The Verd - Creatures - Wretchghoul

"Never go into the sewers. It is no longer the domain of man, but a place of wretches and tortured souls; the refuse of mankind.

In the damp, dark depths of the sewers do they dwell; near reeking waterways and forgotten cisterns. It is the only place where they can hide, while still drawing some faint comfort of a memory of home; fake vestiges of a shattered, beast-made mind. Yet, no man remains in its stead.

A ghoul beyond saving is a ghoul on the hunt, and their tortured soul seeks only to eat and eat and eat forevermore; for its ravenous hunger is bottomless and without rest. What was once human is now only a weeping beast; one who will stop at nothing to devour whatever it finds, living or dead.

It has wept its last ounce of kindness and compassion, no matter how much it tries to remember them.

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Ghouls came into being from the foolish creation of "Health Mixtures", named Alka Vitae; another one of those advanced inventions spawned from the irresponsible deciphering of Galvan's Code. What was advertised in the Hagen Republic as a cure-all, ended up almost becoming the nation's doom, when the Phialists misinterpreted Galvan's instructions (due to not possessing the fully translated process yet). While it cured all sicknesses and diseases, a rather serious side-effect would present itself as what is now referred to as "Blacktinge".

Described as a ceaseless hunger, victims with high traces of Blacktinge in their blood will start to feel a growing hunger that can't be sated, until eventually they begin to actively attack and eat those around them, and soon after, insanity. In the Hagen Republic, the first outbreak of Ghoulification was known as the Cannibal Plague, which ended with the entire city of Hanbur and its people being abandoned and exterminated by Hagen's Liquidators. There has since been developed various new methods to reduce the amount of Blacktinge in Alka Vitae, though there is always some small percentage in every bottle, and Hagen's Phialists work tirelessly to develop a 100% pure mixture.

While there haven't been any large-scale outbreaks since the Cannibal Plague, Ghouls still appear in various cities around the world, and even in faraway places like on the Pandoran Continent. It is believed that criminal organizations learned how to recreate their own versions of Alka Vitae and other similar tinctures, though without proper, sanctioned supervision it is easy for these underground alchemists to make mistakes, which in turn creates impure Alka Vitae corrupt with high amounts of Blacktinge.

But who cares about purity, when there's money to be made. And desperate souls, sick or gravely wounded, won't think twice to spend on a potential cure-all so easily within reach."