A PROJECT ZOMBOID CAMPAIGN — KNOX CO., KY

The Long Road

Seven acts. One household. Forty‑three doors.
A register of what fell and what did not.

ACTS 07
REGIONS 06
HOUSEHOLD 08
ENDINGS 03
[ ENTER THE REGISTER ]
READ FIRST Sister Mae

The Bargain

The Knox Event was not what it appeared. Before the dead climbed and the country fell, there was already a thing below Knox County — a warp, an old door, a hunger.

A cult of small, sharp-toothed things had lived in the gnawed spaces beneath the floorboards for generations, dragging bodies down to feed what they called the Below. They had names in the county records. They signed for shipments. They sat in pews and carved marks into the back-boards with the rounded end of a spoon.

Every kill the players make also feeds it. The cult and the survivors are at war, but the warp does not pick a side. It eats what falls. That is where survivor power comes from. That is the bargain. Sister Mae will explain it. She has waited a long time to.

“

We’re a household now. You, me, and the thing below us.

— Sister Mae Calloway, the morning after the first night

The Register, in Seven Acts

Entered by hand. Counted twice. Some pages bear water damage; others, blood.

I
SANCTUARY Rosewood Christian Church · Day 1–7

The night the rafters came down

Pastor Eli Vance has been the priest at the Rosewood Christian Church for thirty-one years. He has known about the door beneath the altar for at least twenty-six of them. He tried to close it with prayer. He failed.

He gives the players two things. The first is a request: clear his church and burn what falls in the courtyard, before the cult drags the bodies down. The second is a name — Sister Mae Calloway, his lay sister, who has been in the rectory for two days and will not come out until the church is quiet.

The night ends. The players survive. Mae feeds them the next morning and asks for one more thing: three hot meals, four bandages, eight planks — made, not scavenged. Show me what you’ve gathered. Don’t show me what you found. Show me what you made.

+ JOINS THE HOUSEHOLD Sister Mae Calloway Gatekeeper · Carries the bargain
II
THE TOWN Rosewood · Day 8–19

Forty‑three doors, counted aloud

Mae has been counting forty-three doors across Rosewood for years, alone. Act II is her coming out. She takes the players to the second floor of the church at dawn — the first time she has spoken her catalog aloud to anyone — and points out each door from the window above the altar.

That one is the bookstore. That one is the elementary school. That one is the gated community center house, the Davidson place, the one I have known about longest. That one I have given up on. That one I have not.

The set-piece is the Prison Run. The cult comes up from below while the players are inside. They fight their way out with Deputy Caldwell on a stretcher. He has not let go of his list of twenty-three county officials he believed were already turned. He has not spoken since.

+ JOINS THE HOUSEHOLD Deputy Caldwell Silent witness · Holds the list
III
THE WOODS McCoy Logging Co. · Day 20–28

What Erasmus Holsey signed for

McCoy Logging Co. has been receiving shipments since at least 1987, signed for by men who do not exist in any other county record. Erasmus Holsey signed for one hundred and twelve loads of cordwood between 1987 and 1994. There was no Holsey in Knox County in the 1980 census. The cordwood was never cordwood.

The players find Buck by following his woodsmoke deep into the McCoy woods. He has lived in his cabin since 1972. He quit the mill in 1989 after looking inside a boiler.

Trees keep count, daughter. You’ll learn what they’re counting before you’re done.

He and Mae have history. They will not discuss it. When asked, he says only that some people are easier to be right about a problem than they are to be in a room with.

+ JOINS THE HOUSEHOLD Buck Compromised witness · Reads the woods
IV
THE CITY Muldraugh · Day 29–42

The cult runs the basements

Muldraugh is the largest urban region the players have seen. The cult’s footprint here is industrial-scale: Mass-Genfac Co., L&B Warehousing, Clark Storage, the railyard, the outskirts factories. The cult is not hiding in this town. The cult runs the basements.

At Cortman Medical, the players meet Dr. Daniel Marsh, Sandra Cortman’s brother, who has been treating the cult-touched in a back room for the last three months. He had been waiting for them to arrive. The letters are her last words to him. He reads them with his hands flat on the table. He joins the household.

The set-piece is the Warehouse Heist. Two members of the household are wounded. One of them is wounded in a way the players will not learn the meaning of until Act VI.

+ JOINS THE HOUSEHOLD Dr. Daniel Marsh Medic · Sandra’s brother
V
THE RIVER West Point, Ohio R. · Day 43–55

A chewed femur in a fishing net

West Point is on the Ohio River. Rosa works the marina — she had pulled a chewed femur up in her fishing net the morning before the household arrived. She had been waiting for someone to ask about it. Mae asks. Rosa joins.

A subplot threads through West Point: the bridge marker on the East Bridge has a note pinned to it, in cult handwriting, demanding a toll to cross safely — three teeth, left at the marker. The players can pay or destroy the marker. Mae will not advise. Buck advises destroying. Dr. Marsh advises paying.

Janet arrives. She has walked north from March Ridge to find them. She did not bring much. She did not bring her husband — Doyle is still gone, will always be gone. We are counting the same numbers from different sides, Mae says, and Janet does not understand what she means until Buck does, and then everyone is quiet.

