[✗] [Playable CA Lore] Ghasts, Eaters of Rot

[QliphothicCorvid 177]

                                                                                                                     Ghasts

                                                                                                                                      Eaters of Rot

 

                                                                                                               Origin

    Tainted, cruel, hungry, these all describe the traits of Ghasts. Ghasts are disgraceful and disgusting beings that feed on the flesh of corpses, men tainted by the twisting magick of Iblees, Ghasts will gorge themselves on rotten and fresh meat alike. This depraved act of consuming Descendent flesh grants them boons from their dark lord, only just making up for the curse that has been forced upon them. Minds warped by the ever lasting hunger, they develop sadistic behaviors.

 

    Descendant kind will starve, famine will take crops, disease and theives will take animals, poachers will take game, all of these add up to the sin that is cannibalism, the act of eating Descendant flesh. Iblees, the Betrayer, saw ample opportunity in twisting Descendant kind. Cursing them with the ever lasting hunger for Descendant flesh, causing populations to turn on each other, chaos, hate. The survivors of these attacks named the creatures Ghasts, after their ghastly actions and appearances. They thrive where rot and decay linger, overgrown graveyards, ancient crypts, and so on.

 

 

                                                                                                                     Appearance

   The Ghast's appearance is a macabre one, pale skin, taloned claws, red eyes, all of these betray the masquerade of normality that a Ghast may try to uphold. Many Ghasts are covered in old wounds, ones that their dead bodies have not healed due to their system being corrupted by dark energies. Their form is lean, ribs showing as their body diminishes from the lack of true nutrition, they have sharpened teeth with longer fangs, meant for tearing flesh, as well as a cat-like tongue, roughened to strip meant from bone. The whites of their eyes dim, and become slightly green in tone, reflecting the decaying nature of their body and mind.

 

                                                                                                           Mentality

   The Ghast's mind is too afflicted by the curse of Iblees, driving them to eating the flesh of Descendants. But most of it is natural, commiting such atrosities will leave one's mind scarred and traumatized. Many face things such as PTSD and depression as a result of their brain trying to deal with their wretched existence. They will often find themselves detached, as they distance themselves from their victims.

 

 

                                                                                                                        Creation

    The creation of a Ghast is a gruesome one, one must first consume an amount of flesh or blood from a Ghast with a TA, then they must slay and eat a whole Descendant's flesh and innards. After the deed is done, the consumer is born anew as a Ghast. If the Ghast is unwilling to turn the consumer, the flesh will instead give them an illness akin to medium food poisoning, non-lethal, but unpleasant. The consumer must eat the Descendant within the OOC day that they eat the Ghast's flesh, or they will suffer the poisoning effects and the turning will fail, thus needing to eat the flesh again. The person who consumes the Ghast flesh will have a nagging feeling in the back of their mind, telling them to eat the flesh of their own kind, to complete the turning, this feeling can be ignored, but it takes effort to do such.

 

 

  

                                                                                                                    The Hunger

    The hunger a Ghast experiences is not that of normal hunger, but is an everlasting one, one that cannot be sated. A Ghast will attempt to sate this hunger, all but the most savage feedings will fail in this endeavour. There are five stages to the hunger, Engorged, Stirring, Hungry, Ravenous, and Starved. 

 

- A Ghast that is Engorged looks human, the skin will gain a blush of life, and is hunger is supressed, but it is still felt. Eyes will gain their normal color, but it is dampened by several shades of grey, their fingers no longer bare the claws of their more bestial self, the teeth in this form are reflective of a normal Descendants, some flat, some sharp. To gain this form, one must consume five Descendants worth of fresh flesh, all within the same OOC day.

 

- A Ghast that is Stirring is pale, their claws are small, much like a cat's claws, although not retractable. The eyes are a dim shade of red, the teeth are somewhat sharp, although the canines are noticable. The hunger still chews at their mind, while in this stage the feeling can be repressed, it still takes considerable effort to do such. To reach Stirring, one must consume one whole Descendant's worth of fresh flesh, or two bodies of rotten flesh.

 

- A Ghast that is Hungry will feel driven to consume flesh, taking any openings they can, while they can stop themselves from attacking a living being, they will stop to feed on the dead. They are very pale, the eyes are a slightly dimmed red, their teeth are all sharp, but just pointed enough to notice. They can small talons for claws. To reach this state one must consume half a Descendant's worth of fresh flesh, or a whole rotten carcass, one may also feed upon a whole cow's worth of fresh, animal flesh. This is the maximum state you can reach by feeding upon animals.

