Time to go back to Virus Taxonomy Online for some research.

Look, it's all fine and dandy for HMHVV to be a species, a genus, a family, or an arbitrary set having no taxonomical correspndance. However, since it is a completely arbitrary group, that group has completely arbitrary definitions. And the definitions accepted by the scientific community are at the very least:

• It infects humans and/or metahumans.
  
• It causes vampirism.
  
• It is a virus.

If it infects subjects who are not part of that defined clade, it's not part of that clade. If it doesn't cause vampirism, it's not part of that clade. If it's not a virus, it's not part of that clade.

It's that simple. Testamonial that an infection that causes ghoul transformation is part of that clade is false a priori because it doesn't cause vampirism. If there's no essence consumption, then whatever other similarities it does or does not have, it's not properly part of any clade called HMHVV.

Now, it could be part of the same family as HMHVV. It could be very closely related to HMHVV (but considering that one requires the killing of a new host in order to properly transfer and the other is spreadable by contact with bodily fluids I really doubt that), but it's not under the HMHVV umbrella. It can't be.

It's like when someone says "One of my shoe factories in Singapore is in Kalistan, it makes house paint." - he's lying. If it makes house paint in Kalistan, it's not a shoe factory in Singapore.

Irregardless is North American Colloquialism according to the OED. That means that if you're from North America, saying "Irregardless" is correct usage. "Virii" just makes you sound like a jackass.

-Frank

Just a little nit pick, Wendigo's are also part of the main HMHVV strain (I know, I know, just going off canon ATM), and they dont drink blood. They eat flesh, and get others too.

The difference (supposedly) is that they feed off of essence like a vamp when they do this, and the ghoul (so far at least) doesn't.

Where's the part where this is a nitpick? The Wendigo consumes essence, just like a vampire. It can pass that virus back to humans and turn them into vampires. Thus, the virus affects humans and metahumans and causes "vampirism" in both. I fail to see how that's even weird.

-Frank

I was going to point that out as well. Which was why I said it was a nit pick. Not arguing against you, just interested in seeing where this is going acutally.

Good clarification, thanks.

People of DS, don't read the words of the blasphemous Frank!

We (DBC) will deal with him accordingly very soon.

Tanks for your attention, now back to topic.

Is that Drop Bear speak?

Damn!

Well, would a tank get your attention?

Kinda wonder if there isn't some sort of "Clone Liberation Front" that goes afetr medical facilities, intending to set the clones free to have a life.

"Fre, FREE I tell you!"

Of course, they're pretty much braindead bodies, so, they'd have to be tricky.

Hrm.

Load a bunch in a truck, go see Dr Smith, and start popping in Skillwires and Skillsofts?

"There. You can walk, talk, eat, and learn. You're effectively an eight year old. Now, go into the woods. Freedom!"

Hrm.

Also thoughts of Skillwires and Personafixes.

And now just TERRIBLE things start in my head for runs.

"Go here, pull out the body in 14-Z-9, keep it in a truck, and bring it here."

"Why?"

"Because that's teh replacement body for my ex-boss. I'm going to bring him here, dress him as a maid, and make him be my manservant for the next decade or so."

"..."

"What?"

Heh. Y'all are operating on a fairly narrow definition of vampirism.

Because I'm excluding tools that have been left in the rain and become dangerous?

The defintion I'm operating on is "harmfully draws magical sustenance from living creatures". That's pretty fucking generous.

-Frank

"1) A condition which grants the Energy Drain power"

I love this definition. I summon a free spirit with Energy Drain and make it inhabit my toaster. I have a Vampiric Toaster!! Muhahaha.


2) A condition which grants any of the associated traits, behaviors, appearence, and/or appetites of a given culture's analogue to the vampire archetype

Beware the dreaded Chupacabra!

Not to fling poo or anything, but part of why ghouls are scary in my games (and in my readings of the fiction) is because not all of them just sit around happily waiting for something to die next to them.

Yeah, the intelligent ones want to be "accepted" and all that jazz, and Dunkie left money to them, and blah blah blah. However, it's also a given fact that not nearly all ghouls are intelligent.

