit is then permanently closed. If the Hero dies, the Book is dropped in that space, and other Heroes may pick it up without searching.

Of course, the main point is to find the Book of Evil, so substitute your own items, bonuses or penalties for the other markers as you see fit.

Note: If playing with Invasion from Outer Space fire rules and markers, a destroyed building will also permanently close a spawning pit. (Unless this was a movie. Then a new house would be built in the sequel, and the pit would open up in the basement, first devouring the family pet, then everyone else except an old man and a hot young blonde girl. You know that’s how they would do it!)

Extra note: Speaking of fires, we enjoy adding the fire rules to the flare gun. It almost never misses, but when it does you have to roll to see if it starts a fire. It is a flare gun after all. You use the fire token's guide for selecting a space, and a fire starts on a roll of 2+.

[samuraitrev]

Hi arveljoffi
This must have took you some time! You have some cool ideas such as using Zombie Betsy and the 'Flare Gun' starting fires. The scenario is quite similar to Burn 'em out with closing off the spawning pits. A couple of things I would change is
The 20 turns is going to take a long time.
I would change the name 'Book of Evil' to something a little more imaginative.
Marker 2 seems overly punishing for the heroes. Maybe tone it down a bit.
The scenario overall does seem to be weighted in the Zombies favour.

Who won when you play tested it?

[arveljoffi]

(03-26-2011 03:17 PM)samuraitrev Wrote:  Hi arveljoffi
This must have took you some time! You have some cool ideas such as using Zombie Betsy and the 'Flare Gun' starting fires. The scenario is quite similar to Burn 'em out with closing off the spawning pits. A couple of things I would change is
The 20 turns is going to take a long time.
I would change the name 'Book of Evil' to something a little more imaginative.
Marker 2 seems overly punishing for the heroes. Maybe tone it down a bit.
The scenario overall does seem to be weighted in the Zombies favour.

Who won when you play tested it?

I came up with the scenario in about 20 minutes, and my girlfriend and I tweaked it as we played. Then I spent an on and off hour fine tuning it as I was posting it.

My girlfriend and I only played through it once, and the zombies did win. In our game the last marker found was the Book, so, of course, that was some pretty bad luck. In addition, she was just having a bad roll night but I was rolling sixes like they were going out of style. Despite all that my girlfriend might have won had she had two more turns. We played in 18 turns and she only had one pit left to close. More play testing should tweak the luck of it and see better how the scenario will play on average.

You're probably right about the radioactive waste being too harsh, but I think I'd rather come up with something better for the Heroes than eliminate it. I'll probably replace the first aid marker with something more interesting and beneficial. And it's only really hard on the Hero that has the misfortune of uncovering it; other Heroes just know to avoid it, crossing it only in the most dire circumstances.

The title is silly, kind of lame, and tongue in cheek. B-movie-esque. And that's why I like it!

I probably should have played through the scenario a couple more times and tweaked it before posting, but I found the forum and got all excited. Thanks for the feedback!