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Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 8 2010, 09:16 PM

For the Dumpshock play-by-post game I tried to make the most down-and-out, low-class, hated group of sentients in Shadowrun, and a ghoul Ork was what I came up with. Now I'm trying to come up with a more detailed background for him, and I run into a few questions I've got only fuzzy answers for. For starters:

1) Is there a community of ghouls in Seattle, or do they live as they can?

2) Is there an official bounty of ghouls?

3) Where do they get food? At 5% body weight per month, a body 11 ghoul has to eat quite a bit, and clone meat gets very expensive, very fast.

4) How many ghouls are there? I imagine there is a strict cap on ghoul population based on supply of metahuman flesh, tied in to the harvestable percentage of deaths per year. But what would that percentage be? 1%? 5%?

5) Would a ghoul running a funeral home with the promise of the bodies not coming back as a shedim be enough to keep the place from getting burned down by concerned citizens?

6) How do you play a ghoul as a character with enough redeeming qualities to not simply be a monster?

Are there any obvious questions I missed?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 8 2010, 09:21 PM

Dunno about the rest, but I feel like #6 applies to *any* runner.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 8 2010, 09:39 PM

Yea, but it's a little worse when your teammates think you are sizing them up for gastronomical purposes. Om nom nom!

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 8 2010, 09:43 PM

Hehe, yeah. By the book, it's a simple 30% increased lifestyle cost: significant, but hardly crippling.

Are there weight stats for Body ratings? I mean, 5% of 200 pounds per *month* is basically nothing.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 8 2010, 09:48 PM

I think there were weight to body tables in SR2, but I haven't seen them since. I remember that Orks were kind of heavy though.

Posted by: Caadium Jul 8 2010, 10:23 PM

I have a player that is playing an Ork-Ghoul PC in my game. The very first thing he spent karma on was to initiate and take Masking. For a character like this, I find that background is the key to making it workable. The character is ashamed of what he has become and was even able to keep it from the other PCs for a little while (players and characters). Since then, there have been some fun but uncomfortable moments. As was stated above, #6 applies to all Shadowrun characters, and background that is fully fleshed out can make for a satisfying ghoul.

Since the character is an Adept, he took effecient digestion helping to reduce the amount of flesh he needs to consume. Also, he has a coroner as a high loyalty contact to help keep him fed. So far, the other characters have never seen him eat.

Posted by: Deadmannumberone Jul 8 2010, 10:31 PM

1) I don't believe there's anything in the cannon other than the 162s, which is a ghoul gang in Redmond.

2) In some areas, though I believe the CAS in the only nation in North America that still has an active bounty.

3) Body no longer directly corresponds to weight, but a body 11 ghoul would likely weigh between 100-120 kilos, depending on muscle/fat levels. And they get their food most of the time from organleggers.

4) IIRC, ghouls account for just short of 0.1% of the population of Seattle.

5) No. A ghoul in a position where it would be in proximity to dead people will be attacked, with extreme prejudice, by just about anyone who's moderately closed minded.

6) Same as any other character, like Yerameyahu said.

Posted by: The Dragon Girl Jul 9 2010, 01:35 AM

Hi there! there is -a lot- of content about this stuff in Running Wild and the Runner's companion, if you read through, most of those questions are answered.

I know that in the LA chapter of corporate enclaves it talks about ghouls making deals with the morgues for john does, or raiding lower class cemeteries for the newly buried.

And then there is of course buying the bodies off of people doing wetwork, or working for the organ leggers.

eta: Legal ghouls who have SINs get their pound of flesh from donors who add a special check mark to their organ donor card, and such things.

Posted by: Hagga Jul 9 2010, 02:11 AM

"Damnit, dave, I told you, stop sniffing me when I'm asleep. And no, I will not take a bath in marinade before the next job in case I die on it."

As for number 3, body doesn't necessarily mean weight. It's almost more nebulous than charisma - a combination of the 'spring' in your bones, your ability to take a beating, how quickly your body repairs damaged tissue, your cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance, your immune system..

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 9 2010, 02:40 AM

Posted by: Dahrken Jul 9 2010, 04:25 AM

Looking in the Companion, it's 5% per week, not month. Which put a troll ghoul in serious trouble.

