Full Version: Ghoul info
Does anyone know if it's been quoted in any SR fluff pertaining to ghouls the rough percentage of ghouls that lose cognitive ability and go feral? As opposed to those who retain their intelligence?
Since we're asking ghoulish questions, I'd like to know what percentage of their diet needs to consist of metahuman flesh? I'm sure it's been mentioned someplace, but I can't put my hands on my old rulebooks easily.
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| QUOTE (Mal-2) |
| Since we're asking ghoulish questions, I'd like to know what percentage of their diet needs to consist of metahuman flesh? I'm sure it's been mentioned someplace, but I can't put my hands on my old rulebooks easily. |
it's not a percentage. it's a certain amount of human flesh required over a certain amount of time (a pound a week, maybe? something like that, anyways... )
| QUOTE (Jaid @ Dec 1 2006, 01:17 PM) | ||
it's not a percentage. it's a certain amount of human flesh required over a certain amount of time (a pound a week, maybe? something like that, anyways... ) |
Actually, it was a percentage of body weight per week, I believe 2%, in the 3rd edition SR Companion. This comes to something like 2-3 pounds a week for a typical ghoul (skinny as they are usually portrayed). Not sure how accurate this is. My book isn't with me, but I remember it being very low.
This is uncooked metahuman flesh. The rest of their diet (how that compared to a non-infected diet, I don't know) could be other raw animal flesh.
When I get the book in front of me, I could tell you the percentages of infection effects based on dice rolls, but I don't think that reflects actual odds, only PC odds.
Dread Polack
It's 1% of Body Mass per week per ghoul acording to p. 32 of the Shadowrun Companion. Of course, those rules make me very angry, but for the moment let's go with it.
Each ghoul is slightly more massive than their human counterparts - massing at 75 kg instead of 70 for a human. The metahuman average is of course substantially larger than that because Orks and Trolls are heavier t a larger degree than dwarfs and elves are lighter than the human norm. But I digress.
Anyway, so each ghoul has to eat about 750 grams of human tissue every week - that works out to eating a quarter pounder six days a week. Each dead human is about 20% bones, and gives out 56 kilograms of edible tissue when their body has been collected and distributed. That's the meals for 75 ghouls.
Assuming that you could cllect the corpses of one out of every three dead humans for agricultural use, and assuming that the average human kicks the bucket at age 70 (including accidental death here), you're looking at about one collected human corpse each week for every 11000 people. That's 2000 edible bodies a week in the greater New York area (more in wazones of course, but maybe collection rates will be lower).
Each corpse feeds 75, so the Greater New York Area could support one hundred and fifty thousand ghouls fairly easily without strife or vilence.
---
To put that is perspective, the population of Iraq happens to be about the same as the New York Metropolitan Area, and the number of US soldiers in Iraq happens to be about 150,000. So if the entire occupying army was composed of Ghouls, there'd be no problem keeping them fed even with no war on. And we've been assuming a totally half-assed corpse collection program!
The population of ghouls in New York is substantially less than the population of American Soldiers in Iraq, provisining ghouls just isn't even a problem logistically speaking.
-Frank
Each ghoul is slightly more massive than their human counterparts - massing at 75 kg instead of 70 for a human. The metahuman average is of course substantially larger than that because Orks and Trolls are heavier t a larger degree than dwarfs and elves are lighter than the human norm. But I digress.
Anyway, so each ghoul has to eat about 750 grams of human tissue every week - that works out to eating a quarter pounder six days a week. Each dead human is about 20% bones, and gives out 56 kilograms of edible tissue when their body has been collected and distributed. That's the meals for 75 ghouls.
Assuming that you could cllect the corpses of one out of every three dead humans for agricultural use, and assuming that the average human kicks the bucket at age 70 (including accidental death here), you're looking at about one collected human corpse each week for every 11000 people. That's 2000 edible bodies a week in the greater New York area (more in wazones of course, but maybe collection rates will be lower).
Each corpse feeds 75, so the Greater New York Area could support one hundred and fifty thousand ghouls fairly easily without strife or vilence.
