I'd like to GM an adventure for my group that deals with the Blackwing Virus. I'm presently reading the book Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber to get some background and ideas. I know my group will love this surprise, but I was wondering what rules I could invent to represent the virus in the game.

In particular, I was thinking of maybe modifying the EotE adventure in the GM Kit, 'Debts to Pay', to have suffered an outbreak of the virus. Mainly because my group will deal with a droid uprising of sorts in the AoR adventure, 'Dead in the Water'. Although, I guess either adventure could be changed to introduce the virus.

As for infected zombies, I imagine they would be minions similar to simple minion stats?

Would anyone have an idea of what rules I could use for zombies, getting infected, healed, etc.?

Thanks in advance! Semper Fi.

For me, this would depend entirely on how horrific you want to be. The virus could be fast acting, or it could be more/less virulent.

I would probably have the individual, when infected, start taking unsoakable wound damage once per scene. That way they can take meds of they want, stimpacks or whatever they have at hand, but that doesn't work forever, and soon they all succumb. Maybe have a setback die to their actions once they get to half their wound threshold, as the virus is taking over, and another at a quarter of their threshold.

As for the zombies themselves, I would use stormtrooper minion stats. I would increase their wound threshold if there were fewer of them, maybe lower it a tad if I was going to swarm the PCs. Also remember:

I wouldn't let them "heal" the infection unless they found the maguffin antidote.

I like trialaccess' idea! Using stimpaks until they are no longer working seems very flavourful to me.

Hm, resiliance could either determine the risk of getting infected or how well they deal with being infected. I'd prefer the latter.

Maybe "infecting" is sort of a Weapon Quality

• Bite X: 2 or 3 adv. to trigger, X is difficulty of resiliance check the target has to make, if failed target is infected.

That leaves the possibility for lesser infected who are less virulent and advanced infected who are (your choice) maybe physically less dangerous but way more infectous. Or little headcrab thingies that are very infectous but physically harmless.

But then again, I am still enthralled by the incredible experience that was Last of Us, so my vision of infected is very tainted at the moment.

ooo..I really like that, have it as an activated ability, some swipes don't carry the virus, and some bigger bads could be far more infectious. I agree with the resilience check. You could even increase the difficulty with each successful attack if you really wanted to push the danger.

I've considered running a similar thing but with Star Wars' other zombie-like virus, Rakghouls.