Posted by: Udoshi Jul 9 2010, 04:26 AM

Street magic has mention of something relevant here, i think.

"Since metahumanity has reponded to the shedim presence by changing their death rites and protecting their cemeteries, crypts, and even morgues with astral defenses such as wards, shedim have developed new tricks to snatch the bodies of metahumans."

Since shedim need dead bodies, and ghouls get rid of dead bodies, I would be very surprised if an insurance company out there didn't have a checkmark on their policy that said 'let us pay you for your organs after you're dead, and give the proceeds to your family or other beneficiaries.' And, you know, sell those organs as ghoul chow on the side. I can totally see some poor schmuck willing to sign away his corpse to pay for his kids college, you konw, just in case something happens to him.

Also

I'd like to point out that that's an optional rule.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 9 2010, 04:50 AM

I'll bet you would. Hehe.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 9 2010, 06:45 AM

I like that very much. Given how much of an animal's remains are rendered, and the staggering cost of incinerating metahuman flesh, I could see this as a disposal method for some of the less reputable funeral homes. Wow. You could work in a whole conspiracy of organ theft, body disposal, and diseases with that. How about this one: Plague cleanup; Ghouls have an enourmous Body attribute, and can't catch HMHVV (again). When you work for the Burmese and you've just wiped out an entire villiage of diseased protestors, you really need those bodies gone before the local wildlife/spirtlife gets their ectoplasm/tentacles/etc onto them. Send in the "ghostbusters." Om nom nom!

Posted by: Summerstorm Jul 9 2010, 08:18 AM

Sources for "Food":

1. Bodyshops. (Everybody who gets cyberarms, legs, artificial muscles loses some stuff) Maybe you could mix it up with fat (from the fat of fat rhich people which getsd sucked out everey half year *g*) to make a tasty human SAUSAGE

2. Cemetary (OR... since the shedim rock that) steal it before the cremation.

3. Unworthy people *g*. CLEAN the gutter. many people won't be missed.

4. Fallen foes. As a shadowrunner you kill so many people... even if you don't really WANT that, or if you are a technical pacifist. HELL most of us gets attacked even if we do not do ANYTHING. Just get one dude home, waste not. You can eat easily two weeks. (Buy an extra fridge/big freezer). If you are lucky it is a giant or at least troll.

5. Other Gouls. You know: Do the world a favour, and keep the ghoul population down.

Posted by: Udoshi Jul 9 2010, 08:21 AM

I'm pretty sure that Seattle 2072 has a short fiction piece about a former lonestar(due to the knight errant takeover) mage doing a drive-by dropoff into a ghoul hole, throwing some bodies out the back with a light spell up so they'd stay back, and just driving off.

No matter which way you cut it, Ghouls are a great way to get rid of bodies.

Posted by: Hagga Jul 9 2010, 11:03 AM

Nothing frightens a Shedim more than someone who sees them as a happy meal, I suppose.

Posted by: Kid Chameleon Jul 9 2010, 09:26 PM

Now that was brilliant.

Posted by: Hagga Jul 9 2010, 09:56 PM

1. There is some fluff somewhere about Butch buying and selling (rancid) corpses to the Ghoul Liberation League..

2. You'd need to be able to break wards - aren't all grave sites and body prep houses warded quite thoroughly?

3. Okay, true. In some neighbourhoods you could probably get paid for it and talk your gm out of making you pay the extra 30% lifestyle cost. I'd let you, in exchange for the odd lynch mob of homeless people.

4. No argument.

5. I think you'd quickly acquire a reputation as HMHVV-public enemy number one and, uh, die.

Posted by: Caadium Jul 9 2010, 10:05 PM

On the flip-side, if you can stop just one of those lynch mobs not only would you be well fed for a while, but it would be a long time before another lynch mob of homeless people got up the neves to try again. Perhaps it would be an annual event; kind of a ghoul Thangsgiving.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 9 2010, 10:11 PM

I wouldn't let people avoid the 30% surcharge unless they actually made acquisition *runs*. Background/fluff/off-screen RP just explains where the 30% is going.

Posted by: MortVent Jul 9 2010, 10:36 PM

never underestimate the power of persuasion a ghoul can have during interogations...

Mobster no wanting to talk ...

"Hey tammy, how you feel about italian tonight. Fresh too, real fresh.." said the ghoul rigger into his commlink..

