Having functional regular Ghoul NPCs

[bibliophile20]

Okay, setup first.  Thanks to player requests during city creation, my local Accorded Neutral Ground is a Barbecue house, officially Ingram's Bar and Grill... unofficially "the Flesh Pit".   

Things started getting interesting when, during a big nasty combat a few weeks ago, one of my players said that, if he died, his next character was going to be a ghoul ninja--and that he could function within the city without eating anybody thanks to the Flesh Pit. 

The idea intrigued me, so during the last session, one of the nicer PCs had a compelled moment of mercy and now has a new houseguest: a 16-year-old blind ghoul fortuneteller named Delphine. 

So, the first question is A) do you guys think she's sustainable as a regular NPC without having to eat anyone?  B) Is she eventually redeemable? (especially given her young age?)  and related, C) are ghouls "always chaotic evil" as the saying goes, or is it just their nature, nurture and histories working against them?

Yes, I realize that I'm sounding like a vampire fanboy lite.  But, while I want this to be a regular NPC (for the RP opportunities, if nothing else), if the general consensus is that ghouls are bad to the bone, even when they don't have to be, I'll rethink this character, as I've obviously missed something.   

Alright, I just know that this is going to tangent fierce by the end of the first page, maybe within the first ten posts, so here we go. 

[Buscadera]

I think the right kind of ghoul could be redeemable and not have to eat anyone, I just don't think it would be common.

Ghouls can function to some degree in mortal society, although most of the ones we've seen have been professional killers of some stripe including The Tigress and the ghoul ninja. But they've shown that they can control themselves around mortals without eating them. And the example ghouls in the Nevermore section of the book sustain themselves primarily on shellfish and seafood with only the occasional mortal.

Ghoul PCs should be similar to White Court PCs; They should be few and far between with a darn good excuse as to why they're not following in their family/clan's footsteps. Most ghouls are bad guys, but not mindless evil brutes. They're just hungry.

[sinker]

There's always an exception to the rule. Seems to me that as long as they have a lot of meat on a regular basis (and they're committed to not eating people) I don't see why it wouldn't work. The better question though is why they would. Ghouls are born not made (maybe) and if they were eating their preferred prey (humans) what made them stop?

[bibliophile20]

....and if they were eating their preferred prey (humans) what made them stop?

Well, the wizard PC was smart and savvy enough to take a ritual sample of flesh and blood from her.  So that'll hang over her head at first on the "not eating people" commitment (although someone has already nominated her as battlefield cleanup). 

But, as Buscadera pointed out, she's not classically evil.  Just hungry.  (And, methinks, pretty solidly confused as to why this other PC is being nice to her without wanting anything back).

[sinker]

Makes sense to me.

[Bruce Coulson]

PCs, by definition, are exceptional individuals.

Large cities end up with the dead bodies of the indigent poor.  Those who die without relatives or assets.  Simply chucking them into a landfill is generally frowned upon.  So, after a generic religious ceremony, the bodies are cremated and the ashes buried.  ('Potter's Field'.)

A ghoul who worked  as the crematorium attendant could have access to a large number of human bodies.  No one would ask questions.  The ashes aren't (generally) dug up and examined.  With some money to buy a storage facility to store the 'excess' for lean times (few deaths), a ghoul could survive quite well without having to kill anyone.

Obviously, such jobs are very valuable, so our ghoul might owe some favors to some unsavory types interested in 'body disposal'.  But they could function as an independent, non-monstrous PC.

[HobbitGuy1420]

it's distinctly possible.  I've been playing a ghoul PC in a play-by-post game who runs a butcher's shop as a way to get most of the flesh he wants - and monster hunts for the rest.  White Court vampire causing trouble?  There's good eatin' on one o' them!

[Wyrdrune]

I also think it's possible. Here in Vienna we had in the past a district with large butcher shops for the first-preparation (cutting up whole cows). I think they are closed down now, but with my game version of the city I took liberties, and one of them is that the shops are still open and a long residing wizard NPC who is partly owner of the shops finds a workplace there for any ghoul that agrees to behave.

some ghouls have ties to organized crime... need to let a body vanish? no problem...

[deathwombat]

Plus with a regular ghoul npc troublesome players can  just   vanish.....

[ralexs1991]

I definitly think it could work as long as they could find enough meat to sustain themselves maybe they work as a cleaner for a local mob who forces said PC to work for them in return for keeping his/ her secret

[Becq]

I think that while possible, a ghoul trying to avoid eating human flesh would work about as well as, say

(click to show/hide)

a certain Raith WCV trying to go without feeding deeply indefinitely.  How did that work out?