Building a "Safe Zone"

[Gulzhad]

What does everyone think of having a campaign idea where the goal is to build a safe zone?

Possibly taking over part of a city and making it safe. I'm open to any idea on location.

Thanks!

[Oberoth]

Safe zones make for great campaign ideas. There are all sorts of things the characters can be involved in. Security, scavenging runs, scouting, construction, politics.

As for location, I went into a great bit of detail regarding Winnipeg, Canada. Population, food supply, Electricity and so on. You can check that out here viewtopic.php?f=77&t=123398

Winnipeg however is imagined to have survived the wave. So it is a pre existing Haven/Safe zone. If your campaign involves the characters starting from scratch then that is a different matter entirely. Allot more combat will be involved establishing even a small Safe area in a city.

[Gulzhad]

From scratch sounds more interesting.

[Gulzhad]

This is a fun thing to do. It can easily take a year irl of gaming to finish securing/setting up the safe zone not to mention defenses and scouting the nearby areas

That sounds exactly like what I want to do. Right now I have three character ideas: a soldier, a scrounger, and a shepherd of the damned.

The soldier is going to be the kind of person where they can fight really well and that's about it. It will be their job to keep the safe zone running.

The scrounger is going to be the one who goes and gets the stuff we need. They will also be alright at building stuff.

The shepherd's job is to get more people into the zone and to build/set up what we need.

My major problem is: where should we start? Like what should we start off by doing?

[Oberoth]

Well first things first! You have to pick a spot close to the city to set up a base of operations. A very small town would be perfect. This is somewhere that is easily accessible and easy for a small group to clear depending on the particular circumstances. The area has to be cleared and secure before you start going on missions in the larger population center. From there it's just a matter of how the PC's approach the situation.

In the current campaign i'm in on line, the PC's have yet to find a stable spot to base from. We're probably going to head for one of the off shore oil islands first considering we just got a boat. But it's hard to say what could happen from now till then. The GM could spring any number of calamities on us. Weather, zombies, human antagonists...SHARK!

[Razzinold]

I'm split on this, I like the idea of having a stable place, but keeping on the constant move has its advantages too.

I recently read one of the journals on here Survivors Journal (and it was a great story) and the people decided to come together and build a safe spot. I believe they chose the airport since it already was surrounded by a high fence. They strengthened this by putting large vehicles and shipping containers against the fence, some of my details may be wrong on the hows and whys but the point is still the same. All it took was one time and the zombies got through and everyone became lunch, if you feel you are safe you become lax in your safety precautions.

But having a safe spot has advantages too, resting up and healing from cuts and scrapes, good place to store lots of gear and food too, as well as many others.

Being mobile lets you, in theory, always stay ahead of the enemy. But it also has advantages and disadvantages. You go through fuel quickly, have to sleep "in the open" or clear out a safe place for the night each night you want to rest.

Now after all that rambling, I say go for it!
I think it would make an awesome idea for a campaign, for all the reasons stated, the safety and danger of staying in one spot. If you stay in one spot for too long in an area filled with predators, then the predators learn where you are and hunt you down. My gm went to university with a guy who was a forest firefighter (B.C. I think) when he went back home in the summer to make money for the next school term. He told my gm that in certain spots they could only stay for some many hours/days because by then the bears (i think grizzly) would have their scent after that.
I figure same thing about zombies, once they catch your scent then they are drawn like moths to a flame.

As for locations, obviously something that's easier to defend (not a lot of windows) a nice brick building, maybe a flat roof to try and make a roof top garden, a place where there are other buildings close by to raid, but not something in a downtown city where the population would be at a high point. Some small town, maybe take over the local police station, or maybe a small detention center. We have them here, basically the drunk take/holding cells where people go for a night or two, or while waiting to go to court or to be transferred to the main (larger) jail center.

[Gulzhad]

Hmm... I see. I was initially thinking of a neighborhood, but now that seems like it isn't a great idea. I guess it wold depend on how long after the outbreak happened. My thoughts were to start the week after.

The survivors would find a house with a fenced in back yard. They could then raid the other houses.

