Zombie Slayer

Zombie Slayer is the Fall 2012 special challenge path, introduced on August 14, 2012. This path adds variant rules and restrictions to an ascension run. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads "The dead are rising! Okay, it's been known to happen from time to time -- zombies aren't exactly rare in the Kingdom -- but this time it's serious! Take up arms to fight the undead hordes, before the entire Kingdom falls to a zombie apocalypse!"

In practice, that's not quite what happens.

Restrictions

• Skills
  • No access to any non-zombie skills that you may have permed.
  • No class can be picked during reincarnation. Instead your class will be Zombie Master, which has its own distinct skill set. Your main stat is Muscle, but unlike other muscle classes you do not get an intrinsic +50% bonus to HP.
  • Skills are gained by killing wandering Zombie Hunters, eating their brains, and then visiting the open grave in your campsite.
  • You do not have MP. Skills use up members of your zombie horde, which you replenish by using your Infectious Bite and Recruit Zombie skills (among others).

• Consumption
  • Liver is size 4! Players will become intoxicated (and unable to adventure) upon reaching a drunkenness level of 5.
  • Cannot eat normal food -- only food with 'brains' in the name (and also the steel lasagna for some reason).
    • Monsters killed on this path will drop crappy brains, decent brains, good brains, boss brains and hunter brains.
    • Brains casserole and fricasseed brains are also edible.

• Familiars
  • Only undead (or undead-ish) familiars are available; the rest are temporarily deceased.
    • Trying to switch to any other familiar (such as by using the /fam chat command) yields the message "That familiar seems to be dead."

Divergences

• All monsters have an unknown chance to drop delicious brains based on their ML, after +ML effects:
  • 0-50 ML: crappy brain
  • 51-100 ML: decent brain
  • 101+ ML: good brain
  • Quest Bosses: boss brain (100% drop)
  • Zombie Hunters: hunter brain (100% drop)

• Zombie Hunters will attack you within a small window of turns following each level-up. They drop epic-quality hunter brains which will allow you to choose a new skill. These monsters can be found in any zone, and will continue to appear until you defeat them. The monsters are:
  • Any level, on any day after the first: zombie-huntin' feller
  • Level 2: Norville Rogers
  • Level 3: Peacannon
  • Level 4: Scott the Miner
  • Level 5: Father McGruber
  • Level 6: Herman East, Relivinator
  • Level 7: Angry Space Marine
  • Level 8: Deputy Nick Soames & Earl
  • Level 9: Father Nikolai Ravonovich
  • Level 10: Charity the Zombie Hunter
  • Level 11: Special Agent Wallace Burke Corrigan
  • Level 12: Hank North, Photojournalist
  • Level 13: A rag-tag band of survivors
  • Level 14: Wesley J. "Wes" Campbell
  • Level 15: The Free Man

• Many locations involving NPCs do not work. These are the known exceptions:
  • The Council of Loathing
  • The General Store
  • Mr. Store
  • The Cake-Shaped Arena
  • The Bugbear Bakery (still requires Bugbear Costume)
  • The Crackpot Mystic's Shed
  • The Untinker's Cottage
  • The Bounty Hunter Hunter's Shack
  • Degrassi Knoll's General Store
  • The Gift Shop
  • The Shore, Inc.
  • The Knob Dispensary
  • The Game Grid Arcade
  • The Hippy Store
  • Barrrtleby's Barrrgain Bookstore
  • The Black Market

• Resting at your campsite removes Beaten Up, and gives this additional message:

  Unsurprisingly, you sleep like the dead.

• If you are poisoned during a fight, the effect will be removed at the end of combat with the following message:

  You retch and spray some additional green fluid around the area.

  • Trying to use a permed skill to which you do not have access, using chat commands, yields the following message:

    Graaah?

• The first choice in the noncombat in The Defiled Nook gives a talkative skull instead of moxie stats the first time you choose it.
• The Hermit is not around, but you can get one free ten-leaf clover each day from visiting. Likewise, the hermit script does not increase the number of clovers available in-run.
• You don't receive any quest item when looking with the Lord Spookyraven's spectacles in The Haunted Bedroom.
• You don't need a star starfish familiar to use Richard's star key in the lair. You still need the hat and weapon.
• You need at least 10 zombies in your Horde to defeat the Naughty Sorceress's familiars.
• You don't need a wand of Nagamar to defeat the Naughty Sorceress's third form. You'll have to do some more fighting, though.
• Upon freeing King Ralph you must choose a class. If you choose a Moxie-based or a Mysticality-based class, muscle will switch with your new class's main stat.
• Consuming a bottle of used blood does not give any stats.
• You cannot enter The Sea (the Old Man doesn't appear).

