I'm running a short Homebrew campaign set in the zombie apocalypse. I'm using custom sheets that use systems from a few different modules. Like d20 for normal stats as well as Sanity and Luck from Call of Cthulhu for a bit of extra spice. The only issue for me is that the scenario is based in Manhattan, I live in the deep south. So I don't know much about New York. any basic information about the area would be helpful, but what I mainly need are encounter ideas. Anything could help.

P.S. I wouldn't mind having another player or two if you are interested. We currently have 3.

How deep south? Are you familiar with Atlanta? New York is just a bigger, more compact Atlanta.

Georgia and Yeah, I've been through Atlanta a few times, I'm mainly basing my knowledge off of Atlanta and google maps. But it would be nice to have more fine details about the area.

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind regarding the difference between New York City and the South is dimensions. The South is a 2-dimensional space. Everything is laid out wide, big open spaces, a few cities but not many, movement is in 2 dimensions. 

Manhattan is a very 3-dimensional place. You've got buildings on all sides of you that vary from a few stories tall to over a hundred stories tall. Each have stairwells, and elevators, and garages, and sub-basements. These buildings also provide vantage points for lookouts, and ambushes, and aerial attacks. You've got bridges, and elevated tracks, and walkways. You've also got the subway system, which is quite extensive, providing underground movement throughout the island. Many of those tunnels will be in disrepair during an apocalypse, and many will obviously have trains stuck in them too. But also remember that there are places in that subway system that can be perfect lairs for creatures or gangs. Even today there are "not-so-secret" places in that system, like the East 18th Street Station that's been closed since the 40s. There's also the famous Track 61 under Grand Central Terminal, which is where celebrities and Presidents used to arrive on private trains for direct access into the Waldorf Astoria. There are hundreds of places where lairs could be built and encounters could take place, especially in secret. 

Besides the subway, there are layers upon layers of tunnels and systems under Manhattan. The New York City that you see is actually just the top layer of an engineering marvel that extends hundreds of feet into the ground. There are sewer systems, electricity cables, water pipes, heating ducts, air ventilation shafts, access tunnels, retrofit support systems, fiber-optic lines, water runoff tunnels.... The Manhattan we know is just the roof of a vast interconnected living machine that is constantly moving, humming, churning, belching out smoke, and steam, and noise. All these subterranean systems provide opportunities for movement in three dimensions. They provide potential homes and lairs and hideouts. And they provide access to resources that would be invaluable to survival in a post-apoc world: tools, cables, food supplies, rare metals, etc. The entire island of Manhattan is one gigantic engine. 

And that's another thing, regarding dimensions, that visitors often overlook... Manhattan is an island. New York City is an archipelago. The reason all those bridges and tunnels were built is because two-dimensional movement is blocked by water. The gang that controls the Lincoln Tunnel controls the West Side. The gang that controls the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge control all of lower Manhattan. The boroughs that make up New York City are fiercely proud and independent regarding their territory and identity. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island will probably each be controlled by separate factions, who sometimes cooperate and sometimes wage war against one another. These rivalries could even form the basis of story plots and campaign arcs in your game. Territoriality! That's important! Other places may measure territory by the mile, or by the horizon, or by "this river to that river". In a city like New York, territory is measured block by block, street by street. Also - there may be one gang that controls the surface of an area, and a different one that controls the subterranean levels of that same area. 

The great thing about setting a fantasy game or story in New York is that you can find anything you need there. Literally anything that your twisted little imagination could possibly conceive has probably already been built several times over. Think about all the museums! The adventuring party is slowly working their way down a dark hallway with wood paneled walls and a rubble-strewn floor... up ahead they see a dim light shining from under a door frame... they enter to find themselves surrounded by a massive herd of skeletal mammoths! (Natural History Museum, Central Park West). Or they may find themselves immersed in a disorienting room of shifting geometric forms at MoMA on 53rd. Heck, just navigating their way up the counterclockwise spiral of the Guggenheim would be a battle unto itself! 

And then there's Central Park!!! Spend some time on Google Maps just browsing around that city. It has an infinite supply of possibilities. Literally anything you could possibly imagine will fit. Don't be afraid to be extreme. It's already an extreme place to begin with. 

Good luck! 

Oh! One more thing! The environment! 

You mentioned that your game is post-apocalyptic. So of course you'll need to detail what the specific apocalypse was. That will have a massive impact on the setting. 

If the apocalypse was a climate crisis, then most of Manhattan will be underwater. The skyscrapers are now islands. Travel is by boat between them. Accessing and controlling underwater or subterranean areas and systems will be key motivators to whomever lives there. 

If the apocalypse was a nuclear or dirty-bomb attack, then the survivors will be underground. We tend to think of "normals" living on the surface and "monsters" being underground, but in this scenario it's reversed. For reference, I strongly suggest you watch the movie "12 Monkeys" (1995) with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt. 

If the apocalypse was a Terminator/Skynet/A.I. type of problem, then New York City would be ground zero. That's where the communication systems are for Command & Control. That's where some great universities and research institutes are that develop that stuff. (Though really, Boston really has more of that.) ((and we've got a better baseball team.)) (((and we've got a better football team.))) 

