Undead

**Zombies** are among the most popular types of monsters recognised in today's society. They are corpses of once living creatures that have been reanimated by outside forces. The term *"zombie"* is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli.

The reanimated corpse is a sentient or non-sentient creature that is controlled by other forces than itself. A zombie may be living, dead or dying. There are various methods of creating a zombie of which the most popular ways are by a virus or bacteria, powerful reanimation or necromantic spells and soul trapping. Due to their rotting flesh and dead appearance, zombies are often connected with diseases and death. However, zombies may be as natural as humans themselves. Zombies do speak in a floppy manner which becomes more prominent in the later stages.

## Description

The exact appearance of zombies always differs as no two zombies are the same. Being reanimated corpses, common physical traits include pale and rotting skin, visible wounds, damaged or missing limbs and stains upon their clothing or bare flesh that could be their own bodily fluids or those of their victims. Zombies can come from any walk of life and wear whatever clothing they had at the time of their death/reanimation.

Zombies have the ability to detect scents and can differentiate between the living and the dead; they prefer to feed on living flesh. Covering one's self in the scent of decay can act as a camouflage. They can also use sight to distinguish the living from the dead, although they seem to have poor eyesight as their irises fade and decay over time. They make up for this with heightened senses of hearing and smell. Darkness seems to have little effect on zombies' senses at close range, and in areas devoid of light they can still find their way around as they would in the day.

Individual zombie strength depends on the physical makeup of the individual and on how long they have been reanimated. When attacking, zombies often become more lively, exhibiting full-body effort, and can produce enough force to quickly overwhelm an adult human. Zombies have been shown to be able to rip open human and animal victims with ease, and they can even rip off human limbs with enough force. As zombies decay, however, their muscles, and consequently, their entire body, becomes slowly, but surely, weaker.

Zombies feel no pain. Although seemingly unintelligent when not active, they can react quickly to sufficient stimulation, and can rapidly overpower a victim they have taken by surprise. Though their bodies are no more or less durable than a non-decomposed human body, they can absorb all manner of physical damage, even when badly decomposed. Anything other than a head attack, spinal cord severing, or dismemberment leaves them seemingly unfazed. As long as their brain remains intact, everything that is attached to the brain can continue to function as normal, even if only the skull remains and is severed from the body.

A reanimated body responds to stimuli such as light, scent, and loud noises. Oddly, even if the head is separated from the body, as long as the brain is intact, the head will still attempt to eat anything within reach. The body of a zombie does appear to be truly dead, which means that it does not feel pain, has no reflexes, and wounds to it will not heal; its rate of decomposition slows drastically but does continue.

There is anecdotal evidence that some retain vestigial elements of memory and personality and this is shown some repeating behavior such as clinging to possessions, attempting to open doors, and even using large rocks to break through windows and doors. Zombies though, are incredibly unintelligent and generally unable to use tools or understand the need for them. It has been hinted at that newly reanimated corpses retain some basic sense of intellect and perhaps memory, and can perform very basic tasks such as opening doors. They have no sense of self-preservation other than eating, and will not react at all to the deaths of other zombies or to potentially lethal dangers to themselves.