The jail idea works great though

[AzathothXy]

As for locations, obviously something that's easier to defend (not a lot of windows) a nice brick building, maybe a flat roof to try and make a roof top garden, a place where there are other buildings close by to raid, but not something in a downtown city where the population would be at a high point. Some small town, maybe take over the local police station, or maybe a small detention center. We have them here, basically the drunk take/holding cells where people go for a night or two, or while waiting to go to court or to be transferred to the main (larger) jail center.

In The Walking Dead comic the characters used a prison. Multiple gates designed to keep people out and in. And lots of room, they were able to grow some crops and had animals.

[Razzinold]

Glad you liked the idea, but the airport idea wasn't really mine, lol like I said I read Survivors Journal, I believe King Newt posted it. The rest of the ideas however where mine

Also in the walking dead tv show the gangsters were holed up in the old folks home (kinda looked like a prison) it had the big solid door, open courtyards where they planted gardens.

[cornholioprime]

Whatever defense you guys DO come up with, please remember that the massive, massive, massive numbers of undead can potentially push down just from the weight (and strength) of so very many of them pressing up against the barrier.

In my opinion, virtually nothing in the modern world could withstand the assault over a significant period of time (besides, perhaps, the aforementioned Prisons), and you are further faced with the prospect that the Zeds will eventually by probing surround your structure on all sides (including zombies on the top of and under the surface of the water). What of water (including plumbing) and resupply of food?

And that's before we even get into the problem of what will happen, disease-wise, when you guys are for whatever reason forced to kill large numbers of them and the bodies start to rot out side your walls.

You'd probably be forced, in 'real' terms, to build supermassive walls around any settlement you'd want to stay at, that are really tall, thick, and smooth on the outside (so as to stop them from climbing; they would also have to be very tall in order to stop the potentially MILLIONS of undead from just stacking their way up to the top as they die off).

When dealing with Zombies, we have to take care of various logistical and tactical problems that wouldn't be a concern when dealing with the living -and unfortunately for us all, we generally tend to think of solutions that would repulse the living (and much smaller numbers at that!) since it's what we're used to dealing with.

[azazel1024]

You don't necessarily need massively high walls if you have the ability to terminate even large groups before they get too close, along with an ability to dispose of the remains in a relatively timely manner. A large incinerator within the safe zone could take care of the cropses along with some man power, wheel barrows or pickups to remove the corpses. For killing them, potentially flame throwers if you had defenses suitable to stop them for a short period of time and were fire proof. Light one up and if it can't get over in a couple of minutes, they'll burn to a cinder. Then just incinerate the left over remains.

Easyish to produce enough alcohol or vegetable oils within the safe zone to provide fuel to flamethrowers. Then you can just use pressurized systems to spray it out on any zombie groups. Use marksmen utilizing crossbows for individuals and maybe rifles and marksmen for modest sized groups.

[Razzinold]

Well I know the "walls" they used in King Newt's story were transport truck trailers, with the wheels cut off so they would sit flat. And they were full of heavy useless items (useless because they required electricity to run) like washers and dryers. As for corpses, you could burn them where they pile up along the wall. Just make sure the wall is far enough away from where you are living. Sure burning bodies would pulloute the air, but all the factories would no longer be running so there would be less in the air, steal some gear from the firehouse and wear an oxygen tank while burning.

Though I do agree, zombies would eventually surround you cutting of your supply route, each time you made a supply run would be like a massive war. Unless you could maybe use the sewers to bring supplies in and out ?

[cornholioprime]

You don't necessarily need massively high walls if you have the ability to terminate even large groups before they get too close, along with an ability to dispose of the remains in a relatively timely manner. A large incinerator within the safe zone could take care of the cropses along with some man power, wheel barrows or pickups to remove the corpses. For killing them, potentially flame throwers if you had defenses suitable to stop them for a short period of time and were fire proof. Light one up and if it can't get over in a couple of minutes, they'll burn to a cinder. Then just incinerate the left over remains.

Easyish to produce enough alcohol or vegetable oils within the safe zone to provide fuel to flamethrowers. Then you can just use pressurized systems to spray it out on any zombie groups. Use marksmen utilizing crossbows for individuals and maybe rifles and marksmen for modest sized groups.

