I want my ghouls!!!

I was reading the core book (again) and I was reading about necromancy (such a lovely art far better that that tricky and ugly chaos magic *shutter*). I saw you could get your wights, skeletons, zombies, spirit hosts, and banshees BUT what about the GHOULS! has any one made some home brewed spells for necromancy so that you can is so please post it so all of us want to be necromancers can get a look. If there is a spell for ghouls my bad.

oh by the by you can't get fell bats, Dire wolves, and bat swarms WTF!

just saying because my characters story is that he was tossed out of town for gaining magical abilities and he has sworn revenge on them so I am intending to become a necro and take over the town latter ( I could give the hole character biography if any would listen)

Well thats likely because ghouls in warhammer aren't actually undead, they are humans cursed by morr for consuming human flesh.

NDM has a bit in it about them about the ghouls but for the most part there isnt alot of info beyond that on them.

Well, if you want to make ghouls, simply capture a few dozen peasants, kill one from now and then, and feed him to the rest of them.

Eventually, you'll have ghouls with you. As long as you promise them "fresh meat" of the kind they want, they'll be loyal to you. But don't forget: they are not affected by necromantic spells the same way undeads are.

Note also that ghouls are naturally drawn to necromantic power. If you're a good enough necromancer, ghouls do just show up after a while. But it's more reliable if you're a vampire.

The same goes for fell bats, bat swarms and dire wolves, all creatures which aren't created, but "naturally" occur in high necromantic areas. That said, I'd let you use the spell that summons skeletons to summon an equal number of dire wolves (but no doom wolves). But yeah, you can't "raise" these things because they ain't made from dead things.

Aren't Dire Wolves simply undead Giant Wolves? Their models certainly suggest they are, with all the rotting flesh, missing fur and whatnot...

Fell Bats are alltogether different, since they need to have fed on a Vampire's blood. I would, however, allow the creation of flying Undead creatures with similar capabilities through the use of Greater Necromancy rules from Night's Dark Masters.

As has been said, Bat Swarms and Ghouls are living things which are simply attracted to Necromantic Magic. While Ghouls are quite obvious, being a product of Necromancy, I'd be interested in reasons for natural creatures such as bats being attracted to such unnatural phenomenon as the Black Art.

I thank you for your time

Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

Gorthuar wrote:Aren't Dire Wolves simply undead Giant Wolves?

Myeah, I also thought these were basicly wolf-zombies? Now I know there are often differences between the tabletop and the roleplaying game and I don't have the Bestiary here. But arn't they undead?

Yes, they are. And, to my surprise, they're also shambling.

I thank you for your time

Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

Well, there's undead and then there's undead. In the wargame, Ghouls are considered undead because the necromantic energies that surround them. That doesn't mean they tunnel out of the earth.

Of course, earlier dire wolves were undead by classification but just looked like big wolves. It's only 7th edition Dires that have the fleshy look.

Well I'm meaning undead as in Reanimated.

lasergreger wrote:Well I'm meaning undead as in Reanimated.

Neither NDM nor the Bestiary is clear on that regard. So it's up to GMs!

Well i'll surely run 'em as ded! D-E-D; DED!

SteveD wrote:Well, there's undead and then there's undead. In the wargame, Ghouls are considered undead because the necromantic energies that surround them. That doesn't mean they tunnel out of the earth.

Certainly. That's just making the rules simple for the sake of the wargame, just like in the case of making Necromancers Undead too. Both are ignored in regards to background, and should be ignored in the more detailed WFRP :]

SteveD wrote:Of course, earlier dire wolves were undead by classification but just looked like big wolves. It's only 7th edition Dires that have the fleshy look.

That's true, but keep in mind that their background clearly described them as being Undead too. I seem to recall references to pits from which a Vampire or Necromancer would raise dead Giant Wolves...