+ JOIN THE HOUSEHOLD Rosa · Janet Marina keeper · Grief carrier
VI
THE PLANT Riverside Power Plant · Day 56–64

The grid was complicity

The cult has touched the power grid itself. Maintaining lights in Knox County has been, for decades, an act of complicity — the grid was being fed by the same render the McCoy boilers fed. The cult’s logistics is upstream of human infrastructure. The cult’s logistics is the infrastructure.

This act is where the household loses someone.

The reveal is Mae’s. One of us has been touched. I have known for a while. I am sorry I did not say. I needed it to wait.

The touched one does not protest. They sit with the household one last evening. Buck plays a chord on a guitar he carried out of McCoy and has not played until now. Janet says one of her husband’s names by accident and does not correct herself. Caldwell writes a single sentence on the back of his list and gives it to them. The sentence is: You were never alone in this.

Closing the plant cuts power across Knox County for the first time since the Event. The night after the plant is closed is the darkest night any of them will ever sleep through. None of them sleep.

− ONE OF US [ name redacted ] Touched · Walked out at first light
VII
THE CAPITOL Louisville · Day 65–

The original wound

The city has fallen.

The haven the convoy from Act II was running toward did exist, briefly. A pastor named Bishop had been running it out of the Capitol crypts for the first three weeks of the Event. The haven failed on day twenty-two when the cult opened a door inside the Capitol that no one had known was there.

Beneath the Louisville Capitol building is an old meeting-house from before the town was founded. Beneath the meeting-house is the original wound — the door from which every other door in Knox County descended. It is wider than the players can see. It is making a sound that the silver crucifix the man on Route 31W died carrying does not silence so much as answer.

  1. i. Every regional door closed reduces the strength of the wound.
  2. ii. The seal requires confession. Every kill is named, on the road. It takes a long time.
  3. iii. The seal requires a household member to be carried into it. The choice was unanimous. The nodding was harder than the choosing.

They carry all of it into the Capitol. They put it down before the wound.
The wound does not look at the papers. The wound looks at the household.

The household looks back.

The Household

Roster as of the morning after the plant went dark.

Sister Mae Calloway

Gatekeeper · Rosewood

Wears her cardigan sleeves long, even in the heat. Counts the doors. Carried the bargain alone until the household formed.

TCHD FED WARD×6

Deputy Caldwell

Silent witness · KY State Prison

Has not let go of his list. Speaks only twice in the whole campaign. Taps the broadcast box twice. They cannot tell what he means.

MUTE ARMED LIST×23

Buck

Compromised witness · McCoy

Lived in his cabin since 1972. Looked inside a boiler in 1989. Walked into Rosewood territory for the first time in thirty-six years, alone, on his bad knee.

KNEE TREES MAP×22

Dr. Daniel Marsh

Medic · Cortman Medical

Sandra’s brother. Read her letters with his hands flat on the table. Looked back at his clinic once on the way out of Muldraugh. Did not stop walking.

MEDIC CALM KIT×3

Rosa

Marina keeper · West Point

Pulled a chewed femur up in her fishing net. Had been waiting for someone to ask about it. Stays at the marina, after.

BOAT FED NETS

Janet

Grief carrier · March Ridge

Walked north to find them. Did not bring her husband. Doyle is always gone. Carries a green binder of crossed-out households.

GRIEF WALKS BINDER

[ redacted ]

Touched · Walked out at dawn

Sat with the household one last evening. Read the sentence Caldwell wrote on the back of his list. Smiled. Did not come back.

GONE

Bishop

Voice on the radio · Louisville

Alive, touched, or already dead — the players cannot tell. Mae cannot tell. Buck refuses to comment. Caldwell taps the broadcast box twice.

?? SIG LOOP

What the Campaign Counts

01

Complicity

Every kill feeds the warp. There is no clean position from which to fight a cult that runs on death. The campaign does not let them forget this.

02

Generational Evil

The cult is older than the Knox Event, older than the towns, possibly older than the state. Eli inherited a fight; Mae inherited it from Eli. The players inherit it from Mae.

03

Bookkeeping

The cult counts. The resistance counts. The world ends as a register. Resisting is the act of refusing to let the register be the cult’s alone.

04

Recognition

Show me what you made. The players are recognized by Mae in Act I, by Buck in Act III, by Dr. Marsh in Act IV. Each recognition costs something. Each is a household forming.

05

The Cost of Going On

People die. Wards fail. Doors open faster than they close. The players go on. The household goes on. The going on is the meaning.

Three Endings

There is no clean ending. There are three.

SEAL HELD

The Closing

The seal holds. The wound shuts. The cult continues to exist in a hundred small places across Kentucky, but the warp goes dormant.

Caldwell speaks for the first time since the prison.
He says, thank you.

Mae looks at the players and says: Forty-three doors in Rosewood. Forty-three. I am going to count them again.

SEAL PARTIAL

The Holding

The wound is not closed but it is wounded. The cult is broken in Knox County but other counties will see other doors open.

The players must stay in Louisville to maintain the wards.
A job that does not end. That will not let them go home.

They become what Eli was. They become what Mae was. They count.

SEAL FAILED

The Failure

The seal fails. The wound widens. The players retreat south toward Rosewood, losing people on the road. The Christian Church holds, because Mae’s wards still hold.

The household becomes a remnant.
They go on, because they have always gone on, because it is what households do.

The next pastor they raise teaches the wards to whoever next walks through the church’s doors. The wards will be needed.