And this is why I said that we humans have to think differently.

Given the current population of nearly seven billion people, and a relatively "even" distribution of them on almost every continent, with the way that Dead reign zombies operate you would inevitably draw potentially MILLIONS of zombies to your position, either by the noise of the initial construction, the maintenance of your barricade, or the combined life essences (and noise, don't forget the combined noise!) of the presumably many people you're going to allow to live there.

Which is to say, eventually a group of Zombies will start walking towards the disturbance off in the distance....which will get at least some other Zombies tailing along to see what the first group of Zeds is going after.......which will attract others...and so on, and so on, and so on. Sooner or later, a Thinker or a Mock Zombie or a Death Priest is going to catch on and your barricade is going to eventually become a new Zombie Ground Zero.

And that's not even getting into the logistics of how you're going to keep your city supplied in what is going to effectively become a Permanent Siege.....

[Oberoth]

Thing is, how much room does your player group really need? And why do they need to set up a "Safe zone" in a large urban center? There really is no reason a small group would choose to do so aside from perhaps the ease of proximity and movement. A group of five to ten people don't need much more than a small fortified building with multiple exits/escape routes, witch can be found in much safer towns. With perhaps a one to two block radius cordoned off. Personally I would just set up caches with a small area fenced off providing a safe area while on runs into the city. I wouldn't permanently try to live there though. This all depends on your campaigns plot and general theme. Any "average" group is going to avoid these areas like the proverbial plague. However, if the group is a bunch of reapers then they may have good reason to try this sort of thing.

[azazel1024]

Not necessarily. Even in fairly urban areas you'd have low enough population densities here and there that even a mass zombie moaning would have a "break point" where there would be too much gap between active zombies for the moan to continue to travel. You'd have a pretty huge initial rush of zombies, but once you got through the first few hours or days, you'd only get small groups as the general urban area around you was cleared out. Then you'd only have wandering groups from far out who happen to come across the safe zone. This would be especially true of some what more isolated safe zones that you create.

As for construction sounds, its not like those travel hundreds of miles and zombie moans are only described as carrying a couple of miles. So it is unlikely any safe zone would be under constant siege. Populations are also not evenly distributed across any continent. Look at population density maps, even in the north east of the US there are huge areas with very few people. So you'd have a massive influx of zombies in the urban area, and then it would taper off as you are getting zombies who have wandered in from suburban areas and then it would taper further or completely stop as the exurbs have cleared and rural area zombies are all that is left. If we are talking shuffling a couple of miles per hour maybe, within 1-2 days you should have attracted pretty much any zombie who would be within even extended range of hearing moaning and moaning setup by zombies further out hearing the moans of those nearer the safe zone.

Thinkers and mock zombies would pose a much greater issue, but not necessarily insurmountable. I think setting up a safe zone in a large urban area would be near impossible without massive resources to dedicate to it initially. One being established from the onset of the outbreak should have been totally possible with the right actions of people in the city, gov't and military. After a city as turned completely dead head would be different.

Setting up a safe haven in a small to modest sized urban area, such as a large town or small city with limited suburbs and a large rural area around it shouldn't be too difficult. I think most/all safe havens/zones you'd find that either survived initially or were setup after the fact by survivor groups are going to be found places like the US and Canadian Mid-west and Rocky Mountains, at least for larger cities. For smaller safe havens I think you'd possibly find the occasional one along the eastern sea board, New England, South East, South West and Weast coast, but those would be more rural and isolated towns where there would not be a lot of zombies around and would be unlikely/unable to attract massive swarms from any nearby urban area (the prototypical small country/mountain town of a couple of thousand).

