Bestiary IX: Eaters of the Dead

 

 (edit 12/03/2024: I used AI to make the images in this article before I realised how morally bankrupt the whole thing was. I'm not going to delete them but I am going to point out that the generative AI industry isn't far from a form of modern slavery. It's hollow and awful. Stealing work from artists and using that stolen work to train an algorithm is short-sighted, foolish, and basically evil.)

The edicts of the Silent City are unsurpassed in all matters. This is the First Law Of the Dead.
Death repeals all mortal trappings. This is the Second Law of the Dead.
~
When one dies one rises, as a god to the living, above and beyond the preoccupations of the crowded public. An eternity inside the walls of the Silent City beckons.
~
But a ghoul cares neither for the laws of the dead nor of the living, for they belong to neither. They have not died, so they are unprotected by the mandates of the Corpse Lords, and the living cannot tolerate them. They desecrate and transgress without remorse. They are without creed or constitution. Their only drive is a yearning, an aching, for consumption.

 

     The Ghoul is a venerable creature in the world of D&D. Their grimy claws and glistening tongues have been paralysing players for decades. In this post I want to expand the lore around this creature, to make it not simply a singular monster but almost a genus in its own right- a culture, a mythology even. For some context, these stories exist in a world I've been building for some time, but I want them to be something which can slot into any game and provide a slew of gruesome adventures, something truly unsettling worthy of a horror-themed campaign.

 Fair warning, reader, this may be some of the most grim and grotty stuff I've ever written, so there you are. Probably NSFW. A trigger warning for body-horror, disease, death, vivid descriptions and abstract depictions of gore and bones and horrible stuff like that.

Plus, it's a long one, so strap in.

 

~

 The Makings of an Illness

 There is a plague, a curse upon both the living and the dead, a plague which feasts upon the distended body of civilization and picks at the threads of its fraying fabric. The afflicted are scavengers, skirting the edges of towns and villages, lurking amongst darkened woods, languishing in mildewed burrows, skulking through midnight alleys. The ghoul. Inside them burns an insatiable hunger, a craving for flesh. This voracious appetite claws at their insides and drags its tendrils through their minds, turning the ghoul from a thinking, feeling person into a hollow pit of lust and greed. But how does a ghoul come to be? What abominable path must a person tread in order to debase themselves so?

 

"There is power in these bones. Come, sup of them and feel it course through your veins. Taste the dusty potency which lies hidden within. Forget your woes, cast aside your anguish, for a new world awaits you."

-A wise woman amongst the exiles entreats the poor, the hungry, and the desperate.

Fables tell of the power of unquiet bones. Some believe them.

 The affliction, born of poverty and desperation, casts a deathly pall over the land. Those amongst the poor who dream of something greater, who wish for the strength to lift themselves out of their suffering, might venture into the wilds in search of an occultist versed in the ways of magic and medicine. But the gift they seek has a price- a price that will be paid for ever more in the bloodline of the afflicted.

 

 "Shamans and witches amongst those exiled and those common folk who eke out a living tilling fields and cutting wood- they do not see the dead as we do. They do not have the same reverence for the laws of the dead and those who dwell within the walled city. In the untamed wilds, a corpse is a tool rather than a personage of reverence. They see the unquiet, those unfortunate enough to succumb to the madness, and they feel hunger rather than fear- a hunger for power beyond the reach of the living." 

- Excerpt from the journal of  Eliphas Quinn, traveller.

Those who taste even once of unquiet bones cannot forget the sweetness and the sting. It is a drug to them, an exquisite, heavenly remedy which chases away the gnawing, the longing within them.

 

 The call of power is difficult to resist, likewise is the hunger felt by those stricken with famine and starvation. Ghouls are the result of both. For whatever reason, once one commits the unspeakable act of necrophagy, a crime punishable by the most dire and swift of measures, a slow transformation takes place. The disease takes months, perhaps even a year or more to fully ensnare its victim, but although slow, after the illness begins, there is no stopping it. There is no cure. Only a protracted farewell.

