So your character just went through the Grave Mind: What do they look like now?

Here are a few tips and ideas for what your character could look like after going through the Grave Mind and leaving the Morgue. Note that all of these are optional, for extra effect to cause your friends and fellows cause for concern.

The intent of these suggestions is that your character comes out looking more undead and then the signs can/may fade over time (your choice).  It’s also your choice as to whether or not to have the signs fade, and this should not be impacted by how much infection you have remaining.  This is to allow those who have a lot of makeup or who don’t like/are allergic to makeup to choose to not add additional steps to getting into character if they don’t want to.  We want people to have fun playing with different looks if they want to, but not make it a requirement.

None of these suggestions are intended to indicate that your character is on their last infection.  It can indicate that they have lost infection, even a lot of infection.  There is no one thing that indicates that a character is on their last infection, as that will be unknown. The idea is that they look more and more undead each time they come out of the morgue. Start small and build each time the character dies; add different layers if you want.  

Things that you can do for your character to look more undead or that they have been recreated by the Grave Mind:

  • Green veins - Start with a few and add more each time - these are parts of the morgue still in your system. Again, green veins are NOT an indication of being on their final infection, they are an indication of a death.

  • Necrosis at the tips of your fingers or nose - black that starts at the tip of your fingers and creeps up your fingers or at the tip of your nose and fades up the nose

  • Sunken face - add shadows (not black, use a few shades darker than your own skin tone, brownish or even a purplish color) to hollow your cheeks, eye sockets, the side of your nose, and temples.  This should not be super dark.

  • Grey tint to skin - Your character’s blood stopped flowing so the warmth and pink in your skin would not be present at first.  Using a zombie flesh color, blithe, or a light gray—not white, unless you are super pale to begin with and are only using it to lighten your skin further (you should not be clown white).

  • Mottled skin - using yellow (think sallow tint), green, gray, blithe, zombie skin color; create uneven layers, stippling, and blending.  This could start as patches of skin.

  • Blue, black, or pale tint to lips - your character hasn’t been breathing and their blood hasn’t been flowing.

  • Red and purple stippling on one side of your face/body - the corpse may have been lying in one position while the morgue messes with your mind and the blood has settled in one area (lividity).  Or this is something that occurred after the morgue rebuilt the body but before they returned to life.

  • Green and black stippled patches on your skin - Your character is being rebuilt from the morgue (a fungus), some bits might not have fully absorbed/formed yet or they may have picked up some of the mortis.

  • Scars - These can be done with makeup or a combo of makeup, rigid collodion and prosthetics (we do not have rigid collodion or prosthetics in NPC camp).  For makeup, you can do these with a skin color lighter than your own skin tone bracketing a reddish line or “knot” (lines can be jagged, it could be a chunk of skin missing, etc).

Don’t go too heavy on any of this, especially on your character’s first death: after all, you don’t want people thinking they are leaving the morgue as a zed!  But one effect or layering a couple is okay.  Keep it lighter if you are using more than one effect.  You can go heavier each time you die. If you want, some things could be temporary (i.e., lividity, necrosis, skin tone) and resolve over time as blood flows or the mortis is absorbed and others could be permanent (i.e., green veins and scars).  Play with it and decide if you want to keep elements or not.  Any could be kept or can fade if you want them to be.

Feel free to use NPC camp makeup to add your makeup while in NPC camp.  But please continue to follow our makeup rules to adhere to our sanitary requirements.