[Zamion138]

I havent got a chance to run our Dead Reign game yet we are still playing a rifts game as a samll band of dragon hatchlings under orders from Toth.....it is a bit over the top but fun....all the players are looking foward to the DR game we have planned based on our home town. (Carson city NV) to build a safe zone here would be a fun game. one thing that comes to mind is setting up fake safe area's that are basicly holding tanks for zombies and such, basicly a massive set of walls with a huge pit inside...put a single ramp in and let them form up inside...maybe a massive stereo blaring inside to attract them and take some of the heat off building your real safe zone.

once the pit is mostly full maybe put a lid on it and pump full of fire or just pack it full of trash and seal it up, or run a few buldozers around in there for a few hours.
a large moat is going to be one of your best defenses....with fast moving water moving through it with a draw bridge...masses can come and be swept away. fidning a river with that year round is kinda hard to find and youll need an enginer with great skills to make it last for more than a few months.

Either way getting it all set up and running could be quite harrowing.

[azazel1024]

Food would also be an issue. Not that many gold mines are in good agricultural areas, that plus not a lot of food kept on hand. You could convert one in to a good fortress, but they don't have renewable resources on hand and not many supplies initially either.

[Oberoth]

Initially. But there is nothing to stop the characters from trucking in soil to the fenced area, or mine if you have ample fuel and a generator. This is something that would take some time to establish though. A whole campaign could be based around it. Having to find/obtain the the trucks and dozer to get soil (Plus people who can drive said equipment, grow food), finding seeds and so on...

[Illendaver]

Thing is, how much room does your player group really need? And why do they need to set up a "Safe zone" in a large urban center?

If I may direct your attention to Curtis Nebraska, it is a small town that has a population of about 600. It has a grocery store, a sheriffs department, a pool, a college, a grain elevator, a gas station, a nursing home, a veterinary, a railroad running through town., a power company (but not a power plant) an airport (about a mile out of town that is really just for crop-dusters) and most importantly, NO HOSPITAL. This means that in the event of the wave happening it would be considered better for people to travel from curtis to either North Platte or McCook (yes, even with the overflowing amount of patients coming in because nobody is going to be able to spare doctors or nurses to go out to curtis.) leaving less sick people to get turned in Curtis. A prime town to come claim after the wave.

I know Curtis is in the middle of no-where, but my point is that there are a lot of littler towns that don't have hospitals located fairly close to other towns that do. Another example is Plattsmouth Nebraska. It is located roughly 20 miles south of Omaha Nebraska. It is a much bigger town, and has three schools there that could be converted into hospitals (With what doctors or nurses? Don't people know that there is a serious shortage in trained medical professionals? Didn't some of the trained people get sick too?) It is still close enough to make it a viable choice in my mind (At least it would be a heck of a lot better than sticking around in Omaha)

The point of all my rambleing about these smaller towns, is that I am fairly sure that if you look on your map you could find one within a reasonable distance from yourself. I think they would make great Safety Zone games. In fact, my first game in DR was a game where we made Curtis into a Safe Zone. It stayed that way until my third game when some players accidentally led a Death Priest to it.

[azazel1024]

The other reminder is that sources of scavenging might not be all that close by. Not saying something like a gold mine should be ruled out, but you may not have very abundant sources for scavenging near by to get that food (or other resources). Living in a low population area has some major perks on, likely, having fewer zombies. However, having to possibly drive an hour or two to sites to scavenge food uses up a lot of fuel, makes you rather vulnerable to zombies or bandits during travel and you also don't have very good resources (probably) when you do get their to scavenge food.

IMHO in referce to small towns. I think those are the most likely to survive as safe zones, either fortified, given some time following the zombie outbreak, or unfortified with luck, distance from population centers and enough survivors with supplies to fend off the occasional wandering zombie. There would probably also be the occasional medium sized town (populations over about 2,000 I'd consider medium sized) and the rare actual city (populations over 50,000) that would make it as safe havens. The issue with big population centers is that they tend not to have high population denisities, but have traits that would make them prime initial outbreak areas and close enough to other major population areas to later be overrun as they would be too large to fortify effectively.

The small towns are also more likely to be agricultural towns, so you'd have ongoing resources to support the safe haven.

[Thinyser]

In the off chance that you can get an organized group or survivors in a large city you could take over a skyscraper if you could seal it up well on the ground floor. I'm sure that there are tones of buildings that would be easy to secure. The trick is finding one, securing it, and then surviving the sweep floor by floor until you know you have killed all the zed inside.