Aaaanyhow... I hope this helps.

Hi. Sorry. Me again.

So I was thinking about this all day at work today. And I realized that there's a vital piece of information missing here. You said it's a Zombie Apocalypse. Okay. Cool. But there's two options, and the game will be vastly different depending on which option you choose. So... is this:

A. Living people have suddenly been turned into zombies.

or

B. The dead are rising up out of their graves.

Here's why this matters so much: New York City is a densely populated area. Millions of people have been living there and dying there for centuries. Most of those dead people are still there. BUT! The dead are not evenly distributed around the city! Okay. This is where you'll need to check out Google Maps, or the wiki page for "New York City". NYC is made up of five boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Let's narrow this down and just pretend that Staten Island doesn't exist. Most people do. It's to the southwest from Manhattan, across the harbor. The only reason anyone ever goes there is to buy drugs or because the Staten Island Ferry provides a great vantage point for taking pictures of the Statue of Liberty. So we're down to four boroughs.

You've got the long narrow island of Manhattan. To the northeast, across the Harlem River, is the Bronx. To the east, across the East River, is Queens. And to the southeast, across the East River, is Brooklyn. Queens and Brooklyn each have about 2.5 million people. The Bronx and Manhattan each have about 1.5 million. But Manhattan is the densest during the week because so many people from the other boroughs go into Manhattan to work each day. That means that the bridges and tunnels are the lifeblood of the city. 

But that's where the LIVING people are. Where are the DEAD? Well... Manhattan has very few cemeteries. Mostly just a few historic churchyards and synagogues. These burial places are usually specific to one faith, or one ethnicity. Real estate in Manhattan is simply too valuable to waste on dead people. The Bronx, to the northeast, has over a dozen cemeteries. They're mostly grids of simple graves in neat rows. Boring. Brooklyn and Queens have the most dead people. And their cemeteries are much prettier. Many are lush gardens and forested landscapes filled with new and ancient graves, many with beautifully sculpted statuary or old family mausoleums covered in creepy vines. Greenwood, The Evergreens, Mt Judah, Mt Zion, Calvary, Cypress Hills, Mount Lebanon, Maple Grove, Cedar Grove, St Mary's, Mt Hebron.... There are millions of dead people in Brooklyn and Queens!

So... if you go with Option A (the living have suddenly been zombified), then the party will need to GTFO of Manhattan in a hurry. Either get to the water and steal a boat or cross the Hudson River to the west and head upstate into the wilderness. Finding the water is easy - you're on an island! Heading west to go upstate means either going through the Lincoln Tunnel or over the George Washington Bridge up in Harlem. Both have their dangers. 

If you go with Option B (the dead are rising from their graves), then the bulk of the zombies will be coming from the east and southeast, from Queens and Brooklyn. If the party wants to make a stand and hold onto Manhattan, then they'll need to either defend or destroy the bridges and tunnels. The Queensboro Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, and the famous Brooklyn Bridge, and the Queens Midtown Tunnel.  

So that's the tactical aspect of it. But if you want to give it a real New York vibe (rather than just "a city"), then you'll need lots of little details. Maybe a zombie is wearing a Mets hat and won't attack a player wearing a Mets hat, but he'll destroy anybody wearing a Yankees hat. Plus remember, there's tons of famous people buried in New York. Maybe the party thinks they're safe behind a locked door. Well... Harry Houdini is buried in Queens. He can probably pick that lock. Tons of Civil War officers are buried in Brooklyn. Maybe they can get the zombies organized into a more effective force. Gangsters from Boss Tweed to John Gotti may be among the zombies. Alexander Hamilton with his dueling pistol, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Leonard Bernstein... the zombies are gonna have a great band! 

I suggest watching some New York based movies to get the imagery right. Ghostbusters (1984), Running Scared (1986), Escape from New York (1981), Taxi Driver (1976), Do the Right Thing (1989), After Hours (1985).

Hot dog carts, kosher delis, showbill posters plastered over older posters ten layers deep on every wall, artist lofts in Soho, coffeshops in the East Village, Korean laundry in Midtown, construction goddamn everywhere, always a building on every block either going up or coming down, noise, smoke, drugs, lights, the smells of a hundred different cultural cuisines mixing with the fartstench from the subway vents and the acrid fish smell off the water, all day all night....

That's New York City. Be sure to immerse the players in the total sensory experience. A constant assault on all five senses. That's how they'll know they're in New York City, and not just some random city somewhere. 

Sorry for rambling on. I hope this helps. 

Maybe you could make them "mind zombies" servants of the mind flayers.  I don't see the mind flayers being used very much these days but their psyonic power could certainly make zombies - especially if it was an out of control elder brain.

It's no problem I don't mind the rambling.  I've managed to plan through the first session which I am running tonight. The scenario I am running is more or less option A. I've spent a lot of time just looking around Manhattan on google maps so I could get a feel for the place, as well as locations for the PCs to loot. I'm also making sure to use a lot of landmarks to let them know where they are. Such as the UN building, Central Park, and Trump Tower. But anyway thanks again You've been a great help so far. I really appreciate it.

Happy to help. 

I hope the game goes well.

:-)