
One look upon this evil ghoul will curse the poor soul who looks upon it, burning their eyes down to the bone. Sometimes its victims become piles of salt, which blow away in the wind. The hooves of these ghouls are especially disgusting, and when not gnawing at bones they are employed in the hauling of huge barrels filled with the detestable moonbeasts' blood. The torturers often put gold ingots into the black vats, which they fill with earth taken from the blasted mountain top. But most of the food they cannot stomach, for the moonbeasts' abhorrent taste forbids its addition. The horned, rubbery beasts always seem to possess a kind of immunity from this malady, since they gorge themselves upon them. They are not fed on human blood, but that would be too much for them. Ghouls are feared because of two things. One is that they walk on two legs, having quadrupedal forelegs and hind legs of the sort favoured by their moonbeasts. The other is that they have memories and consciousnesses too weird for the comprehension of non-ghouls, though some ghouls have half-simian memories and rudimentary artificial minds to complement these qualities.