Well, that must've changed since 2nd Ed. (the last ed. I was familiar with). Now I really wish I could remember where I read that comment about the vamp who visited the blood bank...

in some respects that's not TOO much different than what any other shadowrunner has to put up with...one of the themes of the game is that runners make deals with bad people so they can avoid the consequences of dealing with worse people. it's just that the infected have something a bit more wet and messy to deal with than most of the folks living in the shadows.

At least normal runners have some choice in who they make deals with. Sure, some of those people might be on the gray side of the law, but it's pretty much guaranteed those who are in the trade of providing live metahumans for Infected to feast on definitely have black, oily hearts. I doubt people who sell other people like a pet store owner sells mice to feed to pythons is not the type to go home and hug his baby girl.

ghouls don't have feed on live people, just metahuman flesh. vampires, on the other hand, they need live people to drain essence. Of course, tamanous isn't exactly saying where they're getting the ghoul chow either so if you do your shopping in their marketplace then you're probably helping to cover up a murder by eating the evidence.

The desire of law enforcement just adds to the flavor

Yeah ghouls usually make arrangements with shadow friendly hospitol morgues. Or, you know.. get good with a shovel.

My assassin has an 'arrangement' with a ghoul, for instance, at a good rate of pay I might add.

Eww.

Would embalmed corpses even taste good or provide any semblance of nutrition? I can't abide the smell of formaldehyde, let alone imagine what it TASTES like.

It tastes worse than it smells. I'd imagine there are some bum graves and 'super secret bury your murder victims here' graves that most people know about that wouldn't be embalmed. But your standard graveyard, yeah, that might not be that great of a place to get your meat. Doesn't it have to be at least semi-fresh?

nope, actually is says decaying flesh is what they really want iirc

yup - ghouls like their dinner to be a little past the due date, if ya knows what I mean.

so it's likely that a lot of criminal organizations would have connections to the tammies. After all, you never known when you might need to dispose of an incidental corpse or three. and if the evidence gets eaten, it can't come back to haunt you later. Tamanous strips it for parts, lets it season for a bit in the barrens somewhere, then chops it and sells it for ghoul chow.

Yup Although there are people besides Tamanous that the ghouls can make deals with. Heck there are even ghoul gangs and their source of (not)fresh bodies mentioned by name in at least one source book I can think of. (Corporate enclaves)

*sigh*... I'm going to make a very strong point here.

Muspy has it right. There's no flaws in his reading here.

RAW is pretty much strictly... zombie apocalypse. It's a perfect illustration of what's wrong w/ half the things the current crop of authors write. They're authors, they do interesting fluff, but they don't think through the game effects of half of what they write. (EG: they don't write good rules half the time, and they don't catch them in playtesting/proofing; since RC/unwired this has seemed to be a problem when the quality control dropped).


Now, if you don't like it change it. But be carefull about what you change. There is absolutely nothing wrong w/ contact as a vector. If you don't like it being contact, don't fudge your way around contact... change it to injection. Read the rules, injection == aids (you come in contact w/ it and it gets in through a break in the skin, such as caused by ghoul claws/bites or some other injury).

On the disease rules, the only problem I see with them is that someone forgot that people use dice in this game... okay it's power 8. Automatic 8 successes to increase power after body reduces is where the problem w/ ALL diseases lie. If it was an opposed test I roll body, disease rolls power... increase/decrease power by net hits... rinse and repeat next day is simple and works.

As far as ghouls/infected... they're monsters for a reason. I see lots of attempts to make them 'not' monsters which make little to no sense.

The horror of what you become, what you have to do to survive, what you -will- do to survive, and who you become, is part of the appeal.

A recurring theme in transhumanist fiction is the definition of humanity. If we change form and function, do we change the essential definition of what it means to be 'human'? In that respect, playing one of the infected makes a certain kind of sense. victims of circumstance, forced to consume human flesh in order to survive - do they become the monsters everyone expects them to be, or do they try to find a way to rise above their condition? can they come to terms with the disease without losing what it means to be 'human'?

monsters we are lest monsters we become.

not only that, but a lot of the street docs might want a local ghoul pack on call just to dispose of the odd body that comes out of an unsuccessful run.

there was mention of one of the street ddcs working on/around glow city who has started to tag patients with RFID. when something finally kills them, he can follow the signal, retrieve the body and sell it as ghoul chow.

At which point go play Vampire... the original point of vampire was to regain your humanity way back when.

But then some folks thought, why would I want to be lunch when I can be an even more powerfull vamp. Or in other words... coming to terms w/ your new pariah monster status.


The point still stands... if you insist on playing a ghoul... you are a monster. You are a threat to society at large. There are bounties on you for good reason. Don't expect much sympathy or anything to be easy. Especially don't expect other non-infected runners to want to socialize or work with you.

