but it's what I'll be playing until Wyrd writes one for me.
I've known about Unhallowed Metropolis for at least a year, but the original edition was prohibitively hard to get ahold of. Fortunately, a revised edition was released this month by Atomic Overmind Press.
In Unhallowed Metropolis, history as we know it was rudely interrupted by a zombie apocalypse in 1905. The rpg is set in an alternate London, a colossal stygian sprawl protected by towering fortifications on all sides. Dubiously secure from the surrounding plague ridden wasteland, the inhabitants of London suffocate in the fog of the city. Respirators are a ubiquitous sight on the classes that can afford them, but for the great unwashed, life is invariably nasty, brutish, and short.
Unhallowed metropolis absolutely oozes atmosphere. The setting is painted out for you in acrylic, rather than watercolor. By that I mean that texture and nuance are some of the strengths of the writing, at the expense of some brevity. Even though humanity has been decimated, the world has a very lived in feel to it. An imaginative Player or Gm should find oodles of little niches in the setting, crying out to be inhabited by their creations. You could easily style a character as anything from Herbert West, to Fagin, to Oscar Wilde with a gun.
Mechanically, unhallowed metropolis has more in common with the Rpgs of the late 90s than with popular light narrative games in the vein of Spirit of the Century. It reminds me of games like 7th Sea and various White Wolf titles that went out of print a few years ago. Character skills and attributes are point based, and there are no levels. The game is played with d10s, so it should appeal to players who've developed an aversion to linear probability.
Combat in Unhallowed Metropolis is notably lethal. There's no abstract, gradual transition from feeling ok to spilling your guts out on the cobblestones. Wounds are handled individually, so the first hit you take could kill you, or might just slow you down and make you an easier target. In fights against the walking dead, infection is a serious concern. Surviving an infected bite usually requires a roll of 17 or so, on 2d10, and those who fail have about eight hours to live. It's not just the players who can end messily, however. The tricks a PC can pull with their weapons can really tear things apart.