Class

The Zombie Master is the class associated with the Zombie Slayer special challenge path.

Your avatar is replaced by:

When wearing outfits, the outfit avatar overrides this avatar. A custom avatar is not affected.

Skills

You begin with two skills:

• Infectious Bite - Give your opponent a little bit of what ails you
• Recruit Zombie – Spend some time looking for a new friend

You can gain additional skills while contemplating in An Open Grave at Your Campsite. You may learn from three trees: Hunger of the Zombie, Anger of the Zombie, or Master of the Zombie. Each skill you learn costs one zombie point, regardless of rank.

You do not have MP of any kind. Skills instead use zombies from your horde:

You cannot skip ranks within a skill tree. In order to learn a 3rd-rank skill, you must first learn the 1st-rank and 2nd-rank skills from that same tree.

You begin with one zombie point on your first Zombie Slayer run. You get bonus zombie points for past Zombie Slayer runs (1 point for Normal, 2 points for Hardcore). You gain an additional zombie point for each hunter brain eaten.

Rank	Hunger of the Zombie			Anger of the Zombie			Master of the Zombie
	Name	Type	Effect	Name	Type	Effect	Name	Type	Effect
1	Bite Minion	Noncombat 1 Zombie	Restore 10% of max HP	Distracting Minion	Combat 1 Zombie	Sacrifice a zombie for a regular attack that always hits	Summon Minion	Noncombat	Lets you summon zombies for 100 Meat each
2	Lure Minions	Noncombat	Lets you trade brains for zombies	Plague Claws	Combat	Weakens your opponent and increase the strength of his or her Infection	Zombie Chow	Noncombat 1 Zombie	Chow Downed +5 Familiar Weight (10 Adventures)
3	Undying Greed	Passive	+25% Meat from Monsters	Flesh Mob	Combat 3 Zombies	Unleash your horde to damage your foes	Smash & Graaagh	Combat 2 Zombies	Attempt to steal an item from your opponent
4	Hunter's Sprint	Passive	+100% Combat Initiative	Elemental Obliviousness	Passive	So-So Resistance to All Elements	Scavenge	Noncombat 2 Zombies	Scavengers Scavenging +20% Items from Monsters (10 Adventures)
5	Insatiable Hunger(?)	Passive	+5 Stomach Capacity	Vigor Mortis	Passive	Muscle +30%	Meat Shields	Combat 1 Zombie	Hide behind your zombies, making you harder to attack
6	Devour Minions	Combat/Noncombat 4 Zombies	Restore 50% of max HP Upgrades Bite Minion to cure negative effects	Virulence	Passive	+10% chance of Critical Hit Critical Hits Improve Infectious Bite	Summon Horde	Noncombat	Lets you summon 11-14 zombies for 1,000 Meat Upgrades Summon Minion to increase combat chance
7	Indefatigable	Passive	Regenerate 16-20 HP per Adventure	Bilious Burst	Combat 5 Zombies	Explode some zombies, dealing Spooky and Stench damage	His Master's Voice	Passive	+5 to Familiar Weight
8	Skullcracker	Passive	+100% Brain Drops from Monsters Critical hits occasionally stun opponents	Unyielding Flesh	Passive	Damage Absorption +100 Damage Reduction: 5	Ag-grave-ation	Noncombat 3 Zombies	Zomg WTF (Monster Level +30) (10 Adventures)
9	Neurogourmet	Passive	+1 Adventure per Brain Eaten	Corpse Pile	Combat 3 Zombies	Pile zombies on your foe, preventing him/her/it from moving for a while, and dealing damage	Disquiet Riot	Noncombat 5 Zombies	Disquiet Riot (Decreases Combat Frequency) (10 Adventures)
10	Ravenous Pounce	Combat 2 Zombies	An attack that deals more damage the hungrier you are and always hits +5 Stomach Capacity	Howl of the Alpha	Combat 9 Zombies	Scare your enemy away for a while Deals major damage to unscarable enemies	Zombie Maestro	Combat 9 Zombies	Order your horde to attack an enemy en masse Also reduces the Cost of Zombie Skills by 1

Text

Council Text

See The Council of Loathing/Zombie Slayer.

Strategy

See Zombie Slayer/Strategy for tips & strategies.

Rewards

• A class tattoo is obtained when starting the path.
• The Hovering Skull familiar hatchling (talkative skull) is only obtainable within this path.
• Players will receive a Thwaitgold maggot statuette upon defeating the final boss of this path.

Ascension Paths
Boozetafarian	Teetotaler	Oxygenarian
Special Challenge Paths
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