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 9 2010, 10:41 PM

Haha, but if you don't think *every* runner can credibly make that same threat, you're not deep enough in the shadows.

Posted by: Caadium Jul 9 2010, 10:57 PM

Well sometimes the threat can be used in other ways.

Last time we played, there was a situation where one of the PCs (the hacker) didn't want to make a call for fear of his family's reputation and the possible hit it would take if things went south. Well, the PCs have all recently come to accept the ghoul amongst them, but are still very wary and unsure of what it means; but the Ghoul has saved everyone's hoop a couple of times. The exchange went something like this:

Hacker: I don't want to call, it could ruin my family (financially and politically) if they find out!
Ghoul: I understand, but we need the information.
Hacker: We can find another way to get it.
Ghoul: No, there's no time. Now, make the phone call or I'll eat your face!
Hacker: EAT MY FACE?!?!? Okay, okay, I'm calling!

Ghoul character would never have acted on that threat (hates being a ghoul and only goes for dead meat), but was playing on the other character's apprehension. In the end, the call was made, things didn't go south, and once again the ghoul risked his life above and beyond to make sure the job was done and everyone was safe. The Ghoul is no longer welcome to crash at the Hacker's house, but so far their still in business together.

Posted by: MortVent Jul 9 2010, 11:07 PM

Yes, but it takes on a whole new meaning when you wipe drool off your chin while making the call...

And the rest of the team now makes a habit of not letting the ghoul be around prisoners, even if he does get them to talk... the bib is a bit unerving

Posted by: Hagga Jul 9 2010, 11:24 PM

Being eaten alive is a whole other thing to being shot.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 10 2010, 12:07 AM

That's the threat I meant! Runners are professional psychopaths, and the 'professional' bit is debatable.

Posted by: hermit Jul 10 2010, 10:54 AM

Several smaller, mostly in the sewers. No bGhoultown or anything.


Yes. 500 per ghoul, used to be much higher though.


Attack NPC, try to attack PC and be killed. Also, Tamanous.


1%, since they make up half of Seattle's "Other" population of 2%.


No.


Not at all? Well, you could bo the bleeding heart but I am yet human emo route or something. Play off the teen angst everyone hates me trope and all. Only thing these characters are good for, IMO.


And here I thought runners were mercenaries with a more agent type of skill and operations focus. SpecOps for hire, if you will. Would you call every soldier a psychopath?

Posted by: Medicineman Jul 10 2010, 12:03 PM

The Bounty on Ghouls is 1500 ¥ per Head both in the CAS and in the UCAS
(Wildwechsel = German Running Wild Pg 72)

and by RAW the vector for the Virus is Contact so sooner or later everybody in his vicinity
will either be a Ghoul himself or Dead (if his Essence is <1 )

he who dances with the Dead
Medicineman

Posted by: Patrick Goodman Jul 10 2010, 12:54 PM

That's the same figure in the English version of the book, though the page reference in the English version is page 64.

I'm working on that bit, honest to God.

Posted by: Medicineman Jul 10 2010, 01:03 PM

I'm working on that bit, honest to God.
a good Houserule (practised by some of the Groups I know and both Groups I'm playing in)
is to change the Vector to Injection and lower the Power to 5 or 6.
This might give some of the tougher Chars a Chance to survive the Virus
(though it's still impossible for Joe Normal )

with a Survivaldance
Medicineman

Posted by: HappyDaze Jul 10 2010, 01:18 PM

You could try for a group of 'penitent' ghoul adepts that hunt down Shedim to consume their vessels. They may even have a metamagic to allow them to gain power from doing so.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 10 2010, 03:24 PM

hermit, you're no fun. Yes, fine, many runners are incredibly boring ice cold pros, metahuman robots with no feelings except doing the job. Not interesting nutballs at all. And, no, they're not soldiers.

Posted by: hermit Jul 10 2010, 03:33 PM

I find interesting nutballs not very interesting, but then again, I used to when I was younger. Still, there is some middle ground between ice cold pro and grautitious psychopathy. And runners are mercenaries, which is closer to soldiers than anything else in work ethics, if not in legality and perception.

