Moving/Micbrobes/Ghoulism

### Summary:

Ghoulism is a form of gigantism instigated by disease rather than mutation and causes similar behaviour in its hosts to zombification and vampirism. Those infected and changed by the disease will gain many benefits as well as detrimits which are in service of the spread of the disease, but also many benefits which do not strictly help the spread. This is due to its artificial nature. Originally it was created to create easy warriors of the one's own common people when in a controlled environment, as well as causing mass murder and havoc amongst an enemy population if infection were to spread through them uncontrolled.

### Physical Effects:

Ghouls generally have longer, more proportionately thin limbs with clawed digits in addition to their increased size. Their eyes will change to have better night vision and have a bright solid red color to their irises. The older the ghoul, the larger portion of red spreads across the surface of the eye, until even the entirety of the white of the eye is then instead red. The pupil turn to slits like a cat. Their muscles will change in their nature to have much more explosive strength at the cost of reduced endurance. Though their high stress muscular endurance will suffer, their stamina will be increased significantly. All of their bodily fluids as well as waste will be turned pitch black. Their skin will change to the palest white, almost like porcelain. Though their vocal chords are unchanged physically, their brains are altered in such a way that it renders them mute.

### Method of Dispersion:

The Microbes that spread the Ghoul Disease can only survive within organisms, and is spread through contact. The microbe thoroughly infects the entirety of the body of its victims, but when spreading to another, some part of the infected must enter the body of the uninfected somehow. Simple skin contact is not sufficient, but a bite or scratch from an infected works. Contamination through something like a bite or scratch will cause a slow transformation. The larger amount of infected material that enters the newly infected, the faster the transformation into a ghoul.

To further encourage its own spread, the disease makes all parts of the ghoul have an incredible smell and taste that is alluring to other lifeforms, even its waste matter, though part of this is because the microbe itself smells that way. So the disease will be spread either way whether the ghoul is the predator or the prey, or even through indirect contact.

## Behaviour:

Ghouls are generally aggressive to all other lifeforms, but are generally passive or friendly to each other. Ghouls who transform will become imprinted upon the ghoul closest to them upon completion of their transformation. If there are no other ghouls present when this happens, the new ghoul will be independent. Ghouls who are independent of each other will generally avoid one another, but those imprinted upon another will stay with their master. A series of cascading infections and imprints eventually creates small communities run by the oldest largest ghoul who is the highest up in the imprination pyramid.

When a ghoul desires a companion or mate, they can purposefully instigate a very fast transformation by vomiting into their victims mouth, which they will not resist ingesting. Since this is a very large amount of infected material entering the victim's body all at once, this will cause a very fast transformation. The disease renders its victims infertile, but does not get rid of their natural desire to reproduce or have offspring. This causes ghouls to often infect and kidnap children in addition to adults. Ghouls infected younger are in their ghoul state longer and thus naturally grow bigger than those infected at a older age.

## Transformation:

A typical slow transformation, like from a bite or scratch, can take up to a full week. During the early period of transformation, instead of higher aggression, the victim will have a spike of perpetual fear / paranoia that will cause any communal lifeforms like humanoids to run away from their community into the wilderness where their transformation can be competed unhindered by any attempt for cure or execution of the infected by their community. A fast transformation can happen in less than a day.

Once full transformed, a ghoul is generally incurable through simple eradication of the microbe. This is because eradicating the microbe from the system of a transformed ghoul will not revert the physical changes it has undergone. A transformed ghoul who has had the disease erased from their system will generally be less aggressive as well as lose the particular alluring smell they normally give off though.

Post Transformation, a ghoul will have their growth limiter unengaged, and will slowly grow larger and larger over time. They will simply survive and grow until they are unable to to sustain themselves, at which point their overly large body will supply many other life forms with full access to their infected carcass which will cause a explosion of infections in that region. Those who have had the disease erased from their system will also have their growth limiter reengaged, thusly stop growing.