Ghouls and a Wizard

 

 

Class: Ghouls

Sometimes starvation doesn't kill. Not completely. Out of desperation, anger, sheer bloody-mindedness, the unfortunate can keep going. 

 

A half-life, their bodies animated by the bottomless pit of hunger that has made its home inside them. It moves them ever-onward. They are slaves to it.

 

They make their homes in the alleyways and gutters, the sewers of megacities, sleeping in the corners of abandoned stations. 

 

Grey things, pale things. 

 

Ghouls.

 

 

Major features:

• Tall, gangly humanoids. Usually between 7-8ft
• Thick, leathery skin. Withered, gaunt appearence.
• Good night vision. 
• Long long arms and legs. 
• Elongated heads, huge lantern-like eyes.
  

 

Becoming a ghoul

Not that hard.  When you are at the edge of starvation, make a Sanity save. If this is successful, the PC has 1 day to find and consume fresh, dead human meat. A ghoul can usually survive on not that much at all- but the first time, they need it all.

 

Over the following week, the PC will transform into a Ghoul, undergoing the following changes:

• +10% Speed, +10% Strength, -5% Sanity save
• Claw attack: 3d10, save or paralysis
• +7% Armour from thick hide and deadened pain response
• Loss of humanity. You are capable of friendship, but people are always meat first.
• Cannot be any kind of magician- the hunger leaves no room for anything else. 
• Immune to vaccum exposure, no need to breathe or sleep.
• Must consume dead human flesh.
  

The base state of a Ghoul is Hungry.

 

Starving: Going three days without eating corpse-flesh causes a loss of higher functions- all Intellect tests at (-), cannot use any Expert skills.

 

Ravenous: Going a week reduces the PC to a near-animalistic state. They are capable of recognizing friend from foe, but must take a sanity save to avoid attempting to eat any humans they encounter, suffering 1d10 stress on a success.  Cannot use any skills.

Feral: Going 2 weeks or more, the PC will be lost-for now. Any meat will return them to a Ravenous state.

 

Hibernation: Going 3 months without food, a Ghoul will enter a state of suspended animation. They do not register on heat sensors, and can exist this way for centuries. Any movement within 10 meters causes them to awake, drifting slowly towards prey, mouths agape.

Shipbreaking old derelicts lost in the void is a dangerous profession. They sometimes have Ghouls in them.

 

 

 

Marga and HEE-Beta-8892 "R███"

A vibrating ball of violence and trauma, wrapped in a stained tracksuit and shaggy ginger hair. Gaunt appearence, hard eyes- far too hard for a 12-year old. If anyone cared, she could be helped- but there is very little help to be had for runaways out on the rim.

 

 

Marga is a wielder of the Art, and a fairly potent one at that. You can find her in rimworld ports, hive city underworlds, stowing away in the depths of a bulk hauler. She's a hitman for hire, something which she's pretty good at thanks to her contract with The Bomb Devil.

 

Marga, Explosion Child

Stats:  H:3(20) I:50 C:30 Potency:58

Favoured Lies:

• Red Arts:  
• Fragged: Transforms a nearby object into plastic explosives, function as Frag Grenade.
• Red-White Arts:
• Collars: Body Save or skin around neck shifts and warps, becoming a ring of cysts full of explosive biochemicals. Marga can detonate these at will. 
  
• White Arts:   
• Detonation: Marga rolls Potency. On success, 2d10 damage from explosive blast. If this brings a character to 0 they violently explode, dealing 5d10 damage to anyone nearby.
  
• Black Arts: 
•  Kaboom: Marga rolls Potency at (-). On failure she takes 1 hit of damage. On success, a large bomb is created within 20m, detonating on Marga's command. 5d10 to everything within 100 meters.
  

 Inventory:

• Shiv, fashioned from blast-glass. 2d10, weapon of last resort
• Unregistered credstick, 500kcr loaded
• 5 packets of MEGAFLAVOUR Instant ramen tubes, pork flavour
• Hip flask, high-proof Devil Liquor
  
• 2nd-hand Vacsuit
• Ragged felt toy, Mog the Alien
• Red scarf, a token from HEE-Beta-8892
• Scribbled protective charms, plastered to her body beneath clothes.
  

 

So far, Marga has killed one other wizard and eaten their Tumour, and the toxicity build-up has exacerbated her existing unstable nature. She will become a Devil within three years if left unchecked.

The Devil that holds her contract is unusually fond of her. If she is close to death, there is a 20% chance that HEE-Beta-8892 will intervene. PCs are unlikely to survive this.

 

Using Marga

Marga is a murderer-for-hire, her use of the Art being solely focussed on violence. As an enemy she'll lay traps for the players using her Fragged power, following up with  Detonation, with Kaboom as a last resort to cover a retreat. 

If she needs bodies, she'll use Collar on randos and threaten them into compliance. 

As an assassin, her fee is 50kcr. 70% clearance rate, don't expect subtely.