At first, the imbiber is filled with a euphoria- a feeling so glorious that it leaves all other experiences a grey and tired husk. A night of revelry and cavorting, buoyed up by almost supernatural vigour.

 But then, tremors wrack the body of the afflicted. They shiver and quake endlessly in the wake of their elation.

 Second, they develop a dark, uncontrollable laughter and a morbid gaze which speaks of a mind burgeoning into insanity. 

 Next, a distaste for normal food. The afflicted will starve rather than resume a conventional diet, and experiences an urgent compulsion to consume flesh, wherever they can find it. This frequently means that household pets are not safe around the afflicted while they remain in the home. Nor are children.

 Once this shaking, laughing sickness takes hold fully, the victim's body twists and distorts with the sheer force these tremors exert- a freakish strength hitherto unknown. They violently cast aside their human adornments, clothes and words and objects, and let their hair grow wild and matted. At this stage the family of the afflicted have no choice but to turn them out of whatever village, town, or other community they have been part of. Shunned from human society to live like an animal.

 

Wracked with agony, the poor afflicted feels their mind and body warping beyond repair.

And after. After scrambling from the town they called home, after being chased away with steel and flame and anger, driven by their own pain as much as their persecution, what results is a feral, flesh-craving, bestial half-human. Cannibals. Scavengers. Like hyenas they wait in groups, chittering and snickering beyond the firelight, their eyes reflecting the flame's glow in luminous green and red. They stoop awkwardly and scrabble amongst the dirt and rocks with ragged nails. They stop and sniff the air for the scent of rot- a day old corpse on the roadside, pale and bloated like them, gums and lips snarled away from its teeth like them, eyes small an sunken like them. But although they take on the appearance of one deceased, they are all too alive. All too familiar with the grief and the misery, the sheer burden of living. The hunger.

 A frenzy of congealed blood and ragged flesh follows. The pack gorges until nothing is left but splinters of bone and a dark stain on the earth. Unsatisfied, but bereft of further feasting, they crawl and lope back to the dank hole which they now call home.

 But there is more to this than just one miserable story...

 

In the wilds, the ghoul makes its cold, damp home amongst mildewed burrows and the roots of trees.

 

~

An Ecology of the Ghoul

Why any sane person would undertake a scientific work to study and classify these loathsome creatures is beyond common understanding, but be that as it may there are always those with tastes which run to the macabre, and curiosities which do not shy away from the morbid. And for those who do look closely, the fabric of this new life unfolds.

- The Wretched Scavenger

 This is the creature that you are familiar with- the creeping, gibbering creature that superstitious villagers fear. The creature of urgent, insatiable hunger. The creature they whisper about in the dark hours before dawn as they make a sign to ward off evil, the one they imagine leaping out on the gloomy track through the wilds, stalking through dense, twisted branches. This is the woeful monster from the stories that eats the dog, eats the children, that digs up the grandparents with its bare hands and eats them too. A crunching and slurping you hear at night, a quiet happy laughter, only to discover it has crept through the window and is feeding on your family.

 It comes alone, it comes in packs, but always it comes wanting warm sustenance, wanting hot liquid blood on its cracked lips. It scurries away once it has gorged, with its arms full of bone and offal and gore. It retreats to secrete its prize away in some dank hole, some odious den in the woods or the sewers, or out in cold fields away from the sight of civilised folk where it can escape the shame of judgement. Its life is not a long one, nor comfortable.

 But this is far from the worst of its kind.

- The Sanguine Cannibal

 Here is a different tale. A fluke? Some freak happenstance or grim fortune? 

 Perhaps it is a mercy that not all who succumb to the laughing sickness lose their minds. When they discover that a diet of unquiet flesh and bones not only satisfies their appetite but also grants them unnatural strength and longevity, they gain new purpose. Though their ways are still abhorrent, they walk a path of sorts. A grave-robber gourmand. A ghoul with aspirations.

 Perhaps it is a mercy that these particular ghouls still possess a shred of their previous life, their tattered thoughts and dreams. When their hunger is satisfied, they can be surprisingly good company. Volatile, but tolerable if in the right mood. Although they still possess the darkened gaze and pallid demeanour of the exile, one might go so far as to call them cultured, comparatively speaking. You may even have met one or two without realising.