Yes, a LOL psycho character can be fun to play every couple times; I have a character like that too. His name's Kenny McCormick, Street name Kyle [random overdone teenage cool thing like Shadowangel]. I play this character fully expecting him to die though. So far, he died by some NPC twice and four times by a fellow PC. And lived two times. I was disappoint in the GM.

I don't agree that this kind is the common shadowrunner; if they were, the whole idea of hiring them to get work done falls apart, and corps would just use their own squads of deep cover agents, who'd behave a lot more professional than some Duke rip.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 10 2010, 04:52 PM

I always play the game ice cold pro, but I understand that cyberpunk is pink mohawk. I consider my preferred style to be metagaming, and I'm okay with it.

Posted by: hermit Jul 10 2010, 05:55 PM

Where would it be written in stone that cyberpunk is pink mohawk?

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 10 2010, 06:17 PM

Another way to fix this one could be Orthoskin. Since Ghouls have nasty skin problems, they are likely covered in infectious material all the time. A quick skin replacement should narrow down the locations on a metahuman body that the virus can exude from. That way clawing, bleeding coughs, biting, and nookie are still ways to spread it, but it isn't a 28 Days Later scenario.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 10 2010, 07:50 PM

Well, Ortho is subdermal, so I don't think it would help any. FFBA, yes, and always a good idea. Add a helmet, and you're not (mundanely) obvious as a monster.

Posted by: Nifft Jul 10 2010, 08:03 PM

What's the deal with Ghouls & Cybereyes? Is their blindness "curable" by common tech?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 10 2010, 08:08 PM

Yes. Also, why can't they just wear trodes and a couple cameras?

Posted by: hermit Jul 10 2010, 08:30 PM

Because the transformation damages their visual cortex. Their blindness isn't just the eyes. Otherwise they could simply get cyber replacement. Of course, if the area in your brain that processes images is gone, SimSense camers aren't gonna do you any good.

Posted by: Drace Jul 10 2010, 08:46 PM

I remember in 2nd edition there was a section of the Ork Underground that was called dark side or night town or something else ominous that was a section of the OU that was mostly HMHVV infected (Ghouls being the majority) but it seems that it has been ignored to unexistance.

Also, both sr 2,3 and 4 have it where cyber eyes can allow a ghoul to see normally without having to use astral sight for everything, counteracting their blindness if they can find a doc to do the surgery. (PG 33 Runners companion for sr3, and pg 80 of runners companion for sr4)

Also, ghouls can eat ANY raw meat, just they have to eat a certain amount of metahuman, non-clone, meat. If they only survived off what they are listed as needing (5% of wieght a month i think) they would die very quickly from starvation. If a person weighed 180 lbs for example, they would have to eat 9 pounds of metahuman flesh a month, while the average person I am pretty sure eats .5-1 lbs of food a day.

Also, I am pretty sure that there is plastic surgery and other cosmetic bioware that can partially fix their skin pigmentation and the hair loss can be blamed on any number of diseases, same with their smell too actually.

Posted by: Nifft Jul 10 2010, 09:11 PM

Where does it say that?

The only flavor justification for ghoul blindness I can find is in Runner's Companion p.62:

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 10 2010, 09:20 PM

Well, I'll be damned. I hadn't noticed that Orthoskin and Dermal Sheathing are woven into or under the skin. I guess you have to use the Altskin Nanopaste if you want to cover up, and that gets very expensive at 1,500 nY per day.



It doesn't actually. In 4th Ed at least, the rules specifically declare that the blindness is curable with cybereyes.

Posted by: hermit Jul 10 2010, 09:21 PM

Seems I misremembered. So why not get cybereyes and instead make do with cameras or some such stuff?

Posted by: Nifft Jul 10 2010, 09:59 PM

Dermal Sheath is expensive in terms of Essence, but it'll cover you completely.

It seems to me that a pair of cyber-hands (to go along with your cyber-eyes) are a good solution, since every other part can be covered up by form-fitting body armor.

The bioware "clean metabolism" might also be a good addition, to reduce any giveaway body odor.

There's "silky skin" bioware, but it notes that the treatment isn't self-maintaining, so you might need to repeat it regularly as HMHVV eats the treatment away.

Same deal for "hair growth" bioware, maybe HMHVV will make it fall out. Perhaps get "fiberoptic hair" cyberware instead.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 10 2010, 10:40 PM

Yup, ghouls have physical and not neurological blindness. Good times.

