Book of Bone and Ebony

EXALTED • BOOK OF BONE AND EBONY
Once the war frame arrives at its destination, it may
maintain its gestalt form and attack, much like a giant
warstrider, or it may be abandoned as its component
zombies swarm away from the war frame to attack their
enemies individually.
While a fully loaded thousand-corpse war frame moves
slightly over 1,000 zombies, a skeleton crew of only 100
zombies can animate it enough to make it walk, although
the zombie crew is all but helpless when doing so as the
thing moves too slowly to be used in combat.
Thousand-corpse war frames can take enormous
amounts of damage without being adversely affected. The
frame itself is incredibly durable, and it’s protected by
several layers of undead flesh. Even the zombies doing the
majority of the work in animating the war frame are
covered by several other bodies. If a key zombie is destroyed,
its fellows immediately swarm in to jettison the
ruined zombie and take its place in the chain of bodies.
The enormous strength of the war frame comes from
the hundreds of zombies animating it. As they are destroyed,
the colossus grows weaker. Every 10 health levels of damage
sustained by the war frame lessens its Strength by 1. When
enough zombies have been killed to take its Strength to 0,
it can no longer propel itself, and the remaining zombies
scuttle down the war frame to attack separately.
Trying to crawl up a functional war frame requires four
successes on a Strength + Athletics roll (see the rules for
106
climbing in Exalted, p. 252). Climbing a slick surface that
moves and claws at you is challenging, however even for one
of the Exalted. The flesh of zombies, especially in warmer
climes, is immensely slippery, and they will be clawing,
biting and kicking at the character as she climbs. They may
pull items — like greaves, jewelry or spare weapons — off the
character while her hands are too busy to stop them. Five
zombies get to attack the climbing character each turn with
two bonus die to their attack pools. For her part, the
character is at a pronounced disadvantage with regard to
combat, as all but the strongest characters will need to
anchor themselves with at least one arm (and both legs).
Characters climbing a war frame suffer a -10 initiative
penalty. If two or more zombies succeed on a Brawl attack in
one turn, they will attempt to pull the character entirely
into the writhing mass of zombies. A character swallowed up
by the mass of the war frame’s zombies suffers a -4 penalty to
all dice pools and a -10 initiative penalty, and she may be
attacked by 10 zombies per turn. Zombies may use Brawl for
a clinch attack instead of doing damage.
If the character is climbing the front of the war frame
and falls, she will not only take falling damage (see Exalted,
p. 253), but she must successfully dodge or be
trampled by the war frame.
As mentioned, a nemissary usually directs the movement
from a compartment in the chest of the war frame, but
one can also do so from inside the metal dome of its “head.”