 Perhaps it is a mercy that they hunger for sweeter things than warm blood and gristle. It is the cold, saccharine matter of the grave that calls to them, so they may not immediately tear you apart if they meet you on a darkened road. But if they do, you can rest assured that it is for sport, not for nourishment. Maybe it is jealousy. Maybe they miss their days walking in the sun, the music and the taste of fresh fruit. They may even share a joke with you as they wrench limb from limb. It's just their dark sense of humour, you understand. Perhaps it is a mercy. Perhaps.

 

- The Grotesque Mutant

 A ghoul's grasp on their mental sanity is tenuous at best, but the hold they have over their physical sanity is even more precarious. For all the strength and potency that unquiet bones grant, their gift also plants a boiling, seething kernel of mutative energy in a ghoul's soul, a rogue animus which becomes increasingly difficult to resist. As a ghoul consumes more and more flesh of the unquiet dead, that grasp slips ever more through their gnarled fingers. Their form makes less and less sense, until they barely resemble the human that they once were.

 With bloated muscles, warped bones, and blistered shifting flesh, the Grotesque Mutant is a true horror to behold. It is the worst example of what the unquiet sickness of the dead can do to a living being. It is a creature of unbridled derangement, a  hulking, frenzied aberration in whom a ghoul's appetite runs rampant and unchecked. Even their lesser kin are wary of it: a Mutant is just as likely to be found wandering alone as it is lumbering amongst its bethren.

 Thankfully, these creatures are rare. When a ghoul slips into the madness of this further transformation, its lifespan is limited. The mutation does not cease and, once it has become so bloated and rubbery that it cannot stand or move freely, unless it is fed continually by any faithful attendants, it wastes away, dissolving into the earth with disturbing rapidity. Perhaps the ghouls surrounding them relish the opportunity to partake of this rich and exquisite banquet, lapping at the foul froth and foam with abandon. For this reason, this form of ghoul is barely known in all but the most hushed and fearful of circles. But those listening on the wind for the hunting cry of a ghoul pack would do well also to listen for the answering bellow which signals the approach of one of these monsters- a chilling roar which curdles the blood, and sends a numb chill of fear through the guts of even the most hardened warriors.

- The Loathsome Kyriarch

 If the Grotesque Mutant is an example of a ghoul's path veering off into the tangled briars and dark, dead tunnels of incurable mutation, the Loathsome Kyriarch is what results from a long journey down the straight and narrow, so to speak.

Truly harnessing the power of the unquiet, these creatures rise from the ranks of the Sanguine Cannibals and are the undisputed monarchs of ther kind. Casting off the memories of its human life and totally embracing the dark chill of the woods and the taste of grave earth, this beast is the pinnacle of its kind. When a ghoul ascends to the top of its pack's heirarchy, it rules brutally. It gets its pick of the choicest of meats and the most delectable of bones. From this nourishment, it grows huge and extraordinarily strong. It doles out arbitrary and bloody punishment with talons and fangs of cast iron, ripping and tearing with corded muscle and sinews like steel. An order is created- a cruel and vicious order born of raw strength and a will of granite.

These lords amongst flesh-eaters are practically immortal. Their plans run deep and weave together over many years. They scheme and plot to loot the oldest and most delicately preserved of relics from their tombs. Like a fine wine, an old corpse with an excellent vintage is something to be cherished and savoured. And as long as they can sustain themselves with their rather specialised diet, they can endure almost indefinitely.

 It is under the yoke of these wily tyrants that ghouls become more than a simple pest, more than furtive scavengers. When ghouls have a leader, their actions are not simple instinct. Scattered burrows full of mewling wretches come together with common purpose. These monarchs loose the slavering savagery of the ghoul upon humanity. Woe betide a settlement in the path of a Loathsome Kyriarch. After they pass there is nothing left. Ragged curtains flutter in empty windows. Bones, grim bunting strung across the street, clatter tunelessly in the hollow breeze.

