Ghul
[Sketches depict a 4 limbed, lanky dark armored creature covered from head to toe in black plates. A single, cylopean eye resides at the center of its face, with a snouted maw of four plates, two jaws and two flanking mandibles that are as armored as the rest of its form. Its limbs are long and lanky, and all four end in 5 long, opposable digits that allow it to grip with either its hands or its feet. A long, well muscled tail with almost crocodilian like features sprouts from its armored buttocks, with sketches showing the beast using it for swimming and offensive actions. Other sketches depict the beast feeding on carrion, tearing apart what seem to be undead creatures, and one particular sketch shows on larger and more regal than others of its kind, with a crown of bone extending out from around its head.]
Scientific Name Translation: Death Eater. [A note is attached. It reads 'Stinky cat-monkey things is more like it.']
Average Size: 2.85 meters/9.35 feet at the head at full height.
Average Weight: 1k lbs/ 453.6 kgs.
Notable Sexual Dimorphism: None, species is hermaphroditic.
Habitat Range: Any biome, though they tend to stick close to any Corpse-Lands that are in the region.
Summary:
Scavangers are a vital part of any ecosystem. From the wide family of Geier birds, to Scavanger Beetles, to earth worms, all are vital for clearing the world of rotting flesh and carrion and to keep nature healthy and clean. No scavanger, however, are as fearsome or bold as the menacingly large and intelligent Ghul, a creature with an intimidating appearance and reputation, yet with certain traits and qualities that have brought unto them the attention of one of the Great Spirits of Lacuna and have become something of official, if animalistic, animals of her will.
The average Ghul is creature that stands close to three meters tall when standing at its full height, though most of the time they run on all fours and stay low to the ground, causing them to appear much shorter when they're not standing upright to use their front limbs for attacks. They are covered in a dark, almost black armored shell, that hugs their forms and gives them an appearence almost as though they are wearing suits of chitinous armor. The exception to this covering are several rows of teats lining their chest regions, which actually grown outside of their armored forms and thus do not leave openings into their internal sections. [A note is attached. It reads, 'I don't know about Ghuls, but I know for a fact myself that losing your tits in a fight hurts like hell! And they've got more than one pair, so that's like several times worse! At least they're kinda small and compact when not in use, so I guess it doesn't hurt them as much, probably?']
The Ghul has a resemblance between a cross between a primate, a feline, an insect, and a crocodilian, and that is because they are in fact just that. Genetic and fossil evidence fully supports that at some point within the last 3 million years, the first Ghuls were made during a mystical event that caused the fusion of several members of the previously mentioned species, giving rise to their current form. There is much argument, however, as to the cause of this magical event, with some scientists believing it to have been a natural, if particularly chaotic, magical occurrence, while others believe that a third party was behind their fusion, most likely candidates behind the mysterious Uplifter creatures known to lurk in the shadows of our world.
Regardless of their origins, the armored plates of a Ghul is highly resistant to damage, even capable of deflecting indirect shots from railgun rounds. This armored form, combined with their relatively large sizes and deadly capabilities, gives the Ghul a temperament that defies the stereotype of most scavengers. They actively drive off other predators within their weight category scavenging carrion, their greatest limitation being that they do not operate in large groups but in small packs of a handful of individuals at a time spread across a large area individually.
In terms of armament, their claws lining all their digits are long and sharp enough to rend untempered and unruned steel with little difficulty, their tails are muscular and strong enough to crumple stone pillars to the point of bursting in half, and they can produce and spit out a highly dangerous corrosive bile from their mouths that inflict disease and hallucinogenic attacks upon the victim. This 'Necro-Bile' also has the added affect of driving Geier birds like Rot-Hawks into an attacking frenzy, causing them to swarm the enemy of the Ghul, their own senses of self-preservation erased by a blood-lust untypical of their kind. [A note is attached. It depicts a doodle of a cartoonish Ghul pointing at a Oros soldier in armor, a flock of birds swarming him. A word bubble from the Ghul reads 'git 'im, bois!']
Furthermore, the Ghul is highly intelligent, able and willing to use tools on hand as weapons, or to use tactics to attack those entering their territory. A single large feline like eye resides at the center of their head and can, with great concentration, produce an energy beam of psionic nature capable of slicing through trees and scything through armored vehicles with ease, at the cost of temporarily blinding the individual Ghul in question. Both this eye-beam and the Necro-Bile they spit out are highly radioactive, thus requiring caution in order to avoid severe rad-burns.