They will and do actively hunt living people, kill them, and eat them. (In some areas, etc etc)

That's pretty parasitic, in my book, and to the populace at large it places them right up there with vampires. And when you add in the rules for passing on being a ghoul, it's ever worse. (I know not everyone likes those rules, but I do so I use them.)

My vampiric toaster just wants to be loved. Love the toaster.

Ok that's it i'm going to bed.

Do you have more detail in this version? That sounds intresting.

Agreed. That take on ghouls is far superior, IMO. Scary, not "just another metatype that's misunderstood".

The "just another metatype" is what happens when the game designers decide to not only codify some lamer's desire to be able to play a half-kobold-half-ankheg-dragon-blooded-hyena-baboon cleric, but to also make that "normal" in the story material.

Don't forget to add 'Chaotic Good' into that mix.

Spunky, energetic, excitable, rebellious, but really good natured when it comes down to it: The ever original 'Chaotic Good'.

Here's the original writeup, with annotations:

Note: scientific name does not begin with "homo". Now granted that the zoological greek here is really bad, but the removal of "homo" from the species identifier means that it can't interbreed with other human types such as orks or elves.

I know, you're thinking "nothing weighs kilograms! It's a unit of mass!" Whatever, you know what they meant. To put that in perspective, the average human in relatively good nutrition and health stands 1.7 meters tall and masses 70 kilograms. So the transformation into a ghoul makes you about 10% denser.

This is a similar coloration change as happens to people who are dangerously hypoxic, and was probably the source material here (ghouls look like they are dying).

Human females also have two mammae, but humans have 32 teeth. The transformation into a Ghoul causes your Wisdom Teeth to drop out and not get replaced when the new jagged teeth come in.

Did it say "preference? Hell yes it did! It's not a dietary requirement, it's just something they like to do.

That means that it's dual natured, by the way. That's how the old writeups talked about that issue (which meant that many people didn't notice that one or more critters was dual.

Remember how it had a preference for human meat? They can live off any dead animals they want, but nonetheless attempt to get most of their sustenance from people. That's pretty gross.

So while it's not capable of interbreeding with humans, they can mate with each other and produce offspring just like normal humans when they do so.

That pretty much settles the original question "can ghouls talk?" by the way. Yes they can.

Note: not all ghouls are actually blind. There are some that can see poorly in addition to the ones that can't see at all. Of course, they can all astrally perceive.

-Frank

To put it into perspective from those who can't conver to the metric system.

1.7 meters... that's about 5' 6.8", basically almost 5'7.
70 kg is about 187 lb while 78 kg is 208 lb. (using the troy standard for the lb)

Whoa there.

While 1.7 meters is 5'7", your poundage is way off. A pound is .4536 kilograms, so 78 kilograms is 172 pounds. I have honestly no idea what pound standard you are using.

-Frank

So do gangers and dogs and devil rats, but that doesn't mean they can all be classed as vampires.

Agreed. My statement wasn't directed at that topic, I just seconded eidolon who portrayed the way he uses ghouls in his campaigns.

ghouls don't shamble. in fact, for untrained humans, they are quite fast (strength 6).

give them some combat drugs and they'll be really moving

of course, this is all quite irrelevant IMO....

when a combat trooper with body 4, vehicle armor at 9, movement speeds of up to 120m per combat turn (with no tests required) can cost 10,000 retail fully equipped, and doesn't ever require a salary. and parts of the cost are completely recoverable. with 8 dice to attack and 6 to defend...

(for your reference:)

(steel lynx - 5000, Ingram White Knight 2000, smartgun system 400, Smart Firing Platform 2000, camera with smartlink 600 = 10,000 which is a fairly respectable drone)

oh yeah, and it has 3 IPs as well. i mean, honestly, the regular soldier better be able to throw more than 6 dice from skill + attribute if he wants to stay competitive with one guy who can control multiple drones (per the rules, unlimited, but i assume further software is required to keep the drones working in groups beyond a certain size).

further costs would exist, but if your hacker can hack an encrypt program and copy it a million times, so can the military... and over the cost of, say, even 200 drones, you're basically looking at insignificant costs.