I bet some buildings will have generators on the roof or in an alley for emergency elevator operation or other critical systems. There would be office vending machines galore and plenty of snacks and over the counter drugs squirreled away in desks.

Use the roof for a garden and live on the top floor rig up some solar cells on the edge of the roof to power a window washers winch and use that for travel up to the penthouse. Due to the height you would be out of zombie life sense range most of the time.

[Oberoth]

I'm still wondering why you would need to? Also, those scrapers won't last forever. Eventually you'll have to move out of the cities anyway.

[Thinyser]

I'm still wondering why you would need to? Also, those scrapers won't last forever. Eventually you'll have to move out of the cities anyway.

Why? well you gotta live somewhere and Up above where the zed can sense you seems to be as good as any place.

Nothing lasts forever but even without maintenance most skyscrapers should stay intact for more than 20 years.

[Zamion138]

Some one mentioned all the water in and around a mine.....you don't want to drink that water or grow food from it. Its worse than sewage toxin wise ...and less fertilizerelements in it

[azazel1024]

In the off chance that you can get an organized group or survivors in a large city you could take over a skyscraper if you could seal it up well on the ground floor. I'm sure that there are tones of buildings that would be easy to secure. The trick is finding one, securing it, and then surviving the sweep floor by floor until you know you have killed all the zed inside.

I bet some buildings will have generators on the roof or in an alley for emergency elevator operation or other critical systems. There would be office vending machines galore and plenty of snacks and over the counter drugs squirreled away in desks.

Use the roof for a garden and live on the top floor rig up some solar cells on the edge of the roof to power a window washers winch and use that for travel up to the penthouse. Due to the height you would be out of zombie life sense range most of the time.

Building generators are generally located in the basement, not on the roof (they are HEAVY, even just for building emergency power). Also few buildings have generators. Few sky scrapers have a roof that is flat. There are plenty of high rise office buildings and apartment buildings in cities with flat roofs though. You are going to have to find the suplies to setup hydroponic gardening, which isn't going to be easy to find, or import the dirt (REALLY hard to do in a zombie filled city). You would also need to at least get the seeds, which in a city is also going to be almost impossible to find, to start the garden.

You also have limited roof space. It takes about 1-2 acres of decent quality farm land to grow enough food to support 1 person year round. Considering the average large high rise probably has a roof area of less than half an acre...you aren't going to grow much up there. With green houses (again, how would you construct them without the raw materials), hydroponics and grown lights covering the roof of a high rise, you probably could produce enough food for 10-20 people with the level of intensive agriculture you could manage. Though it means LOTS of fertilizers along with all that power (dozens of kilowatts at night for the grow lights), lots of water (some you can reclaim, but still a lot of fresh water needed, probably in the dozens of gallons per day, maybe low hundreds of gallons depending on the rate of reclimation) and the massive raw materials needed to construct the green houses, multitiered hydroponics trays, watering and nutrient feed systems, timers, grow lights, etc).

A high rise could maybe work short term as a refuge, but the city is still going to be packed with the undead making any kind of salvage runs difficult to impossible. You are going to be limited pretty much to what you could find on hand in the building, which for a single individual could be a substantial amount of stuff, especially in a residential high rise. Probably months to even a couple of years for a big building for non-perishable foodstuffs, water (bottled, jugs, hotwater heaters, etc), spare clothes, bedding, etc. Of course power would be an issue as you aren't going to be able to run the generators (as there probably aren't any, or if they are, probably are either NG feed, which would go down when civilization ended as no NG plants supplying NG anymore or are diesel powered, which probably don't have more than 12-72hrs of fuel, even if run on idle levels for the most basic of power probably can't run for more than a week or two at idle). The building isn't likely to have any sources of solar power, unless some tenant happened to have something like a solar powered battery charger or something for camping or some other hippie urban reason (could probably find one or two, but that isn't going to do much more than maybe keeping the AA batteries in a flash light charged).