What are other players supposed to think... why don't I just cap this thing and collect the bounty? Do I want to become one of these things also?

[plug]My SR Zombie Game[/plug]

Go Zombie Apocalypse.

'Yo Igor, job opportunity - go gnaw on that corpsec guard while I finish hacking this node!'

This is probably a stupid question, but for the Infection power, if a character is reduced to 0 essence and then makes at least 1 net Body + Willpower hits against the Infected's Magic + Charisma, then that character dies, right? Death seems kinda like a raw deal for winning the test.

I'm also assuming that, per the RC rules, your GM could allow you to continue playing your character as an Infected (rather than relegating the character to NPC status). So if your character got turned mid-campaign, given the inherent challenges with being an essence-ovore, would you want to continue playing as a member of the Infected?

Yes. I've played ghouls twice. The first time was back in SR3. I played a full mage. Physical Mask spell so I could go out in public. I don't recall any teammates having an issue with me being a ghoul, so we must not have done much roleplaying with that aspect.

The second time was last year. I must say that the contact vector coupled with the high power is stupid. House rule that away. This character (handed to me by the GM) was an adept. I was a melee monster, with all the attribute points granted by the infection. There were a couple of characters that I had fun interactions with. We were a shadowrunning team, fully owned by a benefactor who provided me with my food. It was a short-lived campaign, but I'm sure the character would have been viable over the long haul.

infection is a curse, remember? you really aren't supposed to want to come back from death. especially as a soul sucking, blood drinking horror of the night.

One thing that the rules all take great pains to point out is that essence does not regenerate. you drain a little bit of someone's soul and it doesn't come back. well for most people anyway. that's the sort of thing that really has to hit home to anyone playing a vampire. ESPECIALLY if they're a mage. they can see that they're polluting astral space when they feed. even if it's only a little bit at a time, they're doing something fundamentally wrong and they know it.

but that's the price of power and immortality.

So, how exactly does a wendigo infect somebody with HMHVV? If it got its victim down to 0 Essence, the victim likely doesn't have any body parts left because the wendigo ate them all already.

I'm just picturing an Infected metatype with no arms and legs, being wheeled around on a cart, acting all fierce and such.

But why play a vampire when you can play something thats much more horrifying, no neat tidy blood letting. You are consuming decayed metahuman flesh, and its not like you have he draw of power and influence that a vampire has.. no -character- would want to be a ghoul, but the player might. ..Plus theres that risk of going completely insane, not all ghouls survive the fever with their minds intact.

as for what the other teammates would think?
..well my assassin is in love with a ghoul doctor who was infected in his line of work. He struggles with what he is... and she pretty much only takes the wetwork jobs to make sure the silly slotter doesn't starve to death. And they're both rather upset that neither one of them is having troubles keeping their lunch over the whole business anymore. They pretty much keep each other sane, and more human than they would be otherwise. ...and hes asked her to put a bullet through him if he ever goes off the deep end.

Doesnt mean you cant have a little fun until your ride on the "immortality train" is over. After awhile, most of the ageless creatures are going to get freaking bored and off themselves. It takes a certain kind of personality to live through eons.

And this is different from being a shadowrunner how? Ghouls just have a different preference of the loot they take home from shadowruns.

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
Frederich Neitzsche
Beyond Good and Evil
Aphorism 146

If you look into the abyss long enough, you will become the abyss. No ghoul, no matter how good of a person they may have started out, can remain good indefinately. They all eventually succumb to the abyss. You can only eat people for so long before you become a cannibal at heart.

Ah, that's why you make sure that the abyss blinks first. When you gaze into the abyss long enough, it will blink. The weak succumb to the abyss, the strong makes the abyss avoid their gaze.

Ok first off to the OP: I have both run for and played ghoul characters. I have found they had no problems in previous editions froma power level standpoint in fact they were a little on the weak side. In fourth edition as long as your not being too silly with the contact vector I don't forsee a problem. It is in fact the most glaring issue with ghoul characters. Vampires and Nosferatue are more tricky due to their increasing power level and the need of the team to work around their schedule.

Every ghoul I have ever played or ran for have been fairly low key. They've taken steps to hide their status and have generally observed their own ghoulish habits from anything from a character defining tragic addiction to an annoyance. Actually the biggest problem one of my ghouls had with his status was not only was he forced to consume metahuman flesh but he couldn't eat cooked meat period. Which even though his physiology could handle it, he found it disgusting.

Also one important thing to bear in mind, depending on the tribe and geography many cultures especially amongst native americans a high value is not placed on the disposition of remains. A body is just a body at some point. I can't see the sixth world, given that it is supposidly horribly loose on many other morals building it's entrenched moral perogative on canibalism. It can be a victimless affliction.

