The world-wide death rate is an average; some places got hit a lot harder than others. Densely populated areas like many African nations, with relatively inferior health care facilities, would have had a much harder time of it than, for instance, most of North America. India was another area that really took it in the ass, I imagine. I don't have the numbers for population of the African continent at hand at the moment, nor do I really have the time right now to look them up, but a 75% kill rate for VITAS 1 in Africa seems plausible (though I think the number's a bit high, personally; I'd have to do some research).

Only problem of having such high lethality is it tends to burn out very quickly, which stops the spread of the disease in its tracks.

To which disease are you referring? HMHVV just creates *more* active, willing vectors, while the VITAS 'death rate' is the rate of deaths per total population, not the *chance* of death for a given person.

When did you go through High School? 'Cause by the time I got there people had known that the Black Death started in Asia and was brought over on the Silk Road.

I don't think he's accusing them of being 'evil' as opposed to simply being outrageously dangerous. I personally would never accuse all ghouls of being 'evil' but I would hunt them and the virus they carry to extinction simply do to the danger they pose to everyone else.

Problem is, I can take drugs and keep aids at bay for my entire natural lifetime. If I take them in the first hours of the infection, there's an excellent chance I'll never develop the disease. This is 'slightly' different.

And people with HIV generally don't (and aren't biologically driven to) attack and cause Injection-worthy wounds everywhere; this is in addition to the above-mentioned super-virulence.

Oh? You might as well be calling them evil in that case. The effects of such a crusade are the same. Not all ghouls are feral monsters; in fact, like I said, there are amazingly enough some ghouls who still try to be decent people, or at least not super-ruthless and overly antagonistic murderers. That means some ghouls try to make better lives for themselves, work in groups to carve out a niche and home isolated from the rest of humanity a la Ghoul Liberation League, and perhaps try to limit their diet to already-dead bodies so as not to kill unnecessarily. It's not like every ghoul in existence wakes up every morning and thinks to him/herself, "Hmm, I wonder how many poor metahuman chaps I can attack and spread my disease to today."

There's also the fact that 1) In order to be turned, you have to escape or otherwise avoid being eaten by the ghoul who infected you, who presumably attacked you in the first place because he wanted to eat you, and 2) Ghoul dietary requirements make them fairly important in metahumanity's fight against the Shedim, who are actually evil. A shedim can't possess a corpse if that corpse has been eaten by a ghoul. So I'm inclined to cut them a little slack and avoid going on crusades against all ghoulkind.

I place no 'moral' judgments on them for being infected. I simply state they are too dangerous to live.


and? They all possess the ability to spread a virtually unstoppable disease which has a near 100% chance of turning its victims into highly contagious cannibals. All it takes is one asshole to get surgery and look human, and spit on every water fountain they can find to cause a city wide epidemic. You can't leave this disease at home, and an act a simple as drinking from a water fountain can spread it and inflict untold suffering on others. I don't have to hate them, I don't have to think they are bad people, I wouldn't call them monsters or heretics. But I would treat them the same way I would treat anyone with a disease that dangerous. A swift death, and burn the body.


This assumes the ghoul is feral, and did not administer his bodily fluids using some combination of cunning and/or carelessness.


I'd be more inclined to simply mandate the cremation of all corpses. Fire is far less contagious.

1999-2001. Also, I don't think brazilian history books, specially for high school, have that much attention to detail.

About when I was in HS, but I was in the US.

That is an unrealistic hypothetical situation. Something like that would result in a systematic crackdown on ghouls across the city in question, so the intelligent ghouls themselves would take steps to make sure nothing like that ever happened. They'd probably also take a few steps to insure that most of their victims do not escape to become Infected, because the result would be the same as if a rogue ghoul spit in water fountains (assuming that the disease can be spread through saliva).

Because no terrorist organization ever in the history of human kind has ever done anything close to this in order to make a political point. Oh, no, wait, yes they do, all the time. Plenty of groups are willing to do things which will cause a massive reprisal against them if they think they can either a) win the resulting PR war, or b) simply do enough damage to make the crackdown worth while.


Why do you think I'm talking about the ones that go out of their way to eat people? I'm talking about all first generation ghouls, period, full stop. Any which are capable of being infectious are simply too danger to be permitted to exist. Looking at the definition of 'bodily fluids' saliva certainly qualifies, so until told otherwise, I'll assume it will cause infection, as that is all ebola needs too.

Neither are Ghouls. Even the feral ones are simply carrion eaters.

And even if ghoul saliva is infectious and survives the stomach (which is not exactly the most life-friendly environment), a drop of spit into a well won't do anything...Dosis sola venenum facit

Sengir, they're not 'simply carrion eaters'. They're dangerous melee combatants that need to eat flesh. That's the distinction I was making against HIV. Sorry if the slight hyperbole was confusing.

Dead flesh, and not neccessarily fresh one. BBB explicitly talks about necrotic tissue being part of their diet. Ghouls in popular culture have always been depicted as graveyard scavengers, and the original Shadowrun writers obviously adapted this image. Sure a ghoul might snatch a physically inferior victim from time to time, that's what all scavengers do.