For a large group of people, you'd be pwned in pretty short order. A group of a dozen could probably be supported for a few weeks up to maybe a few months if really lucky (and a really big building. Most, especially urban, dewellers aren't likely to have more than maybe 4 days worth of non-perishable food stuffs in their cupboards/pantry on average (canned food, ramen noodles, rice, sugar, flour, etc). Times the number of apartments minus however long it takes for things to start falling apart until they are all dead (might be "living" on what is in their pantry for anything from hours to days after the wheels start falling off until they get eaten by a zombie, commit suicide, attempt to run, etc).

Even at 4 days, times that by the number of apartments in the building. A normal sized, medium high rise apartment complex in a major city probably has around 20-30 units per floor and around 20 floors or around 400-600 units. 4 days of food is in each is a lot for just 1 person (3-4 years, assuming nothing gets spoiled, like flour, sugar, etc). For 12 people that is down to several months, for 50 survivors that is just a few weeks.

An office building (with no residential apartments) isn't likely to have more than maybe 1 day of non-perishable food per 10 employees (taking in to account things like energy bars, granola bars, canned soup, etc in desks and snack machines) and maybe roughly 200 employees per floor. That means for a 20 story office building you might have only a year of food for a single person, a month for 12 people and a week for 50 people.

Also you'd have to really effectively block the steps on the lowest floor or two, which is going to take hefting a lot of furniture from offices/apartments. For a small group that wouldn't be too bad, but for 1-2 people that would be difficult to do to wedge the doors shut and fill the bottom area to be impassable. So for the larger group suddenly you have the man power, but very limited supplies for a bunch of people.

[Thinyser]

Good points all but if your looking to set up a city bolt-hole where you can lay up rest a day or two eat some fresh produce and move on to another similarly appointed retreat the top floor of a very tall building is about the best option you got.

Like island hopping in sea of zombies. Though what you would use as a boat I don't know, though I have some ideas. Maybe a modified tour bus. Up armor it a bit so that the wheels and glass are covered and get a plow rigged up for the front, make some roof access with a ladder to get up to the 3rd floor of the buildings you have barricaded as yours.

Depends on how your GM runs things I suppose on how you would fair on resources and opposition. If your GM plays that the zed are dumb and once the life sources move from the bus to the building they leave the bus alone and don't attempt to disable it for future use, then you have a chance since once the life sources move up high enough and stay there long enough the zed will move on and/or go dormant you can come back to an intact vehicle.

[azazel1024]

Heck with a bus, uparmored SUV, armored car or similar, you could drive it right in to the lobby of most high rise buildings. Then have a roof hatch and a ladder, climb straight up (not very far) to a hole you cut in the 2nd story floor with a trap door. Probably want the trap door to have some kind of polycarb window in it so you can see out if the coast is clear for reboarding. Just close the hatch on your vehicle with a lock on it, climb up, unlock the trap door, climb in, shut the trap door and relock it.

[Ravenwing]

Actually after reading SB2 I'm more inclined to build a sewer safe haven, especially in a large city.

Here's what I can think off right off the top of my head.

1) Find a large chamber, fairly dry, like a service section, a place where city workers once used to store gear, clean up, etc. In my old Home Town of St. Louis I know of about nine of these, and I know there were more of them, just not their exact location. Each has a large locker room, washroom, sitting room with a table, maps of the sewers etc, and a power relay station for underground power cables.

2) scavenge several large sheets of steal, some gratings, and some tools. Use these to build a set of walls in the tunnels themselves so as to prevent any Zeds from just walking into your lair.

3) Pre-plan and escape a number of escape routes, using my service room as an example, they generally have a number of tunnels branching away from them, which would be barricaded more or less to allow easy access to the greater sewer system.

4) scavenge as needed, never using the same exit point twice in a row, and due so only during the day.

With adequate lighting, IE candles, lanterns etc, you could see reasonably well underground. With slits in your walls(Think a combination of murderholes, and drainage) you could remain reasonably dry. If the city pumps and wells still worked you'd have a ready source of water for drinking cooking and bathing, if not you'd have to scrounge up bottled water, but the addition of some water purification tablets, distilling equipment and such you should in theory be able to purify water found in other locals, obviously not the sewers themselves so water in the city shouldn't be to hard to find anyway.