Call me crazy, but I just assumed you could wear gloves with your FFBA and motorcycle helmet (or ninja mask). Or, take that (extra-creepy) ghoul variant that doesn't get the (super weak anyway) claws; with them, you have to explain why your limbs are so long, though.

Posted by: Nifft Jul 10 2010, 11:11 PM

Sure, you can wear a motorcycle helmet and gloves all the time -- if you never, ever need to get past any form of security.

With the cyberhands, you can wear the same gloves, but you won't arouse suspicion due to strange claw-like protrusions. Also, you have a human-compatible excuse: "Sorry, didn't mean to act suspicious, I'm just not totally comfortable with my hands since ... sniff ... since the accident. Sniff."

That's also why I like the fiber optic hair: it hides your scabby, pustulant baldness, while giving the impression that you're some kind of body-mod freak, which can serve to excuse otherwise suspicious hints of your infection.

Posted by: Hagga Jul 11 2010, 12:50 AM

They do; it's mnentioned in the 6WA. In Asamando.




It's really just the eyes. Even says it in RC.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jul 11 2010, 03:03 AM

They also contradict this in RC when they talk about Reduced (Sense) and how HMHVV-inflicted versions are neurological by default. Face it, rules-wise, RC is a bad joke.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 11 2010, 03:53 AM

*shrug* Specific trumps general. It explicitly says that ghoul blindness is non-neuro.

Haha, I didn't realize passing security was your goal. I don't think you'll succeed, then, because of your smell, hideous face, infected aura…

Posted by: Hagga Jul 11 2010, 04:55 AM

SR4A says that the eyes develop a white film of cataracts, so I'm going with the eyes.

Posted by: Nifft Jul 11 2010, 03:44 PM

Clean Metabolism = no more smell.
Dermal Sheath or Silky Skin + Fiberoptic Hair = no more hideous face.
Infected aura = gotta Initiate to mask that, but how common are Awakened checkpoint guards?

We've been discussing ways to hide ghoulishness for a while. You just now realized it was a goal?

Posted by: hermit Jul 11 2010, 03:54 PM

Not as common as guard spirits who report back to awakened sec guards.

Posted by: The Dragon Girl Jul 11 2010, 05:58 PM

They do mention getting cosmetic surgery and cybereyes in RC iirc. Heck, my assassin isn't infected and she constantly wears full body chemically sealed stuff with gloves and wigs.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 11 2010, 06:03 PM

Yeah, Biosculpting, Severe Modification. :/ Anyway, there are lots of options.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 11 2010, 06:13 PM

Just play that -5bp to be a second gen Ghoul your not infectious then. You have have to put up with the eatting humman fleash from brith issue.

Posted by: The Dragon Girl Jul 11 2010, 06:18 PM

Speaking of ghouls, this is reminding me I need to write more on that story of mine >.>

Only if you have a severely limited imagination.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 11 2010, 07:00 PM

One way to cover up the smell is through a Cybergland to pump out something nice smelling. You could also load it with something to screw up anyone with enhanced pheromone reception bioware. I also find the Gastric Neurostimulator to be a cheap and effective method of dealing with the inability to eat cooked food. It's also good for attacks that cause nausea.

The ghoul ork I made, Gork (yes, it's a painfully unoriginal name. It's ironic enough to be hipster) has a street doctor that he is in debt to that provides full body clones to eat. I began thinking that since it is cheaper to keep a full body alive than a specific organ, people with good medical insurance will likely have a full body on tap. When they make use of them, for a heart or a spine or something, they don't keep the rest around. Disposing of the remaining body is very expensive (currently any human remains must be fully incinerated, which is very expensive), so an unscrupulous doctor could charge customers for the incineration and feed the body to a ghoul instead. Here is a BBC news article dealing with someone who buried bodies instead of cremating them and pocketed the difference: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1828385.stm], [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1825610.stm]

For the link-shy:

And for the purposes of writing, we have the Due To The Dead trope [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DueToTheDead], proving that anyone doing this to people who were considered alive are the worst people, ever. So the question remains; Is this Street Doctor horrifically immoral, or is it merely fraud when done with a clone?I'm glad I used the drop-bear icon on this thread now.