 

- A Ravenous Ghast is feeling the effects of their curse almost in full, in this stage the skin is not just pale, but grey, they are extremely gaunt and their eyes are a bright red. The teeth of a Ravenous Ghast are very sharp, and pointed, the canines are elongated, the mind is also driven to feed upon the living, hardly able to control themselves. They have longer talons then before, several inches in length. They will feel compelled to attack anyone they see as a possible target, thinking closer to a predator than a person, avoiding targets that may get themselves killed, but still aggressive enough to take chances, (eg. they will feed upon a passing caravan, but not wandering up to the king of Norland for a bite.) One can reach this state by feeding on a minimal amount of fresh Descendant meat, or by consuming half of a rotten corpse, a rabbit's worth of fresh animal meat will also do such.

 

- A Ghast that is Starved is completly bestial, losing any and all semblance of humanity or sanity. Their skin is even more grey, losing any and all pigment it may of had before, their eyes gleam crimson, the teeth are all elongated with the canines reaching up to two inches in length. The talons will reach even further, their gaunt form turning emaciated. The hunger is the only driving force keeping them alive, their rational mind is no longer in control at this point, they will take any flesh they can get, animal and Descendant alike. They have no flesh running in their system, this form is reached only by neglect to feed.

 

If a Ghast does not feed, they will be reduced by one step in hunger every OOC week, one may maintain their current stage but eating the proper amount of flesh for their form once every OOC week to keep it. One may progress upward by consuming the listed amount of flesh.

 

 

                                                                                                                      Abilities

    Ghasts will learn how to hone their gifts on their own, being able to consume flesh to use such rewards given to them by their dark lord.

[C] = Combative

[N] = Noncombative

 

    - Toxify Talons - [C] - Tier Three - Active

 A Ghast may let their talons be poisoned by the dark energy brought about by Iblees, causing a paralyzing affliction if it gets into an injury.

 By activating this ability, the Ghast will have to make three successful attacks that enter the bloodstream to let the poison take hold, the poison will take [7] emotes to take hold, and the poison will cause paralyzation upon activation. This poison lasts the duration of combat or [1] OOC hour outside of combat. The afflicted may choose for this poison to last longer, but that is completely up to them.

- In addition to this it takes [7] emotes to take full hold of an enemy

- This poison may be treated by any basic medicinal or magical treatment

- If a person succumbs to the paralyzation, they cannot move on their own and may not speak other than in grunts and screams

- Can only be used once per combat encounter

- Three direct hits that enter the bloodstream must occur for the target to be fully poisoned

- May only last combat or [1] OOC hour without OOC consent

 

    - Renewal - [N] - Tier One - Active

 Due to the undead nature of Ghasts, their bodies do not naturally regenerate. Thus, they must consume flesh to restore their bodies. If a Ghast chooses to activate this whilst feeding, they may restore a single injury, leaving them back one stage of hunger, the flesh instead regenerating themselves rather than feeding them

 A Ghast may choose to activate the ability while they feed, sacrificing the feed as well as one stage of hunger to regenerate an injury they had beforehand, a Ghast does not naturally regenerate any wounds naturally.

- The Ghast will always be set back one stage of feeding, meaning it cannot be used by Starving Ghasts

- This can only restore one injury, this injury may be of any size, unless it is the loss of a limb, limbs can be restored by placing the limb on the stump and then activating this ability, melding the two together

- May only be used once every OOC day

- May not be used during combat

- Must be taught by teacher

 

 - Heightened Senses - [N] - Tier Two - Passive

 A Ghast is naturally strong in it's senses, being able to make things out in the dark, being able to smell things that a normal person may not. This lets the Ghast tell where things are in the dark, however this sense is not perfect, as they are still fallible. Many things can be detected, blood in the air, rotting corpses nearby, hearing light rustling in the bushes, things of that sort.

 Ghasts have senses that go slightly beyond a normal Descendant's, and can let the Ghast detect things nearby like shuffling, that might not be as noticable to the normal person, they still cannot detect anything that is not noticable to the normal Descendant, e.g. They can smell the blood from a corpse, but not an invisible creature.

- May not be used to metagame player location

- The Ghast is still able to be effected by Sensory Illusion and the Siliti's Rite of Binding

- Does not give any true advantage over Descendants other than slight RP advantage

 

- Enhanced Strength - [C] - Tier Four - Active

 Ghasts may choose to burn away some of the meat they feed on in turn for finding strength they had preivously lost, by doing this, they may channel strength of their old form, but never more.

 A Ghast may choose to reverse their hunger stage by one, to give themselves back the strength of their race, this strength cannot become greater, the maximum being peak preformance of thier Descendant race. This lasts for the course of [4] emotes, the strength being lost further after each emote.