if you consider the cost of training a regular soldier + paying them when you're not at war, not to mention feeding them, pensions, etc, plus the fact that drones don't disobey orders... i would suspect drones are probably used in situations where modern regular soldiers would be. certainly, there would be living metahumans as well... but they would not be regular soldiers. they would need to throw at least a couple dice more than the drones on offense, and would need at least 2 IPs imo to even be useful... so, i can certainly see why no one has bothered to make ghoul armies. (not to mention the fact that people will object to kidnapping and infecting people, then slapping a P-fix chip into them... i mean, corps are willing to use deniable assets to pretend like they're angels, i don't think they're gonna be willing to risk getting caught kidnapping and infecting even SINless people, when it's so cheap to just get yourself some basic combat drones... )

i dunno about that. with a sattelite link (only another 500 onto both ends) and ECCM 3, you're looking at effective signal 11 from an unmodified drone. so, looking over at the jammer table, you get a maximum jammer rating of 10 - which *cannot* effect the drone any more. on the drone i presented, this adds an additional 500 + 1500/x where x is the number of drones you have (the cost of buying the ECCM 3 once, then sharing it amongst all the drones).

so, you're looking at 10,500 per drone now... not a significant difference. to be honest, we could probably bump it up a lot higher in cost before we have to worry about cost compared to an actual person.

i mean, to be fair, it is more than likely imo that military drones have pilot ratings of at least 4 (and naturally therefore a response of 4, and rating 4 autosofts).

this would bump the cost of my proposed drone up quite a bit... specifically, you'd have to buy 2 rating 4 response chips per drone. and of course, 1 rating 4 pilot, a few rating 4 autosofts, and while we're at it, a rating 4 ECCM. so, here's the new, more likely military proposal (though the original 10,000 drone with a 500 satellite link still remains viable in a pinch)

steel lynx 5000, ares alpha (more versatile) 1700, airburst link 500, gas vent II 200, smart firing platform 2000, imaging scope 300, with image link 25, smartlink 500, thermographic 100, low-light 100, flare comp 50, vision magnification 50, ultrasound 1000, sensor package including camera 100, with vision enhancement 3 300, flare comp 50, ultrasound 1000, low light 100, thermographic 100, microphone 50 with audio enhancement 3 600, radio signal scanner 6 150, motion sensor 50, MAD scanner (mine detector) 3 225, response chip 4 x 2 4000, sattellite link 500 = 18,750

admittedly, at this point we're looking at getting a little more expensive, but then again a good chunk of this stuff you were gonna have to buy for the soldier anyways... oh, and let's not forget the cost of programs:

Pilot 4 6000, targetting automatics 4 2000, targetting heavy 4 2000, clearsight 4 2000, defense 2000, maneuver groundcraft 4 2000, ECCM 4 4000 = 20000/x, where x equals the number of drones you have.

though, again, if you're on a budget, it's definitely much better to just use the first build. these ones just so happen to be slightly above what the average human with professional skill level is capable of is all.

(i suppose you would also have to add some more security gear to the drones... you might even want to bump the response chips, pilots, and ECCM to 5, and add in an analyse program for tougher defense, in addition to a physical passkey + biometric data required).

and like i said, you aren't going to totally replace humans... you're going to replace regular soldiers. you're still gonna have humans coming along with them (i would expect for each group of drones, you're probably gonna have one drone commander/communications officer with a maxed out commlink, and quite possibly multiple types of drones; at least one would be an observation drone, quite possibly some air support. would probably also be the driver, if applicable, for a large vehicle (probably military hovercraft imo) to act as mobile command center/repair area/transport for the groundcraft. possibly also in charge of some specialised drones as well, depending on mission. one mechanic (though they all might have some minimal skills). one actual officer of some kind. one medic. and one or two special forces (it's hard to sneak a drone anywhere when it's broadcasting in a ridiculously huge radius, after all). of course, not having any military experience, i could certainly be missing some rather important things, but that's a rough guess.

of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that the setting currently reflects this setup... but it really should probably replace regular soldiers with drones, just because drones are relatively cheap in the long run. i mean, to get even one soldier to the point where he's as effective as these drones, you're looking at wired 2 plus a bunch of training... plus the gun and most of the sensors. the cost of housing, feeding, training, and so forth of the soldier all adds up real quick...