Ghoul
Aug 9, 2018 0:43:53 GMT -6
Post by Amanojyaku on Aug 9, 2018 0:43:53 GMT -6
The dark places of the Wheel have hidden many things. One such thing has lurked on the fringes of society for millennia, living off a resource no one would miss - corpses. These things are Ghouls, the eaters of the dead. Some say that ghouls are an offshoot of the Human race, lost to the whims of the Warp and uplifted into a time far before their forebears would arrive on the Wheel. Some say that they are an old species, with origins lost to history. Others say that they are a degenerate species, cursed by the gods for some ancient sin that none could countenance.
Whatever the case, ghouls have always dwelled among the other races of the Wheel. They lurk in hive undercities and around charnel pits. Graveyards across the Wheel are riddled with ghoul tunnels and catacombs. They seem all but united despite this diaspora... what one ghoul knows, almost all of them know. Ghouls are thus tolerated for their value as informants, and for their willingness to do work no one else wants to do.
Physical Characteristics
Average Height: 1.7-2.0m
Average Weight: 65-90kg
Languages: Trade, Underhive
Common Personality Traits: Morbid, aloof, gluttonous, simple, pragmatic
Common Physical Traits: Gangly limbs, sharp teeth, skull face, surprising strength, stench of blood and death
Example Names: Doresain, Iblis, Anowon, Dralnu, Pickman
Racial Statistics
Characteristic Bonus: +1 to Strength or Dexterity
Skill Bonus: +1 to Stealth and Acrobatics
Power: Charnel Scavenger: Begin play with Dark Sight and Heightened Senses (Smell). You are unaffected by any diseases or poisons carried by decomposing flesh.
Size: 4
Racial Feats
Aural Hunter [Ghoul]
Ghouls tend to have good ears. Gain Heightened Senses (Sound), and you cannot be Deafened, instead taking a -2k0 penalty to tests involving speaking or hearing whenever conditions would render you unable to hear. If you would gain the Awakened Senses power, you gain benefits as if wearing a pair of meditant's earmuffs at all times.
Charnel Predator [Ghoul]
When cornered, the same filthy teeth and nails that allow a ghoul to get to its food make fantastic holdout weapons. Gain the following natural weapons: Bite (1k1 R; Melee; Brawling, Toxic), Claws (0k1 R; Melee; Brawling, Shocking). The Toxic or Shocking properties of these weapons apply only to living, fleshy targets.
Messianic Wendigo [Ghoul, Paragon]
A sufficiently motivated ghoul is a terror in a fight, tearing opponents with fang and claw. Gain a rank of the Dark Messiah sword school. You can advance this sword school as if it appeared in your class progression, and the Ravening Maw advantage allows you to recover Action Points. If you take the Charnel Predator feat, your Bite attack gains Penetration equal to your Excellence, and you regain Pressure equal to the damage dealt with it.
Quick Eater [Ghoul]
You've mastered the art of stuffing your craw before someone can rob you of your meal. Once per Scene, if you inflicted at least 2 wounds with a melee attack, you can regain 2 resource points.
Subterranean Native [Ghoul]
Running on intuition alone, a ghoul rarely gets stuck or takes a bad turn within an underground or enclosed space. This includes buildings and spelljammers, though climate control systems and doors can throw them off a bit. You always know your direction, altitude, gradation, and what time it is. You are also capable of (safely) judging air quality, air flow, humidity, and generally whether or not it's safe to breathe with just a second or two of baring your nose to the atmosphere.
Physical Qualities
Ghouls only vaguely resemble the humanoids they once were, with limbs twisted and lengthened to allow easy crawling through undercity tunnels. They have sickly white-grey flesh with wiry arms and tough, dirty nails. The biggest changes are in the ghoul's face: the jaws lengthen into an almost canine muzzle, teeth grow and sharpen for eating meat, muscles around the jaws strengthen for cracking bones while the rest of the flesh dissolves, leaving a visage like a canine skull, often covered in dirt and viscera. The ghouls eyes are typically wide and bloodshot, and ears often enlarge and regain the once-vestigial muscles that allow them to turn toward sounds.
Left to themselves, ghouls don't usually bother with clothing, or if they do it's not much more than rags and tatters. Ghouls bear live children in rather large litters; the pups have fully formed teeth at birth, and their first meal is almost always their siblings. They mature faster than humans do, able to fully handle themselves at six years, but live much shorter lives. Even discounting the possibility that they could be killed by another ghoul or a jumpy hiver, the expected lifespan for a ghoul is less than fifty years.
Playing a Ghoul
Ghouls are necrophages. They prefer humanoid corpses to any other, specifically those in a certain state of decay. While they can survive on fresh meat, it isn't very good for them... by way of analogy, it's rather like a human exclusively eating fried tubers and recaf. Hive cities that make use of their ghoul population instead of trying to eradicate it often offer access to the morgues as payment for services.
Ghouls have an intuitive sense of subterranean and enclosed spaces. They scurry through ducts, service tunnels, and caves without fear, capable of sensing moisture, air flow, air safety, gradation, and more. They are a cunning species, capable of getting into almost anywhere. It is, perhaps, fortunate that they choose to keep to themselves.
They speak their own guttural, chittering language and most times a broken form of Trade. Many mistake their stilted ability to communicate and uncouth ways as signs of stupidity. Ghouls are simple, but they are not stupid. Many are quiet scholars.
Ghoul Heroes
Anowon hasn't been able to keep down solid food since that Malkavian bastard bit him, and it's made him a bit cranky. He tries to keep it down for the sake of the Syrneth ruins he's investigating, but every so often he wakes up face-down in a pile of red paste and vomit that used to be a goblin...
Doresain's heard tales of the mad god-lich who built the ruins that all those pretty-smelling elves live in, but he's also heard that he's dead, or something. He's been practicing his own hunting techniques to use on those "gargly" annoyances, and he wants them off of Catachan, so that he can make history by claiming a world entirely for ghouls.
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