Posted by: The Dragon Girl Jul 11 2010, 07:30 PM

Thats .. honestly not an easy question to answer. Everyone is going to have a different opinion on it. -Everyone-, the thing to figure out, is how your characters and your NPC feel about it themselves. Morality is a sea of greys, for a lot of things, not black and white.
I encourage you to check out the link in my sig for one take on how you can handle ghoulism away from the mold.

Posted by: hermit Jul 11 2010, 08:55 PM

Okay, you're right, the psychopath and the psychopath frankenstein are also viable possibilitieres. Given how limited these characters are - touch vector and all (even injection would be rather limiting), not to mention the food and prejudice baggage - they always are ghoul first and anything else second. Unless you play a special all-ghoul campaign, of course, then everything's possible because the ghoul factor fades into the background.

Posted by: Mordinvan Jul 11 2010, 09:28 PM

even those are reasonably rare, as they cost 1 service for every 12 hours of work, making them terribly expensive.

Posted by: Nifft Jul 11 2010, 09:37 PM

How about paracritters? Anything relatively cheap and non-sapient you could train to sniff out nasty auras?

Posted by: hermit Jul 11 2010, 09:42 PM

Watchers. And if you have two mages on the payroll, it's certainly cheaper than risk being caught with your magical pants down. Of course, leeches, biofibers, critters, glow moss ect. also help.

Posted by: Nifft Jul 11 2010, 09:58 PM

So, Watchers can act as an "astral alarm" (SR4A p.189) "Astral Alarm: Watchers can be instructed to watch or patrol an area of astral space, and to alert a specified person if they spot an intruder." -- you're assuming dual-natured critters count as astral for the purpose of triggering this astral patrol? That could make sense. Then the Watcher spirit wakes up the wagemage who projects to the appropriate checkpoint and he looks at the aura with a moderate assensing check, and that could detect the infected with some kind of accuracy.

I gotta standardize my security patrol / checkpoint tech some day.

Posted by: hermit Jul 11 2010, 10:04 PM

And takes an elemental with him, since he is not stupid. Those cameleon thingies or any critter with magicsense could do to trigger the alarm - position them close to the entrance, put some glowmoss or leeches thwere so that it'S detected if someone manabolts the critters, and have a cam with an agent in it running an animal analyse proggie monitor the critters. If the animals react oddly, the wage mage comes.

Alternatively, a watcher positioned at an entrance could be instructed to yell bloody murder if an awakened moves past a specific checkpoint, without being given some astrally active token, but that'S an easier to break system IMO.

Posted by: Nifft Jul 11 2010, 10:14 PM

The thing that you have to take into consideration, though, are the large number of false positives you're going to see with any non-sentient detection system.

A mage walking through a checkpoint with an active Focus isn't necessarily breaking any rules. Same deal for a dude with a dual-natured paracritter pet. You might want to keep an eye on him, but then, you might want to keep an eye on a troll in a trench coat, too.

Posted by: hermit Jul 11 2010, 10:23 PM

Depends. There are not THAT many awakened things roaming about.


Depends on the installation. If therer'S a ward, neither the active focus nor the critter pet will go though easily. If it's a secure site, odds are they're not allowed there, either. You really cannot generalise there; of course an open-access placelike a mall or something is very different from a Zero Zone.

Posted by: Glyph Jul 11 2010, 10:48 PM

If you are trying to make a ghoul whose nature is a dark secret, they have plenty of options to hide their nature, many of which have already been touched upon:

Infertile Infected (which gives you BP) means you don't have to worry about turning other people into ghouls.

A severe biosculpting modification will make the ghoul look like a normal metahuman.

The clean metabolism bioware will get rid of those annoying odors.

Cybereyes give you normal (or more likely, improved) vision again.

Note that for a mundane ghoul, getting any 'ware will cause them to lose their starting point of Magic, which means they will lose their dual nature (which is more of a hindrance than a boon to a mundane character). So no more worrying about wards, or about an astral mage hovering 20 feet above you peppering you with manabolts. Assensing can still detect your infected status, but it is a higher Threshold than simply noticing that someone is dual-natured.