Technically, Ghouls could be used as Shedim-Prevention . .

Nosferatu have a schedule problem, Vampires don't really. They just need to put on some sun glasses and wear an armored longcoat and they should be more or less fine. They only have a light allergy. That's like... they sneeze fairly often in sunlight.

Hey, at least they don't sparkle.

Nah, that's the immoral elves . .

How uncreative you are. Get a bone marrow sample from a willing donar, and have them clone it and use it to produce blood using the med tech in augmentation. As for the essence requirement, eat clones. They have no sin, and so its not illegal.

First off, from what I understand, growing clones is EXPENSIVE, and the average ghoul character is not going to be extravagantly wealthy. Also, full clones don't grow very fast, which means you'd need a LOT of them to keep you fed on a regular basis.

If growing clones was a cheap, fast, and viable option for ghoul characters, then why doesn't Tamanous do that? Then they wouldn't have to cut open non-cloned people to sell organs on the black market.

Maybe it wouldn't be necessary to grow a FULL clone, maybe just the bits with more nutritional value. And it wouldn't have to be a perfect clone either, esp since ghouls like their dinner to be past the due date anyways. I wonder how difficult it would be to mass produce cloned organs, esp if they didn't exactly have to be completely functional....?



well...I don't think the tammies are interested in legitimate bio-tech startups. they fill a particular niche in the underground market and one not likely to crop up among the masses of office drones and SINers.

Wasn't thinking ghoul. Was thinking vampire. Ghouls can eat from hospital wastes.

Also SR4 has made it reasonably simple to fake money, which you can then launder, and turn into real money to pay for the clones. Or you can shell out for a facility and grow your own.

But there's still the issue of growth rate. I can't recall how fast you can grow a fully adult clone, but just so long as your conscience is fine with draining the life out of a toddler every once in a while...

And this makes me think of a slightly off-topic but valid question:

An unmodified adult human has an Essence of 6, but does a newborn start with 6 Essence the moment it emerges from the womb, or does it gain Essence points as it matures towards adulthood? I mean, I highly doubt a toddler can handle as much cyberware or provide as much drinkable blood as a grownup can.

A cybered toddler. That thought makes me cringe.

Sure it can. It's just limited by the size of the implants.

When in doubt, don't allow such characters as PCs.

I wasn't suggesting toddlers as PCs. It was more for the sake of argument of how "nutritious" a clone that's been grown to toddler age would be for a vampire.

I mean, if, say, a toddler had only 1 or 2 points of essence because it's not that big yet, is it worth farming clones to that age if all you're going to get is little more than a snack?

There is a glitch : Essence Drain only works on a SENTIENT being, so IMHO a mindless, blank clone fresh from the vat won't provide a vampire with what he need, and neither an adult brain-dead from an accident.

A more ethical possiblity would be Essence-draining voluntary subject, and use the restoration genetic therapy to "repair" what you've taken from them. But it is hideously expensive (275.000 per essence point).

Or you could just offer the dregs of the sixth world 1000 to let you drain some of their essence. The best part is that people who are drained become addicted, so they would come back to you and beg to be drained again. "Okay, I'll drain you again, but I don't really need it, so I'll only give you 500." "Yeah, sure, whatever man, just do it!"

There's also plenty of people who you could drain that nobody would care about - pimps, gang bangers, low level drug dealers, various and sundry cheap thugs. A vampire could decide to feed only on the 'dregs of society' and probably do quite well for itself. In fact, you could even say they were doing the local community a favor.

I'm not a horrible monster, I'm just societies equivalent of a garbage man. I take out the trash

Here comes the horrid truth: Batman is a vampire.

No matter how much you try and justify it, after all is said and done, no matter what justification, ghouls and vampires are still sick and twisted leeches on legs, eating and drinking the flesh and blood of (meta)humans.

Only if you grow it to adult hood.
A nine month old baby clone on the other hand would work just fine.

...and would probably qualify as a human being, making the legality of the whole process rather dubious.

Wimps for cloned transplants are grown without the higher brain structures IMHO not only because they are not necessary for their intended purpose, but also to allow their harvesting without possible legal complications.

I've done a ghoul in SR3 (character was infected during gameplay). The party already knew him, and he had some tools to hide his nature. Since he was an adept, it didn't suck nearly as much as it could have. He didn't last long, unfortunately, when a team member cast fireball nearby in a room coated with highly flammable paranormal monster goo, booby-trapped with napalm bombs, while the character carried half a dozen C-4 detonators and a few parcels of C-4. It was... a quick roll.


I've considered adding a mopey, emo vampire who chastely pursues high school girls, but haven't gotten around to it yet.