In fact, feral ghouls should be the less dangerous ones - animals are shy and opportunistic, as long as they are not starving they won't attack people. A sapient ghoul on the other hand might decide he likes his humans ikizukuri style, or simply enjoy himself in the role of the fearsome predator.

Ok, so what is the exact 'dose' of ghoul blood/spit ect, required? The game seems pretty nonspecific, and I have every reason based on how hard it is to resist, that even a single virion would be enough. Lets even assume you're right for a second. Lets say the ghoul filters a liter of his blood plasma out, puts it in a hip flask, and takes a swig of it so it can spit it on the fountains it comes across, happy now?

Sengir, that doesn't make them any less 'dangerous melee combatants that need to eat flesh'… as opposed to HIV patients.

And not just flesh, but the flesh of sentient beings.

Ghouls are too dangerous to let live.

And remember, turning into a ghoul is actually a rare percentage chance from the disease. In most cases, Death is the most common outcome of catching HMHVV

That doesn't sound correct.

HMHVV I (Vampire, etc.) kills you if you 'beat' the disease (13 hits with a -6 Penetration).

HMHVV III (Ghoul) only kills you if you're below Essence 1 to start.

HMHVV II (Loup-garou, etc.) only kills you if you're below Essence 1 to start.

Right?

Then the Sixth World would look like the world of that weird novel I once read, were the whole world is inhabited by werewolves (they didn't take over, it has always been like that), and only a few freaks suffer from "amorphism" due to a birth defect.

@Yerameyahu: No, but it means they have little reason to attack people. Probably not more than the average person in a cyberpunk dystopia has.

… Which is still way more than someone with HIV.

...but not due to their infection. HMHVV does not drive ghouls to attack people, only to desecrate graves.

HMHVVI: Once infected the character has very little chance to escape the disease:
If they somehow manage to reduce it's Power to 0 then the character simply dies. A character may burn a point of Edge to guarantee death, or to fail and become one of the infected.

HMHVVII: You only die if it brings you to <0 Essence
HMHVVIII: Same as II

No, Sengir, that can't be right. Unless the graves are shallow and not sealed in any way, I guess? Vultures and jackals don't 'desecrate graves', per se.

In any case, my point was referring to the claws and boosted physical stats, combined with reduced mental stats. Let's begin again:

HIV does not in any way make infected people more dangerous, and they die of it. HMHVV in several ways makes ghouls more dangerous, and they don't die of it.

--
sabs, that's… exactly what I just said. Except mine was prettier. Either way, it completely contradicts your earlier statement. Death is the *least* common outcome of HMHVV, by far.

Yes, you're right. I was thinking it was more deadly, and less "Undead Ho!"

Sengir, it occurred to me that you might not have read this: "Countless more have died at the hands of the victims of the disease, which turns even the gentlest of souls into ruthless, predatory killers."

Right, you see this is the problem, the crunch they've given HMVV3 makes it impossible for ghouls and non infected to co-habitat in the same city without the ghouls infecting the entire populace, ergo, the only rational course of action is to wipe them out, so humanity doesn't go extinct.

I feel compelled to point out that Dr. McAllister is somewhat biased. Not that he's wrong here, but remember that he is biased. A lot.

Go read it up. Ghouls inhabit graveyards and eat dead flesh. So regardless of how dangerous their increased strength could become in theory, in practice they don't normally come near humans and if they should have contact will probably run away. Either because they are smart enough to know that humans = trouble, or because they are feral enough to act like skittish animals.

Well, that simply makes even less sense.

Depends.

My 12 year old daughter and I came around a cliff face in the back woods, and came face-to-face with a moose. It may be food to humans, but we were the ones who backed off... carefully. Had there been ten of me instead, now....

Nothing says that if food supplies are scarce, ghouls won't kill things to eat them, though. Scavengers often turn to killing when food supplies are scarce.

At least it isn't D&D 3.5's Ithilids, who need to consume 1 sentient brain a day in order to survive.

"Sorry about the raid on your village, but we kinda need food for Tuesday..."

Then there would have been pieces of 10 of you scattered around the woods. Bull moose have been known to take logging trucks on. And while the moose doesn't exactly walk away from that confrontation, the truck isn't in any shape to leave either.

I won't argue with that. It was, however, a smallish cow. nevertheless, it scared me.

EDIT: And it showed up that night, wading into the lake by our tent and munching on water plants for a couple of hours. Cool, amazing... and it took us a long time to get to sleep.

Heh, yeah, it can be unnerving having one that close (a cow in particular, because you're always going to be wondering if it has young nearby, and if you are between it and its young). Fantastic animals to watch though. It's just best to watch them from a safe distance (if you have the choice), and try not to give them any reason to consider you a threat. I think a great many people don't realize that most wild animals, even ones as docile in appearance (and diet) as a moose or a deer, are easily capable of and willing to kill a human being. Sure, the critter will probably run away, but it could just as easily decide to attack you, for any number of reasons.

I meant that having their primary food source as digging up and breaking open coffins was silly.

Well, humans aren't exactly above that, either

And another thing humans humans definitely did not shy from was grave robbing. Not just for valuables placed in the coffin, but also for the body itself, which was used for all sorts of folk remedies...and where do you think did the traditional skull on a doctor's desk come from?

I agree with that. Embalming fluid is likely to be low on comestibility, even for a ghoul...