Enter the Zombie had the luxury of being largely about one particular sort of power – fu of both the kung- and gun- varieties – and so could dedicate lots of space specifically to detailing brand new rules for that power. Dungeons and Zombies, by contrast, has a lot more ground to cover, and Unisystem already has rules available for magic, necromancy, and miracles. Miracles already appear in the core rulebook for the Inspired character type, so Dungeons and Zombies reprints most, but not all, of the Lesser Invocations from WitchCraft and Armageddon, along with most of the Necromancy powers from WitchCraft as well.

While the Invocations are reprints, some new effects do appear here, such as One with the Beasts for Communion, Sheet Lightning for Elemental Air, and Soulfire Burst for Soulfire. (Although, surprisingly for a fantasy supplement, there’s no Fireball under Elemental Fire.) In the case of Necromancy, the book removes Death Vessel in favor of the new Death Raising power – appropriately enough, the ability to create zombies.

The supplement does have its share of completely new rules, however.

For one thing, the book includes two new Character Types: the Adept Hero, for wielders of magic, and the Talented Hero, a more competent take on the Survivor for general adventuring types.

Also, the book uses two types of package-deal Qualities, known as Racial and Professional Qualities, to fill the roles of D&D’s races and classes.

Racial Qualities:

• Dwarf
• Elf
• Gnome
• Goblin
• Minotaur
• Orc

Professional Qualities:

• Paladin
• Ranger
• Swashbuckler
• Holy Order of Light Priest (essentially a cleric)

The supplement leaves it to the players to simulate other classes – like Thief/Rogue, for example – through ordinary skill selection. (Or, if they simply insist, with the creation of brand-new Qualities by way of GM approval.)

Additional Qualities tweak existing Unisystem Metaphysics to better fit the genre. For example, rather than reprint psionic abilities on top of everything else, the Psychic Invoker Quality lets magicians use Invocations without the need for gestures or incantations. While I’m not sure that this goes very far in simulating D&D-style psionics, it is, at least, a tip of the hat to them.

The Inspired Invoker Quality addresses the fact that Unisystem’s miracles seem ill-suited for use as the boons of polytheistic gods. It accomplishes this by allowing the character to use both miracles and magic – the latter potentially reflecting the nature of the god whom the character serves.

As far as clerical powers go, though, I think it’s a shame that the book didn’t instead draw on the Spirit Boon concept from the Mystery Codex and Armageddon. While this might not have been as directly analogous to D&D cleric spells, it would have allowed for more thematic and flexible abilities falling under a specific god’s purview.

Besides, the game already puts some strange restrictions on cleric types as it is. For example, the Inspired – whether Inspired Invokers or not – can’t have Necromancy. So, worshippers of death gods are pretty much out of luck. And in a more general sense, Unisystem Metaphysics really don’t much resemble D&D spells of any sort in the first place, tweaks or no tweaks.

I do love the fact that the book features some badly needed combat rules appearing in no other Unisystem books: mechanics for shields and for mounted combat. Both rules make plenty of sense without adding too many complications, and the shield rules allow for more than one level of complexity. GMs can determine whether or not they want shield breakage to be an issue, for example.