Survive the zombie outbreak in the ruins of Wichita, Kansas, where the dead are only one of many threats. Lead a band of survivors through hordes of infected, ruthless raiders and dwindling supplies, and turn a besieged supermarket into a thriving community.

You might be a local who has lived here your whole life, or you might just be passing through: in town for a conference, a company trip, or a weekend with old friends. Either way, you’re here when it starts.

⚠️ SPOILERS: THE SURVIVORS INSIDE THE DILLONS
These are meant to be discovered naturally during play. Read on only if you’re just too curious, or if you’ve already played and want to check how well you picked up on the finer dynamics.

Jenn, 43. A former high school physics teacher, Jenn became the group’s temporary leader only because the original leadership is dead and nobody else would do it. She’s no idealist and understands what survival now demands, but she keeps reminding everyone that staying alive isn’t worth much if they stop being human along the way, and she spends most of her energy holding the group together and defusing fights before they start. She isn’t a coward and will go out on supply runs, though she’s heavier than she used to be and not much of a runner. Her physics background gives her a working sense of how things like wiring and batteries work, which comes in handy now and then, but she’s no handyman. She privately can’t stand Tiffany, whom she sees as a manipulative little shit, but she keeps that to herself because the group can’t afford another feud.

Tony, 35. Tony is a bit slippery guy with a tangled, half-criminal past: he’s sold used cars, worked as a club bouncer, and most recently ran the counter at a pawn shop. Those years gave him serious street smarts, and he now serves as the group’s main trader and quartermaster, the one who decides what goes out, what comes in, and what it’s worth. From the car lot he picked up a decent working knowledge of engines, enough to diagnose problems and keep things running, even if he’s not a real mechanic. He’s quick with a joke and treats almost everything as funny, right up until the moment he doesn’t, and people who’ve seen that switch flip don’t forget it. He always has a knife on him. He bitches endlessly about supply runs, but he goes anyway: there aren’t many men left, and for all his cynicism, he has too much pride to send the women out in his place.

Ana, 28. Ana is a dentist, which in the new world simply makes her “Doc,” and it drives her up the wall. She’ll be the first to tell you that most of what people bring her is nowhere near her specialty and that, without the internet to look things up, she often has no real idea what she’s doing. Still, grumbling all the way, she does her best to patch people up in ways that make some medical sense, as far as the dwindling supplies and drugs allow. Before the Dillons’ dark days she ran a quietly profitable practice, treating a steady stream of outside survivors in exchange for barter goods. She hates the idea of going outside and privately assumes everyone understands she’s too valuable to risk; she isn’t a bad person, just a thoroughly self-centered one.

Diego, 51. Diego doesn’t look like much: a short, middle-aged Puerto Rican guy with a beer belly. But before the outbreak he spent thirty years as a plumber and all-around handyman, and he knows how to build, fix and connect just about anything so it won’t fall apart, which makes him one of the most quietly essential people in the store. Despite his unheroic looks he’s a sturdy man who can lift surprisingly heavy things, and he not a slacker when the combat starts. By nature he’s lighthearted and upbeat, with a Latino folksy, down-to-earth outlook on life, and his worst habits are a bit of grumbling and a constant hunt for cigarettes, which are getting harder to find. The exception is Tiffany, whom he adores and has come to treat almost like a daughter. Where she’s concerned he turns fiercely protective, and a much darker side of him can surface if she in danger.

Tiffany, 18. A high school senior, Tiff is, by silent and unspoken consensus of other survivors, a manipulative little bitch who plays the innocent little girl: always the most frightened, the most fragile, the least suited to anything remotely dangerous. It’s hard to pin her down to do something genuinely useful. Most of her time goes around “helping” Diego, which mostly means handing him tools, keeping him company while he works, listening to his stories and agreeing with all his ideas. In small ways she does look after him, warming his food or washing his clothes, and the two of them have settled into a complicated kind of symbiosis. She never has to refuse a supply run, because Diego will raise hell before he ever lets her go on one. It’s hard to tell who Tiff really is underneath. She’s always so sweet, but every so often, when she thinks no one is watching, you catch a cold, unsettling look on her face. It vanishes in an instant, and the shy smile is back.

Brian, 21. A former college student and football player from Georgia, Brian was in Wichita with his team for an away game when everything fell apart. He’s tall, strong and built like the athlete he is, but he’s no caricature of a dumb jock; he’s genuinely smart and reads a lot. He carries most of the weight on supply runs, and that has earned him a heavy voice in the group’s decisions and a quiet, unspoken authority. Raised in a military family, he’s polite and calm, with a touch of the old-school Southern gentleman about him, but there’s a darker edge underneath: he can be very touchy about disrespect. He’s with Lupe and looks after her, making sure she stays safe and never wants for anything.

Lupe, 25. A former U.S. Postal Service employee, Lupe is, by everyone’s agreement, the nicest person in the store: always ready to help, always there with a kind word, and honest enough that the group trusts her with its most precious resource, the food, which she manages and cooks. Still, there’s quiet tension around her comfortable position, because the question of Lupe going on a supply run never even comes up. Everyone knows she’s with Brian (they ), and Brian won’t allow it; if anyone ever raised it, he’d simply take a double run in her place. Nobody dares to cross Brian, since he’s the one who brings in most of what the group lives on. That dynamic is also part of why no one says anything out loud about Diego “adopting” Tiffany: accusing either girl of riding a privileged position on the back of the man who protects her is a fight nobody really wants to start. Lupe all but worships Brian, and behind her back a few people joke about how cringeworthy her lovestruck devotion looks. Beneath her warmth, though, she’s anxious and jealous, quietly terrified that Shanice will take Brian from her, a fear she never lets spill out into the open.

Shanice, 20. Originally from Ohio, Shanice is a professional dancer who was on tour as a backup dancer for a rapper when the outbreak hit. She’s a relative newcomer to the store, having arrived just a few days before the last “bad week” began, so she’s still working to earn her keep and find her place in the group. As by far the strongest and most athletic woman there, she’s the one who goes out on supply runs alongside the men. She’s friendly and outgoing, if a little mouthy, though her sharp tongue comes from emotion rather than cruelty. She’s caught in a slow-simmering conflict with the otherwise gentle Lupe, who is dead certain that Shanice is out to steal Brian... and maybe she’s right, maybe she isn’t.