Either way, I'd allow the creation of things other then Skeletons and Zombies through Re-animate, much in the vein of Greater Necromancy. Ogre Skeletons/Bone Golems? Sure, go ahead. Skeletal steeds? Yessir. Dire Wolves? Aye. Undead scorpions and beetles? Yep. And so on, and so forth.

I thank you for your time

Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

I guess what I'm saying is that just because something is created by necromanctic forces (greater or lesser) doesn't mean you necessarily need a corpse of a giant wolf to come back to life. Maybe if wolves eat pigs that fed on human blood they'd also become dires. Maybe dire wolves are created when a vampire embraces a wolf. Who knows?

Well thats likely because ghouls in warhammer aren't actually undead, they are humans cursed by morr for consuming human flesh.

actually according to to the new vampire count army book all unites in the vampire count army are undead even ghouls. all unites are able to be bound to the nero with his magic ( with invocation of Neheck if you go by the miniature game)

basically all these unites (fell bats, ghouls, dire wolfs, and bat swarms) can be summoned if not created with necromancy. they are all drawn to the power of the necro and will obey his orders. now if we can only turn that into part of the gaming system.

Ok.
Having seen SteveD here raised me a question.

What about undead skaven?
Any ideas?

SteveD wrote:
I guess what I'm saying is that just because something is created by necromanctic forces (greater or lesser) doesn't mean you necessarily need a corpse of a giant wolf to come back to life. Maybe if wolves eat pigs that fed on human blood they'd also become dires. Maybe dire wolves are created when a vampire embraces a wolf. Who knows?

And what I'm saying is that they were clearly described as dead giant wolves raised as Undead by the means of a spell

Charles Black wrote:actually according to to the new vampire count army book all unites in the vampire count army are undead even ghouls.

Nonsense. The wargame requires simplicity, so everything in the army *counts* as Undead. Do read the background descriptions of the Ghouls, the Bat Swarms and the Necromancers, they're very much alive

The designers even went to great lenghts in explaining how the regular crumbling effects of a lost combat apply to Ghouls - some of them simplu creep away from the combat, while the others fight on.

Charles Black wrote:basically all these unites (fell bats, ghouls, dire wolfs, and bat swarms) can be summoned if not created with necromancy. they are all drawn to the power of the necro and will obey his orders. now if we can only turn that into part of the gaming system.

They can be summoned by a *Vampire* and one that has an appropriate Blood Power to boot. I just see it as an elegant way of replacing the old Summon <something> powers from the 6th edition. The Vampire must expend some of his magical power to *attract* more ghouls or bats, and the spell Invocation of Nehek is used for mechanical reasons alone. I would never see it as real summoning magic...

Drakar wrote:What about undead skaven?
Any ideas?

Regular Skeleton or Zombie stats for anything man-sized in my game. Some small alteration to statistics when it's supposed to become a Wight.

I thank you for your time

Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

Charles Black wrote: I was reading the core book (again) and I was reading about necromancy (such a lovely art far better that that tricky and ugly chaos magic *shutter*). I saw you could get your wights, skeletons, zombies, spirit hosts, and banshees BUT what about the GHOULS! has any one made some home brewed spells for necromancy so that you can is so please post it so all of us want to be necromancers can get a look. If there is a spell for ghouls my bad.

oh by the by you can't get fell bats, Dire wolves, and bat swarms WTF!

Night's Dark Masters contains Vampire Traits for summoning Ghouls, Wolves and various Vermin. With a bit of tweaking these could easily be made into Lesser Magic or Dark Lore spells.

Gorthuar wrote:

SteveD wrote:
I guess what I'm saying is that just because something is created by necromanctic forces (greater or lesser) doesn't mean you necessarily need a corpse of a giant wolf to come back to life. Maybe if wolves eat pigs that fed on human blood they'd also become dires. Maybe dire wolves are created when a vampire embraces a wolf. Who knows?

And what I'm saying is that they were clearly described as dead giant wolves raised as Undead by the means of a spell

Not in any book I've read or written they're not.