The most intriguing element of the Ghul, however, is their complete immunity to necromantic magics. Surviving texts from ancient times revealed than when necromantic rituals performed by demonic beings were performed to raise the dead, any Ghul's brought back would immediately have their bodies retaken by their original souls, their ancient and dead flesh returning to life anew and reknitting back into a whole form, and the newly revived Ghul immediately turning its sights on the destruction of the Necromancer that dared to raise it up. This trait is what caught the attention of the Great Spirit of Night, Dreams, and Death, Luraru. The Great Spirit has since officially adopted the creatures as her personal servants in her campaign to eradicate necromancy, which in essence means these dark, dangerous, and macabre creatures are, technically speaking, holy. [A note is attached. It reads, 'Technically, the best kind of 'nically!']
Despite technically being holy servants to a goddess, Ghuls are still very much dangerous animals in their own right. They are territorial and aggressively drawn to any masses of rotting material to feed upon, and have a wretched odor that follows them like the stink on a Noxigon. Fascinatingly, this smell is actually a sign that the Ghul is clean and free of disease or bacteria on their outer-shells. Despite their nature as carrion eaters, Ghuls meticulously clean themselves with a foul-smelling but highly anti-bacterial formula created by mashing various kinds of fungi and lichen together. As such, aside from an eye-watering assault on the senses, one can safely touch a Ghul without worry of becoming diseased, and even a direct bite carries little risk if it has not eaten or spat up Necro-Bile recently.
The most dangerous and powerful kind of Ghuls are Ghul Queens. These beings are Ghuls that succeeded in findind, and consuming, the rotting flesh of an Elder God, causing them to ascend into a new and dangerous form, noted by a bone-crown forming around their heads. Ghul Queens gain many abilities, including the ability to produce a hyper-deadly airborne toxin capable of killing all life in a near kilometer wide radius, the venom being so potent that nothing will ever grow again in this place. Despite this, life continues, as another ability of the Ghul Queen is to reformat the dead plant-matter of these poisoned lands and breath into them a new life, twisting their forms until they become grotesque, rotten versions of their old selves. A Ghul Queen claims this entire patch of land they poisoned as their personal kingdom, a process that is known as 'Putriforming', so named because of the ungodly putrid smells that these living-death flora produce. [A note is attached. It reads 'I wonder if they have like actual kingdoms. Do Ghul Queens have courts? What does a Ghul Court look like? Does she sit on a throne and wave around a lil' sceptar to bop normal Ghuls on the head with? I have so many questions! Note to self, find book on Ghul Queens.']
In theory, by their nature as chosen agents of the goddess of death as well as their ascension to demi-godhood by consuming the flesh of an Elder God, Ghul Queens theoretically have the ability to raise the dead at their command. None have ever actually displayed this ability. After all, Ghuls don't want undead things. They want rotting corpses to feed upon. Furthermore, the more powerful the undead in question, the blessings of Lacuna results in the Ghul facing it to gain power in direct proportion, in order to see it destroyed. In theory, this has no upper limit, but in practice, the lack of undead gods in the world results in no real titanic clashes between them and these literally blessed eaters of carrion.
As previously mentioned, Ghuls are hermaphroditic in nature, possessing both kinds of sex organs stored within their armored forms. When mating season occurs, Ghul packs hunt to find potential mates. Upon finding one, they each offer the other a sample of their Bile for testing, to see what sorts of carrion the other has eaten. They then inspect one another for cleanliness and, if both find the other suitable, they proceed to mate. Their several pairs of teats come in handy in nursing a whole litter of pups born two months after the mating has taken place, the parents taking turns hunting and feeding their young. Young Ghuls are born without their armor, and thus are highly vulnerable. They are those raised in a dark, secluded, and easily defensible place until the time that their young's armor finally grows in and they can begin teaching them the ways of their kind.
Once the young have grown enough to fend for themselves, they break off from their parents in search of territory to claim as their own. This intermediate period between their guarded youth and their adulthood in a pack of their siblings is where the majority of young Ghuls meet their end. Upn expiry, a Ghul is found by others of their kind and then ritualistically cannibalized for their hearts and livers, before the remains are buried beneath soil to rest eternally.
Ghuls are dark, brutal, and macabre creatures who play a very important role in keeping the world clean of rotten flesh. They cannot feed upon the flesh of Civilized Races but can, with time, be tamed and trained to protect graveyards from unwanted looters. As a direct result, they are respected creatures, albeit ones whose smell and eating habits results in most leaving as soon as they discover their presence rather than giving them a moment's consideration. Ghul's are perfectly fine with this arrangement: As long as they get rotting meat they can feed upon and they are properly taught, they are perfectly fine with sharing territory with Civilized species. As living extensions of Lacuna's will, few can ask for better, if foul smelling, guardians of the dead's rest. [A note is attached. It reads, 'I visited a graveyard that had the bones of one of my ancestors. We still had his ash jar, but she'd been fancy and important enough to have a whole grave for her bones to rest in. I got to meet some of the Guard Ghuls around and
whoo, it took me ages to stop smelling whatever gunk they use to keep themselves clean!']