WH40k: Ghouls

"The power of the gods is unfathomable. To bring these... wretched things to life. I had humored Kryze up until this point, knowing full-well that my knowledge was inadequate for this project – to bring artificial souls into artificial bodies, combining man and xenos together. I never... I never thought it would actually work. The bodies were perfectly engineered, mostly from human and eldar stock, but they were simple heaps of flesh and bone until Kryze did... whatever it was he did. The five gods gave souls to these abominations, and now I am the 'proud father' of a quickly growing number of these... ghouls." – Dr. Slade Hellicks, following the birth of the neo-eldar ghouls.
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So, this was another spur-of-the-moment Outcaste drawing, but I'm fond of how it came out. Could've been better, but redesigning the Neo-Eldar was something that eventually needed to be done, and I think it's way, way better than how I used to depict them. And not just because my skills are noticeably improving. Anyway, onto the exposition!

Ghouls, sometimes called neo-eldar, chaos eldar, chaos wretches, or children of the gods, are a human-xenos hybrid species most attributed to the Outcastes. Their creation came as a combination of three older research projects: Project Wraithbone, Project Starchild, and the hybridization projects orchestrated by Cruithne Sapp (I still have no idea what planet boonequest takes place on, but I digress). Project Wraithbone, began around 900.M41, on the secretive Imperial research laboratory on Selascair, in the Segmentum Pacificus. The project aimed at copying the eldar material, wraithbone, by using psykers to concentrate energy and matter from the Materium and Immaterium. Kryze picked it up after his Damned of Scipio raided the laboratory, and recruited a number of their scientists for his cause, along with knowledge of Project Starchild, an old Imperial attempt to artificially create souls the same way daemons are born in the Warp. While well-intentioned, both of those projects, and everything Sapp has ever done, ever, were considered extra-heretical. Kryze more-or-less lucked out when he discovered them among the piles of other ancient data he had been stealing over the years. When the Outcastes solidified their power in the Gilranth Sector, Kryze wanted to explore each old idea with newer projects, believing that each one would either help the Outcastes in some way, or just be really fun to do. As a start, he commissioned Project Wraithlord, putting Dr. Slade Hellicks, his most experienced genetics engineer, in charge of the operation.

Hellicks combined human and xenos genes in order to create an advanced, hybrid species, while Kryze made pacts with most of the gods to provide a miniscule fraction of their power to give the artificial bodies souls, much in the same way that the gods create daemons from themselves. This was all to test A) whether his scientists could use genetics to fast-track his supersoldier projects (which will be detailed in a later deviation), B) if the Chaos Gods could use their power to create an entirely new species, and ultimately C) to see what the power of the Gods, and the artificial souls they created, would do in the Materium. That last part was especially significant towards Kryze's various theories on the Warp, and many of his future plans. 4 of the gods complied: Nurgle was the only one who said no, because, while he wished Kryze all the best with whatever, he is firmly against birth and creating life (since, you know, he represents stagnation, not creation). Isha was the only holdout for a while, and only agreed to give some of her precious power if Kryze agreed to make at least half of the subjects' genes derived from eldar, exodites, and/or dark eldar.

The project was a surprisingly overwhelming success. The ghouls were born, being at least half-eldar, and another half a cocktail of human and other xenos DNA that Hellicks thought would be useful. For simplicity, it's easier to just call them human/eldar hybrids powered by Chaos. Over 1,000 Ghouls were made over the course of 5 years – each one appearing somewhere between their 20s and 30s in age. They don't quite age physically, given how they were created, but will deteriorate over time, unless destroyed before a natural death. Ghouls are similar to daemons in many ways, but they are native to the Materium, instead of the Warp, and their power over the laws of reality and physics are absent compared to their distant relatives. Ghouls are not capable of the powers available to psykers, but they are a highly warp-sensitive species, easily able to sense the flow and form of it most of the time. Because of this, they make a surprisingly effective counterpart to Navigators, as long as you can teach them how to read a map. All 1st-generation ghouls have ghostly-pale skin, and because of their connection to the warp, they have dark sclerae and glowing, multicolored irises. Ghouls are born with wraithbone-like skeletons – a result of Hellicks' experiments being imbued with Warp sorcery. It's a poor-man's imitation, but it luckily allows ghouls to psychically manipulate the mutated metallic growths on their digits. Ghouls can sharpen their talons to monomolecular edges, giving them excellent melee combat capability. Coupled together with their great dexterity, flexibility, reflexes, senses and warp-induced awareness, ghouls are some of the best hunters the Outcastes have to offer. Ghouls possess a potent healing factor that allows them to regenerate cells from most non-fatal damage. They also possess a digestive system directly stolen from the Kroot, and are capable of devouring the flesh of living things and absorbing some of their victims' memories, skills, traits, and knowledge.

Despite their physical maturity, ghouls began their lives with child-like mindsets. They were excitable and curious, fun and even a little innocent – despite having the bloodthirst, lustfulness, and mischievousness of Khorne, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch, respectively. They possess great wonder and curiosity, and absorb new knowledge extremely quickly, though they can also be impulsive, forgetful, and dimwitted at times. Other than direct experience, ghouls come to rely on their ability to eat memories and knowledge, which greatly aids in their growth and evolution as a species. For some reason, possibly because Hellicks is that kind of douche, female ghouls outnumber male ghouls. No one in the Outcastes has a problem with this. While they start off pretty stupid, ghouls can quickly grow into mature, fully-fledged people, and by 13.M42, many of them are high-functioning Outcastes. By 13.M42, no more 1st-generation ghouls are being created (especially since Hellicks has a whole bunch of other programs to work on by now), but all ghouls are capable of reproduction, either with one another, or with humans. It is unknown if they can mate with eldar, since they haven't been able to try it, but it is assumed that they can. Over the past few years, ghouls have been making plenty of babies, which are born almost as quickly as humans, and will likely age naturally on a similar scale. These 2nd-generation ghouls are the cornerstone of the entire project, and the Outcastes have been diligently studying them to see how they'll turn out. No 2nd-generation ghouls are old enough by 13.M42 to fight with the Outcaste Militia, though.

Overall, ghouls are just a renamed remake of my old neo-eldar. They are secretly a ploy by Isha to create a race of eldar that will not be threatened by Slaanesh's auto-soul-rape of the Eldar when they die. This means Isha might finally have a way to stabilize her presence in the warp, and the eldar will technically be able to live on, even if Ynnead doesn't work out as expected. While a major part of the Outcastes, they are more just the starting point of a bunch of other Outcaste projects and operations as the cult strives to expand its power in the Galaxy. In the Militia, ghouls are fully capable of serving as Patriots, but they can also be fielded in units of Ghoul Predators, which are basically what I drew above. Younger ghouls tend to rely on their claws, but as they grow, they figure out how to work other weapons, so they're not limited to just melee combat. As depicted, ghouls commonly tattoo themselves with Chaos symbolism, and splatter war paint on themselves before a battle, usually red or blue, to represent the Outcastes.

I hope you like them. This is not even close to the last of these Outcaste drawings, so stay tuned for more. Below are all the other ones I've drawn so far:


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