Deviation Actions
Description
Another in a series of characters showing how tough Desert Ghouls can be. Zaem is the mate of Saakt 
Ghouls in dense populations sometimes travel to find a territory with same-sex friends they grew up with. During her journey Zaem raided a farmer’s crops and stepped in a pair of traps. Without her friend’s help in getting free and recovering she would have died. After re-learning to walk she fell for a similarly disfigured male, and is an extra caring, vigilant mother.
A Ghoulish Good TimeToday the humans hide their faces and pretend to be someone else. Zairn heats water from his stream and washes his natural scent away to please them. He puts on his face. The wire mesh muzzle is long and adorned with wicked sharp teeth carved from seashells. Its cloth covering is a dark grey to his ghoul eyes. In another dimension it is called red, the human’s color. The color he can only see when the potion lets him slip into their shape. He could still- but no. He has spent enough time among them in that costume.
Zairn slips a warm coat and pants over his chilled skin. Leather gloves and shoes complete him. Their tips are long and curved. His claws slide into them with comfort. He returns to the stream and studies his image, this fearsome gray exaggeration of a ghoul as most humans must imagine them. He grins beneath his seashell teeth.
Zairn finds a walking stick and exaggerates the hunched posture he must assume when walking like they do. The late winter winds tug at his cost
The Ghul QueenExcerpt from the Journal of John Smidley: Collected by T. P. Hade of the Nonhuman Cultural Illumination Project
Shasiek territory, Saaraiah Desert, 9/24/621 AK
Today I met a ghul. The foul thing urinated on my personal tent and vomited in the mess tent. I hesitate to call any day in Saaraiah normal, but this departed further than usual.
Perhaps I should not think too ill of the beast. He could hardly be expected to understand civilized behavior. His master has no such excuse. A Queen shouldn’t belch in front of guests.
Al-Keffan was elated to see his negotiations with the Shasiek come through. He had us rearrange our tents in a pattern which would communicate our status at a glance to their Queen. It felt a silly waste of time given that he could only convince her highness to visit and dine for a few hours. Barson gave one of his dry little laughs when he saw my tent beside his. The oaf remains ungrateful for Father’s contributions to his merry expeditio
Men Who Make Deals with Monsters
Excerpt from the Journal of John Smidley: Collected by T. P. Hade of the Nonhuman Cultural Illumination Project
O-Hambar Oasis, Saaraiah Desert, 8/12/621 AK
It [the oasis] provides respite for not only body but mind as well. Here the tribesmen reveal their penchant for the arts, primitive though their understanding of aesthetics may be. The best artists display their work on tanned hides, and wait to be commissioned to paint their visions on canvases which will be used to erect the walls of tents. Their methods are simplistic, but lovely to behold. A few broad brushstrokes bring to life the flora of an oasis, a woman carrying water from a well, or a lively scene of tribal warfare. I decided to make a purchase of one of the smaller canvases so that Father could evaluate its worth as a novelty item.
While browsing I came upon a rendering that was as hideous as the other scenes were beautiful. It depicted a pair of creatures formed like starved grey-hounds, but possessing a disturb
Bloodline Curse"I do not want them to see him.”
Yril lowered his ears and frowned at his mate. He knew he couldn’t keep it from happening, but he wished he could pretend it wouldn’t for a little while longer.
Taiph nuzzled the child sprawled on his belly between her arms. Rayld was only four months old. He had no way of knowing that life was more than warm earth, mother’s milk, and naps. His pudgy legs twitched as he slept.
She met Yril’s eyes and held them, unblinking. “They are old and wise,” she said. “They may be the only ones who know how to fix him. We do him no good by putting it off.”
She was right. He knew it and he couldn’t do anything about it. “All right,” he said, reaching out to run a finger over one of his son’s floppy little ears. “I will find them and bring them here so you do not have to carry him away from the den.”
He poked his head out of the den’s main entrance tunnel, scanned for dan
And it's kind of touching to see outcasts sticking together... What's the attitude to disability in Ghoul society? I won't risk guessing - on one hand they show a lot of affection to their close ones (even judging from the story you showed me recently), on the other hand they certainly harsh and the harsher society is the less humane it tends to be...
Made me think of my characters' relationships (which I don't talk about much because it takes ages to figure out) for some reason.