Editing Ghoul (section)

==Shadowrun==
All "undead" (the term is used loosely here, for all are actually still alive) in the Sixth World are infectees of HMHVV. 'Human (and) Meta-Human Vampiric Virus' is a magical disease that magically reshapes the host's DNA and aura to turn them into a monster straight out of a Hammer horror movie, save for the fact they don't really die. The first variant creates a whole rainbow of race-based vampire variants, the second a mess of lycanthrope-like poor sods, but the HMHVV III strain, also called the Krieger strain, always creates ghouls. It is both the most virulent of the three strains as it is transmissible via bodily fluids contact instead of [[/d/|draining the victim's life force almost to zero before willingly trying to infect them]], and one of the suckiest.

Ghouls in Shadowrun are normal people who look like walking corpses, with ugly cuts and freakishly pale skin. They can go out in sunlight, though it causes them discomfort. All ghouls are rendered blind by tissue necrosis, though their senses of smell and hearing sharpen to compensate and they can 'see' magic to track prey. Like all HMHVV infectees however, they need to eat live or recently dead (meta-)human tissues to survive, in their case raw flesh. Some are driven insane and turned feral by the infection, some aren't; but all need to feed on metahuman meat or starve and eventually go feral anyway. Those who aren't animalistic monsters tend to get jobs that offer ready access to human flesh, like medical waste disposal workers. Their bodies don't accept implants well, but they're stronger than normal, so some do work as Shadowrunners. If having to be a cannibal to survive wasn't bad enough, most places in the Sixth World have an open bounty on (dead) ghouls (due to Strain III being so highly contagious). [[grimdark|Just drag the body to your nearest police station and cash in]].