Ghoul

Mocking charnel feeders

### Fighting Attacks

Ghouls have the usual range of unarmed attacks open to humanoids. Also ghouls have claws that are razor-sharp and filthy; these bony protrusions slice through human flesh in an instant. Wounds caused may become diseased if not treated.

## Defenses

### Armor

Firearms and projectiles do half of rolled damage; round down any fraction

> The madness and monstrosity lay in the figures in the foreground- for Pickman's morbid art was pre-eminently one of demoniac portraiture. These figures were seldom completely human, but often approached humanity in varying degree. Most of the bodies, while roughly bipedal, had a forward slumping, and a vaguely canine cast. The texture of the majority was a kind of unpleasant rubberiness.
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> Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Pickman’s Model

Ghouls are loathsome humanoids with rubbery skin, hoof-like feet, canine features, and claws. They speak in what are described as gibberings and meepings. They are often encrusted with grave mold collected as they feed.

They dwell in tunnel systems beneath many cities, often centered on graveyards and ancient catacombs. They are known to have commerce with witches and those seeking unspeakable pleasures, although an unwitting human is more likely to be attacked when encountered.

Dark lore suggests that it is possible for a human to transform into a ghoul over a prolonged period.

Ghouls may be the truth that lies behind the myth of the changeling ~ the belief that faeries steal young babies, leaving "wild things" in their place. The wild things appear human initially, becoming stranger and weirder as they grow older until one day, normally around maturity, they disappear.

In combat, they are known to use items such as headstones and were unfamiliar with other types of weaponry up until their battle with the Moon-beasts. It was here that they first discovered, and quickly mastered, the use of spears and of javelins. With this newfound technology, they were able to annihilate the garrison of Moon-beasts on the nameless rock off the coast of Sarkomand in the Dreamlands.

Though unknown to the general public (or even to many of his close confidantes), the artist Richard Upton Pickman meets with the beings regularly to paint them in various poses and activities. Pickman is in fact a partial or full-blooded ghoul, and as of 1927 resides with them in the Dreamlands as a chieftain.

> The sun is setting in the west.
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> A full moon's in the east.
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> In caverns dark, beneath the ground,
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> the ghouls prepare to feast.
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> Burrowing underneath the graves
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> of humans newly dead,
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> to drag them from their place of rest
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> that all ghouls might be fed.
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> Unholy sustenance so sweet;
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> on human flesh they dine.
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> "To Richard Upton Pickman"
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> toast the revelers with their wine.
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> The time will come when man forgets,
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> so of that day beware.
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> For like a plague spewed forth from Hell,
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> they'll rise up from their lair.
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> A colony below the earth,
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> hid from the sight of men.
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> Before we walked they ruled the world;
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> and once more will again.
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> A canine face and leathery skin
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> that reek of graveyard mold.
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> Eager for the danse macabre
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> with a partner dead and cold.
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> Ron Shiflet, "Ghouls"

## Religion

Mordiggian (who sired Yogash upon the Elder God Bast ~ known as the "Chewer of Corpses"; Yogash is sometimes said to be the first ghoul, though Mordiggian's father Nug is also sometimes described as such) is generally regarded by both ghouls and outsiders to be the primary object of ghoulish veneration. On specific planets they may also worship a number of gods such as Tulzscha, Baoht Z'uqqa-mogg, or Mordiggian's master Nyogtha. Ghoul-cults dedicated to any deity outside of Mordiggian's immediate family, such as the last three mentioned, are often considered heretical, blasphemous, or even schismatic by more orthodoxly religious ghouls. Nonetheless, it is not unheard of for these mainstream ghouls to incorporate these other figures into their mythologies, theologies, and liturgies.

### The Ghoulish Pantheon and Their Associations

#### Outer Gods

* **Tulzscha:** Cold flames, contrasting sensations, death, decay, green, the passion of knowledge, possession, subterranean spaces

#### Elder Gods

* **Bast:** Anxiety, cats, dreams, espionage, the home, **ghouls**, vengeance

#### Great Old Ones

* **Baoht Z'uqqa-mogg:** Filth, insects, murky dampness, Shaggai, shan, vermin
* **Mordiggian:** Catacombs, cold, darkness, death, decay, dreams, embalming, hidden tunnel systems, morticians, mystery, secrets, tombs, Zothique, Zul-Bha-Sair
* **Nug:** Birthing monsters, black flames, clearing the earth, the end of the world, gardens, K'n-yan, torches, twins, union, youth
* **Nyogtha:** Curses, imprisonment, stench, vengeance, witchcraft
* **Yogash the Ghoul:** Cannibalism

## Magic

Ghouls are capable of learning magic; and are among the species that cross over to the Dreamlands, along with cats, humans, and people of Leng.

## Maneuvers

### Bite and Hold

If the ghoul’s bite strikes home it hangs on instead of using claw attacks, and worries the victim with its fangs, continuing to do 1d4 damage automatically per round. An opposed STR roll is required to dislodge the ghoul, breaking the hold and ending the bite damage.