Drakar wrote:Ok.
Having seen SteveD here raised me a question.

What about undead skaven?
Any ideas?

Definitely possible. Thing is though, the skaven wouldn't bother because they don't need the work force (overpopulation is their problem) and necromancers wouldn't bother because human corpses are generally more available and stronger. Skaven bodies rot quickly, too. Still, when it comes to NUMBERS...yeah, a necromancer could do very well raising skaven.

SteveD wrote:

Gorthuar wrote:
And what I'm saying is that they were clearly described as dead giant wolves raised as Undead by the means of a spell :P

Not in any book I've read or written they're not.

Mmm, intresting.

The description of Doom Wolves contains the phrase "Occasionally, a Vampire Lord will select a wolf of great intelligence and strength to be the leader of their Undead packs, using special rituals to preserve these abilities in their Undead forms." which does kind of heavily imply to me at least that both Doom and Dire wolves are reanimated dead wolves tbh.

jadrax wrote:

SteveD wrote:

Gorthuar wrote:
And what I'm saying is that they were clearly described as dead giant wolves raised as Undead by the means of a spell :P

Not in any book I've read or written they're not.

Mmm, intresting.

The description of Doom Wolves contains the phrase "Occasionally, a Vampire Lord will select a wolf of great intelligence and strength to be the leader of their Undead packs, using special rituals to preserve these abilities in their Undead forms." which does kind of heavily imply to me at least that both Doom and Dire wolves are reanimated dead wolves tbh.

I wrote that sentence, and I was actually thinking that they embraced Dooms. But I deliberately left it ambiguous, as most everything I read does, because I would never want to limit any GM's creativity. You want them to be the corpses of giant wolves? Awesome. Want them to be something else? Totally possible.

A key philosophy of my design work is to place as few limits as possible. So we never ever stated officially where dire wolves come from.

("Mommy, where do dire wolves come from?" :D)

It could be worse, the latest Vampire Count books says that Vampires 'breed' Doom Wolves in cages.... which is frankly quite an odd idea.

But overall I assumed that they are simply Undead Wolves, i.e. created by necromancers or naturally occurring in cursed places like zombies and the like, although other possibilities are intriguing.

That Said, following on from Limits and Creativity, It did occur to me that my suggestion of just creating more spells is a little bit restrictive. As an example, about 6 hours ago I had a necromancer attack my Players with 4 Doom Wolves (It was originally supposed to be 3 dire and 1 doom, but I couldn't really be bothered to have two books open,) and later a Dracoleech.

Which having loads of spells to do is just annoying, so perhaps a better system would be to modify "Spell of Awakening" so that you can replace the Wights with any other creature with the Undead trait, as long as its Slaughter Margin is not more than Challenging or something similar.

jadrax wrote:
But overall I assumed that they are simply Undead Wolves, i.e. created by necromancers or naturally occurring in cursed places like zombies and the like, although other possibilities are intriguing.

Which is a totally cool assumption. But I think you'll struggle to find that explicitly confirmed as the ONLY way to make dire wolves, in any text for the RPG, and deliberately so, because we don't ever want to shut any doors.

Gorthuar is free to believe otherwise, but I'd need to see the actual text he's working from.

I think we may have ended up talking at cross purposes, I assumed from the statement:

SteveD wrote:The same goes for fell bats, bat swarms and dire wolves, all creatures which aren't created, but "naturally" occur in high necromantic areas. That said, I'd let you use the spell that summons skeletons to summon an equal number of dire wolves (but no doom wolves). But yeah, you can't "raise" these things because they ain't made from dead things.

That you where saying that not only was it not the *only* way to make Dire Wolves, but indeed you could not raise Dire Wolves full stop.

Ah right. Well, yes, that's my explanation for why there aren't any spells for it. Or why it isn't necessarily an oversight that they aren't there. It's never been made clear where they come from, so there is no spell that raises them. If you want them to be raised, then by all means, add the spell!