I've blogged about overselling the description . . . but I think this undersells it:
"Some monsters are immune to poison, either from very slow metabolisms (zombies) or because they live
with it on a daily basis (dragons)."
- Tunnels & Trolls, 5th edition, 1.52.5
"very slow metabolisms"? Sure, that's one way to describe the metabolism of a dead person. It's not how I'd go about it, but yeah, sure, "very slow." Like how "zero" is a "low number."
Back in the day it was just as likely that a reference to a zombie was that of the Haitian voodoo zombie who was a man walking in a dreamlike, drugged state as it was to be a movie zombie. I think T&T 5 was talking about the former (at least, that's what I assumed circa 1983ish).
ReplyDeleteI suppose that's true, although if you put me back to 1983ish I'd have assumed walking dead, ala Romero movies and the D&D Monster Manual. Drugged Haitian zombis would have been far from my knowledge at that point. I'm not even sure they'd have a slow metabolism once they're at the point of being up and walking along.
DeleteI always do room description first, occupants at end. I think I've seen this in many modules to.
ReplyDelete