- The Morbid Disciple

 A leprous beggar lies in the street with his bowl collecting coins, dreaming of one day walking tall again, proud and strong.

 A homeless street urchin skulks through the rain into an ancient mausoleum, her overwhelming curiosity, and perhaps her desire for a dry sleeping place, finally getting the better of her judgement.

 Who can give these people what they seek?

 Those who possess a destiny, no matter how grim, always attract apostles. Ghouls are no different. The poor and the dispossessed flock to the strong for comfort and for hope. They see the ghoul and they see freedom- they see emancipation from the toil and the hardship of their lives, from the inevitability of death.

 Some of these sorry folk simply wish for a better future, and they cannot see a place for themselves in a society under the eye of the Silent City. They are the ones who do not belong, those broken shards lying scattered on the floor, swept into the street to lie in a gutter or wash down the drain.

Others have already tasted of unquiet flesh and feel the beginnings of the disease shudder through their bodies. Unsteady hands and dark, unhinged, wheezing laughter. Perhaps they seek the wisdom of the ghouls, such as it is, to stave off the worst of the illness- the transformation which turns a person into a feral eater of the dead. They deliver sweetmeats into the hands of the ghouls in exchange for ... what? What tidbits are they offered in return? Are they given empty promises or something more concrete? Crumbs from the banquet table. They do the bidding of the ghouls, stealing into places inaccessible to their masters, in the hopes that they will be blessed with power rather than cursed with agony. The truth is always more of a mixture.

- The Hedge Necromancer

 Who amongst the living can truly understand the dead except one who exists as they do? To this end, there are those amongst the exiles who voluntarily shun the world of the living and embrace cold quietude, communing with the silence in dark tombs. Each of the living has a powerful, inner radiance which is painful for the dead to be near, but these necromancers purposefully stifle the brightness of their waking life with secret mortification rituals, and drift perpetually in a dream-like state. They traverse the daylight lands of the living and delve through the hushed realms reserved for the dead. But although they exist in both worlds, they are not truly part of either. The dead do not trust them, nor do the living. However, despite their status as pariahs, they can be of use.

 The loose group of practitioners known as Hedge Necromancers serve several roles, depending on where they find themselves and what their goals are. These morose figures sometimes act as intermediaries between the two worlds they inhabit. In small isolated settlements far from the Silent City, these services are rare, and although they are not well liked, Necromancers are respected for their skill. They also understand the power of the dead in a similar way to ghouls, and sometimes latch on to more accommodating clans in order to seek out tombs rich with unquiet remains. What they do with these remains is a closely guarded trade secret, but in this endeavour they make enemies of the Silent City just as the ghouls. Misery loves company, they say.

~

 

-Putting Them All Together

In the same way that the sickness progresses, I imagine using this material in a campaign over a series of adventures would start fairly ominously, and would build into a grisly crescendo of dark and majestic proportions. It might go a little like this:

-One

The players stumble upon some strange kind of sickness. A person in the street, in a side alley, looking extremely unwell. Or perhaps lying in a bed, the players having been entreated to do something about it- to find a cure or. Pale, shuddering, chuckling to themselves, they cannot talk coherently and cannot explain their predicament. Perhaps they have to seek a Hedge Necromancer in the wilds who tells them how it is and explains that this person cannot be saved. They then have a pretty tough decision to make.

-Two

The players are escorting a caravan of coffins to their final resting place in the Silent City, and are ambushed by frenzied, naked cannibals desperate to crack open the coffin and sup on the bodies within. The cannibals make off with a number of the coffins. The players must give chase to recover the bodies within and deliver them to their original destination. They Silent City is the most wealthy and generous of patrons, after all.

-Three

An emissary of the Silent City sends word that a band of pillagers has broken through a weak spot in the walls in a forgotten, mouldy borough. When they arrive, the players stumble across a fillthy nest of ghouls feasting on the hapless inhabitants of the tomb city (their peacful rest rudely disturbed), and a deep dungeon delve ensues. They players must cleanse the tomb complex of ghouls before their presence angers the dead and causes even further mayhem. They hear the deep apparatus of the Silent City slowly cranking into motion while ghouls run riot in the streets. This could be interesting because, with all that access to edible matter, the players could witness ghouls transforming into ever more terrifying forms before their very eyes.

