- Behavior: Nomads are the most common type of zombie, endlessly roaming in search of food. They move in hordes, instinctively drawn to sound, movement, and the scent of the living.
- Patterns: They exhibit a form of unconscious herd behavior, often migrating towards high-population areas or locations with frequent activity. Some may continue patterns from their past lives, returning to familiar locations like homes, workplaces, or stores.
- Weaknesses: While slow and predictable, their numbers make them a significant threat. Survivors can use distractions, barriers, and environmental hazards to manipulate or evade them.
Unique Variants:
- Drifters – Solitary Nomads that wander aimlessly, often silent until provoked.
- Echoes – Some retain a faint, distorted version of speech, mimicking words or cries for help.
- Physique: Sprinters were once athletes, soldiers, or exceptionally fit individuals, retaining their muscular build and quick reflexes even after death. Their decomposition rate is slower, allowing them to stay fast longer.
- Hunting Behavior: Unlike mindless Nomads, Sprinters operate with an almost predatory instinct, stalking and chasing prey with terrifying speed. Some exhibit pack tactics, coordinating movements to trap survivors.
- Weaknesses: Their agility is their greatest strength, but they require more energy, meaning they may tire out or become sluggish if forced into prolonged chases.
Unique Variants:
- Leapers – Sprinters with enhanced leg strength, capable of climbing or making short bursts of superhuman jumps.
- Screechers – Their vocal cords remain intact, allowing them to unleash high-pitched wails that alert other zombies.
- Physical Attributes: Bulkers were once bodybuilders, fighters, or naturally strong individuals. Now, they are towering masses of decayed muscle, retaining extreme physical power.
- Combat Style: Unlike Sprinters, Bulkers do not chase their prey—they crush it. They smash through barricades, rip doors off hinges, and turn any encounter into a brutal contest of strength.
- Weaknesses: Their sheer size slows them down, making them vulnerable to agility-based tactics. They also require more time to recover from impacts, meaning repeated attacks to weak points can bring them down.
Unique Variants:
- Crushers – Have deformed, oversized limbs, allowing them to create shockwave-like impacts with their strikes.
- Goliaths – Slower than standard Bulkers but with reinforced skin, making them nearly impervious to small-caliber weapons.
- Size and Strength: Brutes are beyond natural human proportions, often standing over 8 feet tall with grotesque, exaggerated musculature. Many have mutations—bone protrusions, extra limbs, or reinforced skulls.
- Role in Hordes: Brutes act as leaders or enforcers, dominating lesser zombies through sheer strength. Some appear to command or influence hordes, guiding them in strategic attacks.
- Weaknesses: Their size makes them easy to spot, and while they hit hard, their reactions are slower. Many have exposed weak points, such as malformed joints or unstable mutations.
Unique Variants:
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- Overlords – Capable of giving low-level mental commands to weaker zombies, directing hordes with eerie precision.
- Behemoths – Brutes with excessive regeneration, allowing them to recover from injuries at an unnatural rate.
- Stealth and Cunning: Unlike most zombies, Stalkers are patient hunters. They use the environment to their advantage, hiding in shadows, creeping through vents, and ambushing victims with terrifying precision.
- Hunting Tactics: Rather than overwhelming numbers, Stalkers rely on fear. They mimic human behavior—knocking on doors, whispering in the dark, or imitating voices of loved ones.
- Residual Memory: Some retain fragments of intelligence, allowing them to use tools, open doors, or manipulate their surroundings.
Unique Variants:
- Whispers – Can produce eerie vocalizations, tricking survivors into thinking they are safe.
- Lurkers – Prefer confined spaces, attacking from ceilings, sewers, or vents.
- Numbers Over Strength: Swarmers are the embodiment of the undead plague. Individually weak, but in vast numbers, they become an unstoppable force.
- Mob Mentality: They move as one, scaling walls, climbing over each other, and surging through gaps like a flood of rotting flesh.
- Challenge for Survivors: Confronting a swarm head-on is suicide. Fire, explosives, and environmental traps are the only real defenses against their relentless advance.
Unique Variants:
- Drones – Mindlessly follow and mimic stronger zombies, amplifying their actions.
- Bursters – Some Swarmers have unstable, bloated bodies, exploding into infectious bile when damaged.
- Nature of Infection: Necrotics are zombies that continue to mutate over time. Unlike standard undead, their bodies undergo constant transformation, adapting to environments, damage, and even counter-strategies used by survivors.
- Unpredictability: No two Necrotics are the same. Some develop exoskeletal armor, others grow new limbs, and some even seem to from encounters.
- Weaknesses: Their instability is both their strength and weakness—some mutations result in self-destruction, while others create vulnerabilities survivors can exploit.
Unique Variants:
- Chimeras – Zombies with mixed traits from multiple classes, making them highly unpredictable.
- Echo Kings – Rare Necrotics that seem to regain memories and intelligence, possibly even communication skills.