Ghouls

Ghouls often adopt whatever scrap they find as armaments.

Ghouls are primitive carnivorous creatures originating from trolls mutated by Narzhak to become ravenous and cannibalistic. Populations of ghouls exist in northeastern Kalgrun and in the Charnel Steppes, where a number of the species were carried by the Omen of War after their creation.

## Physiognomy

While retaining some broad similarities to trolls, such as size and number of limbs, ghouls noticeably diverge from their predecessors in appearance and biological functions. They are leaner and taller than trolls, most often standing in upright, if hunched postures and using only their legs to walk. Their arms are proportionally shorter, with prehensile hands possessing opposable thumbs and hooked claws. Their fur is much shorter and grows in sparse patches, leaving much of their coarse, stone-like grey skin exposed.

Ghouls' features are dominated by their mouths, which are exceedingly large and broad and filled with sharp, strong teeth. Their jaws, besides being powerful enough to snap through bone, are capable of opening at an almost flat angle to bite off large chunks from their prey, or entirely engulf smaller creatures. Surmounting the mouth are a pair of flat and snout-like, moderately sensitive nostrils, and two small, beady eyes.

Aside from possessing the exceptional regenerative capabilities of trolls, further bolstered by a tremendously rapid metabolism, ghouls secrete a fluid with revitalising properties within their digestive system. Flesh infused with this substance behaves as though it were still alive, preventing or mildly reversing decay. While this has in most cases little benefit aside from allowing them to consume carrion with greater ease, its function is apparent when applied to the flesh of trolls, or other ghouls. Fuelled by waste from the digestive tract, it continues to regenerate despite no longer being attached to a living body. While the speed of the regeneration is insufficient to surpass the ghouls' powerful digestion, it is enough to sate them for longer than any other sort of meat, making trolls and others of their species their preferred prey.

## Psychology

Ghouls are driven and defined by aggression and hunger, which is a psychological factor as much as a physical one prompted by extremely fast metabolic rates. The act of feeding on a creature represents dominance, and although ghouls, being nomadic, are not territorial, their instinctive reaction to any animate being they encounter is to seek to establish their superiority. Oddly, this only holds when the ghoul itself is the victor; in cases where they are subdued and consumed, individuals, if they survive, or members of their group will viciously retaliate against the opponent, unless they recognise the latter to be overwhelmingly more powerful than themselves and thus a danger.

Although feral and animalistic, ghouls are marginally more intelligent than trolls, being capable of congregating in small, structured family packs led by an adult male. Members usually refrain from killing and eating their packmates, unless they are old or crippled or there is a shortage of alternative food sources; in the latter case, the youngest will be devoured first. Ghouls likewise have an innate aptitude for using objects they find as weapons or even protection, and imitating others of their kind who devise more complex and effective armaments.