-Four

Stories persist of a whole village that went missing several years ago. In the wake of a war, a great famine struck the land and swathes of people in the countryside died or had to resort to rather gruesome means to survive. In recent months, there have been reports of abductions and murders unspeakable in nature. Locals whisper fearfully about gruesome things they have seen or heard out in the woods. After a series of escalating encounters, they find that the chief of the village and the remaining pesants have indeed metamorphosed into a Loathsome Kyriarch and an attendant court of ghouls. Perhaps they have to get the local militia involved to scour the surrounding countryside, find these foul monsters, and do away with them once and for all.

 

~

To What End Is All This Misery?

You may notice that I haven't provided any stat blocks in this post. This is semi-intentional, because I can't really decide which rules set to make them for yet. It's just some evocative writing and vague ideas for now. I'm considering drawing all of this up for D&D, complete with some player races and new classes, but that's a lot of scrawling and I haven't managed it yet. I'm also considering making it compatible with Troika! because I really enjoy that system and its whackiness. If anyone has recommendations or suggestions, I'd appreciate feedback.

There's a lot more of this to come, so if you're interested, watch this space.

The life of a ghoul is a tapestry woven from leafmould and brambles, gilded with dust from a tomb, sewn with needle of piercing bone and thread of greasy sinew.

~

 As part of a closing ramble, it would be remiss of me to avoid mentioning the texts I drew on for inspiration. Both of these books have stuck with me, and it is partly thanks to them that my mind is so full of this weird, twisted rubbish. Though I wouldn't have it any other way.

 The Throne of Bones by Brian MacNaughton is possibly the single most disturbing book I've ever read. The only book which has given me nightmares. It's both wildly imaginative and warped beyond words. Read it if you want but don't complain to me if you find it highly objectionable.

 And Laughing Death: The Untold Story of Kuru by Dr. Vincent Zigas is an absolutely fascinating but also quite chilling book which details one doctor's discovery of a devastating illness. An uncurable, deadly prion disease in New Guinea resulting from ritual cannibalism as part of their mourning process. It's horriffic to read about, and always you must remember that this thing is real. Unlike the horror I prattle on about above, Kuru is a real disease which destroys real lives, which should never be forgotten. Perhaps that is my way of dealing with that- delving into the horror of it and trying my best to understand how awful it must feel. Abstracting something shocking from its reality- maybe that's a good way of moving from an intellectual grasp of something to a more intimate, empathetic understanding.

 Anyway, enough now.

 I don't think these books are very widely available but I managed to get my grubby hands on them so I daresay you could too if you looked hard enough.

Lastly, if you've reached the end and you're still curious about all these cool pictures, here's the secret. They were made using the midjourney ai software and are apparently owned by the author (me). I wouldn't necessarily call them original, but I suppose in a way they are. It's just advanced photobashing, honestly, but I have a feeling this kind of technology will really put a dent in the stock image industry. Use them if you wish but please don't sell them for money, that would be quite uncool. You know what is cool though? Midjourney is cool. Go check it out if you want. You could do that, and then go on an adventure creating gnarly art like I did.* I spent hours on it. Literal hours which segued into days spent thinking up keyword prompts for images of flesh eating cannibal scavengers. Help me please.

I hope that's the end, for now. Maybe my next post will be about butterflies instead.

Peace- O

31/08/2022 edit: I cannot reply to comments on blogger at the moment for some unknown reason. Please do leave one if you feel so inclined, but be aware that I won't be able to respond. If you have a question or just want to get in touch, the best way is via my reddit at u/W-R-St because I'm there all the time.

*I absolutely rescind this opinion. Midjourney is not in fact cool, as I have discovered. It is a tool of enslavement for capitalists to use against human beings in the most callous way possible -- to harvest their humanity and then to package and sell it back to them as a subscription service. (edit 26/01/2024)