Brulyx in North America?

[Axelmania]

From page 55 of Dead Reign:

zombies used to be a huge problem in the ruins of Old Chicago and St. Louis before the CS wiped them out

The traditional ritual-created zombie is too troublesome to make for me to believe they could be a huge problem. Creators are usually going to put them to work rather than lurk in ruins.

As unspecific as this statement is, I guess it could be a wide variety of zombies the CS wiped out in the last 80 years. Could it have been Brulyx?

That would be quite the chore for the CS. Energy immunity, MDC, vibro does 1/3, need called shots to hit anything besides torso, 20% max chance of hitting head or neck...

Fire is the only saving grace I can see. The plasma cannons would be the go-to. Would only be a problem if someone gave them permanent impervious to fire charms

[Zamion138]

They do sdc dont they? If so yeah its a chore to whack at them with vibro blades all noght and day but plasma rifles/mini-missiles would speed it up.
Also that would have been when the CS still had mages time line wise so more options.

[kaid]

I believe this refers to the events in Chaos Earth Resurection. Very different more rifty sort of zombie although it is very likely other more traditional flavors of zombie plagues have struck from time to time.

[glitterboy2098]

actually could be a mix.. you'd have scrap zombies popping up, but also you also used ot have magic users gathering there too, which might have included some necromancers raisign the dead, and maybe summoners bringing in DR types.

[kaid]

Oh I have no doubt they have had a lot of run ins with necros or things like them raising limited amounts of zombies/undead. In chaos earth one of the proto necromancers was semi tolerated simply because they were a workforce multiplier and there were an immense amount of dead to bury. If you can make the dead clean up the dead its a nasty job that a person is now not required to do.

For a dead reign type flare up of zombies it is a bit more challenging because after the cataclysm the population density is pretty low outside a few rare cities and people are used to enough crazy stuff happening there would be less terror paralysis of response to outbreaks.

[eliakon]

Or a Mortificant (Canon OCC from Nightbane found in Rifter #50) cast Zombie Apocalypse (or even one of those zombies wandered into the area)

Or there was a Ley Line storm effect that caused a mass animation

Or there was a Voodoo cult in the area

Or this was the first location where Nexla tried to come in

Or...

There are lots of options on what happened. although, yes, it is also certainly possible that a Rift could have brought some Dead Reign zombies through and triggered an outbreak. Unless we get a book on the subject we are likely to never know for sure. Which is how I like it actually. It lets me tailor the answer to what is best for the game I want to run.
If I am running a game that will involve the PCs playing CS militia sent to investigate the ruins then finding and reactivating a small clutch of Dead Reign zombies is going to be a good horror story.
If I am running a Tolkeen war chronical, then finding out that not only was there a Mortificant there, but that it is possible that his notes are still around makes a wonderful McGuffin for people to race after as everyone scrambles to make sure that the 'doomsday faction' doesn't get the spell and unleash it on North America
If I am running a mercenaries game, then a resurgent Voodoo cult might be just the thing to have them be sent to go clear out
And I can run all three as the truth behind the Chicago Zombie Plague in three consecutive games.
All of which gets ruined if we find out that it was really Nexla.

[Axelmania]

An "all of the above" approach could work. DR zombies eating up wood/silver weapons while vampires block fire would be a good symbiosis.

As for MD a thinker zombie can fire MD guns ( just not reload) and encourage slouchers to use vibro blades. Biggest threat is all the random Mock Zombies that could be created.