- The strength will be that of the peak of their Descendant race, not being able to channel strength any further

- Activating this will cause the Ghast's hunger to go back one stage, meaning that Starved Ghasts may not use this ability

- May be used only once in combat

 

- Bestial Form - [C] - Tier Five - Active

 A Ghast that has gained mastery over it's curse may choose to warp itself further, it's monsterous features further becoming more inhuman, but with this comes the price of becoming the beast, a Ghast may only further devolve the current state they are in, needing to feed to regain control.

 A Ghast of T5 may choose to burn hunger to go down to any hunger stage they want, but this only goes downward, one may not choose to sate the hunger with this ability, only further awaken it. One must face both the benefits and downsides of this hunger.

- Can only be used once every OOC day

- Can only scale the hunger stage downward (e.g. stirring -> ravenous)

- Using this affects your current hunger

 

 

                                                                                                  Feeding

 A Ghast may only feed upon flesh, anything else tastes of ash. Fresh, Descendant flesh is the most appealing, followed by rotting Descendant flesh, and finally, fresh animal flesh. One may just barely get by on animal flesh, but it provides little, Descendant flesh is much more appealing and filling to animal flesh for a Ghast. A Ghast will chew at bones for hours at end, savouring the flavour of every bite. Ghasts may only feed on corpses, living flesh tasting like ash, much like any other food, needing the Ghast to kill their victim before feeding. A Ghast will gorge itself on a corpse unless stopped, trying to eat every last scrap of meat on the carcass.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                  Purpose (OOC)

Spoiler

I noticed that the LotC community was missing something close to D&D Ghouls, the Ghouls on this server being closer to that of Dark Souls protags, so I figured I'd write something up to remedy that, I feel that this could benefit the server and give some interesting RP.

 

(Excuse me if the centering is off, also excuse me if the formatting is wrong :P)

Edited January 17, 2021 by MiniMuffinNinja
Centering was fucked

[ScreamingDingo 16792]

 

[Luciloo 2649]

Flesh-eating ghouls is a neat concept and I think you've got the idea down fairly well.

 

I do note however, that in order to obtain the "engorged" status the character has to potentially kill five player-characters in a single ooc day. Encouraging conflict and villainy is fine, but this seems excessive, and I'm reminded of complaints of 'ghoul banditry' from a few maps ago concerning ghouls who would kill to drain other player characters so they could become Darkstalkers and so on. I question whether it's a good idea to encourage that kind of behaviour again, and if the Ghast does not need to eat player-characters, then will players not simply say "Oh I ate 5 NPCs earlier :)"

 

Additionally the concept of 'tiers' of sedation is already fulfilled with Siliti vampires, and while it's okay to have two creatures draw upon similar vibes, it seems a little samey. Personally I would drop the satiation facet entirely and just have Ghasts look corpse-like at all times, and go for the Witcher approach to Ghouls.

 

The creation of Ghasts is also questionable. I don't see a reasonable player-character willingly accepting the curse, given it is inherently degenerative to their person. I would argue that it's fine for it to be entirely a net loss of benefits, but in that case the manner of creation should be different, such as the chance of unconsecrated graves creating a Ghast for example.

[Yaldabaoth 743]

The involvement of Iblees in something like this seems a bit odd.

[QliphothicCorvid 177]

On 1/17/2021 at 1:39 PM, Luciloo said:

Flesh-eating ghouls is a neat concept and I think you've got the idea down fairly well.

 

I do note however, that in order to obtain the "engorged" status the character has to potentially kill five player-characters in a single ooc day. Encouraging conflict and villainy is fine, but this seems excessive, and I'm reminded of complaints of 'ghoul banditry' from a few maps ago concerning ghouls who would kill to drain other player characters so they could become Darkstalkers and so on. I question whether it's a good idea to encourage that kind of behaviour again, and if the Ghast does not need to eat player-characters, then will players not simply say "Oh I ate 5 NPCs earlier :)"

 

Additionally the concept of 'tiers' of sedation is already fulfilled with Siliti vampires, and while it's okay to have two creatures draw upon similar vibes, it seems a little samey. Personally I would drop the satiation facet entirely and just have Ghasts look corpse-like at all times, and go for the Witcher approach to Ghouls.

 

The creation of Ghasts is also questionable. I don't see a reasonable player-character willingly accepting the curse, given it is inherently degenerative to their person. I would argue that it's fine for it to be entirely a net loss of benefits, but in that case the manner of creation should be different, such as the chance of unconsecrated graves creating a Ghast for example.

Alright, I'll be sure to fix this later when I get the chance! And you're right, it is a bit excessive.

 

On 1/17/2021 at 4:32 PM, Mojo said:

The involvement of Iblees in something like this seems a bit odd.

True, I'm taking quite a bit of inspiration from D&D ghouls, where demonic energy gives them life

[squakhawk 7303]

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