---
To put that is perspective, the population of Iraq happens to be about the same as the New York Metropolitan Area, and the number of US soldiers in Iraq happens to be about 150,000. So if the entire occupying army was composed of Ghouls, there'd be no problem keeping them fed even with no war on. And we've been assuming a totally half-assed corpse collection program!
The population of ghouls in New York is substantially less than the population of American Soldiers in Iraq, provisining ghouls just isn't even a problem logistically speaking.
-Frank
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman) |
| The population of ghouls in New York is substantially less than the population of American Soldiers in Iraq, provisining ghouls just isn't even a problem logistically speaking. |
Perhaps the popular objection to feeding ghouls is not logistical in nature.
Eating corpses that died of old age? Stringy and tough. Ick!
Died of disease? Tainted! Too tangy.
Clearly what needs to happen: the ghouls need to breed humans fed a diet of organically raise soy products, keep them healthy and happy with not too much exercise (fat is tasty!) and daily massages until being made into viddles.
The real question: Would a kosher version of such a product be too cruel? (I think not! Ghoul Rights NOW!)
Died of disease? Tainted! Too tangy.
Clearly what needs to happen: the ghouls need to breed humans fed a diet of organically raise soy products, keep them healthy and happy with not too much exercise (fat is tasty!) and daily massages until being made into viddles.
The real question: Would a kosher version of such a product be too cruel? (I think not! Ghoul Rights NOW!)
Well, if you're looking for human veal, back in 2050 you could get a vat-grown human for less than 25,000 
in just 8 weeks. That means that if you really want to hold out for the tastiest, most deliciously unspoiled adolescent meat, you can - for less than 450 per kilogram.
The vat grown butcher bill for ghouls is a cool 1451 a month - stiff, but less than the difference between low lifestyle and medium lifestyle.
-Frank
in just 8 weeks. That means that if you really want to hold out for the tastiest, most deliciously unspoiled adolescent meat, you can - for less than 450 per kilogram.The vat grown butcher bill for ghouls is a cool 1451
a month - stiff, but less than the difference between low lifestyle and medium lifestyle.-Frank
don't forget to add in all the other food sources Frank... any time someone performs an amputation, for whatever reason, being one. (or many other kinds of surgery i would think)
any time someone uses part of a clone, for another.
just out of curiosity, though, did you include the weight of blood in the weight of bones?
any time someone uses part of a clone, for another.
just out of curiosity, though, did you include the weight of blood in the weight of bones?
| QUOTE |
| don't forget to add in all the other food sources Frank... any time someone performs an amputation, for whatever reason, being one. (or many other kinds of surgery i would think) any time someone uses part of a clone, for another. |
Oh heck yes. I estimate the world's ghoul carrying capacity to be about 89 million - comfortably larger than than the less than 7 million ghouls that actually live in it. And of course, dedicated infrastructure could increase that pretty much arbitrarily. I don't think we'd be unable to get by if every man, woman, and child on Earth was a Ghoul.
| QUOTE |
| just out of curiosity, though, did you include the weight of blood in the weight of bones? |
Absolutely. Ghouls aren't required to eat 1% of their body mass in meat, they are required to eat 1% of their "body weight" in "human flesh" each week. Now, flesh isn't a meaningful term. Of course, neither is weight.
I'm assuming that when they say "weight" they meant "mass" - and that ghouls can't avoid dietary requirements by suspending themselves in water or centrifuging themselves. Similarly, I'm assuming that they meant "tissue" when they said "flesh" and since blood is connective tissue just as fat is.
-Frank
| QUOTE (Jaid @ Dec 1 2006, 04:11 PM) |
| don't forget to add in all the other food sources Frank... any time someone performs an amputation, for whatever reason, being one. (or many other kinds of surgery i would think) any time someone uses part of a clone, for another. just out of curiosity, though, did you include the weight of blood in the weight of bones? |
There's a whole group dedicated to buying the left over parts from street docs after cyberlimbs are instailed. Just for ghouls.
When did the UCAS stop offering bounties for dead ghouls?
Sometime in the late 2050's, I think (around the time of 2nd edition?), when it was decided they were people with a horrible disease, rather than (just) ravening flesh-eating monsters caused by non-SURGE (re)goblinization. Just after the Bug City events, I believe, when the journals of that ghoul paramedic in the CZ hit the media.
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