vehicle (basically just cars) rules and destruction/malfunction table

 Now, believe it or not, but I don't normally care about cars. However, I was able to talk some people into a road-trip style campaign a la Velvet Inks and Crystal Fire's Midnight in the Dark campaign pitch.

Only one (1) problem. That campaign is very car focused. It's a road trip. And I don't really have a ruleset on hand that I really super like, so I made my own. It's definitely a little rough, but it's probably good enough .

All cars (I guess, expanding this, all vehicles) have a Size stat, ranging from 1 (like a motorcycle, I'd say) to 9 (like an RV). Size determines most important things about a vehicle, it's HD and HP, the armor it provides to its occupants and how much damage it needs to take before it rolls on the Misfunction & Destruction table.

A Vehicle at 0 HP is scrap. It cannot be repaired, though it could possibly be scavenged for parts. A vehicle's HP is determined by [Size]d10 (I made vehicle HD d10s because I wanted them to be tougher than the average meat-thing). Every Size x 1d10 Damage a vehicle takes, it must roll once on the Misfunction & Destruction table.

Vehicles also provide Armor. By this, I mean that each vehicle provides Damage Reduction equal to its size to all characters inside of it, though all damage reduced in this way is taken out of its HP. 

Vehicles' movement is measured with a score I call Speed Threshold. I'm pretty sure that it means nothing, and does not describe what it names, but it was a placeholder I had that sounded cool and I haven't the heart to replace it unless I hear something that sounds better.

Speed Threshold goes from 1 (barely moving) to 6 (80+ mph). Not all Vehicles can make it up to 6, lot of them are stuck going slower. "Why only 6?" You may be asking, "Why no more?" Because my car has 5 gears, not counting reverse, but I've heard people say that normally there are 6, and I think it would be fun for the Speed Threshold to roughly equal what gear you'd be in at those speeds.

Drivers of vehicles can do one of a few separate actions on their turn while driving a vehicle, Slam, Evade, Step on it or Break:

• Slam is an attack with the vehicle, dealing [Size + Speed Threshold] d4 to the target and half that again spread throughout the vehicle and its occupants.
• Evade is used to give disadvantage to Slam attacks targeting the vehicle
• Step on It allows the driver to test to increase the vehicle's Speed Threshold by 1
• Break reduces the vehicle's Speed Threshold by 1d4.

Vehicle Destruction & Malfunction Table

Roll Severity: d10+ Damage over the Toughness Score ([Size*d10], rolled when vehicle is first generated)

d10 location	Severity ≥1	Severity ≥12	Severity ≥18
Engine (1-2)	Engine Damage – reduce max possible ST by 1	Engine Severely damaged and needs repair – Starts making a horrible sound and car lurches to a stop in 1d6 rounds	Engine Explodes – 2d6 damage to everyone inside and the car crashes.
Body/structure (3-4)	Glass shatters and sprays interior – everyone inside takes 1d4 damage	Body compromised – -1d6 DR for everyone inside	Axle breaks – car crashes
Tires/Steering (5-6)	Tire explodes. Driver Tests to keep control	Wheel system catches fire – Vehicle takes 1d6 damage per turn til everything locks up in 1d4 turns	Wheels seriously damaged – driver loses control and the car crashes
Trunk/storage (7-8)	Random item in trunk destroyed	1d6 random items in trunk are destroyed	Trunk flies open – everything kept inside flies out
Electrics (9-10)	Lights, radio blink out	Electrical fire – Deals 1d4 damage to everyone in the front seats until it burns itself out in 1d6 turns	Electrical fire – completely engulfs the car in 1d6 rounds.

For my personal game, I'm using the SEACAT inventory system, and am differentiating car types by the number of Sacks they can carry, the number of Seats, the size of their gas tank and their MPG. I toyed around with tying milage to ST, but that turned out to be a little bit too complex to be comfortable.

I'll probably update this later, once we've played a few games and I'll iron out what worked/didn't work

undeath as anti life

Light is the left hand of darkness

Undeath is the left hand of life

Death is not the opposite of life. It is the return to crude matter, becoming food again, husk of calories. It is the absence of a thing, not its opposite.

Undeath is the Other. Thing Three to Life's thing One and Death's Thing Two. The three stages of being:

Existence, non-existence, anti-existence.

Death has a reflection as Crude Matter. Vitamins, mineral supplements, unliving sugar and food. Inanimate Existence.

Life has a reflection as Undeath, spawned from Crude Matter, Animated Existence.

Why do they contrast, why do they fight?

They fight because they don't want to die.

Undead are delicious, once you get past the cannibalistic taboo. Think a fine wine or a well-aged cheese. Crossed with jerky. Mummies are a necessity in a well-stocked kitchen.

Zombies think much the same as us.

When Matter and Anti-matter collide, they destroy each other. Just so. With Animated things, well, they need a bit of encouragement.

"Fear the zombie, lest it make you like it!"

"Fear the living! They'll use you as fertilizer!"

When Life is strong, so is Undeath.

When Life wanes, so does Undeath

Undead "birth"

A swarm of many, spreading across all corpses. The mother sacrifices herself for her children.

Living "birth"

For us, it is almost always one. Maybe two, every thousand, three or four all the rarer. A single birth is just as rare, for the undead.

Undead souls

As much as we have claim to a Soul, the Undead have claim to an anti-soul. Like us, it gets dirty with age. Or maybe washed off, a quicker path to our own rebirth.

Pain as pleasure and anti-sensation as sensation.

The Living and the Undead are immune to each other's tricks. Through selection, they must develop weaponry against the Other.

The Undead cannot be Charmed or Suggested, they must be Turned and Destroyed.

The Living cannot be Commanded* or Dominated*, they must be Drained or otherwise reduced.

Truly, the arts of enchanting cannot cross the mirror. They are anathema to each other!

An Undead's Sensation is the Living's Anti-Sensation. Their Pleasure is our Pain, and it is only where the two meet, that the opposites share a border. Domination! Both human kinds and Undead Lords practice the art, but where living legions must be broken and practiced to accept the bit, the undead jump to attention when the first order is given.

(This is why lich lords are always so frustrated. They're used to beating the living into submission, and many don't adapt well to the loyal, masochistic slobbering of zombies.)