Finally, deltaware digestive expansion will let the ghoul eat more normal food without suffering nausea, although you would need a Type O system to begin play with this. I'm not quite sure how I would handle Ogre Stomach. It duplicates digestive expansion, but does it duplicate deltaware digestive expansion?

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 11 2010, 10:51 PM

Gastric Neruostimulator. Makes a character immune to nausea and the disorientation caused by nausea. The ghoul can then eat cooked veggies, and not suffer the secondary effects of being hit with a shock weapon.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 12 2010, 12:31 AM

If he has a contact/relative/team mate called Mork you win.

Though they should really be identical twins and even they should have issues knowing who's who.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2010, 12:37 AM

Using Severe Biosculpting, anyone can be twins.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 12 2010, 12:42 AM

I just went with Ghoul ORK. I guess Magician ORK could be his brother. Sadly, I didn't intend the pop-culture reference; that would have been more creative.

Posted by: Mordinvan Jul 12 2010, 12:54 AM

Paracritters, if duel natured are a better bet, as once trained they mostly just cost you food, which is far cheaper then the conveyor belt of binding materials you'd need for spirit guarded checkpoints.

Posted by: Deadmannumberone Jul 12 2010, 01:28 AM

500¥ for the materials to bind a force 1 spirit, which a good mage with a binding focus should be able to get 6 or so services.

Posted by: Snow_Fox Jul 13 2010, 12:19 AM

We had a player once roll up a ghoul who was a Jahovah's Witness Amway salesman. We got the bounty on him before the first run.

Posted by: Caadium Jul 13 2010, 12:21 AM

But how would you have responded if he only ate those people that came door-to-door?

Posted by: Snow_Fox Jul 13 2010, 12:47 AM

He was one of those people going door to door!

Posted by: MortVent Jul 13 2010, 02:22 AM

telemarketers that are ghouls...

talk about bad day if you trace the call down and hit the joint...

Posted by: Dumori Jul 13 2010, 02:28 AM

I'd hardly call the Orc/k "god(s)" from Warhammer pop culture.

More info.
http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Gork_and_Mork
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Gork_and_Mork

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 02:36 AM

I wouldn't call them culture.

Posted by: Mordinvan Jul 13 2010, 03:40 AM

and has 2 dice to 'observe' with, meaning just about anything could sneak past it, especially a duel natured creature who could see it.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 03:53 AM

Well, it depends on what Obvious means, if it's actively watching, etc. There's a whole pile of Astral perception mods, we were discussing it in a thread last month.

Posted by: Mordinvan Jul 13 2010, 04:17 AM

Yes I know. By RAW its possible to stealth down a perfectly straight corridor lined with pressure sensors, motion detectors, camera's of every available spectrum of light, wide band radar sensors, and filled with all sorts of spirits looking for astral signatures, auras or anything else which shouldn't be there.
Common sense on the other hand says such things are likely impossible.
I'm more of a common sense sort of person.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 04:21 AM

'Common sense' says that a dual-natured person can't just walk past a spirit whose job is to notice if people are dual-natured, either. It's not like it has to detect deltaware, just an Infected, dual-natured aura. *shrug*

Posted by: Mordinvan Jul 13 2010, 04:26 AM

Ya but if you can see it, its often possible to work out its field of view, and avoid it. Also moving in with a large crowd of people at one can obscure your aura, as well as any access to masking, or mental manipulation spells so it ignores you.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 12:34 PM

Certainly there are things you can do, but it's hardly a non-issue.

Posted by: Mordinvan Jul 13 2010, 12:50 PM

didn't say non-issue, just said 'possible'

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 12:56 PM

Ha, you said 'just about anything could sneak past it'. I apologize for getting the wrong impression.

Posted by: Mordinvan Jul 13 2010, 12:58 PM

by RAW if you have more then 6 dice in your stealth pool you're virtually guaranteed to be able to. Hence the latter comment about preferring common sense to RAW much of the time.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 01:13 PM

Again, unless you take into account the situational modifiers. Not to mention the Stealth-on-Astral rules.

Posted by: Mordinvan Jul 13 2010, 02:39 PM

+2 for always looking, and the stealth on astral rules are nothing special.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 07:47 PM

Yes, they are. I.e., it barely functions, especially if we're talking about a checkpoint (and I thought we were?). My point is that it all depends: a busy jungle path is very different from an empty facility.