Creeping Dread.

More horror. A bit quickie tonight, since I'm A) late and B) lazy.

Specifically, Horrors.

Horrors are defined in the way they attack people, what negatives they assign, and what weaknesses they have.

Horrors inflict terrors (defined earlier), though they do so differently than expenditure of Marks do. They only need to get a character into a specific situation to do so. Like before, Terrors come in minor, major, and catastrophic versions. For example, a horde of zombies might have the following terrors:

• Minor Terror (horde of zombies): Injuring somebody as to at least temporarily cripple them.
• Major Terror (horde of zombies): Injuring somebody and infecting them with the terrible virus that makes zombies.
• Catastrophic Terror (horde of zombies): Eating somebody alive, and they may or may not come back as a zombie.

The horde of zombies, in order to inflict such terrors, need to get close to the victim(s). This is defined as their Terror Trigger. Furthermore, people can resist this Terror with their Meat, and have to roll X. So they might have it listed as such:

Terror Trigger (meat 3): Close contact.

In order to harm a person, they still need to grab the poor schmuck. If somebody activates their Terror Trigger, they have to make a Meat check and roll a 3 or higher become injured. Skills like Martial Arts or Running Like Hell might assist such a roll, GM permitting. If they fail, they gain three marks. If they succeed but don't gain the successes required, they only gain one mark. The GM may then expend Marks just as he would for a normal Terror to inflict the monster's special Terrors on a character.

Furthermore, Horrors typically at least one Mark Trigger. This is a special situation in which they inflict Marks just for existing, even if they are nowhere near the character. For example, you know people trapped by a horde of zombies are in danger. Big danger. So their Mark Trigger might be listed as such:

Mark Trigger: Whenever they trap a character in a place, and for every 24 hours a character remains in this place, the horde of zombies inflicts one Mark.

Tomorrow I'll talk about how to put a Terror down, and that should finish up the basic rules of Dread.